157-674: Kowloon Walled City ( Chinese : 九龍寨城) was an extremely densely populated and largely lawless enclave of China within the boundaries of Kowloon City , British Hong Kong . Built as an Imperial Chinese military fort , the walled city became a de jure enclave after the New Territories were leased to the United Kingdom in 1898. Its population increased dramatically after the end of the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War II , attracting mostly refugees fleeing
314-469: A nucleus that has a vowel (which can be a monophthong , diphthong , or even a triphthong in certain varieties), preceded by an onset (a single consonant , or consonant + glide ; a zero onset is also possible), and followed (optionally) by a coda consonant; a syllable also carries a tone . There are some instances where a vowel is not used as a nucleus. An example of this is in Cantonese, where
471-457: A subject–verb–object word order , and like many other languages of East Asia, makes frequent use of the topic–comment construction to form sentences. Chinese also has an extensive system of classifiers and measure words , another trait shared with neighboring languages such as Japanese and Korean. Other notable grammatical features common to all the spoken varieties of Chinese include the use of serial verb construction , pronoun dropping , and
628-561: A "prestigious award" from the Central Society of Horticulture of Germany for the redevelopment. Components of the park include: The Antiquities and Monuments Office conducted archaeological examinations as the walled city was being demolished, and several cultural remains were discovered. Among them were the walled city's yamen and remnants of its South Gate, which were officially designated declared monuments of Hong Kong on 4 October 1996. The South Gate had originally served as
785-549: A 1915 map. In 1933, the Hong Kong authorities announced plans to demolish most of the decaying walled city's buildings, compensating the 436 squatters that lived there with new homes. That same year, the Nationalist Chinese government protested, claiming jurisdiction over the city. The Nationalist Chinese government continued to make claims on its jurisdiction throughout 1935, 1936, and the first half of 1937, until
942-510: A Chinese character is the morpheme, as characters represent the smallest grammatical units with individual meanings in the Chinese language. Estimates of the total number of Chinese words and lexicalized phrases vary greatly. The Hanyu Da Zidian , a compendium of Chinese characters, includes 54,678 head entries for characters, including oracle bone versions. The Zhonghua Zihai (1994) contains 85,568 head entries for character definitions and
1099-464: A District Officer of Kowloon City District at the time also published his recollections of the city during his time in office. Robert Ludlum 's novel The Bourne Supremacy uses the walled city as one of its settings. The city appears as a virtual reality environment (described by Steven Poole as an "oasis of political and creative freedom") in William Gibson 's Bridge trilogy , and as
1256-599: A Shanghai resident may speak both Standard Chinese and Shanghainese ; if they grew up elsewhere, they are also likely fluent in the dialect of their home region. In addition to Standard Chinese, a majority of Taiwanese people also speak Taiwanese Hokkien (also called 台語 ; 'Taiwanese' ), Hakka , or an Austronesian language . A speaker in Taiwan may mix pronunciations and vocabulary from Standard Chinese and other languages of Taiwan in everyday speech. In part due to traditional cultural ties with Guangdong , Cantonese
1413-462: A central variety (i.e. prestige variety, such as Standard Mandarin), as the issue requires some careful handling when mutual intelligibility is inconsistent with language identity. The Chinese government's official Chinese designation for the major branches of Chinese is 方言 ; fāngyán ; 'regional speech', whereas the more closely related varieties within these are called 地点方言 ; 地點方言 ; dìdiǎn fāngyán ; 'local speech'. Because of
1570-695: A coalition government. The two parties agreed to open multiparty talks on post-World War II political reforms via a Political Consultative Conference . This was included in the Double Tenth Agreement . This agreement was implemented by the Nationalist Government, who organized the first Political Consultative Assembly from 10 to 31 January 1946. Representatives of the Kuomintang, CCP, Chinese Youth Party , and China Democratic League , as well as independent delegates, attended
1727-615: A compromise between the pronunciations of different regions. The royal courts of the Ming and early Qing dynasties operated using a koiné language known as Guanhua , based on the Nanjing dialect of Mandarin. Standard Chinese is an official language of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan), one of the four official languages of Singapore , and one of
SECTION 10
#17327732005881884-714: A corresponding increase in the number of homophones . As an example, the small Langenscheidt Pocket Chinese Dictionary lists six words that are commonly pronounced as shí in Standard Chinese: In modern spoken Mandarin, however, tremendous ambiguity would result if all of these words could be used as-is. The 20th century Yuen Ren Chao poem Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den exploits this, consisting of 92 characters all pronounced shi . As such, most of these words have been replaced in speech, if not in writing, with less ambiguous disyllabic compounds. Only
2041-562: A dual-party state apparatus under the ideology of Dang Guo , effectively making it a one-party state ; however, existing parties continued to operate and new ones formed. After the end of the Second World War, and particularly after the passage of the constitution in 1946, the National Government was reconstituted to include multiple parties, in preparation for a full democratic government to come. In February 1928,
2198-703: A favourable contrast with Singapore in his Wired article " Disneyland with the Death Penalty ". Chloe Gong's 2023 adult fantasy novel Immortal Longings draws inspiration from the walled city for its setting. The 1982 Shaw Brothers film Brothers from the Walled City is set in Kowloon Walled City. The 1984 gangster film Long Arm of the Law features the walled city as a refuge for gang members before they are gunned down by police. In
2355-418: A fort into an urban enclave, the walled city retained the same basic layout. The original fort was built on a slope and consisted of a 2.6-hectare (6.4-acre) plot measuring about 210 by 120 metres (690 by 390 ft). The stone wall surrounding it had four entrances and measured 4 metres (13 ft) tall and 4.6 metres (15 ft) thick before it was dismantled in 1943. Construction surged dramatically during
2512-804: A major factor in the government's failure. The communist land redistribution movement was an important factor in the Nationalists' defeat, particularly because it linked the interests of peasants in the north and northeast to the Communists' success. In 1949, the People's Liberation captured Beijing and later Nanjing as well. The People's Republic of China was proclaimed in Beijing on 1 October 1949. The Republic of China central government relocated to Taipei on 7 December 1949, to Taiwan where Japan had laid an educational groundwork . Almost all of
2669-503: A massive decline in Chinese agricultural prices (which were cheaper) and thus the income of rural farmers. In 1932, agricultural prices were 41 percent of 1921 levels. Rural incomes had fallen to 57 percent of 1931 levels by 1934 in some areas. Under this peculiar context for rural China, the Chinese Rural Reconstruction Movement was implemented by some social activists who graduated as professors of
2826-576: A millennium. The Four Commanderies of Han were established in northern Korea in the 1st century BCE but disintegrated in the following centuries. Chinese Buddhism spread over East Asia between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE, and with it the study of scriptures and literature in Literary Chinese. Later, strong central governments modeled on Chinese institutions were established in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, with Literary Chinese serving as
2983-409: A month. The war was estimated to have killed between 20 and 25 million Chinese and destroyed all that Chiang had built up in the preceding decade. Development of industries was severely hampered after the war by devastating conflict as well as the inflow of cheap American goods. By 1946, Chinese industries operated at 20 percent capacity and had 25 percent of the output of pre-war China. One effect of
