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How the Kowloon Walled City Worked · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here as well, and this is stuff
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: you should know. So well, it's get started talking about
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: some stuff that you should know. And I guess we
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: should do our semi annual explanation Chuck that the title
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: of our podcast is never intended to make you feel
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: bad because you don't know something. It's not that we
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: think you should know this already. We're saying we find
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: this really interesting and we want to share it with you.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Hence we want you to know about it. You should
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: know about this because it's interesting and we want to
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: tell you about it, not that you should already know
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  Speaker 2: about it.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the second one. We just did that listener
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: to mail like two weeks ago.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: I think we should do it every week. I'm going
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: to start every podcast with that from now on.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's a great way to retain listeners, I think
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: for sure.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Man, you should see the match I'm drinking right now.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: It's like mash mash brown green. It's disgusting. I don't
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: know what's wrong with it, but I got a drink
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  Speaker 2: in any way.
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  Speaker 3: Oh is it not taste good either?
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  Speaker 2: Not really, it's pretty bitter.
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  Speaker 3: Maybe that much is turned bro, But does.
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  Speaker 2: It it was powder? Does maucha turn? Because if so,
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  Speaker 2: I'm drinking turn macha for sure.
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  Speaker 1: All right, well we'll do a short stuff can of
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  Speaker 1: powder turn. But no, we're not going to do that
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  Speaker 1: today because we're talking about the Kowloon Walled City in
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Hong Kong, which is the most well, at one time
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: was the most densely populated place on planet Earth.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: And just to give you if you've.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Ever been to New York City, if you've ever traveled
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: to the East Village, yeah, one of my favorite villages.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: That's where I got engaged.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right there at the museum. Which museum, not the
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Waitty That is the most and it doesn't feel like
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: it when you're there. But the East Village is the
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: most densely neighborhood in New York City and they have
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: about forty three thousand people living in the East Village.
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  Speaker 1: The Kowloon Walled City is about the size of the
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: East Village geographically, but there are one point yeah, that's
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: why they use the East Village and all the comps.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: One point two five million people living there as opposed
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: to forty three thousand.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Okay, yes, exactly, but there were really only thirty three
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: thousand people. But if you spread it all out over
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: a square kilometer, you would have that many people to
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: equal that density.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: Right, That's right.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: So that's I wanted to make sure to take that
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: and just screw it up. The reason I did this
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: is because it's not the same size. Kowloon Walld City
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: is like a fraction of the size of the square kilometer.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I think like a little over three football fields.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: I saw that. I also saw four. I also saw
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: four rugby fields or large soccer pitches. So all of
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: those put together.
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  Speaker 3: Uh huh.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Imagine twenty three thousand people standing on there like they'd
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: literally have to be standing on one an other shoulders.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Who knows how many people deep it would be. And
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: so this incredibly compact area of a few football fields
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: or rugby or soccer pitches held buildings right up against
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: each other that went all the way up to fourteen
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: stories tall. And if you went into this place, you
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: would be like, I, I this is like nowhere I've
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: ever been in the world. And you would be right
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: because there was nowhere in the world like the Kowloon
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Walled City from about nineteen seventy to nineteen ninety ish.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like, if you have a if you have a
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: fairly smallish lot that your house is on, let's say,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: have a single family house and it's on like maybe
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: a half an acre.
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  Speaker 3: If you're lucky, like you're doing pretty great, that's a
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: great life.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a little more than six and a
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: half acres and there were five hundred buildings packed in there.
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  Speaker 2: That nuts. Even with those mind blowing stats, it's like,
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: go and look, there's a very famous photograph from i
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: think a nineteen eighty nine or nineteen ninety National Geographic
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  Speaker 2: overhead that just gets it all across perfectly. You just
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: look at it and you're like, that doesn't even look
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: like a village or a city. It looks like a
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: single thing. And a lot of people have made that
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: point that these buildings were so close together, they were
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: so interconnected, people just built haphazard bridges between one building
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  Speaker 2: and another so they didn't have to go down fourteen
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  Speaker 2: stories and then back up that it essentially created one
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: single organism. That that's kind of how Kowloon Walled City
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: came to be seen when it reached its fully developed peak.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it had to be the inspiration behind the Living
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Quarters and Ready Player One if you've ever seen that
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: movie or read the book. When I saw pictures of
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: kowloon Wald City for the first time, I was like, Oh,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: looks like Ready Player One, really, except it was real.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: This was an actual, real place. So we encourage you,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: at some point when it's safe to do so, to
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: look it up because the pictures worth a thousand words
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: and we spent probably a couple of thousand trying to
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: describe it.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: The thing that really rings home, I guess to me, okay,
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: comparing it to Blade Runner, like especially in Blade Runner
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: when Harrison Ford is eating noodles and Edward James almost
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: comes up to take them away, Uh huh, Like just
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: that kind of look like the fluorescent light, everything's packed together,
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: is people everywhere, Like that's what it looked like.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Like.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: There's no way that the designers of Blade Runner did
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: not were not inspired by kowloon Wald City. I refuse
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: to believe it.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Well, and as we'll see, or I guess I could
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: say it now. There have been lots of video games
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: and movies that were based either on or very much
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: patterned after this look one of the black Ops games.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: This movie about a straight cat or sorry video game
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: about a straight cat. That maybe a movie at some point,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: but yeah, I think it was. This is all to
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: say it was densely packed. Have we gotten that across?
