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Walled City's colourful, lawless history Thursday, 19 July, 2012, 5:29am Prudence Lui

East Kowloon's coastline was once a series of salt pans, with the earliest of them dating back to the Sung dynasty between 960-1279. It was a lucrative monopoly of the Imperial government, with salt being produced from the bays between Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon City, and To Kwa Wan and Tseung Kwan O. Kowloon City's rich historical background is largely linked to its strategic military and political value. The Qing government (1644-1912) built a small fort at the head of the beach (centre of Kowloon Bay) in 1810, reinstating the importance of the area to China's maritime defence.

The fort's purpose was to defend Lei Yue Mun, Kowloon Bay, Hung Hom and Tsim Sha Tsui against pirates or foreign invaders.

Of even more importance to local defences was the walled garrison city, later known as Kowloon Walled City.

The British had already occupied Hong Kong Island in 1841 and, in response, the Qing authorities built this imposing garrison city, protected by massive stone walls. It was designed to serve as a military nerve centre and headquarters for Imperial officials in what had become a very sensitive area. The Kowloon Walled City's design followed traditional architectural lines of fortresses.

Dotted along the walls that enclosed the area were six watchtowers and four gates, which were closed and guarded each night. The enclosed area measured about 6.5 acres.

The interior was dominated by the Yamen - offices of the Commodore of the Dapeng Brigade, and the Kowloon Assistant Military Inspectorate. Nearby were more than 10 military buildings, including soldiers' quarters, gunpowder and weapons stores.

The defences included canons set in battlements along the wall - two of which were subsequently unearthed and are now on display at the site today.

Around the military establishment, civilian dwellings sprang up, as increasing numbers of people sought safety in the Walled City. Vegetables were planted around the Walled City to provide food for the occupants, along with fish brought by fishermen to the nearby stonework pier that was specially built to receive Mandarins arriving by junk from Guangzhou or nearby ports.

Originally, 150 soldiers were stationed there, but the situation changed as the British continued to nibble away at the Kowloon Peninsula, grabbing more territory. As a result, by 1898/99, more than 500 troops had been squeezed into the Walled City along with a growing number of civilians seeking safety.

Britain had tightened the net on the Walled City by taking possession of the Kowloon Peninsula in 1861, and leasing the New Territories for 99 years starting from 1898.

Whether China retained sovereignty of the Walled City, or the land belonged to Britain, was

a matter of dispute for many decades. However, the mainland clung to its toehold of Hong Kong for as long as possible.

This sowed the seeds of the enclave's deterioration, becoming a festering crime-ridden slum, especially after the Japanese occupation of 1941-45.

During the occupation, the old wall was torn down and used to fill an inlet near what was then the Kai Tak airfield.

Later, when Kai Tak Airport was being built, much of the large hillside overlooking the Walled City was flattened to extend the runway into the harbour. Little remained of the original city except the foundations - two carved granite plaques from the original south gate - a flagstone path next to a drainage ditch running along the foot of the inner wall, old canons, stone lintels and column bases.

Years later, and particularly as refugees flooded through Hong Kong's borders following the Communist victory in 1949, thousands of homeless people jammed into the Walled City again with the aim of seeking refuge.

With neither the Chinese nor British authorities in control, conditions in the Walled City turned for the worse. Opportunists grabbed control of vacant sites and sold them to unscrupulous developers, who threw up residential buildings as high as six storeys - but without any foundations, lifts or other facilities besides stairways and electricity. The Walled City degenerated into a maze of dank and dirty alleyways. The ground-floor premises became notorious nests of drug dens, criminal hideouts, vice dens and a haven for cheap, unlicensed dentists.

It continued to exist until the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984 when the issue was finally resolved. In 1987, the Hong Kong government announced that it would tear down Kowloon Walled City and build the Kowloon Walled City Park. Construction of the park was completed in 1995.

Living in the City of Darkness It's 20 years since demolition of Kowloon Walled City began, but former residents hold fond memories of the overcrowded slum they called home John Carney

PUBLISHED : Saturday, 16 March, 2013, 12:00am

It was called a lawless twilight zone by some and the world's most overcrowded squat by others. But to many, the Kowloon Walled City was simply home.

This month marks 20 years since work started to wipe away one of the most striking features of the Hong Kong landscape for good.

A 2.7-hectare enclave of opium parlours, whorehouses and gambling dens run by triads, it was a place where police, health inspectors and even tax collectors feared to tread.

Pictures: What was it really like living in Kowloon Walled City?

In Cantonese, it was known as the City of Darkness.

But though it may have been a fetid slum, crawling with rats and dripping with sewage, it was stoutly defended to the last by those who lived there, as well as an unlikely ensemble of Chinese shopkeepers, faith healers and self-taught dentists.

