A headline in Tai Kok Tsui read: “Fan Death in Bedroom.” An old mystery, the case ran on deductive logic only offered by crimes of passion. The room was poorly lit and hummed with the jerky power of old appliances. Coming soon and already gone, temporary tombs mark the site where an occupation had taken place. Four years later, these subletters still think she did them wrong. It turns out the songs were lip-synced and no eggs were thrown. They wanted to feel moved when the still life photographs were brought out. To be able to say, we had a moment. They felt they loved her so much they could kill her, but wanted her to die in their arms. A public performance of equality ended up unable to make lasting peer to peer connections. Temporary constructions leading to an alternate ending were halted by anonymised violence. Everyone who lay on the pavement saw the same sky. At the turn of the millenium, Leslie Cheung embarked on Passion Tour, an extended series bidding farewell to his fans. The same year, the Mandarin Oriental launched their celebrity-driven campaign called “He’s a fan. She’s a fan.” Following the Tai Kok Tsui headline release, numerous readers sent in long letters asking what ‘Fan Death’ was. Though a pervasive superstition in Korea claims that running an electric fan in an enclosed room can kill you, the notion of ‘Fan Death’ lacks definition in Kowloon. Whether lies disguised as performativity or a project in mass delusion, the star system no longer spoke to its fans honestly. Qiu Miaojin was twenty-five years old and a year from walking away for the last time when she published ‘Notes of a Crocodile’. She had written, “On how to love well: Instead of embracing a romantic ideal, you must confront the meaning of every great love that has shattered, shard by shard.”

Lee Lee Chan 陳麗同, Oliver Emrys Lewis and Yen-Chao Lin 林延昭, Dipali Gupta, Isabella Ng, Nguyen Trinh Thi, Xiaoshi Vivian Vivian Qin 覃小詩, Amy Yao