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: What was that movie that I told you to watch
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: about the cat? The animated movie about the cat, And
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: then you said, oh, I already saw it in theaters.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Was it called Flow?
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: I think that was Flow. That was so so great.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: That was such a good movie. I encourage everybody to
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: go watch it. It's like almost sixteen or eight bit
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: graphic looking. It's very bit mapped on purpose, and it
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: really does a great job of making it otherworldly.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it won the Oscar and it looks that way
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: because a dude made it in his apartment.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: Oh man, that makes it even better. That is such
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: an amazing movie.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really great.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: The other movie that sticks out for me when I
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: think of Kowloon Walld City is the merchant Ivory movie Howard's.
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  Speaker 1: End Right or Far and Away with Nicole Kidman right
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Tom Cruse.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: That one I saw that in the theater for some reason,
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: really that's weird. I also saw eyes I'd shut in
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: the theater and I knew all about it going into it,
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: and so it was my birthday, so I made my
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: whole family go watch it.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: Uh that's that very fun end of that story. Yeah,
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: all right.
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  Speaker 1: So we need to go back in history, though, if
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: we want to talk about how this city came to be,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: and in order to do that, we need to go
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  Speaker 1: back to the First Opium War, which was a few
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: years between eighteen thirty nine and forty two where there
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: was a trade dispute between Imperial China and Britain, where
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: in Britain was like, hey, we loves shipping in this
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  Speaker 1: opium from India to your addicted citizens, and China was like, no,
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  Speaker 1: we like selling them opium ourselves, and.
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  Speaker 3: So let's go to war over that.
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  Speaker 2: I think actually China was executing addicts in the street.
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  Speaker 2: They were on a huge campaign to eradicate opium addiction
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  Speaker 2: from their population, and Britain was like, uh, uh, we're
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  Speaker 2: going to keep them addicted because we're making tons of
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  Speaker 2: cash off of that, oh for sure.
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  Speaker 1: And this is after China had made a ton of
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  Speaker 1: money shipping tea, so there were trade relations already, you know,
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  Speaker 1: sort of ensconced.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and Britain couldn't get enough of China's tea. But
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  Speaker 2: China was like, we don't really want too much of
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: your stuff, except our population wants the opium you're smuggling in.
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  Speaker 2: So imagine if like the war as cartel, like Mexico
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  Speaker 2: is like, nope, we don't want you you supplying our
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: population with drugs, and the Wars Cartel's like, oh yeah,
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  Speaker 2: we're going to war with you and we're gonna win.
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  Speaker 2: And now we have a treaty saying that we can
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: sell your population drugs and you can't do anything about it.
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  Speaker 2: That was essentially the First Opium War. Yeah, and there
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: was even a second Opium War, the sequel.
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  Speaker 3: That's right.
