# Kowloon Walled City



## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

Funny, I was just searching for pics of KWC recently  It's because I just saw the really greatly filmed Pang Borthers movie Re-cycle and the first part of the protagonist's journey through the astral world was obviously based on KWC.

















Check this: http://www.twenty4.co.uk/on-line/issue001/project02/KWC/

It was the densest populated spot on earth!


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

I have never saw this movie but would like to check it out. But Bloodsport, starring Jean Claude Van Damme introduced KWC to the international audience.

Chungking Mansions still exist but it's not as mysterious or controversial as KWC. Especially on border issue since Chungking was part of HK. KWC on the other hand was considered *not* part of HK during the British rule and was part of China.


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## OtAkAw (Aug 5, 2004)

The ultimate dystopia. Alot of dystopian anime series that I've watched have locations that bear resemblance to the KWC. Like Ghost in the Shell, Texhnolyze and others. Looks so creepy and yet very interesting!


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## tigerboy (Jun 7, 2006)

Simple matters like defecating copulating etc must have been overheard by scores if not hundreds.

Dystopic is the word another has used and it is spot on. Had the place not existed then it could only exist in imagination


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

I alsways thought it bears a kind of a recemblance to Rocinha


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## hossoso (Oct 9, 2005)

Kuesel said:


> I alsways thought it bears a kind of a recemblance to Rocinha



Not to divert attention away from KWC, but I would love to know more about these pictures. Is there an existing thread on Rocinha? If not, do you know enough about/have enough pictures to create one someday? That favela looks like an avalanche of urbanity, a different approach than KWC but in the same spirit.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

Kuesel said:


> I alsways thought it bears a kind of a recemblance to Rocinha


I think I mentioned that on another KWC thread. Anyway, there are some resemblance except this one is sloped while the KWC are a group of multiple storie buildings. 

The only difference is, despite of the drug and illegal immigrant problem in KWC, the crime rate before demolition was very low!


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

There is one other - main - difference: KWC started as a normal commieblock neighbourhood and was growing denser on the inside by "internal" squattering. Favelas are primary squattered areas, means an illegal sprawling urbanisation. 

But from the looks it's somehow similar. About the crime rate I am not that sure. The faveleiros live "relatively" save under the protection of the local drug mafia. The situation gets problematic in gang wars over the controls of the bocas or stray bullets when the military or stately police wants again to demonstrate their presence and attacks the neighbourhood gangs from time to time. 

But in north Rio there is a very bad development going on where a probably government supported new gang takes over the favelas of infamous Comando Vermelho. The population is welcoming them and hopes that the situation will get better - but I doubt that they have only noble objectives and I would prophecize that in a few years - or even months the situation will be the same again - just under a different regime


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

Kuesel said:


> There is one other - main - difference: KWC started as a normal commieblock neighbourhood and was growing denser on the inside by "internal" squattering. Favelas are primary squattered areas, means an illegal sprawling urbanisation.
> 
> But from the looks it's somehow similar. About the crime rate I am not that sure. The faveleiros live "relatively" save under the protection of the local drug mafia. The situation gets problematic in gang wars over the controls of the bocas or stray bullets when the military or stately police wants again to demonstrate their presence and attacks the neighbourhood gangs from time to time.
> 
> But in north Rio there is a very bad development going on where a probably government supported new gang takes over the favelas of infamous Comando Vermelho. The population is welcoming them and hopes that the situation will get better - but I doubt that they have only noble objectives and I would prophecize that in a few years - or even months the situation will be the same again - just under a different regime


Gang activity was also common in the KWC especially with the triads. And the triads had their own turfs it's where they do their drug dealing especially with opium and heroin


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

WANCH said:


> Chungking Mansions still exist but it's not as mysterious or controversial as KWC. Especially on border issue since Chungking was part of HK. KWC on the other hand was considered *not* part of HK during the British rule and was part of China.


The Walled City *was* part of the British colony. It started off as a Chinese imperial fortification, but over time evolved into a slum. When the treaties came into effect, the area was not exempt from the colonial boundary. Whether the British wanted to exert their power was a whole different matter.

No, there was not a Chinese enclave in the British colony of Hong Kong.


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

Another similarity


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

^ That's in Yemen or somewhere in the Middle East?


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

hkskyline said:


> ^ That's in Yemen or somewhere in the Middle East?


Yup it's in Yemen. The city is called Shibam 

Anyway, the KWC is with British jurisdiction but alot of it's residents claim that the area is not part of Great Britain. Some of those arrested inside said that the police didn't have the right to make arrests since they were in Chinese soil.


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

WANCH said:


> Anyway, the KWC is with British jurisdiction but alot of it's residents claim that the area is not part of Great Britain. Some of those arrested inside said that the police didn't have the right to make arrests since they were in Chinese soil.


It is still British soil regardless of what the people in there thought. Whether the police would venture in to make a mass crime sweep was a whole different issue though. Perhaps that was a reason why this area deteriorated to what it was.


