The Story of Kowloon's Walled City

The Beginning

The land in which the Kowloon Walled City used to sit was originally from the very beginning a customs station since the Song dynasty. Things began to drastically change however following the First Opium Wars in which the need to militarily defend Kowloon was a high priority and was subsequently turned into a fort in the late 1800's. In 1898 however, with the lease of Hong Kong's New territories, the fort was engulfed in British occupied space and in 1899, the Chinese officials were ousted from the fort. The British side however could not gain full control over the city and the Chinese side had more important things to worry about than a piece of land that was so far away from the mainland. Thus was how the context of the Kowloon Walled City was estalished. There was neither British nor Chinese rule over the area and the residents prevents any sort of ousting from the British government. This haven of sorts led to the first stage of the development of the city: The Three Vices



The Three Vices(1948-1987)

The vice industries began in the late 1940's and through the 50's and 60's. During this period the triads, 14K and Sun Yee on had taken over the area due its lawlessness. The prohibition of opium smoking and brothels in Hong Kong led to a rush of the prostitution and drug industries into the Walled City where they were beyond the reach of the law. Many other establishments came into being too under the rule of the Triads including dog meat stalls, gambling halls, opium dens and other illegal practices. There was a lot of permeability between the residents inside the Walled City and the neighborhoods of Kowloon. A lot of Walled City residents worked outisde of the city's confines while others worked inside the city.

There were also a lot of legitimate businesses operating inside the city from butchers and bakers to dentists. Many of the reasons a lot of businesses came into the city was due to the low operating costs from low rent, no need for a permit and most of all no inspectors or codes that needed to be closely followed which allowed for the industries to work more freely.

During the late 1960's and 1970's, people began to enter the city in masses post-war and when the surrounding housing prices were on the rise. Everyone was trying to escape the chaos that was happening in mainland China and took refuge in the sole place where they could be left alone.

The increase in population posed a severe water problem as there were only two wells in the city which had to support all its thousands of residents, and on top of that, these wells were under heavy urban pollution. The solution was to have piping that tapped into the main waterline illegally and pipe it along the walls of buildings and the ceilings of alleyways to their respective houses. The business, operated by the Triads, resulted in leaky, shaftily connected pipes chaotically twisting and turning all throughout the city to not only support the residents, but also the restaurant, factories and workshops. The British government, in the later stages of the Wallled City eventually installed a couple of wells accessible to the city along with introducing electricity into the city which was a formidable task due to its density.

Police raids began occuring in the late 1960's and early 1970's to attempt to flush out the traids. The problem was the police force was so corrupt at the time that officers were more likely to compete with triad bosses for protection money rather arrest them. This was fixed after the establishment of the INdependent Commission against Corruption in 1974. A regular patrol square was assigned to the city in 1980 and the presence began to restrict the vice industries within the city.

There was also an formation of community within the city. A Kaifong (neighborhood welfare association) was established and strived to help obtain better living conditions within the Walled City. They paid for lighting and signage, was the main form of communication between the British government and the Walled City and they fostered a sense of community among residents through social gathering and events.

Demolition (1987-1994)

The 1984 Joint Declaration helped improve relations between the British and Chinese which allowed for the British to exercise full jurisdiction over the city before 1997.

Following two years of secret talks, a surprise announcement was made at 9:00 on the morning of January 14, 1987 by the Hong Kong government declaring the Walled City would be torn down and turned into a park before 1997. At exactly the same moment, the New China News Agency's Hong Kong branch made a similar announcement and expressed full support. Fifteen minutes later the Foreign Office in Beijing echoed the New China News Agency's.

Simultaneously, members of the Hong Kong government's 1200 survey and mapping department accompanied by police swept across the Walled City to determine the occupancy, ownership, and size of all the property in the area. This choreography was to prevent residents from artificially increasing their land speculation by bringing in objects of value. The government also preemptively stationed guards at all eighty-three entrances. The total compensation value given to residents payed by the government was HK$2.3 billion.

The garden (1994-)

By the end of 1987, the government had approved the funds necessary to resettle the inhabitants and to redevelop the area. The last 20 residents were evicted in July 1992. In April of the following year, demolition had begun and in 1994, the government began to build a garden on the site of the old fort. The garden, designed by the Hong Kong's government's Architectural Services Department, had three goals in mind: to provide a place for people to relax, to use the garden to teach visitors about Chinese culture, and to preserve the spirit of the Walled City.

The garden was built as an imitation of an early Qing dynasty garden in the lower Yangzi River style. The symbolic value of the lower Yangzi style represented the highpoint of pre-Opium War Chinese cultural and economic development. It was during the early Qing that Chinese territorial control reached its greatest extent (including the imperial control over Guangdong and the region around Hong Kong). The early Qing is also significant as it was the last great period of Chinese cultural development, free of Western influence. The ASD consciously rejected the Lingnan style of the southern China which better represented it which might have suggested an East-meets-West hybrid. The garden makes reference to a happier and more peaceful time while erasing the decidedly impure history of the Walled City itself, which was so bound up in the anti colonial struggle of the mid-nineteenth century. It also symbolized the impending return to the People's Republic at large and the design is widely reputed to be the home of China's most elegant gardens