Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here as well, and this is stuff
Speaker 2: you should know. So well, it's get started talking about
Speaker 2: some stuff that you should know. And I guess we
Speaker 2: should do our semi annual explanation Chuck that the title
Speaker 2: of our podcast is never intended to make you feel
Speaker 2: bad because you don't know something. It's not that we
Speaker 2: think you should know this already. We're saying we find
Speaker 2: this really interesting and we want to share it with you.
Speaker 2: Hence we want you to know about it. You should
Speaker 2: know about this because it's interesting and we want to
Speaker 2: tell you about it, not that you should already know
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the second one. We just did that listener
Speaker 1: to mail like two weeks ago.
Speaker 2: I think we should do it every week. I'm going
Speaker 2: to start every podcast with that from now on.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's a great way to retain listeners, I think
Speaker 1: for sure.
Speaker 2: Man, you should see the match I'm drinking right now.
Speaker 2: It's like mash mash brown green. It's disgusting. I don't
Speaker 2: know what's wrong with it, but I got a drink
Speaker 2: in any way.
Speaker 3: Oh is it not taste good either?
Speaker 2: Not really, it's pretty bitter.
Speaker 3: Maybe that much is turned bro, But does.
Speaker 2: It it was powder? Does maucha turn? Because if so,
Speaker 2: I'm drinking turn macha for sure.
Speaker 1: All right, well we'll do a short stuff can of
Speaker 1: powder turn. But no, we're not going to do that
Speaker 1: today because we're talking about the Kowloon Walled City in
Speaker 1: Hong Kong, which is the most well, at one time
Speaker 1: was the most densely populated place on planet Earth.
Speaker 3: And just to give you if you've.
Speaker 1: Ever been to New York City, if you've ever traveled
Speaker 1: to the East Village, yeah, one of my favorite villages.
Speaker 2: That's where I got engaged.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right there at the museum. Which museum, not the
Speaker 1: Waitty That is the most and it doesn't feel like
Speaker 1: it when you're there. But the East Village is the
Speaker 1: most densely neighborhood in New York City and they have
Speaker 1: about forty three thousand people living in the East Village.
Speaker 1: The Kowloon Walled City is about the size of the
Speaker 1: East Village geographically, but there are one point yeah, that's
Speaker 1: why they use the East Village and all the comps.
Speaker 1: One point two five million people living there as opposed
Speaker 1: to forty three thousand.
Speaker 2: Okay, yes, exactly, but there were really only thirty three
Speaker 2: thousand people. But if you spread it all out over
Speaker 2: a square kilometer, you would have that many people to
Speaker 2: equal that density.
Speaker 3: Right, That's right.
Speaker 2: So that's I wanted to make sure to take that
Speaker 2: and just screw it up. The reason I did this
Speaker 2: is because it's not the same size. Kowloon Walld City
Speaker 2: is like a fraction of the size of the square kilometer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I think like a little over three football fields.
Speaker 2: I saw that. I also saw four. I also saw
Speaker 2: four rugby fields or large soccer pitches. So all of
Speaker 2: those put together.
Speaker 3: Uh huh.
Speaker 2: Imagine twenty three thousand people standing on there like they'd
Speaker 2: literally have to be standing on one an other shoulders.
Speaker 2: Who knows how many people deep it would be. And
Speaker 2: so this incredibly compact area of a few football fields
Speaker 2: or rugby or soccer pitches held buildings right up against
Speaker 2: each other that went all the way up to fourteen
Speaker 2: stories tall. And if you went into this place, you
Speaker 2: would be like, I, I this is like nowhere I've
Speaker 2: ever been in the world. And you would be right
Speaker 2: because there was nowhere in the world like the Kowloon
Speaker 2: Walled City from about nineteen seventy to nineteen ninety ish.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, if you have a if you have a
Speaker 1: fairly smallish lot that your house is on, let's say,
Speaker 1: have a single family house and it's on like maybe
Speaker 1: a half an acre.
Speaker 3: If you're lucky, like you're doing pretty great, that's a
Speaker 3: great life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a little more than six and a
Speaker 1: half acres and there were five hundred buildings packed in there.
Speaker 2: That nuts. Even with those mind blowing stats, it's like,
Speaker 2: go and look, there's a very famous photograph from i
Speaker 2: think a nineteen eighty nine or nineteen ninety National Geographic
Speaker 2: overhead that just gets it all across perfectly. You just
Speaker 2: look at it and you're like, that doesn't even look
Speaker 2: like a village or a city. It looks like a
Speaker 2: single thing. And a lot of people have made that
Speaker 2: point that these buildings were so close together, they were
Speaker 2: so interconnected, people just built haphazard bridges between one building
Speaker 2: and another so they didn't have to go down fourteen
Speaker 2: stories and then back up that it essentially created one
Speaker 2: single organism. That that's kind of how Kowloon Walled City
Speaker 2: came to be seen when it reached its fully developed peak.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it had to be the inspiration behind the Living
Speaker 1: Quarters and Ready Player One if you've ever seen that
Speaker 1: movie or read the book. When I saw pictures of
Speaker 1: kowloon Wald City for the first time, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: looks like Ready Player One, really, except it was real.
Speaker 1: This was an actual, real place. So we encourage you,
Speaker 1: at some point when it's safe to do so, to
Speaker 1: look it up because the pictures worth a thousand words
Speaker 1: and we spent probably a couple of thousand trying to
Speaker 1: describe it.