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  Speaker 1: But another important thing come out of the First Opium War,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: which was China was forced to seed some land on
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  Speaker 1: Hong Kong, which you know wasn't a big bustling place
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  Speaker 1: at that point, not much of anything at that point,
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  Speaker 1: And in order to sort of you know, be close
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: to them and sort of keep an eye on what's
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  Speaker 1: going over there, the Qing dynasty said, all right, we
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  Speaker 1: have a military installation just across the water from Hong
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Kong on the Kowloon Peninsula and over the Kowloon Bay,
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  Speaker 1: and let's build a big wall there and just like
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  Speaker 1: fortify this little military installation. So they built a wall
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  Speaker 1: fifteen feet thick, thirteen feet high. It housed about one
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  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty soldiers, and that's where the name Kowloon
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  Speaker 1: Walled City came from from that wall.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and today's modern Hong Kong is populated mostly on
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  Speaker 2: the Kowloon Peninsula, but at the time it was the
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: opposite Hong Kong Island was the population and this Kowloon
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: place was just a little Nowhere's Ville essentially, And so
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: China was like, yeah, we're going to keep this, We're
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: going to keep it. An eye on the Brits like this.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: And after, I guess the Second Opium War led to
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: the Second Convention of Peking where both the First Opium
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: War and the second one found China just giving into
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: tons of demands from the Brits, from the Americans, from
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: I think the wrench who were all like, you have
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: to open your market's dust because we want money from
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: you guys. And one of the things that came out
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: of it was the very famous ninety nine year lease
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: that the Brits had on Hong Kong from China, which
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: is why the UK administered Hong Kong for almost one
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: hundred years essentially throughout the twentieth century.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So the other thing landwise that came out of
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: that Second Opium War was they seated all of Hong
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Kong Island, the entire Kowloon Peninsula to the Britz. But
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: keep in mind, they still have this walled city kind
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: of right there, you know, nearest to the coast, within
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: that territory. And so there was a little, I guess,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: a little loophole that they I don't know if they
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: snuck it in there, but it was, you know, clearly written,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: but there was a clause in there basically that said
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: it's so confusing, I'm not even going to read it.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: But the result was this weird, small walled city within
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: this territory that Britain now controls was to stay there
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: and to stay that way.
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  Speaker 2: And to stay Chinese territory. So this little tiny, six acre,
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  Speaker 2: three rugby pitch patch of land would be Chinese sovereign
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: land in this British territory. Essentially, is what just got
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: set up from the eighteen ninety eight Treaty.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: All right, so it's a weird situation, hmm. But that's
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: what they're left with. Right after the British takeover there,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: some Christian missionaries went in. It started to get populated.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: The walled city did they built a church, Some pig
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: farmers came in. They started squatting. People started squatting because,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: you know, it was protected by this great you know,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, not the great wall.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: A great wall that was.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: When we were in Belize on vacation, we went up
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: a Rio Grand. Emily kept saying, you go up the
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Rio grand to get to the ocean, and I was like,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's the Rio grand And it was
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Rio Grande.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: So the joke for the rest of the trip was
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: we're going up a Rio Grand.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: Very cute.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: So there was a great wall, so that attracted squatters.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: It did, and one of the reasons why is because
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: there was this idea that, okay, this is Chinese territory.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: So that was already kind of a thought in people's
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: head that there weren't enough people there in this Christian
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: missionary church kind of we're almost keeping an eye on
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: things as far as the Brits administering Hong Kong were concerned,
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: so they weren't paying much attention to it. And then
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: World War II came along and Japan occupied big swaths
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: of China, as we talked about in our Unit seven
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: thirty one episode, and one of those swaths was the peninsula,
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: the Kowloon Peninsula, and they tore down those thick, thick
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: granite walls and they used it to build out Kai
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: Tak Airport. And I think it was already there was
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: kind of like an airfield or laying strip, and they
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: turned it into like an actual airport. And for many,
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: many years, for decades, Kai Tak Airport was the airport
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: that you flew into when you flew to Hong Kong.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's uh, you know, they needed building. I
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: love repurposing building materials. Sure, so when I heard that part,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: I was like, that's great. They don't need that wall
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: there anyway, because it looks like it had a wall
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: build around it when you.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: Looked at it, right, you know. That was kind of
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: the funny thing.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which is ironic because it looks like they populated
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: that city with a wall and then took the wall down. Yeah,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: but it was just so I mean, everyone knew how
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: far out you could build, so it just kind of
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: ended up looking that way.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: Right. It was, it was, and it was very densely.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: Populated, that's what I've heard.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: So after World War Two a couple of things happened
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: geopolitically that kind of gave rise to the Kowloon Walled City.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: The name stuck, even though it didn't have the walls. Yeah,
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: but a lot of the people who were refugees during
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: the war made their way down to the Kowloon Peninsula
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: and they were like, we're not Brits, We're Chinese, so
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: we're gonna start squatting here. And the Brits were like, no,