3140-706: A population density of approximately 1,255,000 inhabitants per square kilometre (3,250,000/sq mi) in 1987, making it the most densely populated spot in the world. Names in Kowloon Walled City were mostly Cantonese. In response to difficult living conditions, residents formed a tightly knit community, helping one another endure various hardships. Within families, wives often did housekeeping, while grandmothers cared for their grandchildren and other children from surrounding households. The city's rooftops were important gathering places, especially for residents who lived on upper floors. Parents used them to relax, and children would play or do homework there after school. The yamen in
3297-480: A provisional constitution that established the one-party rule of the KMT and promised eventual democratization. In practice, this meant that Chiang Kai-Shek was able to continue authoritarian rule. Even had it been the KMT's intention, historians such as Edmund Fung argue that they may not have been able to establish a democracy under the circumstances of the time.( Fung 2000 , p. 30) Despite nominal reunification,
SECTION 20
#17327732005883454-542: A secure reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan, the higher-level structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, but has not been convincingly demonstrated. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty . As the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have repeatedly sought to promulgate
3611-508: A similar way to the use of Latin and Ancient Greek roots in European languages. Many new compounds, or new meanings for old phrases, were created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to name Western concepts and artifacts. These coinages, written in shared Chinese characters, have then been borrowed freely between languages. They have even been accepted into Chinese, a language usually resistant to loanwords, because their foreign origin
3768-678: A single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in a family . Investigation of the historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese , of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin with 66%, or around 800 million speakers, followed by Min (75 million, e.g. Southern Min ), Wu (74 million, e.g. Shanghainese ), and Yue (68 million, e.g. Cantonese ). These branches are unintelligible to each other, and many of their subgroups are unintelligible with
3925-428: A solution and so would a Chinese consular compound, if the Chinese could first be induced to agree in principle to the appointment of a Consul General." In January 1950, a fire broke out that destroyed over 2,500 huts, home to nearly 3,500 families and 17,000 total people. The disaster highlighted the need for proper fire prevention in the largely wooden-built squatter areas, complicated by the lack of political ties with
4082-631: A unified standard. The earliest examples of Old Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones dated to c. 1250 BCE , during the Late Shang . The next attested stage came from inscriptions on bronze artifacts dating to the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE), the Classic of Poetry and portions of the Book of Documents and I Ching . Scholars have attempted to reconstruct
4239-575: A variety of Yue from a small coastal area around Taishan, Guangdong . In parts of South China, the dialect of a major city may be only marginally intelligible to its neighbors. For example, Wuzhou and Taishan are located approximately 260 km (160 mi) and 190 km (120 mi) away from Guangzhou respectively, but the Yue variety spoken in Wuzhou is more similar to the Guangzhou dialect than
4396-571: A variety of solutions (including turning the site into a Nationalist Chinese Consulate-General), and ultimately recommended that the British "accept the principle of Chinese jurisdiction over Kowloon Walled City but the Chinese agree not to attempt to exercise that jurisdiction in practice." Additionally, the British Foreign Office said that "A public garden controlled by the municipal authorities of Kowloon Leased territory offers such
4553-602: Is Taishanese. Wuzhou is located directly upstream from Guangzhou on the Pearl River , whereas Taishan is to Guangzhou's southwest, with the two cities separated by several river valleys. In parts of Fujian , the speech of some neighbouring counties or villages is mutually unintelligible. Local varieties of Chinese are conventionally classified into seven dialect groups, largely based on the different evolution of Middle Chinese voiced initials: Proportions of first-language speakers The classification of Li Rong , which
4710-709: Is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in China , as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora . Approximately 1.35 billion people, or 17% of the global population, speak a variety of Chinese as their first language . Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be dialects of
4867-490: Is called either 华语 ; 華語 ; Huáyǔ or 汉语 ; 漢語 ; Hànyǔ ). Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. The governments of both China and Taiwan intend for speakers of all Chinese speech varieties to use it as a common language of communication. Therefore, it is used in government agencies, in the media, and as a language of instruction in schools. Diglossia is common among Chinese speakers. For example,
Kowloon Walled City - Misplaced Pages Continue
5024-556: Is depicted in several games, including Kowloon's Gate and Shenmue II . The game Stranglehold , a sequel to the film Hard Boiled , features a version of the walled city filled with hundreds of Triad members. In the games Fear Effect and Fear Effect 2 , photographs of the walled city were used as inspiration "for moods, camera angles and lighting". Concept art for the MMORPG Guild Wars Factions depicts massive, densely packed structures inspired by
5181-719: Is disputed and is another aspect of the disputed political status of Taiwan . After World War II, the civil war between the ruling Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) resumed, despite attempts at mediation by the United States. The Nationalist Government began drafting the Constitution of the Republic of China under a National Assembly, but was boycotted by the CCP. With the promulgation of
5338-474: Is made up of three halls. Originally the middle hall served the Assistant Magistrate of Kowloon's administrative office, and the rear block was his residence. After the government officials left the area in 1899, it was used for several other purposes, including an old people's home, a refuge for widows and orphans, a school, and a clinic. It was restored in 1996 and is now found near the centre of
5495-534: Is now known as the February 28 Incident . Mainstream estimates of casualties range from 18,000 to 30,000, mainly Taiwanese elites. The 28 February Incident has had far-reaching effects on subsequent Taiwanese history . From 1945 to 1947, under United States mediation, especially through the Marshall Mission , the Nationalists and Communists agreed to start a series of peace talks aiming at establishing
5652-603: Is often described as a 'monosyllabic' language. However, this is only partially correct. It is largely accurate when describing Old and Middle Chinese; in Classical Chinese, around 90% of words consist of a single character that corresponds one-to-one with a morpheme , the smallest unit of meaning in a language. In modern varieties, it usually remains the case that morphemes are monosyllabic—in contrast, English has many multi-syllable morphemes, both bound and free , such as 'seven', 'elephant', 'para-' and '-able'. Some of
5809-445: Is only about an eighth as many as English. All varieties of spoken Chinese use tones to distinguish words. A few dialects of north China may have as few as three tones, while some dialects in south China have up to 6 or 12 tones, depending on how one counts. One exception from this is Shanghainese which has reduced the set of tones to a two-toned pitch accent system much like modern Japanese. A very common example used to illustrate
5966-668: Is specifically meant. However, when one of the above words forms part of a compound, the disambiguating syllable is generally dropped and the resulting word is still disyllabic. For example, 石 ; shí alone, and not 石头 ; 石頭 ; shítou , appears in compounds as meaning 'stone' such as 石膏 ; shígāo ; 'plaster', 石灰 ; shíhuī ; 'lime', 石窟 ; shíkū ; 'grotto', 石英 ; 'quartz', and 石油 ; shíyóu ; 'petroleum'. Although many single-syllable morphemes ( 字 ; zì ) can stand alone as individual words, they more often than not form multi-syllable compounds known as 词 ; 詞 ; cí , which more closely resembles
6123-489: Is the largest reference work based purely on character and its literary variants. The CC-CEDICT project (2010) contains 97,404 contemporary entries including idioms, technology terms, and names of political figures, businesses, and products. The 2009 version of the Webster's Digital Chinese Dictionary (WDCD), based on CC-CEDICT, contains over 84,000 entries. The most comprehensive pure linguistic Chinese-language dictionary,
