Sometime ago, a ferry with 103 tourists on board caught in fire and sunk near Pulau Tioman, causing four passengers to drown and three went missing. Those who drowned were elderly while two of the three who were missing were fathers and the other one was the only man in his family. (It was really sad to see his three younger sisters shouting from the shore: “Come back, brother!” This 29-year-old victim had a 23-year-old girl friend, who brought her parents and her boy friend to have a vacation on the island. But she lost her parents. She kept asking herself: “We promised to go together, why I was left here alone?”

After the incident, a 13-year-old girl wrote an article entitled “We Met A Ferry Incident” in her blog. She was a good swimmer. However, during the incident, her mother who could not swim only thought about her and put a life jacket on her. She lost two of her loved ones in that incident. She was crying when she wrote her gratitude to her mother, the course of the incident and her feelings. (

“What shall I do if my whole family was on board?” and “What shall I do if my best friend dies in the ferry incident?”

Isn't this incident, just like other accidents? Is there anything to learn from it?

Scholar Tsang Kwong Chi, who is promoting life and death studies in another country, read about the tragedy from Sinchew-i, sighed as he read the reports about the grieving relatives of the victims.

“President of the Japanese Association for Death Education and Grief Counselling Dr. Alfons Deeken said that death could be divided into avoidable and unavoidable. Although death is part of our lives, death caused by human negligence is intolerable. We are not used to letting go of things that we should let go, but we choose to forget lessons that should be remembered. Hopefully this kind of tragedy could warned the government and the ferry dealers, so that another avoidable death incident could be avoided.”

Tsang is now lecturing courses on dying and grief counselling, the point that never changes is “to see life and death as part of life”. When you come to face your death or your loved ones' death, you have to understand it, and know how to get relieve, accept it and overcome the emotion brought by the death. More importantly, you have to keep on your journey of life learning and growing.

In Tsang's opinion, it is very important to give our support to the victim's relatives. These “practical support” include assistance in the funeral ceremony, some times inheritance processing, and even if there is disagreement over taking care of the young children left behind.

“Overall, we do what we can do to comfort these relatives of the victims, reducing their worries other than the death as much as possible.”

As for the psychological level, the experience of sorrow would be different as the relationships with the victims are different. Other than feeling sad, there might be other emotions involved like indignation at related people, incidents and things. Sometimes, relatives might be angry with the dead. Those who are around should understand and tolerate.”

“If I were the survivor, I would remember the bright side of the deceased to encourage myself. I would remember their positive impact on me. However, other than being strong and keep going on with my life for them and for the future, I would allow myself to be sad once in a while as I understand that depression is bad for health.

Talking about death with children is a big topic but we need to tell them as directly and as simply as possible. Do not tell those children, who already understand the meaning of death, that the dead is sleeping, this might confuse them. Besides, we have to let them know that the death is not because of them, not because they are naughty or not listening. This is because children might think the death of adult is a punishment for them.

“At the same time, we have to ask them if they have any question. If they ask something that you don't know, don't get angry or answer them rudely. You can tell them that you need some time to figure out the answer or admit that you are not sure about it.”

“To children's fear (for example, would there be any other adult who would die like this), you have to tell them that adults would try their best to avoid the same incident, so that children could rebuild the sense of security for life.”

Death education is always an opportunity education. When death occurs, of course it hurts, but it is also a rare opportunity to learn the reality of life. Please do not mislead the children by terrify them. If you have your own faith about life and death, it would be an opportunity to talk about it with your children.

“If you are not sure about life and death, you could refer to others who are more suited to addrfess this.

“Put it in simple terms, you have to be simple and clear when you are talking to children. Explain in detail what you know and for what you don't, admit it. Sometimes, we might learn a lot from the viewpoint of children about life and death!” (Mysinchew)