#port of hong kong

[phaata-blog1]

Giá cước vận tải biển từ Hồ Chí Minh đi Hong Kong mới nhất

[whatevergreen]

"our media works by the propaganda by omission principle, the less you know, the less you can object"

A Charter Cities propaganda site:

"Charter cities can help improve governance in a limited geographic area by giving local officials authority to implement best legal and administrative practices and commercial regulations. This can help create a competitive business environment that attracts investment and accelerates economic growth in developing countries to help them achieve prosperity faster than ever before.

Governance is a key determinant of a country’s economic trajectory. Unfortunately, politics often prevents needed reforms from being implemented at the national level. Because charter cities cover limited geographic areas, their administrations can pursue deeper reforms than would otherwise be possible."

Ugh...

Well this is horrific.

Privatised cities that will operate free of what few worthwhile regulations there are left. Corporate paradises that will eradicate whatever rights you still have in the pursuit of profit.

Corporate colonialism. This reminds me of the treaty ports and Shanghai International Settlement in 1840s-1940s China. Territories that were technically still ruled by China but were wholly controlled by whichever imperialist power had manipulated its way into establishing them (UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, USA).

The Charter Cities Institute cites such as Hong Kong as a successful example: "

"Charter cities are not an entirely new idea. Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Dubai demonstrated that by pursuing different developmental strategies, it’s possible for cities to leverage urbanization to grow from impoverished to world-class cities within two to three generations."

Yes. Hong Kong. Where amid the glittering skyscrapers, multitudes survive in abject poverty (almost 1 in every 4 people), many literally living in cupboards.

"Hong Kong has the most billionaires per million people, with 8.83." 70 in total.

This is considered a success because Hong Kong is now swimming in wealth and luxury for the small insulated minority who don't see and more to the point don't care about anyone or anything beyond their circle of existence.

"All that glitters is not gold"

[no-passaran]

Genocide experts warn that India is about to genocide the Shompen people

Who are the Shompen?

The Shompen are an indigenous culture that lives in the Great Nicobar Island, which is nowadays owned by India. The Shompen and their ancestors are believed to have been living in this island for around 10,000 years. Like other tribes in the nearby islands, the Shompen are isolated from the rest of the world, as they chose to be left alone, with the exception of a few members who occasionally take part in exchanges with foreigners and go on quarantine before returning to their tribe. There are between 100 and 400 Shompen people, who are hunter-gatherers and nomadic agricultors and rely on their island's rainforest for survival.

Why is there risk of genocide?

India has announced a huge construction mega-project that will completely change the Great Nicobar Island to turn it into "the Hong Kong of India".

Nowadays, the island has 8,500 inhabitants, and over 95% of its surface is made up of national parks, protected forests and tribal reserve areas. Much of the island is covered by the Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve, described by UNESCO as covering “unique and threatened tropical evergreen forest ecosystems. It is home to very rich ecosystems, including 650 species of angiosperms, ferns, gymnosperms, and bryophytes, among others. In terms of fauna, there are over 1800 species, some of which are endemic to this area. It has one of the best-preserved tropical rain forests in the world.”

The Indian project aims to destroy this natural environment to create an international shipping terminal with the capacity to handle 14.2 million TEUs (unit of cargo capacity), an international airport that will handle a peak hour traffic of 4,000 passengers and that will be used as a joint civilian-military airport under the control of the Indian Navy, a gas and solar power plant, a military base, an industrial park, and townships aimed at bringing in tourism, including commercial, industrial and residential zones as well as other tourism-related activities.

This project means the destruction of the island's pristine rainforests, as it involves cutting down over 852,000 trees and endangers the local fauna such as leatherback turtles, saltwater crocodiles, Nicobar crab-eating macaque and migratory birds. The erosion resulting from deforestation will be huge in this highly-seismic area. Experts also warn about the effects that this project will have on local flora and fauna as a result of pollution from the terminal project, coastal surface runoff, ballasts from ships, physical collisions with ships, coastal construction, oil spills, etc.

The indigenous people are not only affected because their environment and food source will be destroyed. On top of this, the demographic change will be a catastrophe for them. After the creation of this project, the Great Nicobar Island -which now has 8,500 inhabitants- will receive a population of 650,000 settlers. Remember that the Shompen and Nicobarese people who live on this island are isolated, which means they do not have an immune system that can resist outsider illnesses. Academics believe they could die of disease if they come in contact with outsiders (think of the arrival of Europeans to the Americas after Christopher Columbus and the way that common European illnesses were lethal for indigenous Americans with no immunization against them).

