Kowloon Walled City: Inside the Most Crowded Place on Earth
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- Опубликовано: 11 сен 2024
- Discover the enigmatic history of Kowloon Walled City, a unique urban phenomenon nestled in British Hong Kong. From its notorious reputation to its eventual demise, delve into this captivating tale of human resilience and urban transformation.
I hope the ai depictions stop, I want to see the real pictures not what some software thinks it looked like.
i just hate seeing @1 in anything! i miss the real stuff even if the pictures aren’t great
it took me about 5-10 minutes to even realize i was looking at ai images. the tag was so small and in the corner. i'm kinda scared to think about what the use of ai images in historical documentaries could mean.
I want AI depictions to stop in general. As a whole. Let the artists, photographers and videographers do their thing. It’s way better than this AI bullshit.
"City Of Darkness" has amazing pictures of the city.
part of the problem for this city in particular is just how little we have access to.
If I could be a fly on the wall in any place during modern times, it would be Kowloon Walled City. There's something so fascinatingly dystopian yet appealing about it.
It seems like there's never great footage of the place. I just started the video tho
Families lived there and the communities where tight nit. There are some interviews of the people from there
Yep
Wong Kar-Wai shot parts of one of his films there and it really captures the dystopian, strange planet, almost cyberpunk vibe. But if the “cyber” was all second-hand. CyberJunk, if you will.
@@RPGDesignatedPaladin yea that's what I wanna see
Back to 90’s , I was a cop , no cops were dare to enter the wall city , even something emergency happened, we went with 6-7 people. And , we were always lost the direction
found in translation
(cool comment) is what i mean
Jeez that’d be terrifying!
Cool story bro
@@RemyMartinVSOP it was a very cool story- glad you agree
Even if it was a health hazard and ofc nobody should live in such conditions, it's still sort of sad that it's gone like what a masterpiece of people just getting along and building their own community. it would've been so incredibly fascinating to see irl
“Getting along” there was massive gang violence, and one of the highest crime rates in the world
my brother's wife's dad used to live there! we were super excited to get him going talking about it, he doesn't speak English _well_ but he does a bit and he enjoyed the attention and enthusiastasm
Nice! Hearing stories from the oldtimers are the best.
How am I STILL finding Simon channels I'm not subscribed to yet. 😂
The multiverse occasionally touches ours and new channels suddenly show up.
They do scatter on the YT like Kowloon walled city
It's a FK mission, to sub to Simon!✌️
He needs do a video showing all his channels 😂😂 cause I’m subscribed to like 6 of them
@@GhettoUprising I just went through my subscriptions list. I think this makes 7?
For anyone who didn't know, some scenes of the 1988 film Bloodsport were actually filmed inside the city
that's a cool fact! I didn't know that, thanks for sharing
Jackie Chans Crime Story as well
I love and find it so strange how that’s some of the best footage of it.
Video game "stray" also
I thanks, I haven’t seen it but I’ll look it up.
once in a while I like to revisit the places of my childhood. Every now and again I'll find an old house I once lived in, or a school I once attended had been knocked down to be replaced by something else. I couldn't imagine how it would feel to never be able to see anything from your childhood again, had you grown up there. What a fascinating place to grow into the world.
I saw a Geographics on this same place. Host looked similar, too.
Nah, that host was just some generic bearded bald guy with glasses 😁
It was Micheal from V Sauce.
Double dipping it would seem
Jessie is right, that's Hey I'm Michael from VSauce. Uncanny resemblance.
Better than that Muppet they have doing it now. What a knob.
I remember flying into the old Hong Kong airport throughout the 80s and 90s well over a dozen times and skimming over the top of the walled city and Kowloon generally. You could clearly see the people on the roofs. You flew so low it felt like the planes landing gear might touch the aerials and clothes lines on the roofs. Bye the way, Kowloon or Zhou Long in Mandarin means nine dragons. That's what the posters on the wall in the video mean...
Ah, Kai Tak. Yeah, I remember that. Pilots would head for the red and white marker on the mountain then swing right for approach. First time I flew in, 1984, I was thinking wtf??
@@SimonRolph-x5twow that's something else lol. I love ppls experiences ❤
That’s why the walled city couldn’t get any taller! Fourteen stories max or they’d be in serious danger of hitting the jets coming into the airport. Kudos to the pilots who made that approach and landing.
