999

I was a kindie when I called 999 (Hong Kong's version of 911) for the first time. Two policemen came up to our home as a result, and, since that day, my mom hesitated at every attempt to go grocery shopping during my nap.

Twenty years later I took advantage of the free emergency calls service on my mobile and dialed the three-digit number to report a car accident.

It happened three days ago, right in front of me. A motorcyclist stamped on the brakes and barely missed killing a fourth grader crossing the street. The kid was in need of nothing more than post-trauma therapy while the motorcyclist seemed to have suffered from a few broken bones.

I'm not taking either side as I'm officially filed in the police records as a witness. But if anyone was wrong, it had to be the swarms of people hovering the scene of the accident. I understand that a car accident could be the most fascinating thing that would ever happen in a boring neighborhood such as Shau Kei Wan, but as if blocking traffic wasn't bad enough, some openly called the traumatized kid inhumane, while the others suggested all kinds of possibilities of how the accident occurred, most of them sounding as if they saw it in a documentary.

The amount of fascination that crowd had shown makes it obvious how the true idol will be a platinum seller. People just love to see extraordinary things happen to ordinary people.