It was once thought to be the most densely populated place on earth, with 35,000 people crammed into a few tiny apartment blocks and more than 300 interconnected high-rise buildings, all constructed without contributions from a single architect.

But in March 1993, the last batch of residents finally accepted the government's rehousing terms and compensation terms.

It brought down the final curtain on a bizarre chapter of Hong Kong's colonial past.

Ask former residents what they miss most about the Walled City and most say the friendship.

In the 1960s, the Heung family of six moved from a rooftop hut in Hung Hom to the Walled City.

At first they lived in a 70 sq ft room in a two-storey house near Tung Tau Chuen Road, which they shared with seven other families.

Several years later they moved to a two-bedroom flat on the fourth floor of a high-rise on Tai Cheng Street.

"Life was poor, but we were very happy," said Heung Yin-king, the eldest daughter.

"We had the best times in the first house, even though the rooms were so tiny there wasn't space for a dinner table.

"We ate from a board laid over the knitting machine and sat on the bed. Everyone got along, and it was great to have so many kids to play with.

"The second house was all right but had no taps, so as the eldest daughter I had the responsibility of hauling buckets of water from the public taps up four floors to the flat every day. That's why I'm so short!"

The history of the Kowloon Walled City dates from the Sung Dynasty of 960-1297, when it began as a small fort to house the imperial soldiers who controlled the salt trade.

In the second half of the 19th century, the Chinese were facing invasion by the British, who held Hong Kong Island. So they expanded it into a proper garrison town containing soldiers, officials and their families.

In 1898, it became the only part of Hong Kong that China was unwilling to cede to Britain under the 99-year lease of Kowloon and the New Territories.

The British agreed that China could keep the Walled City until the colonial administration for the area was established.

But China never dropped its claim of jurisdiction and the sovereignty fight remained unresolved. The result was that it became a lawless enclave and a hotbed of criminal activity.

In December 1899, after several unsuccessful attempts to clear the city, the British announced their jurisdiction was to be extended to include it and the Chinese officials left.

The city became isolated. While parts were leased to church-run, charitable institutions, much was left to fall into disrepair. By 1940 only the Lung Chun School, its gateway and one private home remained.

When the Japanese invaded in the second world war, they demolished the oldest standing part of the Walled City - its wall, used in work on Kai Tak airport.

But the destruction didn't prevent Chinese refugees flocking to the site after the war.

Rents were low, and there were no concerns about taxes, visas or licences. By 1947 there were 2,000 squatter camps on the site. Permanent buildings followed, and by 1971, 10,000 people occupied 2,185 dwellings.

By the late 1980s, it was home to 35,000 people. The government tried to clear the city several times, but on each occasion the residents threatened to create a diplomatic incident.

Their attitude - handy when it came to keeping the noses of the authorities out of their business - was that the city was part of China and would never belong to Hong Kong. And to avoid damaging Sino-British relations, the government adopted a largely hands-off policy towards it.

The city again became a hotbed of criminal activity. Opium dens, heroin stands, brothels and dog restaurants all multiplied in the '50s and '60s, with police usually turning a blind eye.

There were three reasons for that - the police were politically hamstrung, some were bribed and it was too dangerous.

Real power lay with the triads. But the position changed in the '70s, when a wave of anticorruption campaigns removed most criminal elements in the authorities. No longer protected, the triads became weaker.

The height of the Walled City rose with the rest of Hong Kong. In the 1950s, housing usually consisted of wooden and stone low-rises. In the '60s, concrete buildings of four or five storeys appeared. And in the '70s, many were replaced by blocks of 10 storeys or more.

The site became chaotically cramped, with buildings so close to each other that in some it was impossible to open a window.

Low rents also meant many small factories, with toys, plastic goods and food among the biggest products. The factories may have brought their owners decent incomes, but they also brought more rubbish, fire hazards and pollution to the city.

Limited interference by the authorities also meant limited welfare. Apart from basic municipal services such as rubbish collection, residents had to rely on each other to maintain living conditions. That bred a close-knit community of people willing to support each other.

The Walled City's fate was finally decided in January 1987, when the government announced plans to demolish it.

After an arduous eviction process, demolition began in March 1993 and was completed in April 1994. Kowloon Walled City Park opened on the site in December 1995.

But some artefacts from the Walled City, including its Yamen building, remain. This was built in the early 1800s and served as a military headquarters.

Remnants of its South Gate have also been preserved.

But while it has been demolished, memories of the Walled City - and its spirit - still live on in the hearts of many Hongkongers.

It could be argued that today we have lost some of the sense of community and social solidarity that could once be seen there.

Growing up, Albert Ng Kam-po and his friends would go to the roof and fly kites that could almost scrape the bellies of airliners as they descended to Kai Tak Airport across the street.

"We didn't know it was so dangerous," says Ng, 45, a pastor at the English-speaking Island Evangelical Community Church in Quarry Bay.

