Kowloon Walled City: City of Darkness Revisited | Hacker News Reader

Kowloon Walled City: City of Darkness Revisited

cityofdarkness.co.uk

141 pointsnkurz19 comments

Interesting article - certainly as it has a lot of photos that I'd not previously seen before.

Further links for interested people: "Gweilo" - book about a british son of expats growing up in Hong Kong, and includes his visits the KWC http://www.amazon.com/Gweilo-Memories-Hong-Kong-Childhood-eb...

The amazing maps made by a japanese team that went into the KWC just before it was destroyed. http://www.deconcrete.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Kowloon...

Fwiw, William Gibson would visit the City of Darkness in search of inspiration for his dystopic cityscapes. Here's a description from Idoru (1997):

> There was a place near an airport, Kowloon, when Hong Kong wasn't China, but there had been a mistake, a long time ago, and that place, very small, many people, it still belonged to China. So there was no law there. An outlaw place. And more and more people crowded in; they built it up, higher. No rules, just building, just people living. Police wouldn't go there. Drugs and whores and gambling. But people living, too. Factories, restaurants. A city. No laws.

More here:

http://gizmodo.com/5995070/kowloon-walled-city-remembering-t...

Austrian documentary about it Worth watching > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lby9P3ms11w

Also, this from wsj ... similar footage but more modern https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj_8ucS3lMY

There's a book "Chasing the Dragon" by a English missionary (I think) that lived in the walled city. Nothing in the way of pictures, but pretty interesting details of daily life from her experiences there.

A Chinese favela. There are still places that are like Kowloon, in many ways. (http://www.pulsamerica.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/fave...)

For the gamers out there, Shenmue 2 spends a good chunk of its story in the walled city.

this is how I learned about the place too.

The Jean Claude Van Dam movie Blood Sport has some shots taken in the walled city.

So does the recently released Shadowrun: Hong Kong.

Nice, I have it but did not try it yet - thanks for the reference.

I always liked the SCP take on Kowloon: http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-184

Wow, that is really great! I was stunned by the numbers. 40,000 people in 200 m x 100 m?

It's amazing to consider that's barely enough room in suburban America for a Wal-Mart and its associated parking lot.

In Japan they have a game arcade inspired by the KWC:

http://randomwire.com/kowloon-walled-city-rebuilt-in-japan/

I bought this book from the Kickstarter project. It's beautiful and fascinating, totally worthwhile if you're interested.

I just visited Hong Kong, and most of the residents I asked had no idea what the hell the Walled City was.

Several posts about this on HN:

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=kowloon%20walled%20city

I particularly liked the WSJ multimedia feature / interactive story with video interviews of past residents at the top of your link: http://projects.wsj.com/kwc/

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