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: you know you're not squatting here. This is not Chinese,
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: it's ours. It's part of Hong Kong. We basically own
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: Hong Kong right now, so get out. And they evicted
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: all the squatters in nineteen forty eight. By this time
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: it had been there were like thousands of them, so
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: it was a really big deal. And then the squatters
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: just came back next week.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: That's right, they came back. The next week.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: They tried to kick them out again, and there was
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: a riot this time, and I feel like, that's a
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: pretty good time for our first break. Okay, sure, all right,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: we'll be right back. All right, So we're back Cawloon
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Walled city without the wall. Yeah, is being populated. They're
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: getting kicked out, they keep coming back. There was a
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Chinese Civil war following World War Two, so that was
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: one reason that people, you know, between the communists and
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: the Nationalist Party, and that was one reason people were starting,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: you know, to get the.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: Heck out of you know, in there, I guess, yeah.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: And in nineteen forty nine, you know, the communist one
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: they declared the People's Republic of China, and so that's
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: when in the nineteen fifties things really kicked off with
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: refugees trying to get in there and build up up up.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And if you were a refugee from China, that
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: meant you were probably a nationalist or at the very
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: least weren't a communist, and you just needed to get
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: out of there. But you were, as far as you
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: were concerned, better off living on this tiny patch of
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: Chinese land because you still consider yourself a Chinese national.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: Then you were trying to assimilate into this British administered
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: polony that was really Chinese, but the Brits didn't treat
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: it like that, right, And so these people, these refugees
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: became like this, they almost like freedom fighters. And even
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: the CCP, the Chinese Communist government, they would they were
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: they were promoting them. They would give them supplies. Sometimes
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: they would give them food. Sometimes they would send emissaries
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: down that would talk them up and be like, keep
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: fighting the good fight. You know, we've got your back.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: And essentially, anytime the Brits tried to make a move
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: on these residents of Kowloon Walled City, China would step
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: in and be like, ah, that is Chinese territory. So
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: no matter what these people did, the BRIT's hands were tied.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: And the whole reason why was not that China cared
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: about them, but it was a thorn in Great britain side.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: There was this crazy, weird area that they did not
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: have control over in the middle of this colony that
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: they had taken from China, and China took every opportunity
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: to basically twist that thorn in their side, and they
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: used every every time that the people of Kowloon were
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: put upon as a chance to step in and flex
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: their whatever authority they did have in the area. Still.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So as a result of all this, the Brits
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: were like, I don't even care anymore, Like this.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: Is such a pain. In the fifties and sixties, they.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Took a real hands off approach and just kind of
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: let what happened there happen there, and that led to
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: a real influx of people and then that housing boom
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: they didn't have. It looks like the only building code
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: they have was you can't build anything over fourteen stories
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: tall because it's right there next to the airport and
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: you don't want to get a wing through your living
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: room one day. So that was the only building code around,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: certainly the only one honored, because it was kind of
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: anything goes inside there. And what we ended up with,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: you know, you mentioned an organic structure. It was ended
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: up called by architects on organic megastructure, sure, because these
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: buildings would sink down into their founday and start to tip,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: but they would tip over into the next one, and
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: that one was tipping toward it. So they ended up
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: calling like lovers buildings because at the top they were
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: all kind of angled in and touching one another, and
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: it's sort of sweet if you.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: Think about it, it is.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: It is kind of sweet. It was also at the
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: same time, weirdly, architects in like the fifties and sixties
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: there was kind of like an avant garde school of
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: thought about just incredibly dense like community building and this
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: is essentially a natural experiment. And it kind of showed
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: that a lot of those theories held up kind of
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: like the buildings held one another up, that people could
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: just build out what they needed in ways that they
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: needed in that spaces that were livable without having to
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: be you know, spread out, without having to have government
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: oversight and all that kind of stuff. Too. Those buildings,
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: especially when they were lovers buildings pressed up against one another,
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: they became so dense that sunlight would not penetrate the
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: street level in a lot of cases. In most cases actually,
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: like one of the premiums for a flat in the
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Kowloon Walld City was one that was outward facing or
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: faced on the internal courtyard because they had sun exposure.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Most of the apartments, businesses, dwellings, streets alleys in klouon
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: Wald City were not exposed to sunlight at any point
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: in the day.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that you sent in this pretty good little YouTube.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: It was like fifteen twenty minutes long about this walled
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: city that breaks it down. And at one point I
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: paused it because they had I was wondering what these
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: things cost. And I don't know what year this was
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: that they gave us these numbers from. But a two
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: hundred and eighty square foot flat cost twenty eight thousand
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: American dollars. And if you're thinking, all right, that two