"We'd just play ping-pong in the hallway. The 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. It was a happy time."

Ida Shum a 62-year-old former resident now living in Hung Hom, agreed that the some of the worst and poorest people in Hong Kong lived there.

She said it was a haven for triad groups such as the 14K and Sun Yee On, who jealously controlled their territory.

But she also said there was much more to the Walled City than that.

She remembered how when it was raining, the street was nearly always flooded.

Water would rise to people's knees with trash floating around, but the residents just walked through it in their bare feet.

No problem, no matter how difficult, could be overcome.

Shum described how her neighbour always helped her take care of her children and they cooked for each other.

This allowed her to focus on her work and earn money to feed her family.

"We all had very good relationships in very bad conditions.

"Even now, many people stay in touch with each other even though some old friends are overseas," Shum said.

"People who lived there were always loyal to each other. In the Walled City, the sunshine always followed the rain."

Kowloon City: from 'den of evil' to lush gardens For those who grew up in the Kowloon area, drugs and crime were part of daily life, as were joy and a resilient community pride Wednesday, 10 July, 2013, 10:17am Jennifer Cheng and Jing Guo

Growing up in the Kowloon Walled City, Albert Ng Kam-po and his friends would go to the roof and fly kites that could almost scrape the bellies of airliners as they descended to Kai Tak airport across the street.

"We didn't know it was so dangerous," says Ng, 45, a pastor at the English-speaking Island Evangelical Community Church in Quarry Bay. Nor were they aware of the perils of living inside the walled city even though as a teenager, Ng was accustomed to seeing drug abusers and their discarded syringes, hordes of rats scuttling in the alleys and human excrement flowing in open drains.

When the lawless enclave was demolished in 1994, it was replaced with a Qing dynastystyle park that serves as a popular backdrop for taking wedding photos and filming costume dramas.

Today, Kowloon City is a bustling neighbourhood famous for its authentic Thai restaurants thanks to a burgeoning Thai community that began to take root when the old Kai Tak airport was still in operation. Many of these migrants have picked up Cantonese quickly because of the similar tones in their native tongue.

Sae-lee Suraj, 58, runs Pee Long Thai Traditional Food in Kowloon City and has lived in Hong Kong since 1991.

"We used to have a lot of flight attendants visit our restaurant. Or there would be crowds of people who dined here after sending their loved ones off at the airport. But it was very quiet for a couple of years when the airport moved away [in 1998]."

Suraj says Kowloon City is reviving, with Kai Tak as one of the stops along the Sha Tin to Central MTR rail link, which is expected to be completed in 2018.

Looking at the idyllic pavilions and lush floral greenery today, it is hard to imagine the walled city as 2.63 hectares of tightly packed dilapidated buildings without water supply or garbage-collection service and with minimal police patrol - a place 40,000 people called home.

It was also a location strategically picked by imperial Chinese officials as early as the 15th century. The Yamen - a Qing dynasty (1644-1911) military building - stands as the only remaining building from the walled city. At different times, it served as a home for the elderly, a school and an almshouse. Now, the space is being used for an exhibition about its own history.

The walled city fell through a constitutional loophole in 1899 and was governed by neither the British, Chinese or Hong Kong authorities, allowing the enclave to fester into a hotbed of vice with rampant drug use, prostitution and gambling activities.

While the physical city no longer exists, memory of the place lives on. Yip Tak-wai, 57 is the director of the Kowloon Walled City Kai Fong Welfare Continued Promotion Association, which operates a centre in Wong Tai Sin, where many former residents have moved. The association played a key role in ensuring the residents received fair compensation for their demolished homes.

Today, it still gathers the former residents a few times a year for reunions. It also offers fine arts classes for people in the neighbourhood.

Yip grew up in Kowloon City living in a cramped room which housed six people. He bought a 400 sq ft flat inside the walled city in 1976 for HK$30,000, which was only half the price for a same-sized flat outside.

A misconception is that the walled city was home of the poorest. "[But] when they were tearing down the buildings, they found that a lot of the homes were quite nicely furnished," says Yip, who was then an accountant working in Central.

As for crime, Yip says that the triads and drug abusers did not bother locals and kept their business on the fringes of the city. People made a living inside the walled city, at factories producing clothes, plastic flowers and snacks that would be sold outside the enclave.

"You know the fishballs that Kowloon City is famous for?" Yip says. "They would be made in the walled city and sold outside."

Foreigners were sometimes more drawn to the image of the nefarious side of the city.

Shintaro Nakamura, a Japanese photographer, took a series of pictures right before the walled city was demolished.

In one of the photo captions, he described the city as a "den of evil" in Japanese and depicted it as a frightening place to visit.

But not for Ng. "We would just play ping pong in the hallway," he says. "The kids would go onto the roofs and leap from building to building, or we would drag discarded mattresses to the roof and jump on them. It was a happy time."