Give pupils and parents say on cancelling Christmas parties, Hong Kong schools told
Disappointed students say axed Christmas celebrations would have helped take their minds off tragedy in Tai Po
The Education Bureau’s clarification on Thursday followed a letter it sent last week asking schools to mourn the victims of the fire, which has now claimed 159 lives, and suspended festive celebratory activities from November 29 to December 1.
One social media platform was flooded with messages from students who said they found it unnecessary to suspend all school activities as they had spent a lot of time preparing and had been looking forward to the annual events.
“Why [do we] have to cancel the Christmas parties? [We] prepare for a long time. Of course I know the fire in Tai Po is serious, but could it not cancel our Christmas party?” a user named “fsj_0502” wrote in Threads, with tens of thousands of internet users echoing that view and retweeting the post.
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Some said that they also had their Christmas parties cancelled, and what disappointed them the most was that it was their last year at the school.