246 4. For a long time Macau has been host to a Formula Three Grand Prix, but this temporary annual celebration of speed seemed only to emphasize the normal sleepiness of Macau. In the same way one noticed a change of pace on arrival in Macau after travelling to it from Hong Kong on the high-speed jetfoil service. 5. When on 13 July 2007 the Macau government unveiled plans for an elevated light rail link between the peninsula and Taipa it was criticized for ignoring the transport needs of locals. The proposed route bypassed the older residential districts in favour of sites more frequented by tourists. See Fox Yi Hu, ‘Fast track to slots; poor rue lot’, South China Morning Post, 14 July 2007, A3. 6. Such has been the pace of Macau’s economic growth (at least until the arrival of the recent global economic downturn, which has caused a dip in casino income and put new construction in that sector on hold) that it seems to have surpassed its model Las Vegas in casino revenue in 2006. See ‘Tiny Macau overtakes Vegas Strip’, BBC News, accessed 29 August 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6083624. stm, and Douglas Greenlees, ‘Macao rises close to top global spot for gamblers’, International Herald Tribune, 18 January 2008, 1. On Macau’s rising GDP see Neil Gough, ‘Macau tops Asia’s rich list, but try telling that to the poor’, South China Morning Post, 29 March 2008, A3. A qualification of the picture offered in that municipal officials since 2007 (the cities are even linked by direct flights), and ! *! ! Will Clem, ‘Hangzhou learns tough lesson in market realities after chasing Dubai “miracle”’, South China Morning Post, 19 December 2009, A5. 3. I discuss the Hong Kong Cultural Centre and the extension to the Convention and Exhibition Centre in David Clarke, Hong Kong Art, Chapter 4, which also treats many other aspects of Hong Kong art and visual culture in the late colonial and early postcolonial period. Hong Kong architecture and urban planning since 1997 is further discussed in David Clarke, ‘Contested Sites: Hong Kong’s Built Environment in the Post-Colonial Era’, Postcolonial Studies 10, no. 4 (December 2007): 357–77, and I deal with issues of Hong Kong cultural identity during the same period in David Clarke, Hong Kong x 24 x 365: A Year in the Life of a City (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2007). 4. The cultural linking between Hong Kong and Shanghai I am discussing here also has a pre-history. Leo Oufan Lee, in City between Worlds: My Hong Kong (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 277, points out that the short stories of Eileen Chang (Zhang Ailing) which were often set in Hong Kong and which were published in Shanghai popular magazines in the early 1940s helped establish awareness of Hong Kong in Shanghai and elsewhere in China. 5. As the then Chief Secretary for Administration Anson Chan put it in an 11 June 1998 speech (‘Hong Kong: Riding out the Asian Storm’) at the Asia Society Washington Center annual dinner, ‘the real transition is about identity and not sovereignty... Late on the evening of June 30, 1997, between the lowering of one flag and the raising of another — in that instant when Hong Kong seemed truly without identity ! * is the challenge Hong Kong faces today.’ (Government Information Centre website — former website of the Hong Kong SAR government, accessed 10 December 2010, http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/199806/12/0612097.htm). 6. On the visit of Donald Tsang (then financial secretary) to Las Vegas, see Greg Torode, ‘Into the den of decadence’, South China Morning Post, 25 September 1999, Review p. 1. Notes to pp. 189–199 249 7. Foster’s canopy design had been the winner of an architectural competition for the West Kowloon Cultural District site which took place prior to serious, detailed consideration (even within the Hong Kong government itself, it seems) of what would actually be happening on the site. Public opposition to the notion of private sector control over such a major cultural site (in particular to the proposed idea ! development the three short-listed bidders proposed in their plans) eventually led the Hong Kong government to abandon in 2006 the process of bidding between property developer-led consortiums it had initiated in 2003. When the project was revived in a new form, the idea of using Foster’s canopy (which had never...