Kai Tak Airport

The Cleaner: The True Story of One of the World's Most Successful Money Launderers
by Bruce Aitken
Published 2 Mar 2017

Just before 11:00 pm all the military fled, leaving all the ladies behind and at the mercy of the civilians. This was surely heaven! Twenty-four hours after leaving Orlando, I was drifting in and out of sleep when I heard the Pan Am stewardess on the intercom: “Fasten your seat belts. We are on our final approach to Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong.” I was so happy to be back in Hong Kong, with a reservation at the Hong Kong Hilton for the night; I would be leaving for Saigon the following afternoon. I was looking forward to having dinner with a lovely Chinese girl named Jenny whom I had met at our usual spot, Jimmy’s Kitchen.

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But, hey, what the hell, this was a great life for a young fellow who loved to travel, and who had a reasonably understanding Chinese wife. I soon found myself flying more than an airline pilot, and going through two forty-eight-page U.S. passports a year, with additional pages put in so that when I opened it, they fell out like an accordion. Kai Tak Airport was like a second home. Sometimes the trips were “same day” back and forth, and sometimes I was gone a week or more. It occurred to me that because of the nature of the business, and the clients that would use Deak’s magical money laundering services, I would be dealing with all types of unusual and sometimes very eccentric characters, from tax evaders to drug dealers, government agents to just plain old lunatics.

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Put the envelope in the hotel safe, and check it in with your luggage when you fly back Monday morning.” Brink was either a devil or a wizard. No customs agent would bother to check a lovely white-haired granny like Helen. The weekend came and went. Our Compass Travel driver “KK,” using our authentic black London taxi, collected Helen from Kai Tak Airport on Monday morning, and brought her to the office. She could not thank Brink enough for the great weekend retreat. She had befriended a very nice Filipino couple on Sunday afternoon, and while they were waiting for a guest in the lobby, she was invited to the very exclusive Polo Club. She had a wonderful day and a few too many gin and tonics.

The River at the Centre of the World
by Simon Winchester
Published 1 Jan 1996

Two bottles of SPF 45 sunblock, some equally strong lip salve (I had been warned that the summer sun in Qinghai province could sear the lips from a camel), insect repellent and a trusted and battered hip flask made up the pack, which, when fully tamped down, weighed a quite acceptable fifty pounds. I hoisted it onto my back, whistled down a taxi to Kennedy, and twenty hours later was through customs at Hong Kong's Kai Tak Airport. Two days later still, having made a series of complicated arrangements by telephone and having received a somewhat dubious series of assurances, having a new six-month multiple-entry ‘F’ class China visa stamped in my passport and a few wads of American dollars tucked into various waterproof pockets around my person, I stepped onto a boat.

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It is true that most major centres in China have one or two establishments whose headquarters are in Hong Kong – there are Hong Kong-run hotels in places as remote as Ürümqi, and Hong Kong-owned office blocks in faraway Shenyang and Kashgar. But in Wuhan there is much, much more. The city has been put on a quick and easy non-stop flight route from Hong Kong's Kai Tak airport, and to the southern businessmen who fly in each day, Wuhan is now their most proximate example of the real China, the closest big city of the Chinese heartland. (What they have on their doorstep in cities like Canton and Xiamen are still very obviously southern Chinese cities, with the southern tongue spoken, southern food eaten, southern attitudes struck.)