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## hossoso (Oct 9, 2005)

WANCH said:


> Yup it's in Yemen. The city is called Shibam
> 
> Anyway, the KWC is with British jurisdiction but alot of it's residents claim that the area is not part of Great Britain. Some of those arrested inside said that the police didn't have the right to make arrests since they were in Chinese soil.


I believe that this was the conclusion drawn by an academic study group from a university in Japan as well, a study that was conducted in the two years before the structure was razed. Despite any sort of official designation, the area was regarded by all parties as a no-mans-land.


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## EricIsHim (Jun 16, 2003)

According to the National Geographic Hong Kong Guide Book and some other materials I have read, KWC was a Qing governed city inside the British colony even after the Convention of Peking ceded Kowloon Penninsula to the Brit. It was an agreement between the two governments to keep KWC as an enclave. There was a reason, but I just couldn't remember which book I read talked about it. I shall find that page.

Anyways, KWC was an enclave until 1899, a year after the Chinese leased the New Territories to the British and the British decided to make KWC as part of the colony without the approval from Qing. Actually, the Qing government cared nothing above KWC between during the 39 year-period as an enclave. KWC just ran as itself like a self government caused a lot of problem to the Hong Kong government at that time.

So technically, KWC had never been ceded or leased to the British officially under any treaties or convention since 1860 til 1997. It was "right" that it's an enclave of China. The Chinese just gave up on KWC, "agreed" the British just took over silently and so that KWC won't be a place without jurisdiction in the colony.


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

How can that be? KWC is not considered Kowloon below Boundary Street, so it would've been part of the New Territories lease. Did that agreement specifically exclude KWC? I don't remember seeing that in the text.


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## EricIsHim (Jun 16, 2003)

I was wrong in the last post, too. I thought KWC was in the area ceded to the British in the Convention of Peking like you. But I now realize KWC was not part of the Convention of Peking actually, if you look at the map. KWC was just north of Boundary Street. After I read through my books again, I found that page talked about KWC.

It was the the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory that excluded KWC from the British. KWC was a fort built in 1840s to monitor British activities on Hong Kong Island and later Kowloon Peninsula. The Qing requested to maintain control KWC and had it served like an "embassy" like today when signed the lease agreement in 1898. The idea was, if there was a need to deal with the British government, all Chinese people could go to KWC to ask for help from the Qing government and vice versa.

But in 1899, a year after the British started its governance in the NT, NT residents started riots against the Brit and the British went to KWC asking for help in order to settle the riots in the NT. However, the KWC's Qing officials failed to settle the riots and the British felt that KWC was useless. On Decemeber 27, 1899, the Parliment passed an order to take over KWC from the Chinese with an reason Qing officals in KWC had an intention to overthrow the British government in Hong Kong. On the same day, British marched in KWC and took over by military force. The Qing tried to argue with the British action, but interrupted by different military actions in China in the early 1900s before the fall of Qing in 1911. Since the Republic of China established in 1911, no one has mentioned the incident happened in KWC in 1899 again and KWC became part of the Brit territory unofficially.

So even Hong Kong Island, Kowloon Penninsula and the New Territories were ceded/leased to the British officially in 1898, KWC was an official Qing enclave within the British colony based on the agreement. KWC had never been written to ceded/leased to the British in any of the convention or treaty between the two governments and technically KWC has been a Chinese territory since its establishment.


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## dreadathecontrols (Dec 21, 2004)

EricIsHim said:


> I was wrong in the last post, too. I thought KWC was in the area ceded to the British in the Convention of Peking like you. But I now realize KWC was not part of the Convention of Peking actually, if you look at the map. KWC was just north of Boundary Street. After I read through my books again, I found that page talked about KWC.
> 
> It was the the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory that excluded KWC from the British. KWC was a fort built in 1840s to monitor British activities on Hong Kong Island and later Kowloon Peninsula. The Qing requested to maintain control KWC and had it served like an "embassy" like today when signed the lease agreement in 1898. The idea was, if there was a need to deal with the British government, all Chinese people could go to KWC to ask for help from the Qing government and vice versa.
> 
> ...





