Low-flying memories

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-03-17 10:47

Alfred Sung takes pictures at the old airport site, which will soon became a cruise terminal.

Alfred Sung was only seven years old when he first saw a jet plane fly past his lounge room window. Descending planes aiming for Kai Tak airport flew so close to Kowloon Bay apartment buildings that passengers could see television sets flicker inside the homes.

The unexpected and slightly unnerving sight of these huge metal birds made lasting impressions on the young boy.

Last year, the 31-year-old released Chatting to Myself, the second in a series of comic books, which look back to the days he lived near the airport.

A low-flying plane passes over densely populated areas in Kowloon before arriving at Kai Tak.

Kai Tak airport closed in 1998 but is still alive in the memories of local people.

"Every pilot I've ever talked to told me that Kai Tak was the one and the only," Sung says.

Sung remembers saying farewell to friends and family at the airport as he clutched his US college enrollment letter.

As a love-struck teenager, Sung confessed to a fellow student his deep feelings at the airport's observatory deck.

In 1992, he joined thousands of cheering fans at the airport to bid farewell to local rock-band Beyond, the island's answer to The Beatles.

A year later, the band's lead singer, Wong Ka Kui, returned to the airport in a coffin. He died when he fell off the stage in Japan.

For Sung and many others who grew up gazing at the bellies of the iron birds and listening to their deafening roar, the story of their old airport never gets jaded.

It began in 1914, when two prominent Hong Kong businessmen, Ho Kai and Au Tak formed the Kai Tak Land Investment Company to reclaim land in Kowloon for development. The business plan fell through and the land was acquired by the government for use as an airfield.

According to Sung, who has also written a book on Hong Kong's aviation history, the location of Kai Tak on the north side of Kowloon Bay facing Victoria Harbor made it an ideal place for launching seaplanes, which were once popular.

For the most part of its early history, Kai Tak was a military base for the British Royal Air Force.

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