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M., 133–4 Hanyang, 203 Harbin, 136, 221 Hazelwood, 62–5, 67, 69, 78, 89 Headwaters, 349–53, 404–6 Hegemony, 54 Henan province, 243 Heng Duan Shan, 360, 361 Heng Sha, 41 Henry, Augustine, 337 Herbal medicine, 339–42 Hersey, John, 230–31, 253, 255, 290, 408 Himalayas, 150, 295, 361, 367 Hippie Trail, 327 History of Far Eastern Art (Lee), 9 Ho Shi-xiu, 338–42 Hobhouse, Henry, 412 Homosexuality, 73–4, 146 Hong Kong, 70, 77, 81, 82, 87, 143–4, 177, 216–17, 236, 252, 274, 309, 406 Hongkong & Shanghai Bank, 83 Hoover Dam, 236 Horizon Splitting Range, 359, 361 Hsia dynasty, 263 Hsia, Joseph, 76 Huang Ti, 362–3 Huangla Stone, 244 Huanglingmiao, 232 Huc, Abbé, 380 Humboldt, Alexander von, 265 Hunan province, 197, 198 Hydraulics, 223–4 Hydroelectric power systems, 225, 227, 228, 235–6, 253 Imperial Japanese Government Railways, 129 Imperial Maritime Customs Service, 154, 269–70, 276, 337 Imports, 211–13 Indian tea, 178 Inspection Cruiser Number Two, 36, 37, 41 International Relief Committee, 133 Investments, 250–51 Irkutsk, 381 Iron Duke, HMS, 50 Irrigation systems, 225 Isherwood, Christopher, 73, 215 Itaipu Dam, 235 Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, 326–7, 337, 339 Japanese occupation, 130–39 Jardine, Matheson & Co., 57–60, 63, 176, 212, 284 Jari Hill, 352 Java Man, 293 Jialing River, 153, 280 Jiang Han, 56, 140 Jiang Qing, 190 Jiang Zemin, 168, 245 Jianggudiru Glacier, 351 Jiangsu province, 39, 197 Jiangxi province, 197 Jiangyin, 131, 95–7 Jiaopingdu, 313, 379 Jing Hui temple, 142, 143 Jinjiang Flood Diversion Region, 222, 237 Jinling Hotel, 125 Jinsha Jiang, 295, 298, 350, 352, 353, 358 Jiuhua Mountain, 160 Jiujiang, 145, 152, 162, 165, 166–71, 192, 245 Jiujiang Hotel, 167–71 Jiujiang Tea Company, 180 Joint Operations Graphics (JOG) sheets, 30–31, 409 Journey to a War (Isherwood), 215 Judy's Place, 89 Junks and Sampans of the Yangtze, The (Worcester), 409–10 Kai Tak Airport, 33, 216 Kaixian county, 245 Kallen, Christine, 412 Kangding, 373, 377, 379–81, 383 Kanxi, Emperor, 15 Karaoke, 78, 79, 94, 192 Kashgar, 216 Kathmandu, 327 Kham region, 376–7 Khampas, 376 Kim Il Sung, 141, 297 King of Muli, 334 Kinsha, HMS, 269 Kipling, Rudyard, 393 Koreans, 160–61 Kou-an Reach, 107 Kung, Prince, 51 Kunlun (boat), 148 Kunming, 311, 330 Kuomintang (KMT), 106, 215, 314, 315 Kyzyl, 381 Labour camps, 396–7 Lamas, 412 Lamas, Princes and Brigands (Rock & Aris), 412 Lamaseries, 380, 381, 383, 384–5, 391, 400 Lancelot Dent and Company, 176 Landslips, 244, 274 Lao Cai, 366 Large Dams in China, 256 Lee, J.

Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy
by Quinn Slobodian
Published 4 Apr 2023

“Overcrowded, with everyone except the very rich living cheek by jowl, Hong Kong is a metaphor for the modern world,” wrote one reviewer.47 National Review declared the book an “Atlas Shrugged of the Eighties” and praised its glorification of capitalist competition and individualism.48 Clavell would have been pleased—he sent a copy with a warm dedication to Ayn Rand, “the goddess of the market” herself.49 NBC broadcast an adaptation of Noble House across four nights during sweeps week of 1988, starring Pierce Brosnan as a “supreme leader,” or taipan, glowering at his corporate rivals from the penthouse of Jardine House. Town & Country called Hong Kong “this moment’s most dazzling boom town.”50 Visitors had a memorable arrival at Kai Tak Airport, a strip of reclaimed land that jutted out from the densely populated Kowloon Peninsula—the Brooklyn to Hong Kong Island’s Manhattan. As their stomachs dropped on descent, passengers could peer into the windows of the multistory collections of flats and workshops that housed the city’s ballooning population.