Speaker 2: The thing that really rings home, I guess to me, okay,
Speaker 2: comparing it to Blade Runner, like especially in Blade Runner
Speaker 2: when Harrison Ford is eating noodles and Edward James almost
Speaker 2: comes up to take them away, Uh huh, Like just
Speaker 2: that kind of look like the fluorescent light, everything's packed together,
Speaker 2: is people everywhere, Like that's what it looked like.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 2: There's no way that the designers of Blade Runner did
Speaker 2: not were not inspired by kowloon Wald City. I refuse
Speaker 2: to believe it.
Speaker 1: Well, and as we'll see, or I guess I could
Speaker 1: say it now. There have been lots of video games
Speaker 1: and movies that were based either on or very much
Speaker 1: patterned after this look one of the black Ops games.
Speaker 1: This movie about a straight cat or sorry video game
Speaker 1: about a straight cat. That maybe a movie at some point,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I think it was. This is all to
Speaker 1: say it was densely packed. Have we gotten that across?
Speaker 2: What was that movie that I told you to watch
Speaker 2: about the cat? The animated movie about the cat, And
Speaker 2: then you said, oh, I already saw it in theaters.
Speaker 2: Was it called Flow?
Speaker 3: I think that was Flow. That was so so great.
Speaker 2: That was such a good movie. I encourage everybody to
Speaker 2: go watch it. It's like almost sixteen or eight bit
Speaker 2: graphic looking. It's very bit mapped on purpose, and it
Speaker 2: really does a great job of making it otherworldly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it won the Oscar and it looks that way
Speaker 1: because a dude made it in his apartment.
Speaker 2: Oh man, that makes it even better. That is such
Speaker 2: an amazing movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really great.
Speaker 2: The other movie that sticks out for me when I
Speaker 2: think of Kowloon Walld City is the merchant Ivory movie Howard's.
Speaker 1: End Right or Far and Away with Nicole Kidman right
Speaker 1: Tom Cruse.
Speaker 2: That one I saw that in the theater for some reason,
Speaker 2: really that's weird. I also saw eyes I'd shut in
Speaker 2: the theater and I knew all about it going into it,
Speaker 2: and so it was my birthday, so I made my
Speaker 2: whole family go watch it.
Speaker 3: Uh that's that very fun end of that story. Yeah,
Speaker 3: all right.
Speaker 1: So we need to go back in history, though, if
Speaker 1: we want to talk about how this city came to be,
Speaker 1: and in order to do that, we need to go
Speaker 1: back to the First Opium War, which was a few
Speaker 1: years between eighteen thirty nine and forty two where there
Speaker 1: was a trade dispute between Imperial China and Britain, where
Speaker 1: in Britain was like, hey, we loves shipping in this
Speaker 1: opium from India to your addicted citizens, and China was like, no,
Speaker 1: we like selling them opium ourselves, and.
Speaker 3: So let's go to war over that.
Speaker 2: I think actually China was executing addicts in the street.
Speaker 2: They were on a huge campaign to eradicate opium addiction
Speaker 2: from their population, and Britain was like, uh, uh, we're
Speaker 2: going to keep them addicted because we're making tons of
Speaker 2: cash off of that, oh for sure.
Speaker 1: And this is after China had made a ton of
Speaker 1: money shipping tea, so there were trade relations already, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of ensconced.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Britain couldn't get enough of China's tea. But
Speaker 2: China was like, we don't really want too much of
Speaker 2: your stuff, except our population wants the opium you're smuggling in.
Speaker 2: So imagine if like the war as cartel, like Mexico
Speaker 2: is like, nope, we don't want you you supplying our
Speaker 2: population with drugs, and the Wars Cartel's like, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: we're going to war with you and we're gonna win.
Speaker 2: And now we have a treaty saying that we can
Speaker 2: sell your population drugs and you can't do anything about it.
Speaker 2: That was essentially the First Opium War. Yeah, and there
Speaker 2: was even a second Opium War, the sequel.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: But another important thing come out of the First Opium War,
Speaker 1: which was China was forced to seed some land on
Speaker 1: Hong Kong, which you know wasn't a big bustling place
Speaker 1: at that point, not much of anything at that point,
Speaker 1: And in order to sort of you know, be close
Speaker 1: to them and sort of keep an eye on what's
Speaker 1: going over there, the Qing dynasty said, all right, we
Speaker 1: have a military installation just across the water from Hong
Speaker 1: Kong on the Kowloon Peninsula and over the Kowloon Bay,
Speaker 1: and let's build a big wall there and just like
Speaker 1: fortify this little military installation. So they built a wall
Speaker 1: fifteen feet thick, thirteen feet high. It housed about one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty soldiers, and that's where the name Kowloon
Speaker 1: Walled City came from from that wall.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and today's modern Hong Kong is populated mostly on
Speaker 2: the Kowloon Peninsula, but at the time it was the
Speaker 2: opposite Hong Kong Island was the population and this Kowloon
Speaker 2: place was just a little Nowhere's Ville essentially, And so
Speaker 2: China was like, yeah, we're going to keep this, We're
Speaker 2: going to keep it. An eye on the Brits like this.
