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Kowloon Walled City
- resu 12y agoYou can get an idea of what it might have been like, although at a much more modern, safe, and smaller scale by exploring the Chungking Mansions in Kowloon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chungking_Mansions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chungking_Mansions
- olalonde 12y agoWords you are almost guaranteed to hear walking past Chungking Mansions: Rolex, hashish, tailor :)
- chandraonline 12y agoThis is the first place I stayed in Tsim Tsa Tsui in the late 90s. The diversity of people that lived and visited this place is unbelievable.
- KMag 12y agoFor anyone visiting, that's a misspelling of Tsim Sha Tsui, (usually just called TST in English) on the southern part of the Kowloon peninsula.
- ANTSANTS 12y agoThanks for reminding me that I never got around to watching Chungking Express: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chungking_Express https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chungking_Express
- aneisf 12y agoThe first half of the movie gives a really great image of the Chungking atmosphere, so definitely check it out. I highly recommend it on its own narrative strengths too of course.
- resu 12y agoLoved the movie, you should definitely watch it! I first visited in 2010 and it was nowhere as gritty as seen in the movie, but also much safer I guess!
- cromwellian 12y agoJean Claude Van Damme's Bloodsport immediately leaps to mind when this is mentioned.
- acdanger 12y agoA successfully backed Kickstarter project for a 2nd edition of the book City of Darkness, which features really great documentary photographs of Kowloon Walled City: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1060791749/city-of-darkness-revisited https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1060791749/city-of-dark...
- morsch 12y agoWow. I bought the book on the used market after reading about it -- I think here on HN, in fact. Probably the most expensive book I've bought so far! They're selling prints on their website, and I'd love to get one, but they're charging 200 (two oh oh) GBP for a medium sized print which is preposterous, or in any event way out of my comfort zone. Too bad. PS: If you enjoy City of Darkness, you may enjoy the film Dark Days (different subject, similar theme). Much like Kowloon Walled City, I've never seen anything else quite like it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Days_%28film%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Days_%28film%29
- coherentpony 12y agoJesus Christ. I tried loading this in Firefox 28 and it just shit a brick. Anybody else have this problem?
- ersii 12y agoI'm using Firefox 28.0 on Ubuntu, I'm not having any sort of trouble loading the page and browsing around, viewing videos and what not.
- DonGateley 12y agoYeah, after a moving wait bar it just comes up grey.
- stefantalpalaru 12y agoI had to disable privoxy (ad filtering) to get it working.
- incision 12y agoI've been fascinated by KWC since the first time I saw Bloodsport. I dug the depictions [1] in Gibson's bridge trilogy too. There's something that draws me to that kind of organic human architecture whether it's Kowloon, Brazil's favelas [2], Torre David in Venezuela [3] or Ponte Tower [4] in Johannesburg. 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idoru http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idoru 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favela http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favela 3: http://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2014/feb/12/la-torre-david-vertical-slum-caracas-venezuela-tower http://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2014/feb/12/la-tor... 4: http://vimeo.com/51295174 http://vimeo.com/51295174
- state 12y agoI imagine you would also appreciate the work of Lebbeus Woods. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebbeus_Woods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebbeus_Woods
- oofabz 12y agoYou can see some of his artwork here: http://historyofourworld.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/lebbeus-woods-radical-reconstruction/ http://historyofourworld.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/lebbeus-wo... http://architizer.com/blog/lebbeus-woods-sfmoma/ http://architizer.com/blog/lebbeus-woods-sfmoma/
- rsync 12y agoHe had a blog, while he was alive, which is still up and running: http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/ http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/ Very, very interesting work and commentary. NOTE: there is actually a lot more content on that blog than the (bad) navigation suggests. If you look at the right-hand "monthly archives" column, it looks like there is only 12 monthly headings going back to Sept. 2011 - but if you manually plug in a URL like: http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2008/11/ http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2008/11/ ... you can see there is a lot more content there...
- ics 12y ago
- hxrts 12y agoHere's the full architectural rendering from the book they mention – they seem to have adapted part of it for their splash page. You can definitely sink quite a bit of time looking at what's going on in each room. http://www.deconcrete.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Kowloon-Cross-section-low.jpg http://www.deconcrete.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Kowloon...
- rainboiboi 12y agoThe kowloon Walled City is a park right now, drop by if you have chance to visit Hong Kong. The rich description and historical display there is simply awesome. And don't forget to check out the delicious dim sum stall nearby. ;)
- michaelx 12y agoI‘m also fascinated by Kowloon Walled City since the first time I saw it in the Dreamcast game Shenmue 2. One of the best documentaries IMHO is the following 4 part series from 1989 which shows the everyday life in KWC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lby9P3ms11w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lby9P3ms11w I also recommend the already mentioned book City of Darkness and movie Chungking Express. Additional Jackie Pullinger‘s books "Crack In The Wall: Life & Death in Kowloon Walled City" (http://amzn.to/1nNKkuq http://amzn.to/1nNKkuq) and "Chasing the Dragon" (http://amzn.to/1kd9zWc http://amzn.to/1kd9zWc) are worth a read.