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See also empire(s) imprisonment, replaced with restitution and compensation “incentivized urbanization” India Indigenous communities Indonesia inequality inflation inheritance tax Innovation Park, Chengdu, China Instagram integration International Confederation of Free Trade Unions internationalism International Labour Organization international law International Monetary Fund international trade law internet anarcho-capitalism and “commune story” of as “non-rivalrous frontier” Internet City intolerance, militant Iran banning of cryptocurrency in revolution in Iraq administration by private contractors US invasion of Ireland islands Isle of Dogs Isle of Wight Israel Italian Somaliland Italy Jafza International (Jebel Ali Free Zone Authority International) Japan Jardine Matheson Jebel Ali Free Zone Jeddah Islamic Port Jerome John II, Prince John Randolph Club Johnson, Boris Johnson, Paul “joint fantasy” joint stock corporations Joseph, Keith Jurong, Singapore justice, privatization of Kaczynski, Theodore Kai Tak Airport Kansas Kaohsiung, Taiwan KBR Kendall, Frances Kenya Keynesian economics Khalili, Laleh killer app King, Martin Luther Jr. kinship Klein, Naomi Kleindienst, Josef Knowledge City, Guangzhou, China Ko, Ivan Koch, Charles Kowloon Peninsula kritarchy Kruger, Paul Krugerrand Krugersdorp, South Africa Krugman, Paul Kunzru, Hari Kuwait labor automation and surplus labor laws Labour party Lagos, Nigeria laissez-faire Laos LARPing (live action role playing) Latin America, zones in.

Distrust That Particular Flavor
by William Gibson
Published 3 Jan 2012

Traditionally the home of pork butchers, unlicensed denturists, and dealers in heroin, the Walled City still stands at the foot of a runway, awaiting demolition. Some kind of profound embarrassment to modern China, its clearance has long been made a condition of the looming change of hands. Hive of dream. Those mismatched, uncalculated windows. How they seemed to absorb all the frantic activity of Kai Tak airport, sucking in energy like a black hole. I was ready for something like that…. I loosened my tie, clearing Singapore airspace. I hear that things have changed for the better in Singapore, in the years since my visit, and I am glad. But the Singaporean government responded to this piece, at the time, by banning the import of Wired magazine.

The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World
by Simon Winchester
Published 7 May 2018

He returned to be presented with the Order of Merit by Queen Elizabeth in 1986; and again when there was a bit of a fuss around the fiftieth anniversary of his former engine company’s creation, in 1987; and then, with his son Ian Whittle piloting, he came to London and flew happily on a Cathay Pacific 747 passenger aircraft nonstop to Hong Kong. It was in one small and curious way a memorable flight. For, back then, when Kai Tak Airport was the only commercial airfield in the then–British colony, most inbound flights had to make an alarming last-minute course change in order to land safely. Standing instructions for the approach required that the plane come into the colony’s airspace from the west and, losing height rapidly, head directly toward an enormous red-and-white checkerboard that had been obligingly painted onto the rockface of a mountainside.