Speaker 2: And after, I guess the Second Opium War led to
Speaker 2: the Second Convention of Peking where both the First Opium
Speaker 2: War and the second one found China just giving into
Speaker 2: tons of demands from the Brits, from the Americans, from
Speaker 2: I think the wrench who were all like, you have
Speaker 2: to open your market's dust because we want money from
Speaker 2: you guys. And one of the things that came out
Speaker 2: of it was the very famous ninety nine year lease
Speaker 2: that the Brits had on Hong Kong from China, which
Speaker 2: is why the UK administered Hong Kong for almost one
Speaker 2: hundred years essentially throughout the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the other thing landwise that came out of
Speaker 1: that Second Opium War was they seated all of Hong
Speaker 1: Kong Island, the entire Kowloon Peninsula to the Britz. But
Speaker 1: keep in mind, they still have this walled city kind
Speaker 1: of right there, you know, nearest to the coast, within
Speaker 1: that territory. And so there was a little, I guess,
Speaker 1: a little loophole that they I don't know if they
Speaker 1: snuck it in there, but it was, you know, clearly written,
Speaker 1: but there was a clause in there basically that said
Speaker 1: it's so confusing, I'm not even going to read it.
Speaker 1: But the result was this weird, small walled city within
Speaker 1: this territory that Britain now controls was to stay there
Speaker 1: and to stay that way.
Speaker 2: And to stay Chinese territory. So this little tiny, six acre,
Speaker 2: three rugby pitch patch of land would be Chinese sovereign
Speaker 2: land in this British territory. Essentially, is what just got
Speaker 2: set up from the eighteen ninety eight Treaty.
Speaker 1: All right, so it's a weird situation, hmm. But that's
Speaker 1: what they're left with. Right after the British takeover there,
Speaker 1: some Christian missionaries went in. It started to get populated.
Speaker 1: The walled city did they built a church, Some pig
Speaker 1: farmers came in. They started squatting. People started squatting because,
Speaker 1: you know, it was protected by this great you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, not the great wall.
Speaker 3: A great wall that was.
Speaker 1: When we were in Belize on vacation, we went up
Speaker 1: a Rio Grand. Emily kept saying, you go up the
Speaker 1: Rio grand to get to the ocean, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's the Rio grand And it was
Speaker 1: Rio Grande.
Speaker 3: So the joke for the rest of the trip was
Speaker 3: we're going up a Rio Grand.
Speaker 2: Very cute.
Speaker 3: So there was a great wall, so that attracted squatters.
Speaker 2: It did, and one of the reasons why is because
Speaker 2: there was this idea that, okay, this is Chinese territory.
Speaker 2: So that was already kind of a thought in people's
Speaker 2: head that there weren't enough people there in this Christian
Speaker 2: missionary church kind of we're almost keeping an eye on
Speaker 2: things as far as the Brits administering Hong Kong were concerned,
Speaker 2: so they weren't paying much attention to it. And then
Speaker 2: World War II came along and Japan occupied big swaths
Speaker 2: of China, as we talked about in our Unit seven
Speaker 2: thirty one episode, and one of those swaths was the peninsula,
Speaker 2: the Kowloon Peninsula, and they tore down those thick, thick
Speaker 2: granite walls and they used it to build out Kai
Speaker 2: Tak Airport. And I think it was already there was
Speaker 2: kind of like an airfield or laying strip, and they
Speaker 2: turned it into like an actual airport. And for many,
Speaker 2: many years, for decades, Kai Tak Airport was the airport
Speaker 2: that you flew into when you flew to Hong Kong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's uh, you know, they needed building. I
Speaker 1: love repurposing building materials. Sure, so when I heard that part,
Speaker 1: I was like, that's great. They don't need that wall
Speaker 1: there anyway, because it looks like it had a wall
Speaker 1: build around it when you.
Speaker 3: Looked at it, right, you know. That was kind of
Speaker 3: the funny thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is ironic because it looks like they populated
Speaker 1: that city with a wall and then took the wall down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it was just so I mean, everyone knew how
Speaker 1: far out you could build, so it just kind of
Speaker 1: ended up looking that way.
Speaker 2: Right. It was, it was, and it was very densely.
Speaker 3: Populated, that's what I've heard.
Speaker 2: So after World War Two a couple of things happened
Speaker 2: geopolitically that kind of gave rise to the Kowloon Walled City.
Speaker 2: The name stuck, even though it didn't have the walls. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but a lot of the people who were refugees during
Speaker 2: the war made their way down to the Kowloon Peninsula
Speaker 2: and they were like, we're not Brits, We're Chinese, so
Speaker 2: we're gonna start squatting here. And the Brits were like, no,
Speaker 2: you know you're not squatting here. This is not Chinese,
Speaker 2: it's ours. It's part of Hong Kong. We basically own
Speaker 2: Hong Kong right now, so get out. And they evicted
Speaker 2: all the squatters in nineteen forty eight. By this time
Speaker 2: it had been there were like thousands of them, so
Speaker 2: it was a really big deal. And then the squatters
Speaker 2: just came back next week.
Speaker 3: That's right, they came back. The next week.
Speaker 1: They tried to kick them out again, and there was
Speaker 1: a riot this time, and I feel like, that's a
Speaker 1: pretty good time for our first break. Okay, sure, all right,
Speaker 1: we'll be right back. All right, So we're back Cawloon
Speaker 1: Walled city without the wall. Yeah, is being populated. They're
Speaker 1: getting kicked out, they keep coming back. There was a
Speaker 1: Chinese Civil war following World War Two, so that was
Speaker 1: one reason that people, you know, between the communists and
Speaker 1: the Nationalist Party, and that was one reason people were starting,
Speaker 1: you know, to get the.
Speaker 3: Heck out of you know, in there, I guess, yeah.