- psgbg 12y agoNo Shenmue? What a shame Here a Postmortem on Shenmue I & II and some brief explanation of the generation of the Kowloon scenario. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4JMxDFZhp9Y#t=2089 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4J... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenmue_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenmue_II
- ddw 12y agoThere's an episode of 99% Invisible about it: http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-66-kowloon-walled-city/ http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-66-kowloon-wal...
- cdelahousse 12y ago99% PI is what introduced Kowloon. The show did an amazing job of conveying just how special that place was. It is an great pod cast that captures the majesty of day to day design and architecture. It is unfortunate that the images don't work on the episode page.
- Renaud 12y agoI arrived in Hong Kong in 1996, too late to see the KWC but I would certainly have taken the risk to experience it had it still be there. Hong Kong is still filled with weird little wonders that you can only uncover by chance if you take the time to look around and explore. My favourite pastime is to lose myself in the city, taking every little back-alley, climbing stairs, slopes, paths, trails that I can find. I'm always reminded though that these little hidden treasures have a tendency to disappear fast here, without a trace. Conservation of heritage is unfortunately not a big thing in Hong Kong, although it has gotten a little better.
- rsync 12y agoAs someone who has always been deeply pleased by the Minneapolis skyway system, I was very happy to find the "Central Mid Levels Escalator": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central%E2%80%93Mid-Levels_escalator_and_walkway_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central%E2%80%93Mid-Levels_esca...
- Renaud 12y agoYes, that re-shaped the area by making it easy to travel along that steep slope. There are lots of elevated foot paths as well in Hong Kong, interconnecting buildings with each-others, usually going from shopping mall to shopping mall in a dizzy labyrinth of walkways and escalators. In Hong Kong, pragmatism tends to win over other considerations. Making things convenient is a build-in feature of the culture.
- steveklabnik 12y agoI know next to nothing about Hong Kong, but I would have safety concerns while doing this. Is that just not an issue?
- ddeck 12y agoIf you mean with respect to crime, then no. Hong Kong has one of the world's lowest crime rates and what violent crime does exist, is typically targeted (e.g. organized crime, domestic disputes). For example, the intentional homicide rate is 0.2 per 100,000 people, vs 4.8 in the US. [1] I have lived here for many years, and I can't think of any area that i would feel uncomfortable going at any hour of the day or night. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...
- dkasper 12y agoThis was another good article about KWC I saw recently http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2139914/A-rare-insight-Kowloon-Walled-City.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2139914/A-rare-insig...
- the_cat_kittles 12y agoI don't know why, but I think that people that are fascinated by Kowloon and the like would really enjoy the movie Samsara. Really, I think everyone one earth would enjoy it.
- frozenport 12y agoI felt the locations were too exotic. "Some of the connections made are too obvious, like following images of ammunition with a portrait of a severely wounded veteran, while others are completely elusive. Shots of the devastation Katrina left behind in New Orleans are beautifully spooky, but does it say anything useful to follow that with images of Versailles? The makers of 'Samsara' want to free our minds, but their technique makes us their prisoners more often than not." ~ Kenneth Turan
- SeanLuke 12y agoWhen I was 20 years old, I worked in the Kowloon Walled City at its height. I've recently been back to Hong Kong to see it now replaced by a park and an excavated, restored garrison (they did a great job). In the original KWC, the garrison courtyard -- I had thought it might be a temple -- was never built on, making a small "hole" in the middle of the city. I remember the original garrison walls. Now they're all that's left! It's a very strange experience going back. I know this isn't reddit, but AMA.
- Renaud 12y agoLucky you! What kind of work were you doing there?
- SeanLuke 12y agoFrom 19-21 (the standard age) I was a cantonese-speaking Mormon missionary in Hong Kong.
- rbobby 12y agoWas it dangerous to be there?
- SeanLuke 12y agoNot particularly. Hong Kong is a very safe place, and the Walled City was the most dangerous part of Hong Kong. We never had any problems at all.
- aaron695 12y agoHmmmm any story would be pretty cool. Do you think it was a positive place given the real world we live in? Do you think it should have been knocked down? Realistically was the sense of community strong? How did the kids inside go? Did they just leave for walks or did they spend lots of time inside.
- SeanLuke 12y ago
- jpatokal 12y agoThe "Japanese theme park" mentioned in the lead is this video arcade (!) in Kawasaki, Japan, not far from Tokyo: http://randomwire.com/kowloon-walled-city-rebuilt-in-japan/ http://randomwire.com/kowloon-walled-city-rebuilt-in-japan/
- ekianjo 12y agoThis article does not EVEN mention Shenmue 2 as one of the major games inspired by the walled city. Did they do their job?