15th January, 2001 // Hong Kong
Walled City
We are in Hong Kong at the moment enjoying the fragrant atmosphere and the open toilet that they call the sea. The temperature here is horrible as is the humidity. All in all I am not a great fan of this place filled with corporate suits and empoverished slaves.
We went to the walled city yesterday. Well what was the walled city. They pulled the whole thing down some years back and replaced it with a park. The local book cafe here has a good photo essay book called "the dark city" which is very informative. It makes the point that this 100 x 200 metre site manages to form a cohesive family architectural form enclosing an extended family without written law or bureaucracy. There were 35,000 people living there with businesses, entertainment, health care and even a temple. The city had formed to accommodate their needs and changed it's form daily. In many ways this structure far succeeded any costly architect designed structure that was ever planned. It wasn't a paradise either, with killings, addicts, prostitution and poor health care.
I hear there was a film called "caged men," but I can't find it on imdb. Have you seen it?It should be about the Kowloon walled city.
All of the books about it have been discontinued, locals have never heard of it and the "visitors" center at the park never mentions the city - but only mentions the ancient village. There is some sort of cover up and an apparent lack of any initiative of the authorities trying to learn from this place. However, I can imagine that in 200 years the whole of Hong Kong is one big walled city where nobody walks on the ground or outside.
What is that "walled city" project on-line. My Internet connection is Very poor so web surfing is not possible.
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