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: hundred and eighty twenty eight thousand, that kind of makes sense.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: But that was without sunlight.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: I think the exterior facing four hundred and fifty square
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: foot flat was sixty thousand dollars.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that was in the sixties or
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: seventies from a paper I saw, okay, But still one
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: of the things I saw is that a reason that
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: this was attractive to a lot of people, because over
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: time the place didn't just attract Chinese nationalists and refugees
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: from China. It attracted people who are like, oh, there's
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: these really cheap living in here. You could get a
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: flat that was about double the square footage of a
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: like a government flat, like a council flat, public housing essentially,
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: you'd call it, and it had a kitchen and a bathroom,
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: and those were not guaranteed in the public housing flats
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: that you would maybe even pay the same or more for.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: So there was like real incentive to move into this
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: place if you didn't care about living cheek to jowl
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: with your neighbors amid trash and abandoned appliances and all
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: sorts of other crazy stuff.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, there were some benefits though.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: If you lived in the Koloun walled city, you didn't
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: pay an electric bill almost certainly because you probably just
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: like literally ran the electric yourself from the public utilities.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: There was all manner of plumbing and wiring routed from
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: the outside coming in into the walled city, so these
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: buildings were wrapped in water pipes and sewage lines and
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: conduit running electricity. If you were a business, you weren't
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: paying any kind of business taxes, so that was a
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: big plus. But you didn't have stuff like trash pickup,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: and you had to deal with things like heroin dealers
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: and brothels and the Triad gang kind of running the show,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: which you know, it was mostly bad, but they also
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: did some things to keep the place up.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, A good example that I saw of what life
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: was like in this that made it like people just
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: got used to this stuff and it was every day,
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: was that you would when you were walking on street level,
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: you would carry an umbrella because of those exposed pipes,
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: it would be leaking on you. But some of those
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: pipes were also sewage pipes, so those would be dripping
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: and leaking too. Because there was no code that was
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: being followed. It was like, I need a sewage outlet
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: coming out of my house here, so I'm just going
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: to run this pipe right here, and that's that some
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: people just walked around with umbrellas on street level. Another
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: one that I saw that people just got used to
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: is that a lot of the street level areas were tunnels.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: And the reason that they were tunnels is because overhead
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: there was a mesh net that had been laid between
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: buildings to catch the trash that people just threw out
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: of their windows. And the reason that they put the
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: mesh netting was because if they didn't, then you wouldn't
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: be able to get into the ground floor of any
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: of the buildings because they would be so covered up
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: with trash. And so these impromptu alleys developed as trash
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: built overhead and the walls of the first floor of
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: these buildings were exposed on either side. People just got
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: used to this, like this was just what life was
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: like in Kowloon, and in some ways it wasn't that
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: much war if at all. Then some of the other
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: poverty stricken areas of Hong Kong at the time.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like if you're wondering, like why did people even
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: live there or stay there, it's for exactly that reason.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: It wasn't so different from other poor places that it
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: would have been a big, like life improvement to move
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: and this was their home. It may look kind of
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: kind of crazy from the outside, but people really made
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: a life there. There were hundreds of legit businesses that
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: operated there. There there were machine shops. There were a
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: lot of machine shops as far as industry goes in
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: metal fabrication, and then food was a big one. There
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: were lots of food factories. And in that documentary they said,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: you know, there was always a feeling that like some
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: of the food that was made there was in on
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: the plates and in the bowls of some really high
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: class restaurants surrounding them.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the fishballs, so they were unregulated fishballs made in
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: highly unsanitary conditions that just made it out of the
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Kowlouon Walled City. Because that's another thing too. A lot
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: of people look at this from the outside and think
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: like this is completely isolated from the rest of Hong Kong.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: Absolutely untrue. Those businesses were exporting out of the city
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: into the rest of Hong Kong. People were coming from
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: outside of the city into the city for things like
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: dentists and doctors who were all unlicensed, unregulated, which at
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: first blush, You're just like, oh my god, why would
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: you go to an unlicensed dentist. Well, they were already
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: trained and licensed in China, but when they went to
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Hong Kong, those credentials didn't transfer over, and so rather
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: than pay and become a licensed dentist in Hong Kong
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: under British rule, they just set up in Kowloon Walled
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: City and set up practice without needing a license.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it was cheaper, way cheaper. There were schools.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: If you're like, you know, did d even function as
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: like a regular society, they actually, for sure did. There
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: were kindergartens, there were schools. A lot of times it
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: was like the Salvation Army or somebody kind of running
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: these things. If you were like, what about a playground
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: or something like that, some of these rooftops had you know,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: playground equipment where kids could go. Pigeon racing was a
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: big thing, so there were gardens on the roofs, the
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: ones that didn't have trash on them, and they were