Kowloon Walled City was the inspiration for 1995 movie Ghost in the Shell!
You mean Blade Runner? GiTS existed as a manga before the original animated film... we do not talk about the live action.
Shame the movie didn't do this masterpiece justice the original manga was insane
@JonManProductions was just about to comment this lol
@@JonManProductionsBlade Runner was inspired by the 1968 novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick. It was not inspired by Kowloon Walled City.
@@Erndea obviously they mean that the distinct visual design of Bladerunner was inspired by KWC, not the entire work of fiction. The squalid claustrophobic streets bustling with downtrodden humanity, with noodle shops, sketchy businesses, and signs with Asian characters everywhere, it makes sense. None of this was in the novel, and the film is a fairly loose adaptation overall. Meanwhile Ghost in the Shell's director Mamoru Oshii is on record saying he modeled the cityscapes of the 1995 film off of Hong Kong, including KWC, and that he set out to make an Asian version of Bladerunner's Los Angeles.
There’s an excellent essay by William Gibson (author of seminal cyberpunk work, Neuromancer) that compares the wildness and chaos of KWC and the ultra-clean ultra-modern ultra-controlled image that Singapore was fast becoming at the time. “Disneyland with the death penalty”.
Served in HK from 1984-87. Not on the island or in Kowloon but up in the NT in Sek Kong. Best posting of my life. Have actually walked through this place, with my gf, heading for somewhere else. 23, young and stupid and didn't realise how dangerous it could have been, but nobody paid us any mind.....apart from a few curious looks.
Kowloon Walled City would have a population density similar to the entire 8.1 billion people world population packed inside of the US state of Delaware which is 1,955 square miles big. A population density of 4,143,223 people per square mile if the world population were to crowd the very first US state admitted to the union.
Can you translate this for a non-American? Is there perhaps a country with a similar total area to the state you mentioned? And in kilometres please haha
@@kakonthebed around 5000 square km. roughly the size of trinidad and tobago (population of ~1,5 million people) or brunei (population of ~450k people)
@@adriwirastomo3627 Wow, that’s insane. Thank you.
Kowloon fascinates me. It really does show how deeply, as a species, we have lost sight of what is essential for survival and the luxuries we now declare we have 'right' to.
It seems a piece of the past, like the American Wild West. On the other hand, it also seems our future because it represents humans doing what humans do- survive. Everything we have erected in the West is a luxury. The so-called Standard of Living for The People.
Nobody declares a right to luxuries. Rights are based on basic survival stuff - an opportunity to pursue survival live, be not overly interfered with and mutual aid among a community. Humans have always had that.
@@rickwrites2612
People declare luxuries to be rights or needs all the time. From big things like driving, owning a house, or going to school, to smaller things like having a working cellphone, working hot water, or a good paying job.
You only need food and water to survive. Everything else is a luxury.
Fantastic topic and video. This place has always fascinated me. One niggling complaint, although I understand the reason, fewer AI images would be nice when real ones do exist 😊 Keep up the fantastic shows
i had to quit about halfway through because of the AI images
@@lunarpollen -- AI images get an immediate *thumbs-down* from me...
niggling? Cmon dude. I don't think you've earned your pass
I hope one day someone makes a digital forensic effort to recreate this place that has captured the imagination of so many as accurately as possible.
It's like seeing culture grow into a wilderness in the shape of multistory modern architecture, something that only exist in fiction nowadays and then only because of how those depictions where informed by the reality of this very place.
Any fan of near future sci-fi and cyberpunk keep encountering the echo of this place in those worlds they traverse.
A good place to start would be with the postman who worked there for 15 years. He would have had a map in his mind.
Great video! Would suggest against using the AI images if poss. Happy to see actual photos for longer or on repeat. Thanks as always for the interesting content!
If they kept this place till today imagine the amount of tourism they would have. Something straight out of a video game.
Shenmue 2, great game.
Wow 2 million people per square kilometer. Now that's crazy 😮😮
Gaza is trying to compete for some reason 😂
@@kayleighgroenendal8473”trying” Israel is forcing them to.
@@theonlyjezebel after they massacred over a thousand civilians and tourists
@@theonlyjezebel ok spring chicken
@@kayleighgroenendal8473 is that supposed to be an insult…
Dami Lee also did an amazing job of explaining the architectural aspects of this city
Still sad that I never got to see Kowloon, truely a unique place
Book a flight to HK, you can still go to Kowloon. 😀
The Kowloon Walled city is similar to the Bukit Ho Swee squatters in Singapore in the late 1950s.