6280-501: Is used as an everyday language in Hong Kong and Macau . The designation of various Chinese branches remains controversial. Some linguists and most ordinary Chinese people consider all the spoken varieties as one single language, as speakers share a common national identity and a common written form. Others instead argue that it is inappropriate to refer to major branches of Chinese such as Mandarin, Wu, and so on as "dialects" because
6437-500: Is used in education, media, formal speech, and everyday life—though Mandarin is increasingly taught in schools due to the mainland's growing influence. Historically, the Chinese language has spread to its neighbors through a variety of means. Northern Vietnam was incorporated into the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) in 111 BCE, marking the beginning of a period of Chinese control that ran almost continuously for
Kowloon Walled City - Misplaced Pages Continue
6594-552: Is used in the Language Atlas of China (1987), distinguishes three further groups: Some varieties remain unclassified, including the Danzhou dialect on Hainan , Waxianghua spoken in western Hunan , and Shaozhou Tuhua spoken in northern Guangdong . Standard Chinese is the standard language of China (where it is called 普通话 ; pǔtōnghuà ) and Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore (where it
6751-428: Is very complex, with a large number of consonants and vowels, but they are probably not all distinguished in any single dialect. Most linguists now believe it represents a diasystem encompassing 6th-century northern and southern standards for reading the classics. The complex relationship between spoken and written Chinese is an example of diglossia : as spoken, Chinese varieties have evolved at different rates, while
6908-753: The Qieyun rime dictionary (601 CE), and a late period in the 10th century, reflected by rhyme tables such as the Yunjing constructed by ancient Chinese philologists as a guide to the Qieyun system. These works define phonological categories but with little hint of what sounds they represent. Linguists have identified these sounds by comparing the categories with pronunciations in modern varieties of Chinese , borrowed Chinese words in Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean, and transcription evidence. The resulting system
7065-682: The Academia Sinica and the Central Bank of China . In 1932, China for the first time sent teams to the Olympic Games . The Nationalists faced a new challenge with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, with hostilities continuing through the Second Sino-Japanese War , part of World War II , from 1937 to 1945. The government of the Republic of China retreated from Nanjing to Chongqing . In 1945, after
7222-754: The Chinese Civil War (1927–49), with central authority strongest during the Nanjing Decade (1927–37), when most of China came under the control of the Kuomintang (KMT) under an authoritarian one-party state . At the end of World War II in 1945, the Empire of Japan surrendered control of Taiwan and its island groups to the Allies , and Taiwan was placed under the Republic of China's administrative control. The legitimacy of this transfer
7379-639: The Chinese Civil War between the Nationalist Party and the CCP. Chiang Kai-shek pushed the CCP into the interior as he sought to destroy them, and moved the Nationalist Government to Nanjing in 1927. Leftists within the KMT still allied to the CCP, led by Wang Jingwei , had established a rival Nationalist Government in Wuhan two months earlier, but soon joined Chiang in Nanjing in August 1927. By
7536-533: The Korean , Japanese and Vietnamese languages, and today comprise over half of their vocabularies. This massive influx led to changes in the phonological structure of the languages, contributing to the development of moraic structure in Japanese and the disruption of vowel harmony in Korean. Borrowed Chinese morphemes have been used extensively in all these languages to coin compound words for new concepts, in
7693-710: The May Fourth Movement beginning in 1919. After the fall of the Northern Song dynasty and subsequent reign of the Jurchen Jin and Mongol Yuan dynasties in northern China, a common speech (now called Old Mandarin ) developed based on the dialects of the North China Plain around the capital. The 1324 Zhongyuan Yinyun was a dictionary that codified the rhyming conventions of new sanqu verse form in this language. Together with
7850-640: The National Government of the Republic of China , refers to the government of the Republic of China from 1 July 1925 to 20 May 1948, led by the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) party. Following the outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution , revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen was elected to be China's provisional president and founded the Provisional Government of the Republic of China . To preserve national unity, Sun ceded
8007-595: The National Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. The People's Republic founded in 1949 retained this standard but renamed it 普通话 ; 普通話 ; pǔtōnghuà ; 'common speech'. The national language is now used in education, the media, and formal situations in both mainland China and Taiwan. In Hong Kong and Macau , Cantonese is the dominant spoken language due to cultural influence from Guangdong immigrants and colonial-era policies, and
SECTION 50
#17327732005888164-483: The National Revolutionary Army . Chiang Kai-shek was appointed as the first Chairman of the National Government , a position he would retain until 1931. The Organic Law also stipulated that the Kuomintang, through its National Congress and Central Executive Committee, would exercise sovereign power during the period of political tutelage, and the KMT's Political Council would guide and superintend
8321-473: The Northern Expedition governed the country as a one-party state under the Kuomintang, and was subsequently given international recognition as the legitimate representative of China. The Nationalist government would then experience many challenges such as the Second Sino-Japanese War , and the Chinese Civil War . The government was in place until it was replaced by the current Government of
8478-651: The Political Tutelage of the Kuomintang. However, periodic famines continued: in Northern China from 1928 to 1930, in Sichuan from 1936 to 1937, and in Henan from 1942 to 1943. In total, these famines cost at least 11.7 million lives. GDP growth averaged 3.9 per cent a year from 1929 to 1941 and per capita GDP about 1.8 per cent. Among other institutions, the Nationalist Government founded
8635-600: The Republic of China was established in Guangzhou . The following year, as Generalissimo of the National Revolutionary Army, Chiang Kai-shek became the de facto leader of the Kuomintang (KMT), or Chinese Nationalist Party. He especially headed the right-wing of the Nationalist Party, while the Communists formed part of the Party's left-wing. Chiang led the Northern Expedition through China with
8792-399: The Second Sino-Japanese War against the Imperial Japanese Army , and in the Chinese Civil War against the People's Liberation Army . During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the armed forces of the CCP were nominally incorporated into the National Revolutionary Army (while retaining separate commands), but broke away to form the People's Liberation Army shortly after the end of the war. With
8949-423: The oracle bone inscriptions created during the Shang dynasty c. 1250 BCE . The phonetic categories of Old Chinese can be reconstructed from the rhymes of ancient poetry. During the Northern and Southern period , Middle Chinese went through several sound changes and split into several varieties following prolonged geographic and political separation. The Qieyun , a rime dictionary , recorded
9106-542: The phonology of Old Chinese by comparing later varieties of Chinese with the rhyming practice of the Classic of Poetry and the phonetic elements found in the majority of Chinese characters. Although many of the finer details remain unclear, most scholars agree that Old Chinese differs from Middle Chinese in lacking retroflex and palatal obstruents but having initial consonant clusters of some sort, and in having voiceless nasals and liquids. Most recent reconstructions also describe an atonal language with consonant clusters at
9263-408: The " retrocession " of Taiwan to the Republic of China and established a provincial government on the island. The military administration of the ROC extended over Taiwan, which led to widespread unrest and increasing tensions between local Taiwanese and mainlanders. The shooting of a civilian on 28 February 1947 triggered an island-wide unrest, which was brutally suppressed with military force in what
