It's noon and at the Cape Collinson Crematorium in Chai Wan, a group of schoolchildren, who moments ago were giggling and sharing jokes, have been shocked into silence. Christy Lam Cho-yin and 32 classmates are looking at social worker Gary Sham Chi-wing, who is holding a bag of human ashes: the remains of an elderly welfare recipient.
'This person was five feet, four inches tall and weighed 120 pounds [55kg] to 130 pounds but, after being cremated, his whole body is reduced to two pounds of ashes,' says Sham, of the St James' Settlement charity, holding the white cloth bag.
Lam and her classmates are on a field trip but the subject they are studying is neither history nor geography, but suicide.
In 2008, there were five suicides in Hong Kong among those aged 15 or younger, up from one in 2004, according to the Jockey Club's Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention at the University of Hong Kong. Last year, there were 52 suicides among males aged 15 to 24, up from 45 in 2008.
According to the World Health Organisation's latest statistics, 970 Hongkongers committed suicide last year. That's 13.8 per 100,000 people and is higher than the rate in Britain (eight), the United States (11) and Australia (12).
The visit to the crematorium is part of a programme, organised by St James' Settlement, to help secondary-school students understand death and, in the process, the value of life. Social workers also take students to cemeteries and funeral homes, and even have them imagine their own passing as they lay in closed coffins.
The elderly man, who lived alone, appointed St James' to scatter his ashes in the government's Garden of Remembrance at the crematorium. At Sham's request, the Form Four students hold a silent vigil before he tips the ashes onto the small grassy field.