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: also keeping these racing pigeons up there.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: And you know, there was actually some order.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: It wasn't just like you might picture like constant chaos
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: or something like that. It was more like something you
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: see out a blade Runner, just a really densely populated
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: city like actually functioning. They had volunteer fire brigades. They
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: did you know, they didn't have municipal trash collection, and
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: there was trash all over the place, but they tried,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: you know, they had volunteer trash collection teams, they had
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: night watch teams. There was a single mail delivery person
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: delivering to the entire city. So they were functioning.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there was the officially the neighborhood Welfare Association. If
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: you bought or sold a flat, the neighborhood Welfare Association
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: would witness it, so it was very much legal. And
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: then the triads you mentioned, they were running and they
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: were manufacturing and selling heroin out of the city. They
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: were running protection rackets and brothels and child prostitutes and
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: all sorts of terrible stuff. And then simultaneously they were
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: also providing the law and order that did exist. Like
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: it was not just chaotic anarchy. It was anarchic in
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: the sense of like government regulation and oversight, like you know,
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: building codes and stuff. But it's not like you just
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: walked over your neighbor's house and killed them and took
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: their stuff and that was that. Like, there was law
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: and order, and it was the rule of the triads
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: who essentially kept people from I guess descending into chaos.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: If that was even a possibility.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Well, they didn't want It's kind of the rule of
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: the street. They didn't want the real authorities coming in there.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: And if it got so bad that would eventually happen,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: it was sure. I mean, I remember when my friend
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: bought his first house in Atlanta in the mid nineties
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: in a pretty rough neighborhood, Like he got his house
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: broken into and got some stuff stolen, and the guy
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: that was the big like drug dealer dude in the
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: neighborhood brought his stuff back, Oh wow, And like knocked
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: on his door and said, here's your guitar, here's your amp,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: here's your stuff, and he was like, you know, I
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: think the unspoken thing was like he didn't want the
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: cops in there. Sure, so he's trying to keep his
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: guys from doing dumb stuff like that to attract attention.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Okay, So yeah, perfect analogy. That's exactly what the triads
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: were doing in there. And so yeah, if you just
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: you know, if you wanted to do Heroin or something,
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: I think it was largely smoked, you would come from
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: outside Kloum Wall City. Maybe if you liked Heroin so much,
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: you'd stick around and move there. But at the same time,
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: if you were just some elderly person looking for a
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: cheap place to stay that was willing to live in
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: an incredibly dense place like there was, there was room
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: for you there too. So it was a really I
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: saw that it was vilified and romanticized, and it really
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: shouldn't be either. Neither of those should be done to it.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: It was just like every other place, multiple shades of gray.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: It's just the literally the sure, It's just that the
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: extremes on either side are so fascinating, especially when they
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: they the whole spectrum is viewed that that that's what
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: made Cawloon City so remarkable.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, I think that's a great time for
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: a second break, and we're going to talk about what
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: happened in Calvin City right after this.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: Uh Chuck, we're back. And I just want to say,
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: before I forget again, ninety nine percent Invisible of course
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: did an amazing episode. Oh of course they did on
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: this back in twenty twelve.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: So great Roman Mars.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you could be like, oh, that's not what
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Josh and Chuck so they said something different. Just go
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: with Roman Mars interpretation.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: I just weirdly texted Roman the other day or yesterday
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: for the first time in a long long time.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Like weirdly you said something weird.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: No, just weird that you brought him up. That's like
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: twice that he's been mentioned in my life twice in
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: a couple of days and it had been a while
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: and he didn't text me back yet, because come on, Roman.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Seriously, Roman, get your act together. So yeah, so, Kylleen,
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: Wild City, it's going along. Most of the stuff we've
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: just talked about, the fourteen story buildings, lovers buildings, pressed
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: up against one another, the trash tunnels, all that stuff
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: is really taking place from about nineteen seventy to say,
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: nineteen ninety ninety two. Okay, that's like the peak of
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: the notoriety and infamy and the just the way that
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: people think of Kowloon Wald City. It was basically between
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: those decades, right and even before then, even before there
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: were fourteen story buildings astonishingly going up in this in
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: the city. The Brits were like, we really hate that
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: Kowloon Wald City is sitting there. It's just like a
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: thumb in our eye that the Chinese just keep rubbing
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: over and over again. We really want to get rid
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: of it. But their their hands were tied, essentially. Despite that,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: they tried a bunch of different ideas to try to
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: get people out of kowloon Wald City so they could
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: tear it down.
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: It was a toe in their tea.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: Perfect man, you are on fire today.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, can you imagine anything worse?
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: A foot in your Brunswick stew right?
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, okay, one and everything good. Let's call back,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: all right, So if you don't know what that is,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: everybody that it's gonna be a little east egg for you.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: One day and deepen the stuff. You should know archives,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: deepen a pot of Brunswicks. Two.