Speaker 1: And in nineteen forty nine, you know, the communist one
Speaker 1: they declared the People's Republic of China, and so that's
Speaker 1: when in the nineteen fifties things really kicked off with
Speaker 1: refugees trying to get in there and build up up up.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And if you were a refugee from China, that
Speaker 2: meant you were probably a nationalist or at the very
Speaker 2: least weren't a communist, and you just needed to get
Speaker 2: out of there. But you were, as far as you
Speaker 2: were concerned, better off living on this tiny patch of
Speaker 2: Chinese land because you still consider yourself a Chinese national.
Speaker 2: Then you were trying to assimilate into this British administered
Speaker 2: polony that was really Chinese, but the Brits didn't treat
Speaker 2: it like that, right, And so these people, these refugees
Speaker 2: became like this, they almost like freedom fighters. And even
Speaker 2: the CCP, the Chinese Communist government, they would they were
Speaker 2: they were promoting them. They would give them supplies. Sometimes
Speaker 2: they would give them food. Sometimes they would send emissaries
Speaker 2: down that would talk them up and be like, keep
Speaker 2: fighting the good fight. You know, we've got your back.
Speaker 2: And essentially, anytime the Brits tried to make a move
Speaker 2: on these residents of Kowloon Walled City, China would step
Speaker 2: in and be like, ah, that is Chinese territory. So
Speaker 2: no matter what these people did, the BRIT's hands were tied.
Speaker 2: And the whole reason why was not that China cared
Speaker 2: about them, but it was a thorn in Great britain side.
Speaker 2: There was this crazy, weird area that they did not
Speaker 2: have control over in the middle of this colony that
Speaker 2: they had taken from China, and China took every opportunity
Speaker 2: to basically twist that thorn in their side, and they
Speaker 2: used every every time that the people of Kowloon were
Speaker 2: put upon as a chance to step in and flex
Speaker 2: their whatever authority they did have in the area. Still.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So as a result of all this, the Brits
Speaker 1: were like, I don't even care anymore, Like this.
Speaker 3: Is such a pain. In the fifties and sixties, they.
Speaker 1: Took a real hands off approach and just kind of
Speaker 1: let what happened there happen there, and that led to
Speaker 1: a real influx of people and then that housing boom
Speaker 1: they didn't have. It looks like the only building code
Speaker 1: they have was you can't build anything over fourteen stories
Speaker 1: tall because it's right there next to the airport and
Speaker 1: you don't want to get a wing through your living
Speaker 1: room one day. So that was the only building code around,
Speaker 1: certainly the only one honored, because it was kind of
Speaker 1: anything goes inside there. And what we ended up with,
Speaker 1: you know, you mentioned an organic structure. It was ended
Speaker 1: up called by architects on organic megastructure, sure, because these
Speaker 1: buildings would sink down into their founday and start to tip,
Speaker 1: but they would tip over into the next one, and
Speaker 1: that one was tipping toward it. So they ended up
Speaker 1: calling like lovers buildings because at the top they were
Speaker 1: all kind of angled in and touching one another, and
Speaker 1: it's sort of sweet if you.
Speaker 3: Think about it, it is.
Speaker 2: It is kind of sweet. It was also at the
Speaker 2: same time, weirdly, architects in like the fifties and sixties
Speaker 2: there was kind of like an avant garde school of
Speaker 2: thought about just incredibly dense like community building and this
Speaker 2: is essentially a natural experiment. And it kind of showed
Speaker 2: that a lot of those theories held up kind of
Speaker 2: like the buildings held one another up, that people could
Speaker 2: just build out what they needed in ways that they
Speaker 2: needed in that spaces that were livable without having to
Speaker 2: be you know, spread out, without having to have government
Speaker 2: oversight and all that kind of stuff. Too. Those buildings,
Speaker 2: especially when they were lovers buildings pressed up against one another,
Speaker 2: they became so dense that sunlight would not penetrate the
Speaker 2: street level in a lot of cases. In most cases actually,
Speaker 2: like one of the premiums for a flat in the
Speaker 2: Kowloon Walld City was one that was outward facing or
Speaker 2: faced on the internal courtyard because they had sun exposure.
Speaker 2: Most of the apartments, businesses, dwellings, streets alleys in klouon
Speaker 2: Wald City were not exposed to sunlight at any point
Speaker 2: in the day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that you sent in this pretty good little YouTube.
Speaker 1: It was like fifteen twenty minutes long about this walled
Speaker 1: city that breaks it down. And at one point I
Speaker 1: paused it because they had I was wondering what these
Speaker 1: things cost. And I don't know what year this was
Speaker 1: that they gave us these numbers from. But a two
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty square foot flat cost twenty eight thousand
Speaker 1: American dollars. And if you're thinking, all right, that two
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty twenty eight thousand, that kind of makes sense.
Speaker 3: But that was without sunlight.
Speaker 1: I think the exterior facing four hundred and fifty square
Speaker 1: foot flat was sixty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that was in the sixties or
Speaker 2: seventies from a paper I saw, okay, But still one
Speaker 2: of the things I saw is that a reason that
Speaker 2: this was attractive to a lot of people, because over
Speaker 2: time the place didn't just attract Chinese nationalists and refugees
Speaker 2: from China. It attracted people who are like, oh, there's
Speaker 2: these really cheap living in here. You could get a
Speaker 2: flat that was about double the square footage of a
Speaker 2: like a government flat, like a council flat, public housing essentially,
Speaker 2: you'd call it, and it had a kitchen and a bathroom,
Speaker 2: and those were not guaranteed in the public housing flats
Speaker 2: that you would maybe even pay the same or more for.
Speaker 2: So there was like real incentive to move into this
Speaker 2: place if you didn't care about living cheek to jowl
Speaker 2: with your neighbors amid trash and abandoned appliances and all
Speaker 2: sorts of other crazy stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, there were some benefits though.