And on top of all of this, the project might destroy the environment and the indigenous people just to turn out to be useless and sooner or later be abandoned. The naturalist Uday Mondal explains that “after all the destruction, the financial viability of the project remains questionable as all the construction material will have to be shipped to this remote island and it will have to compete with already well-established ports.” However, this project is important to India because they want to use the island as a military and commercial post to stop China's expansion in the region, since the Nicobar islands are located on one of the world's busiest sea routes.

Last year, 70 former government officials and ambassadors wrote to the Indian president saying the project would “virtually destroy the unique ecology of this island and the habitat of vulnerable tribal groups”. India's response has been to say that the indigenous tribes will be relocated "if needed", but that doesn't solve the problem. As a spokesperson for human rights group Survival International said: “The Shompen are nomadic and have clearly defined territories. Four of their semi-permanent settlements are set to be directly devastated by the project, along with their southern hunting and foraging territories. The Shompen will undoubtedly try to move away from the area destroyed, but there will be little space for them to go. To avoid a genocide, this deadly mega-project must be scrapped.”

On 7 February 2024, 39 scholars from 13 countries published an open letter to the Indian president warning that “If the project goes ahead, even in a limited form, we believe it will be a death sentence for the Shompen, tantamount to the international crime of genocide.”

How to help

The NGO Survival International has launched this campaign:

From this site, you just need to add your name and email and you will send an email to India's Tribal Affairs Minister and to the companies currently vying to build the first stage of the project.

Share it with your friends and acquittances and on social media.

Sources:

India’s plan for untouched Nicobar isles will be ‘death sentence’ for isolated tribe, 7 Feb 2024. The Guardian.

‘It will destroy them’: Indian mega-development could cause ‘genocide’ and ‘ecocide’, says charity, 8 Feb 2024. Geographical.

Genocide experts call on India's government to scrap the Great Nicobar mega-project, Feb 2024. Survival International.

The container terminal that could sink the Great Nicobar Island, 20 July 2022. Mongabay.

[Maps] Environmental path cleared for Great Nicobar mega project, 10 Oct 2022. Mongabay.

[nshbrown]

[29th March 1867]

Whereas the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick have expressed their Desire to be federally united into One Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with a Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom+ Sources Part 1 - Part I: British North America Act, 1867 - Enactment no. 1 (justice.gc.ca)

[sailabilityphi]

Too foggy (and too cold) to see the islands across Port Shelter.

[easternmind]

The weird and wonderful history of Kowloon as a digital interactive space - Part I

The Kowloon Walled City was one of the most emblematic locations in Hong Kong due to its irregular, fast-paced and largely ungoverned growth within a minute parcel of land. During the occupation of Hong Kong Island by the British in the mid 18th century, the Qing authorities surrounded the area with walls, turning it into a strategic position from where to closely inspect the foreign nation's covert activities. Almost a century later, during World War II, the area was seized by the Japanese, who tore down the walls and repurposed the stone for the construction of a nearby airport.

After the war, China would eventually regain possession of the city, though the disinterest of local authorities in addressing its increasing social disturbances placed it in a downward path to a state of utter degradation. By the 1970s, Kowloon had become the epicentre of Hong Kong's criminal underworld, dominated by a handful of its most vicious Triads.

Towards the last years of its existence, the ancient settlement was as a precarious heap of concrete, sheltering nearly half a million people within less than seven acres of land. Cultural and political changes in China made it increasingly difficult for this urban anomaly to remain unaddressed. In the late 1980s, an action plan was put together aiming to relocate its inhabitants and reconvert the real estate into an inner-city park. Stories about residents refusing to leave their unsafe and unsanitary homes were featured prominently in newspapers, baffling readers all over the world. Once the single most densely populated area in the world, this enclave was an architectural aberration whose disconcerting aesthetic influenced numerous works of art in different fields of creation; including a small yet consequential number of video games that briefly reference or prominently feature this abominably transfixing space.

九龍島 (Kyu-Ryu-Tou) - Starcraft - 1986

The year is 2025. An arms dealer escalates the tensions between East and West by developing a genetic weapon in a secret base at Kowloon Island. The United Nations react by sending in their best man, Jamie Starr. Unrelated to the Walled City itself, the first game to be located in the Kowloon peninsula - and indeed include the name as a part of its title - is this obscure turn-based RPG, Kyu-Ryu-Tou for the NEC PC88 and FM-77 machines. The game is a sequel to Shangai, released the year before, featuring the same protagonist. Starcraft would also go on to produce a third instalment in 1987 named TO.KY.O. Clearly there wasn't much regard here from the developers part for geographic accuracy, as Kowloon is depicted here as being an island. While Hong Kong's southern territory is composed of an actual island, all the different areas named Kowloon are located in the mainland.