9420-411: The "Draft Outline Plan for Reinstatement of Administration" of the area, which included an office, schools, police, and other functions. Refugees fleeing the Chinese Civil War post-1945 poured into Hong Kong, and 2,000 squatters occupied the walled city by 1947. After an attempt to drive them out in 1948, the British adopted a 'hands-off' policy in most matters concerning the walled city. On 8 January 1948,
9577-673: The 12-volume Hanyu Da Cidian , records more than 23,000 head Chinese characters and gives over 370,000 definitions. The 1999 revised Cihai , a multi-volume encyclopedic dictionary reference work, gives 122,836 vocabulary entry definitions under 19,485 Chinese characters, including proper names, phrases, and common zoological, geographical, sociological, scientific, and technical terms. The 2016 edition of Xiandai Hanyu Cidian , an authoritative one-volume dictionary on modern standard Chinese language as used in mainland China, has 13,000 head characters and defines 70,000 words. Nationalist government The Nationalist government , officially
SECTION 60
#17327732005889734-467: The 1950s to the 1970s, it was controlled by local triad gangs and had high rates of prostitution, gambling, and drug abuse. In January 1987, the British colonial government announced plans to demolish the walled city. After an arduous eviction process, and the transfer of de jure sovereignty of the enclave from China to Britain, demolition began in March 1993 and was completed in April 1994. Kowloon Walled City Park opened in December 1995 and occupies
9891-664: The 1960s and 1970s, until the formerly low-rise city consisted almost entirely of buildings with 10 storeys or more (with the notable exception of the yamen in its centre). However, due to Kai Tak Airport 's position 800 metres (0.50 mi) south of the city, buildings did not exceed 14 storeys. The two-storey Sai Tau Tsuen settlement bordered the walled city to the south and west until it was cleared in 1985 and replaced with Carpenter Road Park. The city's dozens of alleyways were often only 1–2 m (3.3–6.6 ft) wide, and had poor lighting and drainage. An informal network of staircases and passageways also formed on upper levels, which
10048-410: The 1960s, with developers building new modular structures above older ones. The city became extremely densely populated and "a world unto its own", an enclave, with over 33,000 people in 300 buildings occupying little more than 7 acres (2.8 ha). As a result, the city reached its maximum size by the late 1970s and early 1980s; a height restriction of 13 to 14 storeys had been imposed on the city due to
10205-432: The 1988 film Bloodsport , starring Jean-Claude Van Damme , the walled city is the setting for a martial arts tournament. The 1992 non-narrative film Baraka features several highly detailed shots of the walled city shortly before its demolition. The 1993 film Crime Story starring Jackie Chan was partly filmed in the deserted walled city, and includes real scenes of building explosions. A walled neighbourhood called
10362-432: The British. Though the British claimed ownership of the walled city, they did little with it over the following few decades. The Holy Trinity Church established an old people's home in the old yamen as well as a school and an almshouse in other former offices. Aside from such institutions, however, the walled city became a mere curiosity for British colonials and tourists to visit; it was labelled as "Chinese Town" in
10519-458: The Chiang's Nationalist Government relied heavily on the support of warlords such as Ma Hushan , Yan Xishan , and Chang Hsueh-liang to exert control on the provinces. The loyalty of these figures was often highly suspect, and they frequently engaged in acts of open defiance, as in the Xi'an Incident of 1936, or even rebellion . In alliance with local landlords and other power-brokers, they blocked moderate land reforms that might have benefits
10676-554: The Fourth Plenary Session of the 2nd Kuomintang National Congress held in Nanjing passed the Reorganization of the National Government Act. This act stipulated the national government was to be directed and regulated under the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang, with the Committee of the National Government being elected by KMT Central Committee. Under the national government was seven ministries – Interior, Foreign Affairs, Finance, Transport, Justice, Agriculture and Mines, and Commerce. There were also additional institutions such as
10833-424: The Hong Kong government provided some services such as water supply and mail delivery. The quality of life in the city—sanitary conditions in particular—remained far behind the rest of Hong Kong. The Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984 laid the groundwork for the city's demolition. The mutual decision by the two governments to tear down the walled city was announced on 14 January 1987. On 10 March 1987, following
10990-454: The Japanese suburb of Kawasaki, Kanagawa . The atmosphere of the walled city was reflected in the arcade's narrow corridors, electrical wires, pipes, postboxes, sign boards, neon lights, frayed posters, and various other small touches. Chinese language Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 汉语 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ ; lit. ' Han language' or 中文 ; Zhōngwén ; 'Chinese writing')
11147-463: The KMT itself was disunified, with the pro-Chiang factions of the CC Clique , Political Study Clique, and fascist-inspired Blue Shirts Society opposed by a left-wing faction under Wang Jingwei and a right-wing faction influenced by Hu Hanmin . To control the opposing KMT factions, Chiang relied increasingly on the National Revolutionary Army . Economic growth and social improvements were mixed. The Kuomintang supported women's rights and education,
11304-401: The KMT. Chiang decided to strike first and purged the Communists , killing thousands of them. At the same time, other violent conflicts took place in the south of China where peasant associations supported by the CCP were attacking landlords and local gentry, who formed a base of political support for the KMT right-wing and recruitment for Nationalist soldiers. These events eventually led to
11461-418: The Kuomintang reunified the country in 1928, China entered a period of relative prosperity despite civil war and Japanese aggression. In 1937, the Japanese invaded and laid China to waste in eight years of war. The era also saw additional boycott of Japanese products . Chinese industries continued to develop in the 1930s with the advent of the Nanjing decade in the 1930s when Chiang Kai-shek unified most of
11618-565: The Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet . English words of Chinese origin include tea from Hokkien 茶 ( tê ), dim sum from Cantonese 點心 ( dim2 sam1 ), and kumquat from Cantonese 金橘 ( gam1 gwat1 ). The sinologist Jerry Norman has estimated that there are hundreds of mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese. These varieties form a dialect continuum , in which differences in speech generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though
11775-541: The Narrows in the 2005 film Batman Begins was inspired by the walled city. The 2006 Hong Kong horror film Re-cycle features a decrepit, nightmarish version of the walled city, complete with tortured souls from which the protagonist must flee. The 2016 TVB martial arts drama A Fist Within Four Walls takes place in the triad-ridden walled city in the early 1960s. The 2024 Hong Kong action crime film Twilight of
11932-511: The National Government in the execution of important national affairs and that the council has the power to interpret or amend the organic law. Authority within the Nationalist government ultimately lay with Chiang Kai-shek. All major policy changes on military, diplomatic, or economic issues required his approval. According to historian Odd Arne Westad , "no other leader within the GMD had
12089-757: The Nationalist Chinese government sent a memorandum to the British Ambassador, stating "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs now formally declare to the British Embassy that, in accordance with the provisions of the said Convention, the Chinese Government enjoys jurisdiction over the City of Kowloon and that they have no intention whatsoever of renouncing this jurisdiction." The British Foreign Office, on 4 February 1948, considered
