Gweilo, Memories of a Hong Kong Childhood Extract Kowloon Walled City was not and never had been a city. It covered not much more than 25,000 square yards and, although it had been surrounded by a crenellated wall, the defences had been demolished by British prisoners-of-war under Japanese command and used as hardcore for an airport runway extension. It had originally been established in the 18th century as a far-flung outpost of the Chinese empire. After the British gained control of Hong Kong and, later, Kowloon at the end of the Opium and Arrow wars in the early 1840s, the Chinese imperial government insisted on maintaining a local presence so the British turned a blind eye towards Kowloon Walled City. When the New Territories were ceded to the British, Kowloon Walled City became, in effect, cut off and ruled and possessed by neither - or both - countries. Few Hong Kong policemen patrolled it and no government official collected taxes. The power supply was illegally tapped from the main grid and the water supply from the mains. Kowloon Walled City was in effect a minute city state all on its own, arguably the smallest ever to have existed. It was to Hong Kong what the Casbah was to Algiers, with one exception: it was more or less closed to outsiders. Trippers avoided it. It was said that any European who entered it was never seen again unless floating out of it down the nullah [gulley] that served as a sewer. When we arrived in our new home in Boundary Street my mother took me aside. "Martin," she started, signifying her seriousness, "I know you like to roam and explore, and round here that's all right. But," she continued, unfolding a map of Kowloon, "you do not go even near here." She pointed to the map. Kowloon Walled City was left as a blank uneven-sided square. To utter such a dictum to a street-wise eight-year-old was tantamount to buying him an entrance ticket. The following afternoon, homework hurriedly completed, I glanced at the map and headed east down Boundary Street. In 10 minutes, I was on the outskirts of Kowloon Walled City. Nothing indicated to me why this place should be forbidden. Several six-storey buildings were being erected, with several already occupied or nearing completion; and a lot of shanties and older two-storey buildings were leaning precariously. It looked like a squatter area but with permanent structures in the middle in ill repair. A hutong [lane] lay before me, winding into the buildings and shacks. There being, I reasoned, no way my mother was ever going to find out, I set off down the alleyway, easing my way past a man pushing a bicycle, the pannier laden with cardboard boxes. He paid me not the slightest attention.
Through the open doors I spied scenes of industrial domesticity. To one side would be a kang or metal-framed bed, piled with neatly folded bedding; to the other several people seated at a table sewing, assembling torches, placing coloured pencils in boxes or painting lacquer boxes. Behind other doors were businesses, pure and simple. In one a baker was placing trays of buns in a wood-fired oven; in another, two men were making noodles, swinging sheets of thin dough in the air around a wooden rolling-pin, the interior of their shack ghost-white under a layer of flour dust. Wherever I went, the air was redolent with the smells of wood smoke, joss-sticks, boiling rice and human excrement. Arriving at one of the older stone buildings, I was about to peer in through an open door when a Chinese man rushed out and slammed it shut. Stripped to the waist, he bore a coloured tattoo of a dragon on his back. He glowered at me. "W'at you wan'?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, fighting to stop myself sounding guilty, although of what I did not know. Then, hoping it might soften him a bit, I added, "Ngo giu jo Mah Tin." I held my hand out. "Nei giu mut ye meng?" He was taken aback by my introducing myself - especially in Cantonese - and it was at least 30 seconds before he took my hand and firmly shook it. During that time, he eyed me up and down, much as a butcher might a bull being led to slaughter. "Mah Tin," he said at last. "Ngo giu jo Ho. Why you come?" "Just looking," I answered, shrugging and adding in pidgin English, "Come look-see." "You no look-see," he answered sternly. "No good look-see for gweilo [foreign devil] boy." I smiled, nodded my understanding, said, "Choi kin," (goodbye) and turned to go. "You look-see," he declared, changing his mind. He opened the door, indicating I follow him. What until now had seemed a harmless saunter through just another warren of passageways immediately took on a sinister aspect. No-one knew I was here. What, I considered, if this old stone building with its substantial door was the headquarters of the evil Fu Manchu? I had recently read Sax Rohmer. If I stepped over the high lintel, I could vanish. For ever. On the other hand, not to accept Ho's invitation would result in a massive loss of face. And so, I followed him into the building. The entire ground floor consisted of one vast room, heavy beams holding up the ceiling and second floor. It was furnished with upright rosewood chairs, the wood even darker with age, low tables and several ornately framed mirrors. Halfway down the room stood a wooden screen, the top half pierced by intricate fretwork, the rest a painting depicting sheer-sided hills and lakes. To the rear was a staircase beneath which a door opened and an old hunched
woman entered, walking with the aid of a stick. She took one look at me and grinned toothlessly, hobbled to my side and, stroked my hair. This put me at ease. First, Fu Manchu was hardly likely to employ crones and second, my golden hair was a passport to my security. No-one would risk harming such a harbinger of good fortune. "You come." Ho beckoned me up the stairs. I followed him into a room, along three sides of which were placed wooden kangs. Upon one lay a supine man asleep upon a woven bamboo mat, his head on a hard Chinese headrest, his legs drawn up, his hands twitching like a dog's paws in a dream of chasing rabbits. "Nga pin," Ho announced and beckoned me further towards the fourth wall, the whole length of which was shuttered. I refrained from asking him what nga pin was for fear of seeming ignorant. He unlatched one of the shutters and we stepped out on to the balcony, which sloped forwards towards a crumbling balustrade. From here, I was afforded a panoramic view of the walled city. The shacks were so tightly packed, it was impossible to see where the hutongs ran between them. Yet the real surprise was the few larger buildings tucked between them. One stood in a wide rectangular courtyard with a number of outbuildings close by; from another rose a faint cloud of bluish smoke which meant it had to be a temple. In the distance was Kowloon Bay, a cargo ship riding at a quarantine buoy. Over to my left was the bulk of Fei Ngo Shan, the most easterly of the Kowloon hills, the slopes sharp and clear in the late sun. Ho took me back inside. We passed the sleeping man, who was beginning to wake, and descended the stairs which creaked loudly. Once outside, Ho bade me farewell and went back into the house, closing the door. I set off along the way I had come, considering to myself that I had taken a terrible risk. Reaching the edge of the squatter shacks, and stepping out on to a road with traffic going by, I resolved not to be so foolhardy again. Yet I knew I had to return to investigate the temple and the building in the courtyard. When I returned to our flat, I went into the kitchen where our cook Wong was preparing supper and asked him what nga pin meant. He stopped stirring a pan for a moment, looked quizzically at me and replied, "Opium." �This is an edited extract from Gweilo, Memories of a Hong Kong Childhood by Martin Booth, published by Doubleday