Riot City - Westone - 1991

One of the most shameless specimens among a relatively long list of Final Fight clones, Riot City contains subtle references to Kowloon, though never referring to it by name. Two narcotics detectives are assigned with the mission of dismantling a cartel running a crime-ridden located in fictional Riot Island. This recurring yet geographically nonsensical notion of Kowloon as an island comes up here, yet again. The final moment of the introduction sequence for this minor Sega arcade success shows both protagonists approaching a tight cluster of buildings whose source inspiration is quite unmistakable. Because Westone maintained ownership of most of this production's intellectual property, a later port to the PC Engine entitled Riot Zone was made possible with the help of Hudson soft. Kowloon's Gate - Zeque - 1997

Reviving the Walled City through the lens of cybermystic surrealism, Kowloon's Gate is a dense, daunting adventure masterfully capturing the slum's dark and narrow recesses. This 1997 Japanese Playstation exclusive spans across four discs of unparalleled full motion 3D CGI spectacle, alternating with real-time 3D dungeons brimming with outlandish characters and concepts deeply inspired by Chinese history, geography and cultural traditions.

Ironically, Zeque managed to embed the theme of Feng-Shui, the ancient geomantic art seeking harmony between the individual and their surrounding space, into a story set in the world's most historically untidy district.

SaGa Frontier - Square - 1997

SaGa Frontier takes place in a solar system named The Regions, composed of multiple inhabited worlds for the player to explore, each with its different degree of civilizational development and culture. One of these planets goes by the suggestive name Kūron. Its pervasive neon light signs, food stalls, makeshift cabins and rooftop scaffolding instantly evoke the memory of China’s so-called city of darkness.

Shadow Hearts - Sacnoth - 2001

Shortly after the release of Koudelka, Sacnoth's initiated the development of Shadow Hearts, the first episode from a cult RPG trilogy exclusively designed for the Playstation 2. In good Japanese fashion, the game proposes an anachronistic yet visually suggestive depiction of Kowloon, portraying its architectural style and degree of decay as it existed in the late twentieth century, despite the fact that the game's events take place during the nineteen twenties.

Just as noteworthy is the almost complete absence of any inhabitants, which inadvertently make this portrayal of the quarter eerily reminiscent of the state in which it was found circa 1993 or 1994, as local authorities brought the long, arduous eviction project to a close.

Shenmue II - SEGA AM2 - 2001

Shenmue II exhibits the most complete and period-accurate video game representation of Kowloon to date. While more recent games featuring this area may represent a number of its aspects with the aid of improved visual fidelity, none features it with such depth as this masterpiece of masterpieces. More than mere background decoration, Kowloon exists in the Shenmue series as a crucial, climacteric element of its modern epic narrative.

It is a well known fact that Yu Suzuki and his team conducted extensive research of the region so as to achieve a result that impresses even to this day. It must be noted, however, that they have similarly taken a fair share of creative liberty when converting the area to best align with the themes they wished to explore. Further reading is required for a more complete context in this regard, namely how this area ties with an early Dreamcast tech demo design which fans lovingly named Tower of Babel. Ostensively, technical limitations did curtail the degree of precision in which the surrounding area could be replicated. The aerial view from the cutscene in which Ryo Hazuki arrives on location places Kowloon at an imaginary degree of elevation over surrounding vegetation. In the year of 1987, during which the game is set, the actual enclave stood perfectly levelled with a myriad of other modern buildings, undoubtedly more than could be reproduced under the circumstances. These trifling considerations aside, Shenmue II entirely succeeds in capturing the vibrant life and mesmerizing beauty of the destitute and decayed urban agglomeration, in a way that it was deemed entirely impossible at the time of its release.

For reasons entirely related to per post content limitations imposed by Tumblr, this article will be continued in PART II.

[thydungeongal]

@vixensdungeon and I have been talking about how the word "cinematic" when used to describe a TTRPG is actually mostly meaningless. Like, check out this list of contenders:

WEG's old Ghostbusters and Star Wars RPGs. In the context of these two it not only means "literally trying to emulate the action of the source material," but also "relatively easy and quick resolution."

Feng Shui. Another relatively rules light game, this one explicitly tries to emulate Hong Kong action films, so I guess I can see it.

d20 Modern. D&D 3e (probably the densest and crunchiest edition of D&D) adapted into the modern world. Uh, okay, so what makes it cinematic? Well, characters don't die to a single gunshot (because they just ported D&D's approach to damage and HP directly into it) and also characters gain a finite resource they can spend not to fail on checks sometimes.