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Scott, The Crack-Up, 307 fixtures (devices that hold workpiece absolutely secure), 100n, 102 flatness: of surface plates, 75–76, 119–20 of Whitworth’s billiard table, 124–25 flintlocks, see muskets, flintlock flour-milling machinery, 102 f number of lens, 219n Ford, Henry, 129, 131, 155–67, 157, 276 altruistic motives of, 155–56 early years of, 156–58 first motor car experiments of, 158–59 gauge blocks, or Jo blocks, utilized by, 169–71 mass production assembly line created by, 160–67 Royce compared to, 131, 155–56, 158–59, 165–66 Westinghouse threshing engines in origin story of, 156–58 Ford Foundation, 166 Ford Model T (Tin Lizzie), 129, 155–56, 157, 160–67 decreases in price of, 165, 167 magneto assembly for, 164–65 production line for, 160–67 Ford Motor Company, 152, 155–67 complaints about SKF bearings at, 170 Edsel, 236 gauge blocks, or Jo blocks, introduced at, 169–71 incorporation of, 131, 159 interchangeable parts essential at, 161n, 166, 170 Model A, 159–60 Model T, see Ford Model T (Tin Lizzie) precision’s role at Rolls-Royce vs., 131, 166–67 production line at, 160–65 “For want of a nail . . .” proverb, 244 foundries, electronic, 278n fountain pens, 58 France: Anglo-French rivalry over inventions and, 87n automobiles made in, 137–39 British wars with, 39n, 66, 73 decimal time in, 349n postrevolutionary Republican Calendar in, 333–34 social implications of precision as concern in, 90, 92, 117 standards for length and mass created by, 334–40; see also metric system system of interchangeable parts developed in, 87–94, 97, 98, 102 Franklin, Benjamin, 90, 222–23 French Academy of Sciences, 335 French Revolution, 59, 66, 92 frequency: Doppler effect and, 260–61 units of measurement and, 347–48 friction problem, in early clocks, 32–33, 35 Gainsborough, Thomas, 38–39 Galileo, 222, 332, 348 Galileo global navigation system, 270 Gascoigne, William, 77 Gaudy Night, 105 gauge blocks, or Jo blocks, 167–71, 169 author’s introduction to, 2–4 Ford Motor Company and, 169–71 interchangeable parts and, 170 Johansson’s invention of, 167–68 gauges: go and no-go, for ensuring cannonball fit, 87 in gun manufacture, 89, 98–99, 100 gearwheels: from Ancient Greece (Antikythera mechanism), 24–27 producing, 4–5 uses for, 5–6 wooden, in Harrison’s clocks, 32–33 Gee, 259, 262 George III, King, 36, 74n George VI, King, 194–95 Germany, turbojet-powered aircraft developed by, 179, 184, 190–91, 195 Gernsback, Hugo, 181 glassblowers, scientific, 7 Glass Menagerie, The (Williams), 255 Global Positioning System (GPS), 37, 265–74 Doppler-based navigation system as precursor of, 259–65, 267 Easton’s invention of, 260, 265–68 ever-more-precise calculations of, 272–73 freed for civilian use, 269–70 major achievements of nineteenth-century cartography checked against data from, 273n military uses of, 269 other nations’ similar systems, 270 Parkinson’s vision for, 267–68, 268 run from tightly guarded Schriever Air Force Base, 270–72, 271, 272 time data for, 352–53 GLONASS, 270 Gloster Aircraft Company: experimental aircraft powered by jet engine (Gloster E28/29, or Pioneer), 190, 191–94 Gloster Meteor fighters, 192 Goddard Space Flight Center (Maryland), 234, 250–51, 294 Gould, Rupert, 34n graphene, 298 grasshopper escapement, 33 gravitational constant, 298 gravitational waves, detection of, 20–21, 300–306 see also LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) gravity: Bramah’s lock design and, 57 clock mechanisms and, 33, 354 link between time and, 354–55 pendulum swings and, 33, 333, 349 Whitworth’s measuring machine and, 121, 122 Great Britain: Anglo-French rivalry over inventions and, 87n divergent paths of industry in U.S. vs., 114–15 trading fortunes and, 31 War of 1812 and, 81–85 wars fought by, in eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, 39, 66–71 Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations (London, 1851), 111–27, 112 arrangement of exhibits at, 115–16 Bramah’s “challenge lock” picked at, 112n, 124, 125–27 Crystal Palace built for, 112, 113–14 extraordinary zeitgeist of the time and, 111–13 financing of, 113 great big iron machines displayed at, 114–16, 117–18 Hunt’s concern about social implications of machines displayed at, 