Hong Kong Diary - Yet Another Bloody Murder

Living in the ex-British colony of Hong Kong is an exercise in cognitive dissonance. On the surface, the city is a triumph of aggressive Asian efficiency. The streets are impossibly clean; you could realistically eat your lunch off the pavement though society prefers you to do so in a designated area. It is a safe, frictionless, well-organized society, albeit one where the prevailing sense of democracy has been recalibrated to “just listen to what the school principal says, and no running in the hall.”

All very organized and civil, and then you glance at the local news.

In a city entirely obsessed with the curated selfie — a place where everyone on the MTR is desperately trying to prove they belong to a flawless, high-earning, socially harmonious family — we occasionally get a peek behind the curtain. Every once in a while, something pops up that completely stuns you. And when the curtains pull back, we are reminded that frequently, every polite society is all a spectacular, terrifying sham.

This week, it is the opening of the Abby Choi trial. I initially glanced at the headline with a detached curiosity: a young woman was murdered in Kowloon two years ago, the remains were found, and a trial is finally underway.

There was the standard mention of a jealous ex-husband — just enough conventional tabloid titillation to make one read on.

But then comes the first absolute zinger. 

Arrested alongside the ex-husband was an entire Glass Onion cast of side characters. It wasn’t just a solitary crime of passion; it was a collaborative family project. Standing trial alongside the ex-husband, Alex Kwong, are his elder brother, Anthony Kwong, and their father, Kwong Kau. All three face joint counts of murder.

According to the prosecution, Anthony — who conveniently served as Abby’s personal driver — allegedly trapped her in the vehicle on the day she disappeared. Meanwhile, the patriarch, Kwong Kau, a former police sergeant who presumably should have known better (or at the very least understood how forensic science works), is accused of masterminding the entire plot and renting a village house that became the crime scene. 

But the family roll call of criminality doesn’t stop there. The ex-husband’s mother, Jenny Li, was swept up and already convicted for her stellar role in perverting the course of justice by encouraging her son to flee. And just to ensure the Thanksgiving table remains thoroughly awkward for decades to come, the father’s mistress was also dragged into the legal system for enthusiastically aiding a fugitive. 

It’s as if the entire family looked at a standard domestic dispute and thought, “Yes, but how can we make this a multi-generational ensemble piece?”

Because the family was linked to a locally famous TamJai noodle restaurant franchise, the case quickly captured the public’s attention. The prosecution noted that the deceased remains were discovered inside the rented village house, being meticulously frozen and processed into soup being kept in the refrigerator.

I feel immense sorrow for anyone who was eating at a noodle establishment the moment they first read of the crime.

It goes further. 

I read on to find that the victim, Abby Choi, was a prominent “influencer” and “socialite” with over 100,000 followers on Instagram. She spent her days flying around the globe to attend Paris Fashion Week, rubbing shoulders with the elite and posing for Dior shows.

At just 28 years old, she had already been married twice and had borne two children to both men — a total of four children.

That is an extraordinary amount of life to have lived by age 28. Four children, two ex-husbands, a mountain of alimony disputes, and frequent long-haul flights to look at European couture.

Some people are simply born on the move, operating at a kinetic frequency that defies human physics. Personally, I am utterly exhausted after traveling to the other side of town to have lunch with a family member, requiring a quiet room and a rigorous nap for the remainder of the day. How one coordinates a global modeling career alongside the terrifying logistical nightmare of four separate school drop-offs is entirely beyond my comprehension.

I did find myself wondering if that cheerful young woman with the California accent who hosts the “Rotten Mango” true-crime podcast has done a special on this yet. Of course she has. I was forced to abandon my analog dignity and download her podcast to understand how it got this bad. I listened to her full one-hour blow-by-blow (literally) account of the murder before writing this. 

And now I’m worried about walking home. That's why I avoid listening to true-crime podcasts. It turns out that remaining blissfully ignorant about these things makes me feel a lot safer.

Sitting in my armchair, reading the print version of the local newspaper through a pair of thick reading glasses, I had a realization. 

The specific sub-section of humanity that gets violently jealous of twenty-something Instagram models is very unlikely to be hunting for a lethargic, slightly overweight man in his 50s, so I can peacefully take a nap now.