[HN Gopher] The Strange Saga of Kowloon Walled City ___________________________________________________________________ The Strange Saga of Kowloon Walled City Author : ecliptik Score : 40 points Date : 2020-01-09 05:33 UTC (17 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.atlasobscura.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.atlasobscura.com) | aasasd wrote: | There's a sort of a documentary on Kowloon, from back in the day: | https://youtube.com/watch?v=S-rj8m7Ssow | SkyMarshal wrote: | A couple more god journalistic explorations of it from Wall St. | Journal and the South China Morning Post: | | http://projects.wsj.com/kwc/ | | https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1191748/kowloon-... | tromp wrote: | Some cross section is nicely illustrated at | | https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2014/11/an-illustrated-cross-... | jefftk wrote: | _> Even a new treaty in 1898, which granted Hong Kong, Kowloon, | and further territories in Canton to Britain for 99 years, kept | the Walled City under Chinese control. A year later, in May 1899, | rumors circulated that Chinese soldiers were massing again in the | Walled City, so the British sent troops across the water. They | expected battle--perhaps another war--but found only the | Mandarin. The irate official left too, and the British took the | city, though the Chinese never renounced their claim. | Missionaries moved in and built churches and schools, pig farmers | from the surrounding hills took plots of land within the walls. | There was almost no administrative control, and the city became a | slum. Yet whenever the Hong Kong government tried to clear it to | turn it into a park--evicting the residents in the process--the | Chinese government always stepped in. After all, this tiny | rectangle of land was still officially their territory._ | | Answers a question I'd had for a while: what was special about | this piece of land that made it effectively lawless? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2020-01-09 23:00 UTC)