Kowloon City Heritage

That created a strange kind of no man’s land that drew waves of migrants who built a towering city-within-a-city. Notorious for its unlicensed dentists, factories and drug scene, the walled city was eventually home to more than 40,000 people. It was torn down in 1993 and replaced by a public park, but one thing was preserved: a historic yamen, an old Qing dynasty administrative post, which had stood at the centre of the area even as tenement buildings towered over it.

Not far away is an even older example of a walled settlement. Nga Tsin Wai has stood on the banks of the Kai Tak River for more than 600 years. Today, most of the village is being redeveloped into apartment towers, but its key features will be preserved, including the old village gate, some stone houses and the village temple, which is dedicated to Tin Hau, the Goddess of the Sea. If you visit on the 23rd day of the third lunar month, you’ll find the village alive once again as its descendants return to celebrate Tin Hau’s birthday.

As you may have guessed, Kowloon City’s history stretches back far longer than most people realise. When eight-year-old Song dynasty emperor Zhao Shi and his seven-year-old brother Zhao Bing fled Mongol invaders in the 13th century, they took refuge on a hill that overlooked Kowloon City’s rice paddies and villages. Legend has it this is where the elder brother coined the name Kowloon, or “Nine Dragons,” when he saw the eight peaks that surround the territory — the ninth dragon was himself, of course. After his death, local villagers turned a boulder on the emperor’s hill into a monument called Sung Wong Toi, which now sits in its own garden.

Just beyond the monument, construction machinery is hard at work on the site of the former Kai Tak Airport. From the day it opened in 1925 to its final departure in 1997, this was Hong Kong’s gateway to the world. In the days before widespread air conditioning, students gathered in the departures hall to study in climate-controlled comfort. People flocked to the rooftop terrace to watch planes come and go.

Now Kai Tak is being reborn as a residential, commercial and recreational area. The Kai Tak Cruise Terminal is already open and work is underway on restoring the Kai Tak River, a long-neglected waterway that’s being transformed with promenades and greenery. In Kowloon City, the past is becoming the future.