Kowloon Walled City

I first learned about the Kowloon Walled City from a book I read in the early 90s, The Triads: The Chinese Criminal Fraternity by one Martin Booth. In it, Booth wrote of a Walled City in Kowloon approximately the size of an average city block, about a quarter of a square kilometer, which "over the years...has grown into an almost solid mass of buildings. The buildings are twelve storeys high but there is virtually no space between them. What space there is can only be inches wide and is certain to be filled with garbage up to a height of thirty feet from ground level. New storeys balance precariously on old; sanitation is non-existent. Water and electricity are tapped illegally from the mains. There is no lighting in the narrow fetid alleys, which remain pitch dark even at noon."
I was immediately fascinated. Even at that time I had come to think of Hong Kong as a territory far more advanced and prosperous than the Philippines, the country where I grew up and still reside to this day. Thus, I found the idea that such a place could exist there unfathomable. But before its demolition sometime in 1994, it really did:

NOTE: All the photos of the actual Kowloon Walled City found in this post are from the work of Ian Lambot, who together with Greg Girard published a collection of photographs about life in the Kowloon Walled City in a book entitled City of Darkness: Life in Kowloon Walled City.

As I tried to learn more about the place from various sources, what I found even more tantalizing were the claims that supposedly, even the police were afraid of venturing inside. As Booth put it: "within the Walled City the Hong Kong Police have been virtually powerless and the city has developed into one of the most notorious criminal ghettos in the world..." The Kowloon Walled City, while it existed, was understood to be the birth place of many Triad factions and was widely assumed to be the epicenter of the Hong Kong drug trade, first opium, then heroin. Indeed, I found quite a few references to the Walled City in the Hong Kong gangster movies I love so much. Most recent was the 2017 Donnie Yen film Chasing the Dragon, which portrayed the life and times of Ng Sik-Ho aka "Limpy Ho" and his start in the Kowloon Walled City. The film also focused on Ho's symbiotic relationship with legendary (albeit in a somewhat corrupt sort of way) Hong Kong Police Inspector Lee Rock, although that is an entirely different, if equally interesting facet of Hong Kong society.

Back to the Kowloon Walled City, so apparently, when China ceded the lands which later collectively became known as Hong Kong, to the British in the 18th century, they retained sovereignty over a walled Fort, perhaps to symbolize a nerve center by which to emphasize that the surrounding territory was still Chinese and only ceded to the British. This Fort later came to be known as the Kowloon Walled City. As the years passed and Hong Kong evolved, this walled area technically remained beyond administrative control of the British. Why was this never resolved even as it became somewhat unwieldy and awkward? Well, my personal interpretation is that Beijing liked the idea of retaining sovereignty over a piece of Hong Kong - as this does have its benefits in the same way as say, an embassy might - but had no practical way by which to administer/govern it. The result was an area that was in administrative purgatory - neither here nor there, just out of reach of any meaningful governance. Needless to say, such a place served as a haven for those who desired or wanted to have no governance - including marginalized elements of the population (i.e. those whose immigration status were unclear) or those whose criminal proclivities pushed them towards a preference for stateless domiciles. And as more and more people streamed into this finite piece of land, the result was, well, a sort of madness:

For decades it stood there, what I think of now as a "reverse-oasis", a fountain of squalor in the midst of a desert of prosperity.

As one learns more and more about it though, one also comes to realize that like many unique and iconic places, a convenient mythos has come to envelope it which paints a somewhat inaccurate and exaggerated picture of what life there was like.

Certainly, it was a ghetto. And like many ghettos, real power was held not by nominal authorities but by some force which actually resides there. In this case, yes, it likely was organized crime. But it is not entirely correct that it was beyond the reach of Hong Kong police. The city was regularly patrolled, although I imagine authority had to be shared with the real powers that be within the city in a certain quid-pro-quo arrangement. Still, the area was not entirely lawless.

Again, like many ghettos, the vast majority of residents were not criminals but productive if marginalized members of society. Lots of manufacturing activity went on within the city, which added to the garbage and refuse; but as a whole, the city produced things and contributed to the economy. In fact, if you were a regular visitor to Hong Kong in the 70s and 80s, I would dare surmise that you've probably consumed something - whether it be roasted meats or dim sum - that was produced in the Kowloon Walled City. In short, like many havens of illegal immigrants the place was a source of cheap labor. Regular Hong Kong residents were known to venture into the city to get dental services, and I think this fact says quite a lot about the city's inhabitants. Majority were decent, hardworking folk, many educated and highly skilled; although for one reason or another almost all of them were marginalized and not full assimilated into Hong Kong society.

Last week on a visit to Hong Kong I decided to scratch a minor item off my bucket list and ventured out to the area. On the site now stand two parks - a larger city park, and a smaller memorial park of sorts. I had wanted to take a picture of myself standing by the South Gate but entered the park through the North Gate since the MTR station was north of the site. The walk from North Gate to South Gate took less than five minutes, so that should tell you something about the size of the site. "One city block" is a great way to describe the site, and it is truly astounding how at one time, the city was home to more than 30,000 warm bodies.

I remember just enough of my high school Chinese to recognize the two characters to be "South" and "Gate"

What self-respecting fort wouldn't have a canon, eh?

The "remains" of two signs, the smaller says "South Gate" while the larger says "Kowloon Walled City". Not entirely sure I believe that these signs are as old as they are supposed to be, but I guess that's not really important.

A stone sculpture of the city, the way she was before she was demolished.

To be totally candid the memorial fell quite short of what I had hoped it would be. I had hoped it would provide more of a sense of what the city was like and what daily life there was like. It is impossible to fully understand the story behind the Kowloon Walled City without necessarily learning more about the history of China and its tumultuous tides, so I personally believe that the Kowloon Walled City has such great potential as an impetus for learning, but I feel the memorial failed to encourage such learning. It is often the darkest chapters and saddest footnotes of history that provide the most important lessons regarding human existence. The Kowloon Walled City was one example of how political developments far beyond the decisions of ordinary citizens change the trajectory of their lives permanently; and although the park as it stands today is a testament to human resilience and hope, I do wish it captures more of the contrast - for it is that contrast between despair and renewal that provides hope to the human spirit.