Speaker 1: If you lived in the Koloun walled city, you didn't
Speaker 1: pay an electric bill almost certainly because you probably just
Speaker 1: like literally ran the electric yourself from the public utilities.
Speaker 1: There was all manner of plumbing and wiring routed from
Speaker 1: the outside coming in into the walled city, so these
Speaker 1: buildings were wrapped in water pipes and sewage lines and
Speaker 1: conduit running electricity. If you were a business, you weren't
Speaker 1: paying any kind of business taxes, so that was a
Speaker 1: big plus. But you didn't have stuff like trash pickup,
Speaker 1: and you had to deal with things like heroin dealers
Speaker 1: and brothels and the Triad gang kind of running the show,
Speaker 1: which you know, it was mostly bad, but they also
Speaker 1: did some things to keep the place up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, A good example that I saw of what life
Speaker 2: was like in this that made it like people just
Speaker 2: got used to this stuff and it was every day,
Speaker 2: was that you would when you were walking on street level,
Speaker 2: you would carry an umbrella because of those exposed pipes,
Speaker 2: it would be leaking on you. But some of those
Speaker 2: pipes were also sewage pipes, so those would be dripping
Speaker 2: and leaking too. Because there was no code that was
Speaker 2: being followed. It was like, I need a sewage outlet
Speaker 2: coming out of my house here, so I'm just going
Speaker 2: to run this pipe right here, and that's that some
Speaker 2: people just walked around with umbrellas on street level. Another
Speaker 2: one that I saw that people just got used to
Speaker 2: is that a lot of the street level areas were tunnels.
Speaker 2: And the reason that they were tunnels is because overhead
Speaker 2: there was a mesh net that had been laid between
Speaker 2: buildings to catch the trash that people just threw out
Speaker 2: of their windows. And the reason that they put the
Speaker 2: mesh netting was because if they didn't, then you wouldn't
Speaker 2: be able to get into the ground floor of any
Speaker 2: of the buildings because they would be so covered up
Speaker 2: with trash. And so these impromptu alleys developed as trash
Speaker 2: built overhead and the walls of the first floor of
Speaker 2: these buildings were exposed on either side. People just got
Speaker 2: used to this, like this was just what life was
Speaker 2: like in Kowloon, and in some ways it wasn't that
Speaker 2: much war if at all. Then some of the other
Speaker 2: poverty stricken areas of Hong Kong at the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like if you're wondering, like why did people even
Speaker 1: live there or stay there, it's for exactly that reason.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: It wasn't so different from other poor places that it
Speaker 1: would have been a big, like life improvement to move
Speaker 1: and this was their home. It may look kind of
Speaker 1: kind of crazy from the outside, but people really made
Speaker 1: a life there. There were hundreds of legit businesses that
Speaker 1: operated there. There there were machine shops. There were a
Speaker 1: lot of machine shops as far as industry goes in
Speaker 1: metal fabrication, and then food was a big one. There
Speaker 1: were lots of food factories. And in that documentary they said,
Speaker 1: you know, there was always a feeling that like some
Speaker 1: of the food that was made there was in on
Speaker 1: the plates and in the bowls of some really high
Speaker 1: class restaurants surrounding them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the fishballs, so they were unregulated fishballs made in
Speaker 2: highly unsanitary conditions that just made it out of the
Speaker 2: Kowlouon Walled City. Because that's another thing too. A lot
Speaker 2: of people look at this from the outside and think
Speaker 2: like this is completely isolated from the rest of Hong Kong.
Speaker 2: Absolutely untrue. Those businesses were exporting out of the city
Speaker 2: into the rest of Hong Kong. People were coming from
Speaker 2: outside of the city into the city for things like
Speaker 2: dentists and doctors who were all unlicensed, unregulated, which at
Speaker 2: first blush, You're just like, oh my god, why would
Speaker 2: you go to an unlicensed dentist. Well, they were already
Speaker 2: trained and licensed in China, but when they went to
Speaker 2: Hong Kong, those credentials didn't transfer over, and so rather
Speaker 2: than pay and become a licensed dentist in Hong Kong
Speaker 2: under British rule, they just set up in Kowloon Walled
Speaker 2: City and set up practice without needing a license.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it was cheaper, way cheaper. There were schools.
Speaker 1: If you're like, you know, did d even function as
Speaker 1: like a regular society, they actually, for sure did. There
Speaker 1: were kindergartens, there were schools. A lot of times it
Speaker 1: was like the Salvation Army or somebody kind of running
Speaker 1: these things. If you were like, what about a playground
Speaker 1: or something like that, some of these rooftops had you know,
Speaker 1: playground equipment where kids could go. Pigeon racing was a
Speaker 1: big thing, so there were gardens on the roofs, the
Speaker 1: ones that didn't have trash on them, and they were
Speaker 1: also keeping these racing pigeons up there.