12246-774: The Republic of China in the newly promulgated Constitution of the Republic of China of 1948. The oldest surviving republic in East Asia , the Republic of China was formally established on 1 January 1912 in mainland China following the Xinhai Revolution , which itself began with the Wuchang Uprising on 10 October 1911, replacing the Qing dynasty and ending nearly three thousand years of imperial rule in China. Central authority waxed and waned in response to warlordism (1915–28), Japanese invasion (1937–45), and
12403-789: The Supreme Court, Control Yuan, and the General Academy. With the promulgation of the Organic Law of the National Government in October 1928, the government was reorganized into five different branches or Yuan, namely the Executive Yuan , Legislative Yuan , Judicial Yuan , Examination Yuan as well as the Control Yuan . The Chairman of the National Government was to be the head-of-state and commander-in-chief of
12560-403: The United States with tangible but limited progress in modernizing the tax, infrastructural, economical, cultural, and educational equipment and mechanisms of rural regions. The social activists actively coordinated with the local governments in towns and villages since the early 1930s. However, this policy was subsequently neglected and canceled by the Nationalist government due to rampant wars and
12717-583: The Warriors: Walled In , an adaptation of the manhua City of Darkness by Andy Seto , sets its location and plot premise in Kowloon Walled City during the 1980s. In The Legend of Korra , Kowloon served as the aesthetic basis for representing the Lower Ring. In the manga Crying Freeman , the titular character's wife travels to the walled city to master her swordsmanship and control a cursed sword. The manga Blood+: Kowloon Nights uses
12874-449: The abolition of polygamy, and foot binding. The government of the Republic of China under Chiang's leadership also enacted a women's quota in the parliament with reserved seats for women. During the Nanjing Decade , the spread of education increased the literacy rate across China and promoted the ideals of Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People of democracy, republicanism, science, constitutionalism, and Chinese Nationalism based on
13031-423: The administration itself. As Chiang Kai-Shek told the state council: "Our organization becomes worse and worse ... many staff members just sit at their desks and gaze into space, others read newspapers and still others sleep." Corruption was endemic at all levels of government. The tension between Chiang's centralizing tendencies and the warlords who supported him led to friction and inconsistent direction. Even
13188-618: The announcement that the walled city would be converted to a park, the Secretary for District Administration formally requested the Urban Council to take over the site following demolition. Owing to the presence of numerous other green spaces in the area, the Urban Services Department doubted the need for "yet another park" from a planning and operations point of view, but the council agreed nonetheless to accept
13345-508: The area of the former walled city. Some historical artefacts from the walled city, including its yamen building and remnants of its southern gate, have been preserved there. The history of the walled city can be traced back to the Song dynasty (960–1279), when a military outpost was set up to manage the salt trade in the area. Little took place for hundreds of years afterward, although 30 guards were stationed there in 1668. A small coastal fort
13502-618: The authority to force through even the simplest decisions. The practical power of high-ranking officials like ministers or the head of the Executive Yuan was more closely tied to their relationship with Chiang than with the formal authority of their position. Chiang created multiple layers of power in his administration which he sometimes played off each other to prevent individuals or cliques from gathering power that could oppose his authority. The Nationalist government exercised relatively little control in China's border regions, where
13659-470: The city was shunned in its early existence, it has since become a source of pride for many Hong Kong residents. The rising publicity around Hong Kong following the 1997 handover sparked a re-emergence in the public interest of Kowloon Walled City and its disappearance. Popular memory tends to sanitise the city, forgetting the crime and corruption. The city has begun to be portrayed with a romantic dystopian identity, and many forms of modern media have borrowed
13816-416: The city were full of television antennas, clothes lines , water tanks, and rubbish, and could be crossed using a series of ladders. Kowloon Walled City's early population fluctuated between zero and a few hundred, and began growing steadily shortly after World War II. However, there is no accurate population information available for much of the walled city's later existence. Official census numbers estimated
13973-519: The city's culture in their works. A few of the people who spent time in Kowloon Walled City have written accounts of their experiences. Evangelist Jackie Pullinger wrote a 1989 memoir, Crack in the Wall , about her involvement in treating drug addicts within the walled city. In his 2004 autobiography Gweilo , Martin Booth describes his exploration of the walled city as a child in the 1950s. Gordon Jones,
14130-441: The city. Although the rampant crime of earlier decades diminished in later years, the walled city was still known for its high number of unlicensed doctors and dentists who could operate there without threat of prosecution. Although the walled city was for many years a hotbed of criminal activity, most residents were not involved in any crime and lived peacefully within its walls. Numerous small factories and businesses thrived inside
14287-481: The colonial and Chinese governments. The ruins gave new arrivals to the walled city the opportunity to build anew, causing speculation that the fire may have been intentionally set. With no government enforcement from the Chinese or the British aside from a few raids by the Hong Kong Police , the walled city became a haven for crime and drugs. It was only during a 1959 trial for a murder that occurred within
14444-540: The conference in Chongqing. However, shortly afterward, the two parties failed to reach an agreement and the civil war resumed. In the context of political and military animosity, the National Assembly was summoned by the Nationalists without the participation of the CCP and promulgated the Constitution of the Republic of China . The constitution was criticized by the CCP, and led to the final break between
14601-523: The constitution, the Nationalist Government abolished itself and was replaced by the Government of the Republic of China . Following their loss of the Civil War, the Nationalist Government retreated and moved their capital to Taipei while claiming that they were the legitimate government of the mainland. After Sun's death on 12 March 1925, four months later on 1 July 1925, the National Government of
14758-532: The country and brought political stability. China's industries developed and grew from 1927 to 1931. Though badly hit by the Great Depression from 1931 to 1935 and Japan's occupation of Manchuria in 1931, industrial output recovered by 1936. By 1936, industrial output had recovered and surpassed its previous peak in 1931 prior to the Great Depression's effects on China. This is best shown by
14915-410: The defence of British Hong Kong . The following year, the governor, Sir Henry Blake , suspected that the viceroy of Canton was using troops to aid resistance to the new arrangements. On 14 April 1899, British forces attacked the walled city, only to find the viceroy's soldiers gone, leaving behind only the mandarin and 150 residents. The Qing dynasty ended its rule in 1912, leaving the walled city to
15072-399: The different spoken dialects varies, but in general, there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. The Mandarin dialects in particular have experienced a dramatic decrease in sounds and so have far more polysyllabic words than most other spoken varieties. The total number of syllables in some varieties is therefore only about a thousand, including tonal variation, which
15229-484: The difficulties involved in determining the difference between language and dialect, other terms have been proposed. These include topolect , lect , vernacular , regional , and variety . Syllables in the Chinese languages have some unique characteristics. They are tightly related to the morphology and also to the characters of the writing system, and phonologically they are structured according to fixed rules. The structure of each syllable consists of
15386-493: The early Qing dynasty . It is divided into eight landscape features, with the fully restored yamen as its centrepiece. The park's paths and pavilions are named after streets and buildings in the walled city. Artefacts from the walled city, such as five inscribed stones and three old wells, are also on display in the park. The park was designed by the Architectural Services Department , which won