116–17 origin of idea for, 112–13n Whitworth’s instruments and tools displayed at, 118–23 Great Trigonometric Survey of India, 273n Greece, Ancient: astronomers from, 26n gearwheels from (Antikythera mechanism), 24–27, 36 lost-wax method in, 204 measurement of time in, 27 Greenwich Royal Observatory, Harrison’s clocks at, 30–37 restoration of, 34n winding of, 30–31 Gribeauval, Jean-Baptiste Vaquette de, 87, 89, 92, 98 Guier, William, 259–62 Gulf War of 1991, 269 guns: Blanchard’s lathe for stocks of, 101–2 both precision and accuracy crucial in making of, 105 breech-loaded single-shot rifles, 97–98 French system of interchangeable parts applied to American precision-based manufacturing of, 97–100 Johansson’s invention of gauge blocks, or Jo blocks, and, 167–68 machines first used to make components of, 98, 99–100 rudiments of mass production assembly lines in manufacture of, 161n Victoria’s opening shot in 1860 Grand Rifle Match, 107–10 see also muskets, flintlock Hall, Bishop Joseph, Works, 331 Hall, John, 97–98, 99–100, 102 handcrafting: Antikythera mechanism and, 24–25, 27 Blanc’s standardization system and, 89–90, 92, 98 eliminated in Ford’s assembly line, 165, 166–67 Japanese appreciation for, 308, 309–10, 314, 316, 319–29 machine tools vs., 35, 38, 60, 72–73, 98–99 at Rolls-Royce, 6, 131, 152–55, 165, 166 social consequences of move away from, 72–75, 89–90, 116–17 and survival of craftsmanship in France, 92 in Whitney’s gun factory, 96–97 Hanford, Wash., cleanup site, 19–20 Harpers Ferry Armory (Va.), 98, 99, 102, 161n Harrison, John, 24, 30–37, 47, 67, 105, 267n balance mechanisms in clocks made by, 33, 35 Board of Longitude prize and, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35–36 large pendulum clocks made by (H1, H2, and H3), 30–31, 32–34, 35 restoration of clocks made by, 34n sea watches made by (H4 and K1), 31–32, 34–36 testing of clocks made by, 34, 35–36, 39 winding of clocks made by, 30–31, 33, 35 Harrison, William, 35–36 Hattori, K., and Company, 311–13 Hattori, Kintaro, 310–12 Heinkel Company, 184, 195 Heinkel He 178, 190–91 Heisenberg, Werner, 212–13, 298 Die Physik der Atomkerne, 275 Herbert, George, 244n Herschel family (William, Caroline, John, and Alexander), 229–30n Hiroshima, atomic bomb dropped on, 281 Hitler, Adolf, 187, 191 Hobbs, Alfred C., 124, 125–27 Hoerni, Jean Amédée, 284–85, 286n, 287 Hooker, Sir Stanley, 139 hour: defining, 28, 334, 349 displayed by mechanical clocks, 28–29 Hubble, Edwin, 2321 Hubble Space Telescope, 229–53, 230 cost of, 232 delays in launch date of, 243n first images from (First Light), 234–35, 251 flaw in main mirror of, 234, 234–43; see also Perkin-Elmer Corporation High Speed Photometer in, 247, 248, 250 money matters and, 237n news of failure announced to press, 235–36 placed into orbit, 230–32, 233 public reverence for, 229–30 repair of, 244–51 second images from (Second Light), 251–52 size and appearance of, 232–33 teacup affair and, 238 ultimate success of, 252–53 Wide Field and Planetary Camera in (Wiffpic), 247–48, 249 Hucknall Casings and Structures plant (Rolls-Royce), 209–10, 211, 229 Hunt, Robert, 116–17 hydraulic press, 57–58 India, Great Trigonometric Survey of, 273n Individual and the Universe, The (Lovell), 215 Industrial Revolution, 39, 41, 44, 51, 73, 74n, 111, 304 integrated circuitry, 286–99 devices made possible by, 287–88 Noyce’s work in genesis of, 286, 287, 288n printing with photolithographic machines, 277, 277–78, 286–87, 294 see also microprocessor chips; transisters Intel, 288–92 ASML machines bought by, 275–76, 277, 277–78 Chandler, Ariz., fabrication plant of (Fab 42), 275–76, 277–78, 291–92 first-ever commercially available microprocessor made by (Intel 4004), 288–89, 290, 292 founding of, 288 mutual dependency of ASML and, 278 interchangeable parts, 63, 71, 105, 114, 276, 312 in Ford’s mass production assembly lines, 161n, 166, 170 for guns, 84–85, 86, 87–100 system of, developed in France, 87–94, 97, 98, 102 interferometers: classic, 300 laser, 242–43 LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory), 20–21, 299–306, 303, 305 null connector as, 240–41 internal combustion engine, 158 aircraft powered by, 178–213; see also jet engines International Astronomical Union, 344 International Committee