Heritage in Northern Kowloon: Bird Walkers, Temples and a Walled City

April 15: Bird-walking is daily custom for many old men in Hong Kong. From dawn until tea time, bird walkers congregate in favorite parks, or restaurants, to air and share their prized songbirds. In northern Kowloon, Yuen Po Street Bird Garden is devoted to the city’s bird walkers.

The historic bird street had been located in Mong Kok, but the government relocated the district in 1997 to the northeast, between Boundary Street and Prince Edward Road. Consolidated to roughly 70 stalls (according to the city), the modern pedestrian-only street/garden“is testimony to the excessive pampering (the birds) receive. Merchants stock items such as fancy teak cages, tiny porcelain water bowls, even culinary delicacies, such as grasshoppers. It opens from around 7am-8pm.”

I wake early and arrive before 7 a.m. The street is empty. Custodians water plants. A few men huddle around a cage pile. Up and down Yuen Po Street, songbirds chirp behind closed storefronts. Wild birds sing their refrain. An elderly man carries two cages and hangs them at different locations. He practices tai chi, and he moves the cages to different locations as he varies the motions of his exercise routine.






Two hours pass, men begin to wander. From the outside looking in, brown finch-looking birds investigate the accumulating cages. Bamboo cages (for sale) assemble a wall at the north entrance. Men examine those lively, chirping birds inside. The sullen, less-animated creatures go unnoticed.

Business gains momentum, and I walk east along Boundary Street. The street's namesake marked the separation between colonial Hong Kong and China from 1860 (the result of Britain’s victory in the second Opium War) during the Ming Dynasty until 1898 when the United Kingdom took a 99-year lease on New Territories.

I walk north into Kowloon City. Kowloon City's buildings appear more rundown than the waterfront of Hong Kong Island and Tsim Sha Tsui in southern Kowloon. Undoubtedly, the neighborhood is in exemplary shape compared to the days of the Kowloon Walled City (little more than a decade earlier).

The walled city was infamous for crime, drugs, prostitution and lack of governmental supervision. When a resident of the city was murdered in 1959, neither Britain nor the People’s Republic of China claimed responsibility for the region.

The city developed from an early village, which had been a military post for the Song Dynasty (960–1279) and later became a stronghold for the Ming Dynasty (1644–1912), after the 1842 Treaty of Nanking (when China first ceded Hong Kong Island to Britain). The 99-year lease of New Territories stipulated a continued military outpost at the location for the Qing Dynasty. The issue remained unresolved as Chinese immigrants flooded Hong Kong from the Mainland. Shoddy buildings grew atop one another, and the outpost developed into a maze-like slum. Upon demolition, the walled city housed 50,000 inhabitants on 0.026 km².





Across the street from the park (modeled after gardens from the Qing Dynasty), the Hau Wong Temple watches over passing traffic.

A bus takes me from the Hau Wong Temple to a giant shopping mall, which towers over the Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple – a sprawling Taoist temple built during the early 20th century.






Stalls selling incense surround the entrance. Inside, tourists and worshippers crowd. Wads of soggy dollars join coins in wishing fountains. The scent of incense wafts from smoky altar-rooms. Around the wishing pond, families eat lunch and old men play chess. At the lower pond, I watch a turtle chase a fat orange koi. If the turtle tires of chase, another will inevitably catch/eat the fish. Masses of turtles bake on every available rock. Each scrambles its legs to climb atop the rest (or to prevent another turtle from accomplishing the task). The koi probably fell to the lower pond by a waterfall adjoining a higher pond. Fish symbolize fortune. Turtles symbolize longevity.

One metro stop away, at Diamond Hill, another mall towers over the local tourist attraction. The Nan Lian Garden, a Tang Dynasty style garden (618-906), precedes the Chi Lin Nunnery with a serene garden and walking path. A small museum explains the nearby Buddhist nunnery’s architectural significance. Also in Tang style, the building uses not one nail. A bridge leads to the giant pagoda. Inside, curtains cover the top portion of Buddha and bodhisattva altars. In order to view the golden statues, the curtains force visitors to bow.

Bowing tourists seem less offensive beside genuine worshippers.

Soft chants and shaking joss sticks cloak the nunnery in white noise. Freshly shorn nuns smile. Occasionally, one shakes her finger at a tourist who photographs a statue.