15543-576: The end of the syllable, developing into tone distinctions in Middle Chinese. Several derivational affixes have also been identified, but the language lacks inflection , and indicated grammatical relationships using word order and grammatical particles . Middle Chinese was the language used during Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui , Tang , and Song dynasties (6th–10th centuries CE). It can be divided into an early period, reflected by
15700-413: The first one, 十 , normally appears in monosyllabic form in spoken Mandarin; the rest are normally used in the polysyllabic forms of respectively. In each, the homophone was disambiguated by the addition of another morpheme, typically either a near-synonym or some sort of generic word (e.g. 'head', 'thing'), the purpose of which is to indicate which of the possible meanings of the other, homophonic syllable
15857-438: The flight path of planes heading toward Kai Tak Airport . As well as limiting building height, the proximity of the airport subjected residents to serious noise pollution. Eight municipal pipes provided water to the entire structure, although more could have come from wells. A few of the streets were illuminated by fluorescent lights, as sunlight rarely reached the lower levels due to the outstanding disregard to air rights within
16014-526: The following year, Chiang's army had captured Beijing after overthrowing the Beiyang government and unified the entire nation , at least nominally, marking the beginning the Nanjing decade . According to Sun Yat-sen's "Three Stages of Revolution" theory, the KMT was to rebuild China in three phases: the first stage was military unification, which was carried out with the Northern Expedition;
16171-491: The form of a word), to indicate a word's function within a sentence. In other words, Chinese has very few grammatical inflections —it possesses no tenses , no voices , no grammatical number , and only a few articles . They make heavy use of grammatical particles to indicate aspect and mood . In Mandarin, this involves the use of particles such as 了 ; le ; ' PFV ', 还 ; 還 ; hái ; 'still', and 已经 ; 已經 ; yǐjīng ; 'already'. Chinese has
16328-565: The government of the People's Republic of China, with Singapore officially adopting them in 1976. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and among Chinese-speaking communities overseas . Linguists classify all varieties of Chinese as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family , together with Burmese , Tibetan and many other languages spoken in the Himalayas and the Southeast Asian Massif . Although
16485-520: The government's proposal on the condition that the government bear the cost of park construction. The government distributed some HK$ 2.7 billion ( US$ 350 million ) in compensation to the estimated 33,000 residents and businesses in a plan devised by a special committee of the Hong Kong Housing Authority . Some residents were not satisfied with the compensation and were forcibly evicted between November 1991 and July 1992. While it
16642-513: The heart of the city was also a major social centre, a place for residents to talk, have tea or watch television, and to take classes such as calligraphy. The Old People's Centre also held religious meetings for Christians and others. Other religious institutions included the Fuk Tak and Tin Hau temples, which were used for a combination of Buddhist , Taoist , and animist practices. The area where
16799-579: The intention of defeating the warlords and unifying the country. The National Revolutionary Army received significant aid from the Soviet Union ; Chiang himself was surrounded by Soviet military advisors. Much of the Nationalist Party, however, became convinced, not without reason, that the Communists, under recent orders from the Comintern, wanted to break from the United Front and get rid of
16956-571: The lack of resources following the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Second Chinese Civil War . In 1937, Japan invaded China and the resulting warfare laid waste to China. Most of the prosperous east China coast was occupied by the Japanese, who carried out various atrocities such as the Rape of Nanjing in 1937 and random massacres of whole villages. In one anti-guerrilla sweep in 1942, the Japanese killed up to 200,000 civilians in
17113-586: The language of administration and scholarship, a position it would retain until the late 19th century in Korea and (to a lesser extent) Japan, and the early 20th century in Vietnam. Scholars from different lands could communicate, albeit only in writing, using Literary Chinese. Although they used Chinese solely for written communication, each country had its own tradition of reading texts aloud using what are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations . Chinese words with these pronunciations were also extensively imported into
17270-528: The late 19th century. Today Japanese is written with a composite script using both Chinese characters called kanji , and kana. Korean is written exclusively with hangul in North Korea, although knowledge of the supplementary Chinese characters called hanja is still required, and hanja are increasingly rarely used in South Korea. As a result of its historical colonization by France, Vietnamese now uses
17427-455: The more conservative modern varieties, usually found in the south, have largely monosyllabic words , especially with basic vocabulary. However, most nouns, adjectives, and verbs in modern Mandarin are disyllabic. A significant cause of this is phonetic erosion : sound changes over time have steadily reduced the number of possible syllables in the language's inventory. In modern Mandarin, there are only around 1,200 possible syllables, including
17584-425: The mutual unintelligibility between them is too great. However, calling major Chinese branches "languages" would also be wrong under the same criterion, since a branch such as Wu, itself contains many mutually unintelligible varieties, and could not be properly called a single language. There are also viewpoints pointing out that linguists often ignore mutual intelligibility when varieties share intelligibility with
17741-583: The nasal sonorant consonants /m/ and /ŋ/ can stand alone as their own syllable. In Mandarin much more than in other spoken varieties, most syllables tend to be open syllables, meaning they have no coda (assuming that a final glide is not analyzed as a coda), but syllables that do have codas are restricted to nasals /m/ , /n/ , /ŋ/ , the retroflex approximant /ɻ/ , and voiceless stops /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , or /ʔ/ . Some varieties allow most of these codas, whereas others, such as Standard Chinese, are limited to only /n/ , /ŋ/ , and /ɻ/ . The number of sounds in
17898-538: The other varieties within the same branch (e.g. Southern Min). There are, however, transitional areas where varieties from different branches share enough features for some limited intelligibility, including New Xiang with Southwestern Mandarin , Xuanzhou Wu Chinese with Lower Yangtze Mandarin , Jin with Central Plains Mandarin and certain divergent dialects of Hakka with Gan . All varieties of Chinese are tonal at least to some degree, and are largely analytic . The earliest attested written Chinese consists of
18055-478: The park. It contains a photo gallery of the walled city, and two cannons dating back to 1802 sit at the sides of its entrance. A lack of governance, and separation from Hong Kong, provided a distinct culture in the city. Crime and corruption were common; the police were known to co-operate with the triads operating in the city. During the 1970s greater police presence reduced crime and the city became home to those seeking to avoid business regulation and taxes. While
18212-531: The political fragmentation along ethnic lines that began after the fall of the Qing dynasty continued. The National Revolutionary Army ( NRA ) ( traditional Chinese : 國民革命軍 ; simplified Chinese : 国民革命军 ; pinyin : Guómín Gémìng Jūn ; Wade–Giles : Kuo-min Ke-ming Chün ), pre-1928 sometimes shortened to 革命軍 or Revolutionary Army and between 1928 and 1947 as 國軍 or National Army
18369-407: The presidency to military strongman Yuan Shikai , who established the Beiyang government . After a failed attempt to install himself as Emperor of China , Yuan died in 1916, leaving a power vacuum which resulted in China being divided into several warlord fiefs and rival governments. They were nominally reunified in 1928 under the Nanjing -based government led by Chiang Kai-shek , which after