Authorities tried to shut the place down but were pushed back but later on a mysterious fire broke out and burnt the entire place down, the fire was so big it is regarded as the most iconic in Singapore till today. A young politician later promised to help the people by building 80,000 public houses for the people who lost their home in 10 months and he delivered on his promises. He been winning election since then for the next 40 plus years, even becoming Prime Minister for over 30 years. His name is Mr Lee Kuan Yew.
But what about the fire you might ask. Based on what I know, police attempted to investigate it only to abruptly stop investigation for some unknown reason. Till today, no one quite knows who is responsible for the fire and how it even started in the first place ...
I lived in Hong Kong from 1970 until 1997. As a 10 year old, the Kowloon Walled City was the only place I could go (apart from crossing the Sham Chun River directly into Shenzen) to buy fireworks. They were banned in Hong Kong because of the anti-British riots in 1967. I could buy a large shopping bag full of firecrackers and rockets for about UK50 pence. As a feral child, it was great fun to let off firecrackers in Tsim Tsa Choi and have the police chase you around the streets.
As for the sensationalist YT video above? - eh, it's ok. Some of it is accurate but what the narrator has failed to do is talk to any Hong Kong Chinese people or Gweilo's who actually were around then. The main thing that I would dispute is that the Kowloon Walled City was a huge centre for manufacturing opium. Yes, they had drugs, especially in the early 1900s leading into the 1930's but after that and the successive police raids the Walled City was more of a distribution centre. As the narrator said, the Sun Yee On triads had a large grip on the Walled City but by the time it was the mid 80's the 14K were having running battles with the Sun Yee On for control and meetings to discuss who would control what part. The main thing to realise is that the vast majority of people living there were just trying to have a life. They went to work, they made money any way they could and by and large, they were law-abiding citizens. As I grew up there my favourite place to go was on the first floor of the south side to a restaurant (really more of a Dai Pai Dong) run by an elderly lady I called Aunty Tse. She made the best Pai Gwat (baby spare ribs) and chicken fried noodles that I have ever had before or since. She often gave them to me for free. I was a white boy with red hair and freckles and I could speak Cantonese so she loved to chat with me.
I'm 61 soon and I feel very nostalgic for a time in Hong Kong that will never be again, very much like the Hong Kongers who watch the movie, Twilight of the Warriors - Walled In.
legendhas it that the postman of 15years only managed 3 full postal rounds
Simon should rename this channel place-o-graphics
Thereographics
I stumbled onto the park maybe a decade ago on a visit, not knowing its history. I was not aware of the walled city's existence when I was a child in the 70's. Since my visit to the park I have grown quite fond of the topic. I now am the proud owner of the two books published by Greg Gerard/Ian Lambert on the walled city. I was even one of the backers of the Kickstarter campaign that funded the second book.
This reminds me of when I lived in Hanoi. Somehow I love the anarchic lifestyle of these cities.
Spent time in Saigon and Shanghai. The smells are atrocious! and memorable. What I think is different in Asia, is that the poor still have dignity. Their smiles, helpfulness, earnestness and hope are genuine. And if not, they keep a private life innate humanity. They always have family, and they always have a meal.
How many jobs does this guy have??😂
One.
My guy Simon is probably rich as Bill Gates 😂
How many breads have you eaten in your life?
Simon, didn't you do a video about Kowloon Walled City for Geographics?
The actual owner of the channel died, his daughter took over, and there was some drama/miscommunication and Team Simon cut ties with her. Team Simon didn't actually own Biographics, Geographics and Top Tenz
@@LordSluggooh wow, some tea, noice
Was wondering what happened to those channels
Taken over and turned into trash
Sad.
He did, but he didn't own that channel. He does Places. Creative control and all that. Cheers
Who was the actual owner of the channel if it's not Simon?
@@LewisZwarteLeeuwUS Shell Harris was the original owner, but he passed just before the pandemic. His daughter now owns the channels. Simon was instrumental in the founding of the channels, but he didn't own them.
I am deeply fascinated and terrified by the Kowloon Walled City.
This was amazing... I've hit subscrive and I'm about to see what else you 've got on the channel; Great stuff! 🙂
$380k USD for their 7sq ft? Holy sh*t. I couldn't have taken it & ran fast enough.