on Weights and Measures (1960), 345–46 International Metre Commission (1872), 338 International Prototype Kilogram (IPK), 339 International Prototype Meter (IPM), 339 International System of Units (SI), 16–17n, 346 iron, 38, 39 cannon making and, 39, 41–44 Japanese handcrafted objects made of, 309–10 lathes made of, rather than wood, 61, 64 machines to manufacture pulley blocks made of, 71 smelting and forging, 40–41, 43, 49 steam engines made of, 46, 48–52 Wilkinson’s cylinder-boring technique for, 42–44, 49–52, 304–6 Iron Bridge of Coalbrookdale, 41 Ito, Tsutomi, 321–22 Jacula Prudentum, 244n James Webb Space Telescope, 231n, 294, 295, 299 Janety, Marc Étienne, 336, 337 Japan, 308–29 bamboo objects handcrafted in, 325, 326 fondness for handcrafting in, 308, 309–10, 314, 316, 319–29 Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami in (2011), 322, 323–25 Living National Treasures of, 325–26 rigorous appreciation of perfect in, 308–9, 314 timekeeping traditions in, 310–11 urushi (handmade lacquerware) of, 326–28, 327 Westernization in, 310, 311 see also Seiko Japanese Railways, 313–14 Jay, John, 92–93 Jefferson, Thomas, 52 Blanc’s flintlock system and, 90, 92–94, 96 Whitney’s contract and demonstration and, 95, 96 Jet Age, inauguration of, 193 jet engines, 173–213 alloys for blades in, 200, 201, 203 Americans’ initial lack of interest in, 179 bird strikes and, 203n British public told of, 194 complexity within, 196–97 experimental aircraft fitted with, 190, 191–94 financial backing for development of, 184–85, 189 first passenger and freight aircraft with, 198–99 French forerunner of, 179 German development of, 179, 184, 190–91, 195 hot environment in, 187, 199–201 invention of, 178–94, 179; see also Whittle, Frank keeping blades cool inside, 197–98, 198, 199–203, 204, 206 manufacturing process for single-crystal blades in, 203–6 no tolerance whatsoever in making of, 206–7 power of piston engine vs., 182–83 propulsive jet of air produced by, 182, 187 Quantas Flight 32 and failure of, 174–78, 178, 196, 207–12, 208, 229 revolutionary novelty of idea for, 186 Rolls-Royce, 196–213, 205; see also Rolls-Royce jet engines single moving part in, 180 stress of takeoff and landing cycles on, 210 testing of prototypes, 187–90 turbine blade efficiency and, 198 Whittle’s eureka moment and, 182–83 Whittle’s patent and, 183–84 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, or JPL (Pasadena), 247–48, 350 Jo blocks, see gauge blocks, or Jo blocks Johansson, Carl Edvard, 3, 167–71 bought out by Ford, 170–71 gauge blocks, or Jo blocks, created by, 167–68 Johns Hopkins University: Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) at, 259–62 Space Telescope Science Institute at, 234, 251 Johnson, Claude “CJ,” 148–50, 151 Jones, Alexander, 27 Kai Tak Airport (Hong Kong), 195–96 kelvin, definition of, 346 Kiev, author photographed with Rolls-Royce outside city gates of, 133–34 Kilby, Jack, 288n kilogram, 336–40, 346–47 cast in platinum as étalon (standard), 337, 339–40, 348 now defined in terms of speed of light, 348 relationship of meter to, 336–37 see also metric system Kilogram of the Archives, 336 Klein bottle, 7n Kodak, 237n Korean Air Lines Flight 007, shooting down of, 269 krypton, standard unit of length based on, 344–45 Kyoto, temples of, 308 landscape photography, lenses for, 226 lasers, 351 in LIGO’s measuring instrument, 301, 305, 305–6 in manufacture of microprocessor chips, 293–94, 296 presumed to be precise, 242 lathes, 61–65 for gun stocks, designed by Blanchard, 101–2 invention and evolution of, 61 iron vs. wood, 61, 64 Maudslay’s improvements to, 61–65 screw-making, 63–64 for shoe lasts, designed by Blanchard, 19n, 101 slide rest and, 62–63, 64–65 latitude, determining, 30n leadscrews: of bench micrometers, 77–78 of lathes, 61, 62–63 Leica, 221, 222, 227–28 cameras owned by author, 219–20 lenses made by, 220, 224–25, 227–28 Leitz, Ernst, 222, 227 Leland, Henry, 168 length, standard unit of, 334–40 cast in platinum as étalon (standard), 336, 337, 339–40 mass in relation to, 336–37 meridian of Earth and, 334–36, 337 now defined in terms of time, 348 pendulum swing and, 332–33 redefined as wavelength of light, 342–45 Wilkins’s proposal for, 332–33 see also metric system Lenin, V.