18526-425: The promulgation of the Constitution of the Republic of China in 1947 and the formal end of the KMT party-state, the National Revolutionary Army was renamed the Republic of China Armed Forces , with the bulk of its forces forming the Republic of China Army , which retreated to Taiwan in 1949 . Forced conscription campaigns were conducted by the military; they are described by Rudolph Rummel as such: Then there
18683-404: The rate of change varies immensely. Generally, mountainous South China exhibits more linguistic diversity than the North China Plain . Until the late 20th century, Chinese emigrants to Southeast Asia and North America came from southeast coastal areas, where Min, Hakka, and Yue dialects were spoken. Specifically, most Chinese immigrants to North America until the mid-20th century spoke Taishanese ,
18840-485: The ratification that not only would it not recognize the ROC constitution, but all bills passed by the Nationalist administration would be disregarded as well. Zhou Enlai challenged the legitimacy of the National Assembly in 1947 by accusing the KMT of hand-picking the members of the National Assembly 10 years earlier; claiming they thus could not legitimately represent the Chinese people. The National Government governed under
18997-552: The related subject dropping . Although the grammars of the spoken varieties share many traits, they do possess differences. The entire Chinese character corpus since antiquity comprises well over 50,000 characters, of which only roughly 10,000 are in use and only about 3,000 are frequently used in Chinese media and newspapers. However, Chinese characters should not be confused with Chinese words. Because most Chinese words are made up of two or more characters, there are many more Chinese words than characters. A more accurate equivalent for
19154-509: The relationship was first proposed in the early 19th century and is now broadly accepted, reconstruction of Sino-Tibetan is much less developed than that of families such as Indo-European or Austroasiatic . Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, and the effects of language contact. In addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach and are often also sensitive border zones. Without
19311-428: The renewed Chinese Civil War . By the late 1980s, the walled city contained roughly 35,000 residents within its territory of 2.6 hectares (6.4 acres; 26,000 m). As a result of the absence of any widely recognized bureaucracy, the city's residents and businesses had no municipal codes to govern them. Enabled by the enclave's anarchic nature, trade in banned products thrived, ranging from narcotics to dog meat . From
19468-599: The rural economy was hit hard by the Great Depression of the 1930s, in which an overproduction of agricultural goods lead to massive falling prices for China as well as an increase in foreign imports (as agricultural goods produced in western countries were "dumped" in China). In 1931, imports of rice in China amounted to 21 million bushels compared with 12 million in 1928. Other goods saw even more staggering increases. In 1932, 15 million bushels of grain were imported compared with 900,000 in 1928. This increased competition leads to
19625-491: The rural poor. Instead, the poor peasants remained a consistent source of recruits for the Communist Party. While weakened by frequent massacres and purges—historian Rudolph Rummel estimated that 1,654,000 people were killed by the KMT in anti-Communist purges during this period—the Communists were able to survive and posed a major latent threat to the regime. However, perhaps the biggest challenges came from within
19782-426: The second was " political tutelage [ zh ] " which was a provisional government led by the KMT to educate people about their political and civil rights, and the third stage would be constitutional government.( Fung 2000 , p. 30) By 1928, the Nationalists claimed that they had succeeded in reunifying China and were beginning the second stage, the period of so-called "tutelage". In 1931, they promulgated
19939-463: The six official languages of the United Nations . Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin and was first officially adopted in the 1930s. The language is written primarily using a logography of Chinese characters , largely shared by readers who may otherwise speak mutually unintelligible varieties. Since the 1950s, the use of simplified characters has been promoted by
20096-561: The slightly later Menggu Ziyun , this dictionary describes a language with many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects. Up to the early 20th century, most Chinese people only spoke their local variety. Thus, as a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties , known as 官话 ; 官話 ; Guānhuà ; 'language of officials'. For most of this period, this language
20253-623: The tonal distinctions, compared with about 5,000 in Vietnamese (still a largely monosyllabic language), and over 8,000 in English. Most modern varieties tend to form new words through polysyllabic compounds . In some cases, monosyllabic words have become disyllabic formed from different characters without the use of compounding, as in 窟窿 ; kūlong from 孔 ; kǒng ; this is especially common in Jin varieties. This phonological collapse has led to
20410-547: The traditional Western notion of a word. A Chinese cí can consist of more than one character–morpheme, usually two, but there can be three or more. Examples of Chinese words of more than two syllables include 汉堡包 ; 漢堡包 ; hànbǎobāo ; 'hamburger', 守门员 ; 守門員 ; shǒuményuán ; 'goalkeeper', and 电子邮件 ; 電子郵件 ; diànzǐyóujiàn ; 'e-mail'. All varieties of modern Chinese are analytic languages : they depend on syntax (word order and sentence structure), rather than inflectional morphology (changes in
20567-599: The trends in Chinese GDP . In 1932, China's GDP peaked at US$ 28.8 billion, before falling to $ 21.3 billion by 1934 and recovering to $ 23.7 billion by 1935. By 1930, foreign investment in China totaled $ 3.5 billion, with Japan leading ($ 1.4 billion) and the United Kingdom at 1 billion. By 1948, however, the capital stock had halted with investment dropping to only $ 3 billion, with the US and Britain leading. However,
20724-470: The two sides. The full-scale civil war resumed from early 1947. After the National Assembly election , the drafted Constitution was adopted by the National Assembly on 25 December 1946, promulgated by the National Government on 1 January 1947, and went into effect on 25 December 1947. The Constitution was seen as the third and final stage of Kuomintang reconstruction of China. Chiang Kai-shek
20881-512: The use of tones in Chinese is the application of the four tones of Standard Chinese, along with the neutral tone, to the syllable ma . The tones are exemplified by the following five Chinese words: In contrast, Standard Cantonese has six tones. Historically, finals that end in a stop consonant were considered to be " checked tones " and thus counted separately for a total of nine tones. However, they are considered to be duplicates in modern linguistics and are no longer counted as such: Chinese
21038-437: The walled city as the setting for a series of murders. The later part of episode 3 and episode 4 of the anime Street Fighter II V are set in Kowloon Walled City, depicted as a dark and lawless area where Ryu, Ken and Chun-Li have to fight for their lives at every turn, being rescued by the police once they reach the walled city's limits. The manga Kowloon Generic Romance is also set in the walled city. Kowloon Walled City
21195-427: The walled city once stood is now Kowloon Walled City Park , adjacent to Carpenter Road Park. The 31,000 m (330,000 sq ft; 7.7 acres) park was completed in August 1995 and handed over to the Urban Council . It was opened officially by Governor Chris Patten a few months later on 22 December. Construction of the park cost a total of HK$ 76 million . The park's design is modelled on Jiangnan gardens of
21352-477: The walled city that the Hong Kong government was ruled to have jurisdiction there. By that time, however, the walled city was virtually ruled by the organised crime syndicates known as triads . Beginning in the 1950s, triad groups such as the 14K and Sun Yee On gained a stranglehold on the walled city's numerous brothels, gaming parlours, and opium dens. The walled city had become such a haven for criminals that police would venture into it only in large groups. It
21509-468: The walled city's main entrance. Along with its foundation, other remains included two stone plaques inscribed with "South Gate" and "Kowloon Walled City" from the South Gate and a flagstone path that had led up to it. The foundations of the city's wall and East Gate were also discovered. The Hong Kong government preserved the South Gate remnants next to a square in front of the yamen. The yamen building
