WEAK TEA AND SUNLIGHT

The approach to Kai Tak Airport was north over the Kowloon Peninsula till you spotted the checkerboard painted on a hillside, then bank sharp right and descend while reducing speed. If done correctly, it put you in line with runway 13. Done in bad weather it was more exciting. But even under perfect conditions it could be dramatic. Kai Tak is right next to Kwun Tong.
Laundry and billboards were visible at eye level, and so close.

My dad, a bomber pilot for three years, never flew commercially. After the war he went to college, then worked on tankers for a few years, and became an aeronautical engineer.

But as an unflappable man he might have found landing at Kai Tak interesting.

He was the only person who was calm and at ease when I drove.

He recognized defensive manoeuvres.

The pipe above slightly reminds me of him, but more strongly makes me think of Hong Kong. Along with staved teak boxes in the bookshelves, dried fish, and snow pear incense (雪梨檀香 'suet lei taan heung'), which keeps the mosquitoes out of my quarters entirely and drives them into the rest of the apartment, where another person lives.
Who has a mosquito net.

There's a lidded tea bowl nearby filled with Jasmine. Astringent.
In hot weather warm weak tea will keep one alert.
When it's cold outside, it soothes.
Helps you work.

One of the few ways in which I am much like my father is that we both did mechanical and architectural drafting. So if you saw me at work, with a pipe in my mouth, you might think you were seeing a younger version of him. Same face. It's a different pipe, but most people don't have that eye.


At one point in my life, almost all of the pilots I knew who flew into and out of Hong Kong were ex-military, many had had combat experience. But even in that day, they were more or less screened for stability and clear-headedness. Because, if you think about it, a full compliment of passengers is rather like a load of bombs. Somewhat explosive and unpredictable. Someone has to have his wits about him, and the American businessman in the smoking section probably isn't it, and none of the people next to him are either.

When you are young you have great confidence, and a sense that you will live forever. It's brutal when you realize that some of your companions won't.

This would be the place for some deep insight about maturity and getting older.
But I'm not the right person for that.



Can I offer you some shallow insights instead?

TOBACCO INDEX


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