Kowloon Walled City Themepark opens in Japan
Hong Kong's Infamous Kowloon Walled City Rebuilt as Amusement Park
When Hong Kong's Kowloon Walled City was razed in the late 1980s, it was an infamously untouchable haven for drugs, crime, and prostitution-a place few locals would dare to visit. Now, a theme park outside of Tokyo is selling tickets to explore a painstakingly modeled replica of the Walled City-right down to its trash, which was imported from Hong Kong.
We've written about the history of the Walled City before-it would've been 20 this year-but if if you're not familiar with it, here's a brief primer. After changing hands between the UK, China, and Japan for nearly a century, the site became a kind of squatter's haven in the 1960s, when several hundred makeshift towers slowly coalesced into a single structure, knit together by makeshift walkways and plumbing. At its peak, it was home to almost 33,000 people, boasting everything from butchers and dentists to daycare centers and casinos.
-
Inside this eight-story warehouse, which was opened in 2009, visitors are treated to a recreation of the Walled City that borders on obsessive. The designers based their work on the few photos that exist of the real Walled City. Each sign was hand-lettered and checked by a Hong Kong native, while each storefront is based on the ones seen in this rare video footage of the real Walled City. There's even a faux-brothel, where a nude mannequin lies inside a red-lit room.
Every detail-right down to the trash-was the subject of an exacting vetting process. Taishiro Hoshino, a set designer that worked on the project, writes that the team sent away to Hong Kong for authentic tin mailboxes and garbage. "The garbage left on the butcher’s tent and the tin roofs are also indispensable in reproducing Kowloon Walled City," he says. "I insisted on using the genuine article and asked my friend and her family in Hong Kong to send a box of their house garbage all the way to Japan."
It seems like, for whatever reason, a Japanese company thought it'd be a draw to their gaming center to do a really faithful representation of part of Kowloon Walled City. Not just a cheap version, but spending effort to work with Hong Kong people and get things as accurately as possible.
I know several other people here find the place interesting, so I had to share :)
When Hong Kong's Kowloon Walled City was razed in the late 1980s, it was an infamously untouchable haven for drugs, crime, and prostitution-a place few locals would dare to visit. Now, a theme park outside of Tokyo is selling tickets to explore a painstakingly modeled replica of the Walled City-right down to its trash, which was imported from Hong Kong.
We've written about the history of the Walled City before-it would've been 20 this year-but if if you're not familiar with it, here's a brief primer. After changing hands between the UK, China, and Japan for nearly a century, the site became a kind of squatter's haven in the 1960s, when several hundred makeshift towers slowly coalesced into a single structure, knit together by makeshift walkways and plumbing. At its peak, it was home to almost 33,000 people, boasting everything from butchers and dentists to daycare centers and casinos.
-
Inside this eight-story warehouse, which was opened in 2009, visitors are treated to a recreation of the Walled City that borders on obsessive. The designers based their work on the few photos that exist of the real Walled City. Each sign was hand-lettered and checked by a Hong Kong native, while each storefront is based on the ones seen in this rare video footage of the real Walled City. There's even a faux-brothel, where a nude mannequin lies inside a red-lit room.
Every detail-right down to the trash-was the subject of an exacting vetting process. Taishiro Hoshino, a set designer that worked on the project, writes that the team sent away to Hong Kong for authentic tin mailboxes and garbage. "The garbage left on the butcher’s tent and the tin roofs are also indispensable in reproducing Kowloon Walled City," he says. "I insisted on using the genuine article and asked my friend and her family in Hong Kong to send a box of their house garbage all the way to Japan."
It seems like, for whatever reason, a Japanese company thought it'd be a draw to their gaming center to do a really faithful representation of part of Kowloon Walled City. Not just a cheap version, but spending effort to work with Hong Kong people and get things as accurately as possible.
I know several other people here find the place interesting, so I had to share :)