Speaker 3: And you know, there was actually some order.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just like you might picture like constant chaos
Speaker 1: or something like that. It was more like something you
Speaker 1: see out a blade Runner, just a really densely populated
Speaker 1: city like actually functioning. They had volunteer fire brigades. They
Speaker 1: did you know, they didn't have municipal trash collection, and
Speaker 1: there was trash all over the place, but they tried,
Speaker 1: you know, they had volunteer trash collection teams, they had
Speaker 1: night watch teams. There was a single mail delivery person
Speaker 1: delivering to the entire city. So they were functioning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was the officially the neighborhood Welfare Association. If
Speaker 2: you bought or sold a flat, the neighborhood Welfare Association
Speaker 2: would witness it, so it was very much legal. And
Speaker 2: then the triads you mentioned, they were running and they
Speaker 2: were manufacturing and selling heroin out of the city. They
Speaker 2: were running protection rackets and brothels and child prostitutes and
Speaker 2: all sorts of terrible stuff. And then simultaneously they were
Speaker 2: also providing the law and order that did exist. Like
Speaker 2: it was not just chaotic anarchy. It was anarchic in
Speaker 2: the sense of like government regulation and oversight, like you know,
Speaker 2: building codes and stuff. But it's not like you just
Speaker 2: walked over your neighbor's house and killed them and took
Speaker 2: their stuff and that was that. Like, there was law
Speaker 2: and order, and it was the rule of the triads
Speaker 2: who essentially kept people from I guess descending into chaos.
Speaker 2: If that was even a possibility.
Speaker 1: Well, they didn't want It's kind of the rule of
Speaker 1: the street. They didn't want the real authorities coming in there.
Speaker 1: And if it got so bad that would eventually happen,
Speaker 1: it was sure. I mean, I remember when my friend
Speaker 1: bought his first house in Atlanta in the mid nineties
Speaker 1: in a pretty rough neighborhood, Like he got his house
Speaker 1: broken into and got some stuff stolen, and the guy
Speaker 1: that was the big like drug dealer dude in the
Speaker 1: neighborhood brought his stuff back, Oh wow, And like knocked
Speaker 1: on his door and said, here's your guitar, here's your amp,
Speaker 1: here's your stuff, and he was like, you know, I
Speaker 1: think the unspoken thing was like he didn't want the
Speaker 1: cops in there. Sure, so he's trying to keep his
Speaker 1: guys from doing dumb stuff like that to attract attention.
Speaker 2: Okay, So yeah, perfect analogy. That's exactly what the triads
Speaker 2: were doing in there. And so yeah, if you just
Speaker 2: you know, if you wanted to do Heroin or something,
Speaker 2: I think it was largely smoked, you would come from
Speaker 2: outside Kloum Wall City. Maybe if you liked Heroin so much,
Speaker 2: you'd stick around and move there. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: if you were just some elderly person looking for a
Speaker 2: cheap place to stay that was willing to live in
Speaker 2: an incredibly dense place like there was, there was room
Speaker 2: for you there too. So it was a really I
Speaker 2: saw that it was vilified and romanticized, and it really
Speaker 2: shouldn't be either. Neither of those should be done to it.
Speaker 2: It was just like every other place, multiple shades of gray.
Speaker 2: It's just the literally the sure, It's just that the
Speaker 2: extremes on either side are so fascinating, especially when they
Speaker 2: they the whole spectrum is viewed that that that's what
Speaker 2: made Cawloon City so remarkable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, I think that's a great time for
Speaker 1: a second break, and we're going to talk about what
Speaker 1: happened in Calvin City right after this.
Speaker 2: Uh Chuck, we're back. And I just want to say,
Speaker 2: before I forget again, ninety nine percent Invisible of course
Speaker 2: did an amazing episode. Oh of course they did on
Speaker 2: this back in twenty twelve.
Speaker 3: So great Roman Mars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you could be like, oh, that's not what
Speaker 2: Josh and Chuck so they said something different. Just go
Speaker 2: with Roman Mars interpretation.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I just weirdly texted Roman the other day or yesterday
Speaker 1: for the first time in a long long time.
Speaker 2: Like weirdly you said something weird.
Speaker 1: No, just weird that you brought him up. That's like
Speaker 1: twice that he's been mentioned in my life twice in
Speaker 1: a couple of days and it had been a while
Speaker 1: and he didn't text me back yet, because come on, Roman.
Speaker 2: Seriously, Roman, get your act together. So yeah, so, Kylleen,
Speaker 2: Wild City, it's going along. Most of the stuff we've
Speaker 2: just talked about, the fourteen story buildings, lovers buildings, pressed
Speaker 2: up against one another, the trash tunnels, all that stuff
Speaker 2: is really taking place from about nineteen seventy to say,
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety ninety two. Okay, that's like the peak of
Speaker 2: the notoriety and infamy and the just the way that
Speaker 2: people think of Kowloon Wald City. It was basically between
Speaker 2: those decades, right and even before then, even before there
Speaker 2: were fourteen story buildings astonishingly going up in this in
Speaker 2: the city. The Brits were like, we really hate that
Speaker 2: Kowloon Wald City is sitting there. It's just like a
Speaker 2: thumb in our eye that the Chinese just keep rubbing
Speaker 2: over and over again. We really want to get rid
Speaker 2: of it. But their their hands were tied, essentially. Despite that,
Speaker 2: they tried a bunch of different ideas to try to
Speaker 2: get people out of kowloon Wald City so they could
Speaker 2: tear it down.
Speaker 3: It was a toe in their tea.
Speaker 2: Perfect man, you are on fire today.
Speaker 3: I mean, can you imagine anything worse?
Speaker 2: A foot in your Brunswick stew right?
Speaker 1: Oh wow, okay, one and everything good. Let's call back,
Speaker 1: all right, So if you don't know what that is,
Speaker 1: everybody that it's gonna be a little east egg for you.
Speaker 1: One day and deepen the stuff. You should know archives,
Speaker 1: deepen a pot of Brunswicks. Two.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty two, the Brits started or I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: they completed construction on a high rise public housing complex
Speaker 1: called the Tung Tao Estate, and they're.