EricIsHim said:


> I was wrong in the last post, too. I thought KWC was in the area ceded to the British in the Convention of Peking like you. But I now realize KWC was not part of the Convention of Peking actually, if you look at the map. KWC was just north of Boundary Street. After I read through my books again, I found that page talked about KWC.
> 
> It was the the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory that excluded KWC from the British. KWC was a fort built in 1840s to monitor British activities on Hong Kong Island and later Kowloon Peninsula. The Qing requested to maintain control KWC and had it served like an "embassy" like today when signed the lease agreement in 1898. The idea was, if there was a need to deal with the British government, all Chinese people could go to KWC to ask for help from the Qing government and vice versa.
> 
> ...


yep this is correct.it was part of the agreement that KWC or rather the bit of land that it later occupied stayed under chinese juristiction.Hence why many mainland villians were based there but worked in HK proper
I lived in hk in the 80's & was one of only two ******* that i knew who ever visitedthe area,besides the police,( yeah they did raid when thay had too, but it was very hard to police as it so narrow & word of there arrival always precided them...) oh & there was a kind of white christian mystic who set up a drug rehab place there.
i dont have any pics but the pics above or previously are accurate.From the outside it just looked like any other poor block in kowloon, not so differnt to many in monkok, for example.And nothing like the shanty towns of, say, diamond hill, (much more like the favellas pictured)
which could have been at home in any asian country - exept they all had a/c boxes on the outside.!! 
KWC was a HK only phenomina.
There was obviously no 'wall', not by the 80's anyway & the whole area outside was , yep , dentists.Insisde it was narrow, some lanes only one person wide with alot of narrow stairs going up into more of the same, quite randomly it seemed to me.Although i never went into anyones flats i think they were pretty similar to most small flats though noise was a problem. 
All the plumbing & sewage was ok but like the power was all illegal & thus not up to standard.There was alot of smack about, brothels etc but also normal life.The first two floors were mostly light industrial units.
The comparison with chunking mns is innacurate.Chunking (i was based there for 2 years...)had a bit of a reputation & had a bit of a labywrinthy feel to it, but was basicly just 5 blocks of 10000 people in each block.Not so dissimilar to many HK blocks.It was though, the first block to be built, in 1957.
The walled city though had dripping lanes that had no sky but were outside, the city just grew on top of them.It felt like nothing i had been in till then or since(7 years in asia, from 1983 on) a huge vertical shanty town.Wild.I guess there must have been 100.000 folk in there but not more dense than some of the blocks on monkok where the old folk live which have 10/15 people per room in dorms.I think its 192000 per sq mile there.
havent been in HK for 15 years & will miss 
A) arriving at kai tak
B) not seeing KWC when i do.
which will be in about 4 days...
Irie dread.


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

Chungking is starting to become a lawless chaotic area just as the KWC, although the density and expanse were not as large. There isn't much the police can do, while developers have tried for years to expropriate the land for redevelopment without success. The subdivision style of Chungking is quite similar in concept to the KWC.


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## Pax Sinica (Dec 10, 2005)

Don't forget the Hong Kong people living in cages. Their population density was even worse....


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## dreadathecontrols (Dec 21, 2004)

Beleive me chungking is not in the same league as KWC.
My mates are there regularly, and as you say its kind of similar but not in the same league by 100 miles.Its always been lawless though, which is why we lived there.Was full of smugglers, like us!!
The cages referred to above are the mesh on dorms in the oldies beds.So not cages as such, but mesh to demarcate individuals sleeping/living space , and they can be locked to evade robbery.They're in monkok unless they've been upgraded & stuff.
cant wait to get to HK after so long 
dread


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

Those 'caged' buildings where areas are separated by mesh and nets may still exist somewhere in Sham Shui Po and around that area ... there are a lot of older buildings and they may have withstood the test of time and the pressures of redevelopment.


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## EricIsHim (Jun 16, 2003)

dreadathecontrols said:


> There was obviously no 'wall', not by the 80's anyway


There was a wall around the city back in the old days, just like every embassy has a fence around it nowsaday. The wall was taken down by the Japanese to reclaim Kai Tak Airport for military use during WWII.


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## Monkey (Oct 1, 2002)

Kowloon Walled City was indeed in a legal limbo. It was the site of a Qing fort and technically a tiny island of Chinese jurisdiction even after 1898. However the Chinese authorities never exercised authority there and the British were reluctant to do so as it could provoke a diplomatic incident. The Hong Kong police had no right to go there. It was agreed in the Sino-British negotiations in the 1980s to tear it down and resettle the inhabitants. Wikipedia has the full story here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City

And although the Chungking Mansions are very scruffy I don't think they're in the same league as the Kowloon Walled City. Kowloon Walled City was a slum more comparable with the chawls of Bombay or Calcutta or the Rio favelas (Rocinha etc). However Chungking Mansions has some bright spots. I stayed at the best guesthouse there (Chungking House, Block A, 4F and 5F) just before Christmas. I had an immaculate private en-suite room - surprisingly nice and beautifully clean - and of course the location could hardly be better.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

hkskyline said:


> Those 'caged' buildings where areas are separated by mesh and nets may still exist somewhere in Sham Shui Po and around that area ... there are a lot of older buildings and they may have withstood the test of time and the pressures of redevelopment.


I think the government have got rid of these caged homes or have improved the condition of those who dwelled here.


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

WANCH said:


> I think the government have got rid of these caged homes or have improved the condition of those who dwelled here.


I don't think there is legislation to get rid of these cages. Government public housing won't look like that for sure, hence if there is no law, then the government can't stop landlords from making these divisions.


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