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty two, the Brits started or I'm sorry,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: they completed construction on a high rise public housing complex
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: called the Tung Tao Estate, and they're.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: Like, all right, everybody, look what we built for you.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Residents of Kowlouon Wald City, get out of there, come
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: on over here, we want to resettle to you.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: This is much nicer. Authorities showed up.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: They had notices that they posted and handed people and
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: they were met with the Kowloon Wald City Anti Demolition
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: and Anti Removal Committee, who said, no, thanks, we want
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: to stay here.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And so they said, you know what, we're going
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: to tell China on you, essentially, and China stepped in
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: and was like, no, guys, you're not going to do that.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: These people have a right to live here. This is
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: quote a gross violation of China's sovereignty and everybody should
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: should protest than strike, and they did, and the cops
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: came in and there were clashes, and it became essentially
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: an international scandal that the Brits were picking on these
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: poor people who were squatting in this poor area in
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: a colony the Brits were administering. It was not a
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: very good look. So the Brits backed off, and it
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: was another chance for China to be like, hah ha,
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: we are really using Kowloon Walled City to the maximum effect.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: So the Brits, who still wanted to tear this down,
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: they went back to the drawing board.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: But what they knew they had was this ninety nine
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: year lease. Yeah, sign in eighteen ninety eight, so you
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: do the math. Nineteen ninety seven was that year on
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: the horizon, just sort of sitting out there.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: I would have said ninety eight.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: And then the Brits they knew the state was coming.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: China knew this date was coming, and they were like,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: all right do China was like we've been making him
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: and hawing about the thing being aeign like we really
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: want this back in nineteen ninety seven?
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: Do we want to inherit this thing?
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: And on the brit side they were like, aha, like
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: we know what they're thinking over there. They don't want
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: really inherit this thing either. Yeah, So they started some
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: sort of more legitimate like agreeing with one another as
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: far as talks go as early as like nineteen eighty six,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: when China was like, maybe we should actually talk this
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: over now.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And these were secret talks, right, So for China,
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: the city had outlived its political usefulness and I guess
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: just as a I mean, they wanted to tear it
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: down so badly that the Brits were willing to do
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: this for China shortly before the handover in nineteen ninety seven.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: And so what they came up with is that residents
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: would be offered financial compensation. Pretty good compensation too. I
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: think about three hundred thousand dollars for a flat that
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: again they'd spent maybe thirty thousand dollars on twenty years
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: before they would be moved into a high rise public
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: housing unit. They're basically all going to be resettled into
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: a nicer life, graddess with a little spending money.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: So finally, on January fourteenth, nineteen eighty seven, they got
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: three hundred and sixty staff members from the Clearance in
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: squatter Control from Hong Kong and they came down to
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: Kowloon City and they were like, hey, we need to
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: get a we need to know how many people are here.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: We need to know how many people are resettling, So
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: we need an actual census, like, no one has a clue.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: We've been guessing how many people live here based on
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: ordinary numbers, and this is an ordinary place. So they
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: cordoned off all eighty three entrances and exits to the city,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: went door to door and did a census and counted
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: people up and said, hey, this is the plan moving forward.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: You're going to be resettled. And there wasn't a riot
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: this time. They were still thinking like, oh, yeah, we're
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: going to tell China on you, because they didn't know
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: those secret talks had been going on. This time it
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: was different, and the Chinese Foreign Ministry finally stepped up
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: and in a formal statement said, in so many words, yeah,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: the time has come and we're giving this over to
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: the British. They're going to rid this place of his residences.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: And it was nice while it lasted.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So that was nineteen eighty seven, you said. It
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: wasn't until ninety four that Kowloon Walled City was finally
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: fully demolished, and it wasn't until two years before that
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: that the last resident was finally evicted. There was a
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: few there were a few holdouts. A lot of people
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: were like, yeah, i'll take three hundred grand in a
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: new place to live. There were some holdouts because I
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: don't I probably people have guessed this, but we didn't
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: say it overtly. There there was a tremendous amount of
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: pride among people living in Kowloon Walled City. They did
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: their home, yes, and it was a very special and
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: unique home, and they were not going to find that
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: anywhere else on earth, and they knew it. And so
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: a lot of them were holdouts for a very long
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: time and did not want to go.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I imagine it attracted just like the initial
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: attraction in the fifties and sixties, people that didn't want
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: to be under like the thumb of a government was
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: still sort of a sentiment there. Yeah, they didn't want
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: to assimilate to the larger sort of system because they
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: had a system that they felt worked for them in