Speaker 3: Like, all right, everybody, look what we built for you.
Speaker 1: Residents of Kowlouon Wald City, get out of there, come
Speaker 1: on over here, we want to resettle to you.
Speaker 3: This is much nicer. Authorities showed up.
Speaker 1: They had notices that they posted and handed people and
Speaker 1: they were met with the Kowloon Wald City Anti Demolition
Speaker 1: and Anti Removal Committee, who said, no, thanks, we want
Speaker 1: to stay here.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so they said, you know what, we're going
Speaker 2: to tell China on you, essentially, and China stepped in
Speaker 2: and was like, no, guys, you're not going to do that.
Speaker 2: These people have a right to live here. This is
Speaker 2: quote a gross violation of China's sovereignty and everybody should
Speaker 2: should protest than strike, and they did, and the cops
Speaker 2: came in and there were clashes, and it became essentially
Speaker 2: an international scandal that the Brits were picking on these
Speaker 2: poor people who were squatting in this poor area in
Speaker 2: a colony the Brits were administering. It was not a
Speaker 2: very good look. So the Brits backed off, and it
Speaker 2: was another chance for China to be like, hah ha,
Speaker 2: we are really using Kowloon Walled City to the maximum effect.
Speaker 2: So the Brits, who still wanted to tear this down,
Speaker 2: they went back to the drawing board.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: But what they knew they had was this ninety nine
Speaker 1: year lease. Yeah, sign in eighteen ninety eight, so you
Speaker 1: do the math. Nineteen ninety seven was that year on
Speaker 1: the horizon, just sort of sitting out there.
Speaker 2: I would have said ninety eight.
Speaker 1: And then the Brits they knew the state was coming.
Speaker 1: China knew this date was coming, and they were like,
Speaker 1: all right do China was like we've been making him
Speaker 1: and hawing about the thing being aeign like we really
Speaker 1: want this back in nineteen ninety seven?
Speaker 3: Do we want to inherit this thing?
Speaker 1: And on the brit side they were like, aha, like
Speaker 1: we know what they're thinking over there. They don't want
Speaker 1: really inherit this thing either. Yeah, So they started some
Speaker 1: sort of more legitimate like agreeing with one another as
Speaker 1: far as talks go as early as like nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 1: when China was like, maybe we should actually talk this
Speaker 1: over now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And these were secret talks, right, So for China,
Speaker 2: the city had outlived its political usefulness and I guess
Speaker 2: just as a I mean, they wanted to tear it
Speaker 2: down so badly that the Brits were willing to do
Speaker 2: this for China shortly before the handover in nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 2: And so what they came up with is that residents
Speaker 2: would be offered financial compensation. Pretty good compensation too. I
Speaker 2: think about three hundred thousand dollars for a flat that
Speaker 2: again they'd spent maybe thirty thousand dollars on twenty years
Speaker 2: before they would be moved into a high rise public
Speaker 2: housing unit. They're basically all going to be resettled into
Speaker 2: a nicer life, graddess with a little spending money.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: So finally, on January fourteenth, nineteen eighty seven, they got
Speaker 1: three hundred and sixty staff members from the Clearance in
Speaker 1: squatter Control from Hong Kong and they came down to
Speaker 1: Kowloon City and they were like, hey, we need to
Speaker 1: get a we need to know how many people are here.
Speaker 1: We need to know how many people are resettling, So
Speaker 1: we need an actual census, like, no one has a clue.
Speaker 1: We've been guessing how many people live here based on
Speaker 1: ordinary numbers, and this is an ordinary place. So they
Speaker 1: cordoned off all eighty three entrances and exits to the city,
Speaker 1: went door to door and did a census and counted
Speaker 1: people up and said, hey, this is the plan moving forward.
Speaker 1: You're going to be resettled. And there wasn't a riot
Speaker 1: this time. They were still thinking like, oh, yeah, we're
Speaker 1: going to tell China on you, because they didn't know
Speaker 1: those secret talks had been going on. This time it
Speaker 1: was different, and the Chinese Foreign Ministry finally stepped up
Speaker 1: and in a formal statement said, in so many words, yeah,
Speaker 1: the time has come and we're giving this over to
Speaker 1: the British. They're going to rid this place of his residences.
Speaker 1: And it was nice while it lasted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that was nineteen eighty seven, you said. It
Speaker 2: wasn't until ninety four that Kowloon Walled City was finally
Speaker 2: fully demolished, and it wasn't until two years before that
Speaker 2: that the last resident was finally evicted. There was a
Speaker 2: few there were a few holdouts. A lot of people
Speaker 2: were like, yeah, i'll take three hundred grand in a
Speaker 2: new place to live. There were some holdouts because I
Speaker 2: don't I probably people have guessed this, but we didn't
Speaker 2: say it overtly. There there was a tremendous amount of
Speaker 2: pride among people living in Kowloon Walled City. They did
Speaker 2: their home, yes, and it was a very special and
Speaker 2: unique home, and they were not going to find that
Speaker 2: anywhere else on earth, and they knew it. And so
Speaker 2: a lot of them were holdouts for a very long
Speaker 2: time and did not want to go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I imagine it attracted just like the initial
Speaker 1: attraction in the fifties and sixties, people that didn't want
Speaker 1: to be under like the thumb of a government was
Speaker 1: still sort of a sentiment there. Yeah, they didn't want
Speaker 1: to assimilate to the larger sort of system because they
Speaker 1: had a system that they felt worked for them in
Speaker 1: whatever way that was. So I have a lot of
Speaker 1: respect for the people that were like, no, I don't
Speaker 1: want to leave. You can't kick me out of my home.
