And who cleared the name ‘Skytopia’?

You’re sitting on the deck of your luxury yacht sipping a pina colada. And then a Boeing 777 – engines at full 110,000-lb thrust – flies 1,000 feet over you. Repeat every two minutes. Did they think this through?

 The first phase of Hong Kong’s largest yacht marina in the Airport Authority’s ambitious SKYTOPIA development project is expected to be completed in 2028, according to Cissy Chan Ching-sze, the authority’s commercial executive director. 

The announcement comes as the Asia-Pacific superyacht market shows robust growth, with 530 vessels over 30 meters active in the region last year, of which 343 were owned by Asian nationals, according to the 2025 report from SuperYacht Times. 

After saying Hong Kong has tons of space for more non-yacht-owning tourists, Tourism Minister Rosanna Law tries to work out ways to sort out the crowding at High Island Reservoir…

She told lawmakers on Wednesday that in the past week, the number of visitors to East Dam at High Island Reservoir was just over 3,000 a day at its peak, compared to some 4,300 recorded in late March.

The secretary for culture, sports and tourism said the government doesn’t think the dam can withstand such a large number of visitors on a long-term basis, pointing out that the countryside’s capacity must be considered as part of any eco-tourism developmental effort.

“In the long run, we hope to divert the tourists visiting Hong Kong for hiking activities to different routes for a better visiting experience and to minimise the impact of visitors’ activities on individual hiking trails and countryside nature,” Law said in response to a lawmaker’s question in the Legislative Council.

Reporters Without Borders recently put Hong Kong at 140th place for press freedom, while China fell to 178th place. HKFP carries Ta Kung Pao’s reaction…

“RSF has long become a political thug, and the World Press Freedom Index has degenerated into a political smear tool in recent years,” it wrote. “Its smear of the press freedom situation in Hong Kong has reached unimaginable levels.”

From China Media Project, ‘public opinion channeling’ following a boat accident in Guizhou that claimed 10 lives (according to official reports)…

 Issued on May 4, the day of the tragedy, the agency’s official release … emphasized the action of the leadership, “Xi Jinping Issues Important Instructions on the Capsized Boat Accident,” the headline began. Xi emphasized the need to “do everything possible” in the rescue effort, and to ensure “resolutely curb the frequent occurrence of major safety accidents.” As typical under Xi Jinping, these “important instructions” were the prerogative of the top leader, while the country’s number two, the premier, made “written comments” (批示) to signal action from the top down.

From Made in China, the story behind (and politically fraught future of) a recently rediscovered late-1940s invention called ‘MingKwai’…

MingKwai was not just the first Chinese typewriter with a keyboard; it also embodied the first Chinese input method and helped lay the intellectual foundation for modern human–computer interactions…

On a slightly related note… I pick up Chinese characters at the rate of about one every few months. Not formal learning – just an ‘interesting enough to stick in my mind’ thing. The latest is the word for ‘vomit’, namely ‘嘔’. It combines two characters meaning ‘mouth’ and ‘area’, which is (to me, at least) amusingly and memorably vivid. If the beautiful Australian language was written in Chinese, the character would be made up of the words for ‘yawn’ and ‘technicolor’.