So you're from LA?
@@shalolly4310 Nope, I couldn't be further from LA. Why do you ask?
No, that was $380k per flat, remember each flat would have had multiple people living in it.
The total compensation was 3 billion, and there were 2 million people living there, meaning... one person got only 1500 dollars. If we consider the 380k dollar figure to be true, it means that 253 people were living in 5 apartments there. There's no way that's true, there must have been a problem with the sources/calculations when creating this video
@@itsvmmcthere were between 35-40k people living there at its peak, not 2 million.
Source: I visited the park in person 2 days ago.
5:46 - the group picture gets more and more disturbing the longer you look at it, especially the back row... insane compression or AI touch-up?
Its probably a low quality image to begin with
It looks like the front middle guy has no shirt.
The faces all look like ghouls or zombies.
I really, really wish they would stop using the AI images. There are heaps of photos of Kowloon and its residents, and they deserve to be seen.
Thank you for the fascinating look into this city of mystery. My only critique of the video is that throughout the audio, there is an intermittent heavy thump. I'm not sure if it's embedded in the background music or the editor trying to dampen unwanted sounds from your body movements, either way, I keep thinking I'm hearing activity in the apartment next to me, pulling me out of the experience.
He needs to use a high pass filter on his microphone... I kept wondering what was going on outside my house, and looking out my window...
Love Kowloon. Thanks for making.
First class video. Thank you!
The first 15 minute city.
Right?
Kowloon is still one of my favorite topics. Jackie Chan managed to shoot one of his Hong Kong crime flicks there once it was emptied, Bloodsport was also a great one using Kowloon as a setting. Interesting that many of the fancy restaurants in HK were supplied by the cheap food processed there
I was lucky enough to go to Hong Kong 5x with the Navy. One of squadron friends, CS2 Chan was a HK cop prior to moving to the US. He took us down some crazy back alleys. Wish the walled city was still around when I went there
I’ve always loved this place. I have photos and models of this place just to look at. I wish I could time travel to this place.
With the current housing crisis in the US, I for one, could absolutely see something of similar manner begin in my lifetime.
Tbh, there are quite a few parts in HK that, albeit being more modern, still are as cramped and very similar in structure.
When I visited HK 8ish years ago, we stayed in Chungking Mansion. It was quite the experience. And if you visit less touristy areas in Kowloon you'll see quite a few of those types of buildings.
Oh Brother! I have been in Chinese buildings that I think could collapse at any moment. Simon sez Kowloon didn't abide by building codes? I think they were just a bit below the norm of the rest
The Monster Building comes to mind!
If you had flown to Hong Kong when the Walled City still existed, you could've walked there from the airport. The old one closed and the new one opened in 1998. A few years after the Walled City's demise. You can clearly see where the runway of the former airport used to be. It was on the long narrow peninsula on the satellite picture that is shown in the video. The terminal was on the landslide end of the runway.
New jacket!!!! Everyone! It's a new jacket! 😮
*Me before actually watching the video*
“Kowloon Walled City…. Did George write this?”
🤣
I love this channel, all the cool places are covered
What is the point of the flashing dots graphic overlay? It’s very distracting and adds nothing to the video.
Super distracting!
i would love to see a list of cited sources. i'm actually super interested in this topic and would love to do further reading on certain topics you brought up
This was one of my favorite COD maps
There’s a new movie came out in HK about Kowloon Walled City - it’s perfect timing to bring this back again. Might not have been an international movie but since Simon has a writer in HK, it makes perfect sense.
What is the name of the movie? Where can I find it?
@@carlospacheco7361 en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_of_the_Warriors:_Walled_In
It’s probably available illegally at the moment 😅😅
@@carlospacheco7361English title: Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In.
@@LeeMW007 thanks!
You again?! I can't escape this guy.
Come on! The way I learned about Kowloon City was through Shenmue 2 and as usual, it's never mentioned. It's a rare chance to actually visit the city that no longer exists.
Beautifully crafted video. Thanks to Simon and team.
It would make a great setting for a cyberpunk videogame. Extra points if it has elves.
There is literally already a game about this called Welcome to Kowloon on Steam. It's brilliant.
@@StephenMcGregor1986 Thx, I'll check it out. Mine was actually a joke about Shadowrun: Hong Kong :P
Omg shawowrun HK was amazing i was literally watching this video and humming the theme 😂
"Stray" the video game where you play as a cat is located in a place inspired by Kowloon.
