After we went to 10,000 Buddhas Monastery, we went to Kowloon Walled City Park. Ben and I didn't really understand what it was until we got there. I was expecting it to be just another beautiful park with pagodas like Nan Lian. Not so. This place has a really crazy history and I'm glad we went.
Over 100 years ago, what is now a park was once used as a military fort. I have come to learn that Hong Kong has a really complicated history with its wars and who ruled over it. With all those complications, the fortress started turning itself into a community and soon, a city. It was looked over during and became completely ungoverned. So it was literally an anarchy within a huge city. Its population grew to 33,000 people within a 6 acre area. Looking at the pictures and to scale replicas of the city made me sick. The residents often called it the city of darkness because the buildings were so close together that there wasn't much light as you walked through it, even during the day.
Kowloon Walled City vs. the rest of Hong Kong
As you can imagine with any anarchy, things were hairy. They didn't have very clean water to drink, it was run by gangs, and children didn't have room to play and so they stayed on rooftops. All I kept thinking as I was learning about it all was that I would die there. It would be so miserable.
In the late 80's they decided to tear down the city and turn it into a park. So that is what we visited. It's beautiful!
(And I have no idea how 33,000 people could live in that tiny space)
We found a bride and groom getting their wedding photos done. We all adored her traditional dress.
We also saw a Japanese model
And I finally go to see how bananas grow in real life!
This year I'm going to add "That I don't live in Kowloon Walled City" to my Thanksgiving thankful chart. There's nothing quite like a trip to somewhere else to really make you appreciate your own home.
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