21666-404: The walled city's population at 10,004 in 1971 and 14,617 in 1981. Informal estimates, on the other hand, often mistakenly included the neighbouring squatter village of Sai Tau Tsuen. Population figures of about 50,000 were also reported. A thorough government survey in 1987 gave a clearer picture: an estimated 33,000 people resided within the walled city. Based on this survey, the walled city had
21823-422: The walled city, and some residents formed groups to organise and improve daily life there. An attempt by the government in 1963 to demolish some shacks in a corner of the city gave rise to an "anti-demolition committee" that served as the basis for a kaifong association . Charities, religious societies, and other welfare groups were gradually introduced to the city. While medical clinics and schools went unregulated,
21980-532: The walled city. The pen-and-paper RPG Shadowrun and CRPG Shadowrun: Hong Kong include a crime-ridden, rebuilt version of the Walled City set in 2056. The walled city also features in the 2010 game Call of Duty: Black Ops . The 2022 video game Stray 's environment is influenced by the walled city as well. A partial recreation of Kowloon Walled City existed in the Warehouse Kawasaki , an amusement arcade that operated from 2009 to 2019 in
22137-481: The war between China and Japan started. By 1940, only the yamen, the school, and one house remained. During the World War II occupation of Hong Kong , the Japanese occupying forces demolished the city's wall and used the stone to expand the nearby Kai Tak Airport . After Japan's surrender in 1945, China announced its intent to reclaim the walled city. In November 1946, Nationalist Chinese officials created
22294-464: The war of eight years, Japan surrendered and the Republic of China, under the name "China", became one of the founding members of the United Nations . The government returned to Nanjing in 1946. Following the defeat of Japan at the end of World War II , Taiwan was surrendered to the Allies , with ROC troops accepting the surrender of the Japanese garrison. The government of the ROC proclaimed
22451-405: The war was a massive increase in government control of industries. In 1936, government-owned industries were only 15% of GDP. However, the ROC government took control of many industries in order to fight the war. In 1938, the ROC established a commission for industries and mines to control and supervise firms, as well as instilling price controls. By 1942, 70 percent of the capital of Chinese industry
22608-813: The way, sometimes less than 50 percent reaching camp alive. Then recruit camp was no better, with hospitals resembling Nazi concentration camps like Buchenwald. Probably 3,081,000 died during the Sino-Japanese War; likely another 1,131,000 during the Civil War – 4,212,000 dead in total. Just during conscription. Because of the Nationalist government's increasing inability to fund the military, especially after Japan's success in Operation Ichigo , Nationalist authorities overlooked military corruption and smuggling. The Nationalist army increasingly turned to raiding villages to press-gang peasants into service and force marching them to assigned units. After
22765-452: The words in newspapers, and 60% of the words in science magazines. Vietnam, Korea, and Japan each developed writing systems for their own languages, initially based on Chinese characters , but later replaced with the hangul alphabet for Korean and supplemented with kana syllabaries for Japanese, while Vietnamese continued to be written with the complex chữ Nôm script. However, these were limited to popular literature until
22922-517: The written language used throughout China changed comparatively little, crystallizing into a prestige form known as Classical or Literary Chinese . Literature written distinctly in the Classical form began to emerge during the Spring and Autumn period . Its use in writing remained nearly universal until the late 19th century, culminating with the widespread adoption of written vernacular Chinese with
23079-453: Was a koiné based on dialects spoken in the Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect. By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with the imperial court. In the 1930s, a standard national language ( 国语 ; 國語 ; Guóyǔ ), was adopted. After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at an artificial pronunciation,
23236-484: Was also elected as the 1st President of the Republic of China under the constitution by the National Assembly in 1948, with Li Zongren being elected as vice-president. The Nationalist Government was abolished on 20 May 1948, after the Government of the Republic of China was established with the presidential inauguration of Chiang. The CCP, though invited to the convention that drafted it, boycotted and declared after
23393-556: Was captured by rebels during the Taiping Rebellion in 1854, before being retaken a few weeks later. The Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory of 1898 handed additional parts of Hong Kong (the New Territories ) to Britain for 99 years, but excluded the walled city, which at the time had a population of roughly 700. China was allowed to continue to keep officials there as long as they did not interfere with
23550-556: Was deserted, the empty city was used to film a scene in the 1993 movie Crime Story . After four months of planning, demolition of the walled city began on 23 March 1993 and concluded in April 1994. Construction work on Kowloon Walled City Park started the following month. Some historic structures within the former have been preserved and integrated into the new park. The walled city was located in an area of Kowloon that became known as Kowloon City . In spite of its transformation from
23707-472: Was established around 1810 after Chinese forces abandoned Tung Lung Fort . In 1842, during Qing Daoguang Emperor 's reign, Hong Kong Island was ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Nanking . As a result, the Qing authorities felt it necessary to improve the fort to rule the area and check further British influence. The improvements, including the formidable defensive wall, were completed in 1847. The walled city
23864-485: Was hidden by their written form. Often different compounds for the same concept were in circulation for some time before a winner emerged, and sometimes the final choice differed between countries. The proportion of vocabulary of Chinese origin thus tends to be greater in technical, abstract, or formal language. For example, in Japan, Sino-Japanese words account for about 35% of the words in entertainment magazines, over half
24021-476: Was not until 1973 and 1974, when a series of more than 3,500 police raids resulted in over 2,500 arrests and over 1,800 kilograms (4,000 lb) of seized drugs, that the triads' power began to wane. With public support, particularly from younger residents, the continued raids gradually eroded drug use and violent crime. In 1983, the district police commander declared the walled city's crime rate to be under control. The city also underwent massive construction during
24178-425: Was owned by the government. Following the war with Japan, Chiang acquired Taiwan from Japan and renewed his struggle with the Communists. However, the corruption of the KMT, as well as hyperinflation as a result of trying to fight the civil war, resulted in mass unrest throughout the Republic and sympathy for the communists. Nearly all studies of the collapse of the Nationalist government identify hyperinflation as
24335-431: Was so extensive that one could travel north to south through the entire city without ever touching solid ground. Construction in the city went unregulated, and most of the roughly 350 buildings were built with poor foundations and few or no utilities. Because apartments were so small—a typical unit was 23 m (250 sq ft)—space was maximised with wider upper floors, caged balconies and rooftop additions. Roofs in
24492-555: Was the Military Arm of the Kuomintang (KMT) from 1925 until 1947, as well as the national army of the Republic of China during the KMT's period of party rule beginning in 1928. Originally organized with Soviet aid as a means for the KMT to unify China against warlordism , the National Revolutionary Army fought major engagements in the Northern Expedition against the Chinese Beiyang Army warlords , in
24649-482: Was the process of conscription. This was a deadly affair in which men were kidnapped for the army, rounded up indiscriminately by press-gangs or army units among those on the roads or in the towns and villages, or otherwise gathered together. Many men, some the very young and old, were killed resisting or trying to escape. Once collected, they would be roped or chained together and marched, with little food or water, long distances to camp. They often died or were killed along
#587412