WAN CHAI SERIES #2 - Overview

Since Wan Chai is gentrifying so fast, with entire streets being demolished almost daily, I feel obligated to keep a record of what is happening, one street at a time:

Another one bites the dust!

WAN CHAI OVERVIEW

Back in the 1830s and 40s, when the Jardine-Mathersons were inventing Hong Kong, Wan Chai was the one of the two areas the Chinese held on to - the other being Sheung Wan - and I'm guessing it's because they didn't want the British disrespecting or demolishing the astonishingly ancient sacred site I'll show you later, in the entry about Queens Road East.

Given my late mother's valiant and frequently successful struggles to preserve old buildings in Suva, Fiji, normally I'd feel duty-bound to be out on the streets protesting these current demolitions, but, after walking through the areas sheduled to come down, all I see is concrete cancer and buckled support columns, cracks and accidents-waiting-to-happen - and I actually saw one support column that had split open and inside, instead of concrete and steel reinforcing, was stacked up bottles and tin cans - and this was meant to hold up a five storey building? - so I level-headedly selected the few old buildings I am willing to chain myself to, and am just letting the rest go.

A FEW OF

MY CHOSEN ONES

Woo Cheong Pawnshop

Wan Chai Markets

The old Wan Chai Post Office

And, oddly, the HK City Council appears to agree with me. Every building I decided three years ago I willing to go to jail to protect has since been given protection orders and some are even either restored or now undergoing restoration. Lucky, huh?!

This single Ship Street building -
the old brothel
featured in
"The World of Suzie Wong" -
is to be preserved.

Sincerely, as wrong as it seems to say this, most of Wan Chai is not worth saving. Most of the old part above Johnston Road was built by the Triads (no, seriously! Like, Lee Tung Street was built by Lee Tung Construction and Opium Traders Co.) and they really did skimp on materials ... although, hopefully, not as badly as they did in their first efforts to build Sheung Wan.

Did you know that when bubonic plague broke out in HK back in 1846 the disease was confined to Sheung Wan? Yup! It stopped dead at the park between the Chinese-built area and the British-built area. The British sent in police (brave souls. I've seen photographs and I doubt I'd have the courage to do it!) to investigate and discovered that, despite promising to build everything to British standards and specifications, they'd actually faked the drains and sewers; just dug holes and put the proper British covers on top to make it look like they were there.

That's when the British went in and demolished the entire area and, lo and behold, the plague just stopped. Then the British got all trenchant and heavy-handed and micro-supervised the Triads entire rebuilding. Thankfully! Otherwise we'd still be seeing epidemics sweeping across our fair city. (Oh, wait! We do! But we have the Mainland to thank for those.)

But Triad-built Wan Chai wasn't demolished - back then that is - and since there was no heavy-handed micro-supervision to ensure work was done properly, you can see for yourself that it simply wasn't. So, there you go: the reason why I'm being so chronically unruffled by seeing it all around me reduced to rubble.

If you're wondering how I know all this, it's all thanks to Jason Wordie:

Jason Wordie
on the Japanese Invasion of HK
ANZAC Day Tour
Behind him is the spot
where the Japanese crossed to the Island

This guy is a wonderful Hong Kong historian and nearly everything I know about this area I learned from his books, particularly his gorgeous book "Streets" - which I can't recommend highly enough - that relates the social history of all those parts of HK Island we walk past unthinkingly every day; the what-happened-where sort of accounts that make everyday places and objects suddenly seem unutterably precious.

And, boy, can he write! He's so well informed yet all kinda impish and naughty - which is exactly the type of writer that appeals to me the most.

Other parts of what I'm going to tell you come from the Hong Kong Heritage Museum over in Kowloon.

Anyway, telling you this is just to let you know there are better accounts out there about all this ... but none of them are actually here right now and seeing it all for themselves. So there!!!

And to orient you to what-is-where in this series, here's a link to a map of the area.

P.S. I am not for one minute suggesting that my mother was a "chain yourself to buildings" type. She was more a "form a committee, research, lobby and bombard the appropriate people with facts" type. But, really, where's the fun in that?