ONE BREEZY SUNDAY NIGHT, Ah Fai walked out of Mody Road's Chinachem Golden Plaza building without a care in the world. The 36-year-old lorry driver had just finished a five-day, personal-growth training course. He felt empowered and full of hope.
He was emerging from a Life Dynamics seminar, which aims to teach self-awareness, responsibility and communication skills. Life Dynamics seminars, which combine lectures, exercises and discussions, are said to be able to transform ordinary lives into success stories.
But for Ah Fai, the effect was shattering. His nascent confidence of that Sunday evening soon crumpled and turned to confusion (see next page for his diary). By Wednesday, he had decided to end his life. 'The trainer said I could be whoever I wanted to be. But I couldn't sleep, my brain spun very fast with all my ideas. Sometimes I thought I would have a lot of girlfriends . . . sometimes I thought I could replace my boss . . . sometimes I wanted to be [tycoon] Li Ka-shing,' he says. 'I was very tired, but I couldn't rest. As I closed my eyes, the thoughts spun in my brain again, it was very painful. I thought, 'If I die, I don't need to think, and I won't be in pain anymore'.' Far from feeling empowered, he felt his life was a failure.
At least three companies now offer Life Dynamics seminars in the SAR, of which ARC International is by far the largest. Ah Fai, who was not sent on the course by his company, is one of more than 20,000 Hong Kong people in the past nine years who have attended ARC's $5,950 basic seminar of three evenings and two full days. An advanced five-day seminar is available at $9,950.
Persuaded by a friend who had attended the course, he went to a briefing in ARC's spacious offices in early May. There he heard Life Dynamics success stories from enthusiastic trainers and dozens of volunteers, many of whom were graduates of the programme. Insurance brokers sold more policies, secretaries were promoted to managers, quarrelling couples made up and single men found girlfriends, he was told. 'I really wanted to get a girlfriend, so I thought this was right for me,' says Ah Fai, who split up from his last girlfriend seven years ago. Finding love and wealth seemed great ideals, and if the course could help him, he thought, it would be worth it.
Instead, the day after he finished the course, he couldn't go to work. Rather than feeling invigorated and inspired, he was numb and listless. 'I felt that I was being controlled, I felt like a dead person,' he says.
The next day he went back to work, but deliberately failed to make his lorry deliveries and drove around aimlessly. At the end of the day, Ah Fai told his boss that he had been unable to control himself.