Tense Commemoration of Leslie Cheung

Leslie Cheung died 19 years ago today, fans still remember

Today is the 19th anniversary of singer and actor Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing's death. He was at the gym on the 24th floor of the Mandarin Oriental, asked for a glass of fresh orange juice,  a piece of paper and pen.

He wrote a note that turned out to be a suicide message, went out on the balcony and then jumped to his death on April 1, 2003.

When news first broke of Cheung's suicide, people thought it was an April Fool's joke.

Previous memorials with lots of flowers, fans

But it was the cruel reality that one of Hong Kong's beloved artists died after battling depression and could not fight it anymore.

That day flowers were placed around the outside of the hotel and since then, every April 1 fans have paid tribute to Leslie 哥哥 or "older brother Leslie" by bringing bouquets or having florists deliver giant flower displays there with loving messages, saying they miss the singer, and that they still love him, some from Japan even.

The floral displays were quite amazing and heartening to see, that he has so many devoted fans after all these years. The hotel quietly allowed fans to commemorate the singer on this one day each year.

Last year what happened and the year before? I guess the gatherings were small because of the pandemic, but still happened?

This year no memorial, but lots of tension

However today the loving and nostalgic atmosphere of previous memorials had been completely sucked out of the area.

I went to check it out around 5pm and there were none of the large floral displays -- they had been removed earlier. Instead there were several people clutching their small bouquets and taking pictures of themselves holding the flowers in front of the hotel as proof they had paid tribute to their idol.

Some took pictures of several bouquets on the ground, and as soon as that was done, they scooped up the flowers and left. 

It took me a minute or two to realise there were undercover police there shooing people away.

One older male fan wearing a yellow mask got into a tense argument with one of the undercover cops, who was dressed in black, and dared him to speak louder and ordered people to move along and not to gather.

Fans lingered with flowers then left

The man complied, but not before saying, "hak ging" or "black police" and walked away. "Why can't we gather there," he muttered.

Yes, why can't we?

Has Cheung suddenly become forbidden to remember, like June 4?

Or if it's because of pandemic reasons, how about being more polite about it, letting people have their moment to pay tribute and then leave?

Restricting people's freedoms further just creates more tensions and resentment, not to mention further hatred of the authorities...

Post script: It turns out in the end fans were able to place flowers at the hotel later in the evening. They sang a song at 6.43pm, the time of his death and to avoid further trouble, they dispersed quickly into the night.