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: whatever way that was. So I have a lot of
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: respect for the people that were like, no, I don't
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: want to leave. You can't kick me out of my home.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: But like you said, sadly the last person was evicted.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety two, there were people burning Union Jack's
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: setting off homemade firecrackers and stuff. A few people actually
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: physically battled the cops a little bit, but it wasn't
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: you know, it was a pretty small resistance, and in
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: July of ninety two the last person left.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: Yes, so there's nothing really left of Kowloon Walled City.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: It's just the footprint. This footprint has been around for
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: hundreds of years and it will not go away. It's
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: an indelible print on Hong Kong as a town, as
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: an area on the Kowloun peninsula. And even the Kaitak
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: airport is gone now. They've moved the airport further away
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: from the city center because, like you said, they had
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: to be very careful descending. We've talked about it before.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: I don't remember, maybe like our air traffic control episode
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: or something. Yeah, where like you basically had to clear
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: the fourteenth story wild City and then suddenly dropped to
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: hit the runway. It was really not well planned because
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: there wasn't really a plan. So they moved the airport,
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: they got rid of kawlun Wald City, and now there's
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: a park there in its place.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think they didn't that documentary say that
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: original religious building is still there is like the only
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: thing that's left from the early days.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: It was the office of the Administrator of and yes
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: it's still there. They preserved it in the Kowloon Walld City.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: That was what that courtyard was. It was built around that,
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: that original office from the I think the Qing dynasty.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was it. That's the only thing from the
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: early days that's left. It's like you said, it's a
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: green space and there's ponds.
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: It's quite lovely.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: They do have a table sized scale model of what
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: was there. But yeah, it's still that same shape, like
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: if you do aerial shots, you know, it's the really
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: stuck to their parameters. Yea, with the city once the
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: walls were gone and with this parkuse it's the exact
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: same shape still. And you know, like we mentioned, it's
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: been in a ton of either directly sort of been
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: the setting for movies like in blood Sport from Jean
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: clond Beddam, or been like heavily inspired by what the
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: sort of the look they were going after in video
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: games and films.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: I don't care what you say. Blood Sport was a
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: good movie.
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: You know what, I didn't see a single Jean Claude
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: Bandam movie.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: I saw a time I should. I'll tell you this
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: off of off. Okay, but anyway, I finally saw blood
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: Sport when I was not like a couple of years ago,
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: and I was like, Wow, this movie is actually really good.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: I got to check it out.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, you should check it out. That's what I'm saying.
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's my new deal. Is John Claude all the way?
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: Okay, okay, where's he been? Remember he had like a
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: podcast or a TV show or something for a litle
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: podcasts of course, yeah, I think he did.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: Or it was like celebrities.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: It was no, I'm sorry, it was like a TV
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: show where it was okay, it was a mockumentary or
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: pseudo reality where he played himself. But John Claude van
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: dam actually was a spy in real life or something.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: Oh I don't, I haven't heard of that.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: I think it was short lived.
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: Well, since Chuck has dedicated himself to watching John Claude
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: Van Damn movies all the time, that means obviously it's
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: time for a listener mail.
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: So this is a rare re butt to a listener mail.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: So a listener writing in it about another listener mail,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: because we had our Irish friend right in and point
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: out that we were sort.
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: Of engaging in Irish erasure, right. So, hey, guys.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: While the emailer was correct that Sho was born in
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: County Kildare, Shackleton himself would have considered himself British. He
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: was born in Ireland while it was under British rule
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: and moved to Great Britain when he was ten. He
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: served in the British Army and was awarded many British honors.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: I myself am a proud Irishman, but I don't think
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: you were wrong in calling him British.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: I'm happy to accept that he was correct if there
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: was a quote which shows that he considered himself Irish.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: Ireland in nationality is always a tricky subject. I hold
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: a UK driver's license in an Irish passport. I have
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: one child technically born in the UK and one born
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: in Ireland, with just eighty miles between the hospitals and
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: them both being on the same island. I keep up
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: the good work. Guy's been listening for years in all
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: of the show as from Jamie Finnegan, and we're not
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: going to wait into this any further, Jamie, because I
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: know that stuff is very tricky.
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: H So we have read the.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: Original email and now the rebuttal, and we're going to
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: leave it to you guys to work it out nice.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: I think that's a great idea And that was from Jamie, right,
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: Yes it is okay. Well, thanks a lot, Jamie, And
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: if you want to be like Jamie, you can send
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: us an email too. Send it off to stuff podcast
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts myheart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.