Norman Foster: A Life in Architecture
by Deyan Sudjic
Published 1 Sep 2010

Norman Foster’s first realised skyscraper, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, certainly isn’t like that. It was the project that took him from modest fame in Britain to visibility on an international scale. And it was his first big win in an international competition. Negotiating the notorious final approach into the now long-gone Kai Tak Airport in August 1979, Foster flew into Hong Kong with Spencer de Grey and Wendy Foster for the competition briefing session from the bank. They were clearly the least qualified of the six contenders drawn from America, Britain, Australia and Hong Kong to design what HSBC’s chairman, Michael Sandberg, claimed was going to be the best bank in the world.

The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir
by Karen Cheung
Published 15 Feb 2022

For the few minutes it takes to cross, my heart races. I’m always scared that we’ll be trapped there forever, that we won’t emerge, or that the world will look different when we’re finally at the other end. Across Hong Kong, an anxious mood has punctured the smog. Near my grandmother’s flat is the old Kai Tak Airport, which would be decommissioned in a year’s time. We can see airplanes from my grandmother’s window, taking Hong Kongers far away from here, to Canada, to the United States, to Australia. Every takeoff sends tremors that make the windows shiver, long piercing whistles like a kettle going off. They’re leaving for a new life somewhere before the handover, before Communist China takes hold of the city.

Cities in the Sky: The Quest to Build the World's Tallest Skyscrapers
by Jason M. Barr
Published 13 May 2024

The structure was designed by the New York–based firm Kohn Pederson Fox (KPF) for Sun Hung Kai (SHK) Properties, one of Hong Kong’s big four real estate developers, with the ambition of making it a “vertical Wall Street” and producing an additional business hub across from Central. It contains 2.5 million square feet (232, 258 m2) of office space, mostly for banks and financial firms. On floor 100 is the observatory and above that is a Ritz-Carlton hotel. In 1989, the Hong Kong government decided to shut down the old and congested Kai Tak Airport in East Kowloon, where jets flew so close to apartment buildings that residents could watch them land from their kitchen windows. In its place, the City built a new one in Chek Lap Kok on Lantau Island. With the airport—and height restrictions—out of the way, the government created 99 acres (40 hectares) of new land through reclamation on the western edge of Kowloon.

Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empire
by Simon Winchester
Published 31 Dec 1985

The British unilaterally revoked that particular clause of the Convention a few months after the lease had begun, and tossed the Chinese officials out. But the Walled City has never accepted colonial rule—it is a teeming, dirty little slum, unpoliced, unorganised, unfriendly and dangerous. There was never any town planning, though the Kai Tak airport authorities insisted recently that some buildings be lowered to an appropriate height, and so police moved in and obligingly lopped some storeys off. There has never been any sanitation, and electricity is siphoned from the main Kowloon grid, illegally. Fifty thousand people live in this single speck of China inside the Empire (which is itself, of course, a tiny speck of Empire inside China); the city is dangerous, stepping to the rhythm of a different drum, and likely to be unchanged by whatever forces come to dominate the future of the colony itself.

