First Death Cafe in Hong Kong - East meet West
A write up of Death Cafe Hong Kong
By Carmen Yau
Lizzy Miles from Death Cafe Columbus and Megan Mooney from Death Cafe St. Joe recently visited Hong Kong to take part in the International Conference on Grief and Bereavement in Contemporary Society presenting on Death Cafe. This coincided with the first ever Death Cafe in Hong Kong hosted by Ms. Pearl Tse, Ms. Carmen Yau, & Dr. Andy Ho.
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The first Death Café Hong Kong we held on 14 June, 2014 at the Bijas vegetarian restaurant at the University of Hong Kong was historical and international event. With the support from Faculty of Social Sciences, The University of Hong Kong as the activating organization of this event, there were 40 participants from New Zealand, Netherlands, Singapore, US, Taiwan as well as nurse student, social workers and helping professionals in Hong Kong. Also, it was so great to have Lizzy Miles, Megan Mooney to join us. Although some locals were unable to speak English, some participants volunteered to translate in order to ensure the conversation and discussion went smoothly.
It was a valuable opportunity to let participants to talk about death especially the locals. In Hong Kong, most Chinese find the term of “Death” related to overwhelming emotions like fear, anger and heartbreaking. Talking about death was amazing and magical as it broke the boundaries of culture and language and make strangers share their deepest feelings and thoughts which they may not be able to share with their family members and friends. In this event, we talk about their own dying, their lost as well as make the most of their finite lives.
