BTW: if you’re interested you can now listen to my BBC Radio 3 “Between the Ears” documentary “Return to the City of Darkness: Kowloon Walled City” on BBC.com and on the BBCSounds app (here)…
Return to Kowloon-Walled City, aka City of Darkness, so called because the sunlight rarely penetrated its dense layers of industry and life. A teeming Hong Kong megastructure constructed haphazardly, buildings leaning into each other, passageways punched through corridors no wider than the spread of one’s arms. People cheek by jowl in a ramshackle, higgledy-piggledy world of furious, sweated energy. At one point, the densest concentration of humanity anywhere on the planet.
Writer Paul French talks to former residents who grew up there, like Louisa Wong and Albert Ng, and those who meticulously chronicled its last months, like artist Fiona Hawthorne, then architectural student Suenn Ho and the photographers Greg Girard and Ian Lambot, who created the definitive visual record of its existence with their book Kowloon-City of Darkness.
The Walled City was frequently a place seemingly beyond the law. Autonomous, ungoverned if not untouched by Colonial authority and a refuge for the desperate, the dodgy and the poor. A rookery, festooned with cables, pipes and dripping water, teeming with sounds and the fetid ‘dragon’s breath’ of furious energy and existence. Now, it has become a semi-mythic memory of old Hong Kong; celebrated on film, in manga and prose ,but once it was an astonishing, living entity.
With the voices of: Greg Girard, Fiona Hawthorne Suenn Ho, Pastor Albert Ng, Guy Shirra, Louisa Wong and Chan Woonie.
Readers: John Chan, Jon Chew, Betty Lo, David Tse, Kevin Ung, Charlie Wong
Sound Engineer-Duncan Thornley Producer-Mark Burman A Storyscape Production for Radio 3.
Margot Fonteyn, official portrait, circa 1960’s, signed by Fonteyn in 1975 with a dedication to her friend Janna Seagrim, with who she had attended ballet class in Shanghai as young girl. (for more on Fonteyn and her early ballet classes see my South China Morning Post long read on Shanghai ballet here)
Macao charity tax stamps from the 1950s, known as “Assistencia” or “Symbol of Charity” postal tax stamps, were issued to fund social services. Key issues include the 1953–1958 series featuring the “Symbol of Charity” design. These below are from 1945-1947 and for 50 Avos. They were obligatory postal tax stamps, meaning they had to be used on mail alongside regular postage to raise funds for charitable causes in Macao – (BTW: 100 avos = 1 pataca).
Looking for Hong Kong’s hidden art-deco? Head up Kadoorie Avenue, just south of Kowloon Tong, and you’ll find the “Braga Circuit”. It’s an art-deco feast atop the 1930s Kadoorie Hill development, yet with a more communal feel than the walled-off and more secluded villas nearby. It’s narrow and mews-like, with garages and roof terraces yet still prestigious and highly sought after.
It’s named after the Macanese businessman José Pedro “Jack” Braga, a good friend of Elly Kadoorie. He was instrumental in planning Kadoorie Hill as Chairman of the Hongkong Engineering and Construction Co.
Discover the art-deco architectural treasures of Kadoorie Hill with my VoiceMap GPS walking tour of the area here….
Western commentators have often criticized the state of press freedom in China, arguing that individual speech still suffers from arbitrary restrictions and that its mass media remains under an authoritarian mode. Yet the history of press freedom in the Chinese context has received little examination. Unlike conventional historical accounts which narrate the institutional development of censorship and people’s resistance to arbitrary repression, Freedom of the Press in China: A Conceptual History, 1831-1949 is the first comprehensive study presenting the intellectual trajectory of press freedom. It sheds light on the transcultural transference and localization of the concept in modern Chinese history, spanning from its initial introduction in 1831 to the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. By examining intellectuals’ thoughts, common people’s attitudes, and official opinions, along with the social-cultural factors that were involved in negotiating Chinese interpretations and practices in history, this book uncovers the dynamic and changing meanings of press freedom in modern China.
Fancy a walk this weekend? In Hong Kong? Maybe try my Kowloon Art Deco and Hidden Heritage VoiceMap GPS walking tour?
One stop is St Teresa’s Church, close to Prince Edward Road West and to the Maryknoll Convent School. It’s an attractive Neo-Romanesque design with Neo-Byzantine influences designed by Adalbert Gresnigt, a Dutch Benedictine monk and artist.
Interestingly both Benito Mussolini and his son-in-law Count Ciano donated money to the church, built in 1932. Mussolini’s name is listed on a founding benefactors stone plaque inside (though later obscured). At the time Ciano was the Italian Consul in Shanghai and probably made the donation on the Italian fascist dictator’s behalf.
You can learn more about VoiceMap and download the tour here – https://voicemap.me/tour/hong-kong/kowloon-tong-art-deco-and-hidden-heritage-in-hong-kong
I write about Emma Pei Yin’s When Sleeping Women Wake, writing historical fiction in Asia and the pressures on first time novelists these days for the Mekong Review’s February-April 2026 edition…..you can read a snippet of the article below or subscribe here