Speaker 1: But like you said, sadly the last person was evicted.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety two, there were people burning Union Jack's
Speaker 1: setting off homemade firecrackers and stuff. A few people actually
Speaker 1: physically battled the cops a little bit, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: you know, it was a pretty small resistance, and in
Speaker 1: July of ninety two the last person left.
Speaker 2: Yes, so there's nothing really left of Kowloon Walled City.
Speaker 2: It's just the footprint. This footprint has been around for
Speaker 2: hundreds of years and it will not go away. It's
Speaker 2: an indelible print on Hong Kong as a town, as
Speaker 2: an area on the Kowloun peninsula. And even the Kaitak
Speaker 2: airport is gone now. They've moved the airport further away
Speaker 2: from the city center because, like you said, they had
Speaker 2: to be very careful descending. We've talked about it before.
Speaker 2: I don't remember, maybe like our air traffic control episode
Speaker 2: or something. Yeah, where like you basically had to clear
Speaker 2: the fourteenth story wild City and then suddenly dropped to
Speaker 2: hit the runway. It was really not well planned because
Speaker 2: there wasn't really a plan. So they moved the airport,
Speaker 2: they got rid of kawlun Wald City, and now there's
Speaker 2: a park there in its place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think they didn't that documentary say that
Speaker 1: original religious building is still there is like the only
Speaker 1: thing that's left from the early days.
Speaker 2: It was the office of the Administrator of and yes
Speaker 2: it's still there. They preserved it in the Kowloon Walld City.
Speaker 2: That was what that courtyard was. It was built around that,
Speaker 2: that original office from the I think the Qing dynasty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was it. That's the only thing from the
Speaker 1: early days that's left. It's like you said, it's a
Speaker 1: green space and there's ponds.
Speaker 3: It's quite lovely.
Speaker 1: They do have a table sized scale model of what
Speaker 1: was there. But yeah, it's still that same shape, like
Speaker 1: if you do aerial shots, you know, it's the really
Speaker 1: stuck to their parameters. Yea, with the city once the
Speaker 1: walls were gone and with this parkuse it's the exact
Speaker 1: same shape still. And you know, like we mentioned, it's
Speaker 1: been in a ton of either directly sort of been
Speaker 1: the setting for movies like in blood Sport from Jean
Speaker 1: clond Beddam, or been like heavily inspired by what the
Speaker 1: sort of the look they were going after in video
Speaker 1: games and films.
Speaker 2: I don't care what you say. Blood Sport was a
Speaker 2: good movie.
Speaker 3: You know what, I didn't see a single Jean Claude
Speaker 3: Bandam movie.
Speaker 2: I saw a time I should. I'll tell you this
Speaker 2: off of off. Okay, but anyway, I finally saw blood
Speaker 2: Sport when I was not like a couple of years ago,
Speaker 2: and I was like, Wow, this movie is actually really good.
Speaker 3: I got to check it out.
Speaker 2: Oh, you should check it out. That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's my new deal. Is John Claude all the way?
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, where's he been? Remember he had like a
Speaker 2: podcast or a TV show or something for a litle
Speaker 2: podcasts of course, yeah, I think he did.
Speaker 3: Or it was like celebrities.
Speaker 2: It was no, I'm sorry, it was like a TV
Speaker 2: show where it was okay, it was a mockumentary or
Speaker 2: pseudo reality where he played himself. But John Claude van
Speaker 2: dam actually was a spy in real life or something.
Speaker 3: Oh I don't, I haven't heard of that.
Speaker 2: I think it was short lived.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 2: Well, since Chuck has dedicated himself to watching John Claude
Speaker 2: Van Damn movies all the time, that means obviously it's
Speaker 2: time for a listener mail.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: So this is a rare re butt to a listener mail.
Speaker 1: So a listener writing in it about another listener mail,
Speaker 1: because we had our Irish friend right in and point
Speaker 1: out that we were sort.
Speaker 3: Of engaging in Irish erasure, right. So, hey, guys.
Speaker 1: While the emailer was correct that Sho was born in
Speaker 1: County Kildare, Shackleton himself would have considered himself British. He
Speaker 1: was born in Ireland while it was under British rule
Speaker 1: and moved to Great Britain when he was ten. He
Speaker 1: served in the British Army and was awarded many British honors.
Speaker 1: I myself am a proud Irishman, but I don't think
Speaker 1: you were wrong in calling him British.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: I'm happy to accept that he was correct if there
Speaker 1: was a quote which shows that he considered himself Irish.
Speaker 1: Ireland in nationality is always a tricky subject. I hold
Speaker 1: a UK driver's license in an Irish passport. I have
Speaker 1: one child technically born in the UK and one born
Speaker 1: in Ireland, with just eighty miles between the hospitals and
Speaker 1: them both being on the same island. I keep up
Speaker 1: the good work. Guy's been listening for years in all
Speaker 1: of the show as from Jamie Finnegan, and we're not
Speaker 1: going to wait into this any further, Jamie, because I
Speaker 1: know that stuff is very tricky.
Speaker 3: H So we have read the.
Speaker 1: Original email and now the rebuttal, and we're going to
Speaker 1: leave it to you guys to work it out nice.
Speaker 2: I think that's a great idea And that was from Jamie, right,
Speaker 2: Yes it is okay. Well, thanks a lot, Jamie, And
Speaker 2: if you want to be like Jamie, you can send
Speaker 2: us an email too. Send it off to stuff podcast
Speaker 2: at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts myheart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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