My first day when the Asian financial crisis hit Hong Kong in 1997

Let me start this story by my ferry to Tsimshatshui in 1997.

It began in October 1997. I was going to meet a client in Tsimshatshui and so I arrived in the Star Ferry early to cross Victoria harbour to Kowloon side.

At that time, everyone was still very crazy with the stock market and the ferry company had a big stock index board affixed to the lobby leading to the ferry. I was not too interested to look at the index that day. Why? I had sold my stock investments a couple of months ago as I was planning to leave Hong Kong. But since many people there were looking up at the index, I just moved my eyes in the same direction. I couldn't remember the figures but when I got off the ferry, I heard the guys near me exclaiming that the Hang Seng Index had dropped a 1,000 pts. from the time we boarded. My God, it only took us about 15 minutes to get to Tsimshatshui and our stock market had such a free fall in such short time!

I was not afraid. Why? I no longer held Hong Kong stocks. But I was quite worried about what I should or should not talk about when I met the client. Well, be optimistic and made things rosy to the client; who wanted to hear negative contents. That's the way to talk with the client, I thought. Despite the falling stock market and the terrible downturn in the local real estate market, we could recover in the near future. After all, Hong Kong did face serious ups and downs in the last few years but the markets did turnaround quickly everytime.

When the client talked about the business of the textile factory that she bought in 1996, she sounded very worried. She thought the price paid was a good one but now, it appeared that things had changed. I said the market might recover; we could wait and see and things would usually get better after 6-12 months. She was surprised to hear my optimism and told me she thought recovery won't come for at least 5 years! See I wrecked by sounding rosy! Don't be Mr. Good News next time.

My heart felt cold after seeing the client and I wanted to have a hot drink. For convenience, I just dropped in McDonald's, a place I used to avoid because it was usually crowded, ... But to my surprise, it was quite quiet even though the time was after 11 a.m. Two guys sitting near me were voicing their complaints about the falling stock market. One was worried about layoff and the other complained that he did not sell his shares a few ago when he could still avoid losses. I was a bit fed up with the negative gossips and I left once I finished my hot tea.

That was the very first day when I began to note the horrible financial disasters in Hong Kong and witness the unbelievable free fall of everything in Hong Kong. At that time, I certainly didn't know that everything would be lost including basic human dignity and human lives too! When I was back to the ferry, I told myself I could not bother with the economic downturn as I was planning to leave Hong Kong. But the irony was that I didn't know that I was also caught and couldn't go anywhere else.