Love this story! Great work James :)
Simon I love your videos on all your channels and the different ways when you’re very serious and when you’re just yourself and sarcastic af you’re just amazing 💜
Another channel from Simon, another sub from me, great video!
Love the new stuff, but I feel like this is the 3rd video I have seen you Simon on Kowloon. Still love it thought and will be here to continue watch!
And yet another channel of Simon's. I guess you make content on everything I like to watch lol.
I saw the thumbnail and thought "man that looks like one of whistle boy's but surely he didn't create a new channel" but man was I wrong lol
I can't seem to go anywhere on youtube without running into Simon.
Currently reading "Chasing the Dragon" where God called Jackie Pullinger to go there. Cant wait to finish and to look at some.videos of that place.
I had been in Hong Kong early this year, and can't imagine it being any more crowded than what it is right now
Everytime I see this I immediately think of the Judge Dredd comics and movies.
0 days since the last time I discovered a new Simon channel... 😅
This is the ultimate real life cyberpunk dystopia that every existed.
I was thinking 'is this a reupload" and then I saw Simon and knew this was new. Welp, thats cool, I am all for hearing Simon talk more about it.
Simon can you do a video on that circular tower in Johannesburg RSA? Built during apartheid, overrun by gangs and now revitalized?
I swear every time I see a channel I haven't come across before it's this guy
The jcvd film bloodsport features real footage of the city
Like a mix of Blade Runner and Dredd, minus the Futuristic bits.
everytime i think i have found every channel simon is on, i find another one
This has to be the third video ive seen of Simon talking about Kowloon City. Surprised he still needs a script to read from.
KWC should be preserved. Like Salzburg, Venice, Ljubljana, Berlin...
Great show. I can't believe places like this exist.
The anxiety building as Simon describes the construction and electricity and propane and stuff until he gets to the part, "nothing catastrophic ever happened," my god...
Kowloon was a campaign story map for the first Call of Duty Black Ops game, later becoming a DLC map for it’s multiplayer, Black Ops 2 did not have Kowloon, although it would have been neat to have had it in.
Places, the channel of Simon's that takes you everywhere from the slums Kowloon to the back of his head. Let's take a look for the first time at these two unexplored mysteries.
No mention of injury rates or collapses. Id be curious to see those stats. Sort of makes you wonder how necessary all of the building codes we have are. Crazy how residents were afforded the ability to accept risk to reduce living costs. When government doesnt have the ability to extend its hands into every aspect of your life, things become affordable.
I am so NOT surprised seeing you in the video even though the channel's name meant nothing to me when the video popped up on my RUclips
Blaze Boy going nuts with this channel. the green screen, the camera angles. the cocaine?
Rebel Tetris 🤘
*Clicks on video and up comes Simon* Hey, Simon! You’re just everywhere, aren’t you? 😂
Kowloon was something else. I was there in 1980.
I'm in love with it.
One thing I can say about Kowloon is they had the BEST noodles and dumplings in Hong Kong.
Sad that it is now just a page in history because in it time it was Hong Kong.
Can anyone find that article by Sharon Lam? I'm digging around on Google with no luck. I'd really like to read that article. Thank you on advance!
If you do the math, that means that there was about 117 sq ft of space for every person that lived there, assuming 33,000 residents, 6.4 acres, and 14 stories given on Wikipedia. That doesn't include the nonliving spaces such as streets, etc.
It would have been great if there was an inclusion in the video of The Warehouse, an arcade in Kawasaki, Japan, that was modeled after Kowloon. It too was torn down, around 2019.
People interested in this may also find Gunkanjima fascinating!
Shenmue 2 gives an idea, albeit romanticized, of how the walled city worked. Still one of the best games of all time.
Early prototype of 40k Hive cities IRL. Pretty wild tbh.
I love the new setup with the plants 😊❤
There is a fantastic chinese food place relatively near where i live in Massachusetts called the kowloon. Damn now i want chinese food
I can’t believe Simon made a video about a call of duty map 😜
29:23 the opening to the music sounds alot like my dog when she's throwing a fit. Like an almost scary resemblance.😅
You can hear Simon’s capitalist little heart skip a beat there. 😂
Thank you! I have been wondering this for awhile now.
Anarcho Hong Kong! Woot
Also, wtf? Isn't that domicide?
Simon! I found another one of your channels in the wild!