While we were in Kowloon, we visited the remains of the peculiar Kowloon Walled City. The city has been an inspiration for a lot of post-apocalyptic, anarchistic and cyber-punk books, movies and games. Ludlum's book The Bourne Supremacy, the movie Batman Begins and the game Call of Duty: Black Ops to name a few. As this tiny city had such a unique history, I wanted to share this with you.
Kowloon Walled City
The Hong Kong region exists of a peninsula called Kowloon and the island Hong Kong itself. Northeast of Kowloon, there has been since the 17th century a Chinese military outpost to keep an eye on the Hong Kong region. When the British colonised Hong Kong in 1841, the outpost was still held and a great defensive wall was built around it. When half a century later China handed over even more parts of the Hong Kong region, they kept the Walled City. Britain suspected that the Walled City would resist the new arrangements and decided to attack the Walled City, but by then all troops had left and only 150 residents were still there. After that, the British did little with the city except as a tourist attraction for other colonials.
This is where it gets interesting. China stopped caring about it, probably because it was surrounded by British territory, and the British didn't actually own it, so no-one felt responsible for it. As such, Kowloon Walled City apparently became somewhat of an anarchistic place. From the 50s to the 70s, triads took over power and it became a hub of illegal activities like gambling, drugs, prostitution, unlicensed dentistry, faith healing and dog restaurants.
When in 1945 the communist party took over in China, a lot of people fled from China to Hong Kong, but due to poverty or not being able to immigrate legally in Hong Kong, some ended up in Kowloon Walled City. At it's peak during the 80s, the "city" of 2.7 hectares contained around 500 buildings with about 33,000 to 40,000 people living there and was thought to be the most densely populated place on earth. Not only was it densely packed because they were limited by the border of the city, but they also weren't allowed to have buildings of more than 14 floors: Hong Kong's airport was close nearby and planes coming in from the east had to fly over Kowloon Walled City to be able to land there.
This overpopulation in a limited space, with no government to control it, led to a very densely built city, with alleyways of only 1 to 2 m wide, poor lighting and drainage. An informal network of staircases and passageways also formed on upper levels, which was so extensive that one could travel north to south through the entire city without ever touching solid ground. Because apartments were so small — a typical unit was 23 m² — space was maximised with wider upper floors, caged balconies, and rooftop additions. Roofs in the city were full of television antennae, clothes lines, water tanks, and rubbish, and could be crossed using a series of ladders. This overall density and poor lighting led the city to be called the City of Darkness.
Here, prostitutes installed themselves on one side of the street, while a priest preached and handed out powdered milk to the poor on the other; social workers gave guidance, while drug addicts squatted under the stairs getting high; what were children's games centres by day became strip show venues by night. It was a very complex place, difficult to generalise about, a place that seemed frightening but where most people continued to lead normal lives.
A place just like the rest of Hong Kong.
— Leung Ping-kwan, City of Darkness
Regardless of these miserable and anarchistic circumstances, the people who lived there seem to have fond memories of it. They remember it as being a tightly knit community who seems to live and work well together. Within families, wives often did housekeeping, while grandmothers cared for their grandchildren and other children from surrounding households. Kids would go up onto the roofs and leap from building to building, or we would drag discarded mattresses to the roof and jump on them. Many seem to recall it as a happy time. Even now, many people stay in touch with each other even though some old friends are overseas.
In 1984, when the British decided to give Hong Kong back to China, they agreed to tear down Kowloon Walled City and turn it into a park. About 33,000 people lived there but eventually, after an arduous rehousing and some forced eviction, the park came to be six years later.
Chungking Mansions, Kowloon
We obviously can't really imagine how live would have been back then in Kowloon Walled City, but during our stay in Kowloon, I must admit I felt like it did give me some idea. Especially for us, who just came from Bruges and Ghent with a population density of resp. 850/km² and 1,600/km² to Kowloon with a population density of 43,000/km², it felt a bit cramped. The dark, long, small shafts with nothing but air conditioning, reminded me of the above pictures too.
