In Hong Kong, there is a place called Kowloon Walled City, which is a very special existence in Hong Kong history and an inescapable symbol in Hong Kong culture. Some people say that the Kowloon Walled City is comparable to the "devil's cave on earth", which seems to be not an exaggeration.
The Demon Cave in the World - Kowloon Walled City
It would not be an exaggeration to say that the Kowloon Walled City is an epic slum. In this walled city with an area of only 0.026 square kilometers, the population once lived as high as 50,000, and the per capita area was less than 4 square meters, how crazy! With a population density of 1.9 million people per square kilometre, it is by far unrivaled in the world.
When it comes to Kowloon Walled City, the words that come to people's minds are not only "human caves", but also "utopia", "cyberpunk", and "post-modernization". Therefore, it used to be a scenery that can often be seen in Hong Kong film and television works. For example, the pig cage city in the movie "Kung Fu" is here.
In addition, the Kowloon Walled City is also the scene of many horror games. This is enough to prove the level of "horror" here! Although the people who live here seem to be in chaos every day, the stories that happen here are as chaotic and magical as their existence, and even the police are afraid of them.
The Kowloon Walled City has a past and present life
Tracing the history of the Kowloon Walled City, we have to mention the distant period of the Great Song Dynasty. At that time, the imperial court set up the Guanfu Salt Farm at the site of the current Kowloon Walled City. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, piracy was rampant in this area, and the imperial court at that time set up many forts here to prevent pirate invasion. As a result, the Kowloon Walled City was transformed into a military fortress.
After the Opium War, the Qing court was defeated and signed the Treaty of Beijing with the British, forcing it to cede Hong Kong Island, the Kowloon Peninsula, and the New Territories to the British. However, there was a little-known special clause in the Treaty of Beijing: sovereignty over the Kowloon Walled City remained with the Qing government. This is also the important geographical location of the Kowloon Walled City considered by the Qing government at that time. However, it also laid the foundation for the tragic fate of the Kowloon Walled City.
In the thirties and forties of the twentieth century, China was plagued by wars and turbulent situations. The Kowloon Walled City became a place that the domestic government had no time to take care of. Since the United Kingdom has no jurisdiction, it has also become a place where the British government and the Hong Kong government do not care. Anarchy was the status quo of the Kowloon Walled City during this period.
In 1937, the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War in China, in order to escape the war, many Cantonese people flocked to Hong Kong, but Hong Kong could not settle down without identity, so the Kowloon Walled City became their best place to stay. The abandoned Kowloon Walled City, which used to have only a few hundred people, suddenly became lively. Later, the local poor people in Hong Kong who could not afford to rent or buy a house also discovered this "treasure land" in anarchy and moved here one after another. Soon, the Kowloon Walled City was overcrowded.
Anarchy is the most likely breeding ground for triads, and the population of Kowloon Walled City is becoming more and more dense, and triads and drug dealers are prevalent. It has become a "place outside the law". In the 1950s, the Kowloon Walled City was completely controlled by gangsters, and "pornography, gambling, and drugs" were rampant in the walled city, and business establishments were all over the city.
It is worth mentioning that at that time, the residents of the Kowloon Walled City in a state of anarchy had no water and electricity supply, and completely relied on gangsters to steal water and electricity to maintain a normal life. The equipment is rudimentary, the use of water and electricity is unstable, and dangers occur from time to time. This continued until 1974.
In 1974, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) was established. The Hong Kong government immediately dispatched 3,000 police officers to the Kowloon Walled City. The Kowloon Walled City jumped into the "highlight" moment. Later, the high-rise buildings that stood in Hong Kong film and television works were also built after 1974.
One after another, there were drug rehabilitation centers, homes for the elderly, kindergartens, and welfare societies in the walled cities...... It is worth mentioning that among them, cheap clinics are at their peak. Most of the doctors in the clinic are from the mainland, and after they came to Hong Kong, they were not qualified to practice medicine, so they had to go to the Kowloon Walled City to practice medicine illegally. Of course, the prices of the clinics here are also very cheap.
In the 1980s, the Kowloon Walled City was fully stable and normal. At the same time, it also ushered in its period of decline. Between 1988 and 1994, the Hong Kong government spent HK$500 million to carry out a complete demolition of the Kowloon Walled City and built a park on the site. The "Demon Cave on Earth" Kowloon Walled City has come to an end.