Of old Hong Kong, the Walled City in Kowloon was Out of Bounds to British servicemen as effectively it was to the British authorities. Then still of traditional compound form behind its walls, it had barely begun its subsequent forty year intake of people and rise to the height of a dozen or so close packed storeys of superimposed, crudely constructed dwellings. Returning to Hong Kong in 1990 for the first time since 1950, unrestrained by army uniform or regulation, I was able to walk through the only remaining quarter of the fascinating slum that had grown up but was now in course of complete demolition, to give way to a public park. The remaining quarter of this 20th. century city was more like medieval Edinburgh than like the tower dwellings of the rest of Kowloon as developed since 1950. Served not as the Edinburgh of the 16th. Century had been by wells, running water was piped but much of which seemed to leak and drip from broken pipes above the alleys, all amongst a tangle of trailing electric and telephone wires probably illegally tapping into mains supplies.
Kowloon Walled City; after 1950
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