Wavewalker
by Suzanne Heywood
Published 12 Apr 2023

I shrugged, trying to ignore the ball of fear inside my stomach. ‘I can’t go back.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Because at last I’m free.’ I managed a couple of hours’ sleep on the next flight, before waking in time to see Kowloon rise below us, laden with high-rise apartment buildings, slums, hotels, cars and shops. Kai Tak airport was hemmed in by the surging city, leaving a space so tight that our pilot had to hang one wing over the water when we taxied to the gate. In the terminal, Hélène and I played cards while we waited to check in for our next flights. ‘Flying is strange,’ she said, putting down a card. ‘Only a few hours ago we were in Japan, and now we are here.’

The Asian Financial Crisis 1995–98: Birth of the Age of Debt
by Russell Napier
Published 19 Jul 2021

The aim of this book is to allow the reader to learn from mistakes made in the heat of investment battle without ever having to waste any of their financial ammunition. Boom and bust I had already wasted a bit of financial ammunition when I arrived in Hong Kong. In what had been a short career, less than five years when I landed at Kai Tak airport, I had already seen the incredible impact that a money and credit boom had had in lifting the price of shares to astronomical valuations in Japan and then dashing them. In Japan, fundamental investing had been of limited use in calculating just how high equity prices could rise, when they might stop rising and how quickly they might then decline.

How to Survive a Pandemic
by Michael Greger, M.D., FACLM

The WHO expects it could hit every country on Earth in a matter of weeks.778 Others imagine it may take weeks just to break out of its presumed Asian country of origin.779 Once it does get moving, though, some authorities suspect it will hit Western shores within one week (if it indeed originates in Asia).780 Others argue one day.781 Or twelve hours.782 Once in a country like the United States, supercomputer simulations at the Los Alamos weapons lab show the virus blanketing the country “with remarkable speed and efficiency.”783 In 1918, the entire Earth was engulfed within weeks—and that was before commercial airline travel.784 In an attempt to model the spread of the 1997 Hong Kong outbreak (had it gone pandemic), scientists calculated how many travelers had passed through Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Airport. During the two-month outbreak in Hong Kong in 1997, more than four million people left that one airport.785 Viruses now travel at jet speed. Within months, COVID-19 had spread to more than two hundred countries and territories on six continents.786 The next pandemic is expected to come in multiple waves.

Among the Braves: Hope, Struggle, and Exile in the Battle for Hong Kong and the Future of Global Democracy
by Shibani Mahtani and Timothy McLaughlin
Published 7 Nov 2023

It meant that Dorothy herself qualified for US residence. Using that family link and Chu’s new contacts at the US consulate, Chu got to work accelerating another guarantee, one with a more permanent effect than a life-insurance policy. In August 1990, Reverend Chu said goodbye to his wife, Samuel, and Daniel at the Kai Tak International Airport. He was stoic. Samuel carried a Walkman in his hands, loaded with a cassette tape of his favorite singer, Leslie Cheung. He had been playing the same song on repeat, about farewells and a lost childhood romance. Chu and Dorothy had decided that their family would be safer overseas in America.

Skyfaring: A Journey With a Pilot
by Mark Vanhoenacker
Published 1 Jun 2015

Kowloon Tong
by Paul Theroux

Feeling that the small sound was slipping away, Bunt screamed Mei-ping's name and became terrified when it, too, diminished to a faint echo among all the indifferent machines. And then, slowly, he descended the stairs. "Mum," Bunt said in the car. He wanted to weep. "Pull yourself together, Neville," Monty said. They were at the Kai Tak entrance, gliding up the ramp. Monty was chatting confidently about the future, the new airport on the western side of Kowloon, the new road and flyover, the reclaimed land, the massive investment. Next year, next year, he said. Next year. "I'll take care of everything," he said. Bunt had gone weak. At the check-in counter he had his cellular phone open and he was pleading into it, still imploring it, calling her apartment, calling the factory; and again at the security check, and on the jetway; and after they boarded, in his seat, still pleading, Pick up the phone, May!