Kowloon Walled City, Tung Tau Tsuen Road, 1987. © Greg Girard.
The Kowloon Walled City is known by many as the informal settlement that once existed seemingly out of place within modern Hong Kong. Many dared not enter this lawless zone that had developed a reputation as a place to be avoided, somewhere that harbored vice and illicit trades. A place where triads and criminals were in control and those brave enough to enter risked having their cameras smashed or worse their throats slit;1 apparently at odds with the rest of Hong Kong.
It was often considered an anomaly, a place defined through difference from its context and little has been written to understand it beyond this limited scope. This opinion of the area was placed firmly into view when a Chinese government spokesman described the Walled City strikingly as “a problem left over from history,”2 essentially claiming it was superseded before it had reached irrelevance. For such a complex territorial entity with a population content with their surroundings,3 this comment has obvious contradictions.