Modern AGE. Another modern adaptation of a fantasy game, this time of Fantasy AGE. Fantasy AGE is another extremely D&D 3e-ass RPG (D&D 3e casts a long shadow over RPG design to this day) and while it's notably less crunchy than D&D 3e it is very much not what I'd call a rules light game. I guess it does have a stunt die that sometimes gives you an extra benny on your action

Everyday Heroes. I'm actually predisposed to dislike this one because it seems like d20 Modern adapted to the 5e ruleset, but that's not even the most egregious thing: it seems to be a vehicle for the developers to churn out licensed supplements to adapt various different movie franchises into its system. I hate it in that "please for the love of god use something other than D&D 5e for your TTRPG adaptation of a media property" sense. Anyway, 5e is a bit less crunchy than d20 Modern but the approach to rules design is much the same. I'm not seeing it.

And I'm sure you could name a bunch of others. The only common thread seems to be "you can use these to run games kind of like an action movie." But as a descriptor for a game the term "cinematic" is itself pretty much just a meaningless buzzword.

[obsessedbyneon]

In Mongkok, famous for it's markets, and boys ganging together in the port of Aberdeen. From 'Eternal Hong Kong', early 90s.

Scan

[skyprowler]

A spokesperson for human rights group Survival International said: “The Shompen are nomadic and have clearly defined territories. Four of their semi-permanent settlements are set to be directly devastated by the project, along with their southern hunting and foraging territories.

“The Shompen will undoubtedly try to move away from the area destroyed, but there will be little space for them to go. To avoid a genocide, this deadly mega-project must be scrapped.”

The $9bn (£7bn) port project, planned to transform the Indian Ocean island of 8,000 inhabitants into what has been called the “Hong Kong of India”, includes the construction of an international shipping terminal, airport, power plant, military base and industrial park. It will also develop tourism

[nestedneons]

By swift

Prompt:

Futuristic cyberpunk 2077 night city with glowing neon brutalist architecture photograph by Iwan Baan and concept art by Greg Rutkowski HD, Hong Kong’s Infamous Kowloon Walled City, Sci-fi architectural drawing by Paperblue, Fantasy cyberpunk castle chateau de chambord, by Markus Vogt, large huge city of architecture buildings

And

Dark neon stunning magical dystopian river port, beautiful city, canal flowing down the street: by Ismail Inceoglu, Studio Ghibli, 8k, great depth, anime, cinematic, deep, dramatic atmospheric, WLOP, rendered in Encape, volumetric lighting, Unreal Engine, vibrant, reflection, realistic, Jason de Graaf, photography

Overall Prompt Weight: 50%

Noise Weight: 90%

Model Version: Stable Diffusion v1.5

Sampling method: K_DPM_2_ANCESTRAL

[windchimesgames]

End of Year Recap + Plans for 2024

Hey everyone!

Belated Happy New Year to everyone! I know this is a very late end of year recap 😂Unfortunately, the past week ended up much busier for me than expected, so I could only get around to doing this now that things have calmed down a little.

This is a crosspost of a public post I made on Patreon a few days ago, so if you prefer the formatting there, you can read the post at this link:

PS: I do free monthly devlogs / posts there on Patreon, so consider joining the free tier of the Patreon even if you aren't interested in the paid tiers!

For those who'd rather read the post here, I'll leave the extraordinarily long ramble in a Read More cut below!

Let's start with a quick recap of the highlights / achievements accomplished in 2023!

Okay, this one may be slightly cheating. While Emberfate only launched on Steam in Jan 2023 so the 92 positive reviews came in in the year of 2023, it was up on Itch.io since mid 2022, so not all 383 Itch.io ratings came in in 2023.

Still, I'm pretty proud of these stats! Perhaps the numbers are nothing compared to some other amazing games' out there, but it's still something I'm proud of. It makes me happy that my silly experimental nostalgic little game struck a chord in so many players — much more than I expected given how niche the topic was!

Now, unfortunately, I could not get Emberfate's DLC for Potato's route out by end of 2023 like I had hoped. Porting the game to mobile also ended up much more difficult than I expected because of just how much of the UI I'm going to have to redesign — and hence, programming to be redone — if I wanted to make the game fit a small mobile screen. So both plans are going to have to be postponed to 2024.

The other notable highlight of 2023 is that both Lyrissa's and Kierdan's routes for Reanimation Scheme were released for beta access! That put the game at 3/5 routes complete, with a total of 431,786 words for the script.

I recruited a handful of beta testers to test the three completed routes a few months ago, and so far, the feedback has been positive overall. That's been a huge relief and lifted a massive weight off my chest — due to the controversial reception of the demo, I've been extremely anxious that the game would be hated by the players, and I've done so many rounds of editing and honestly perhaps somewhat unnecessary and obsessive rewriting of the script, but none of it felt good enough 😂 So hearing the positive comments has been a huge motivation / morale booster. Perhaps I should have done beta testing sooner… LOL

There are two more achievements unrelated to a specific game project that I'd like to mention:

2023 is the year that I became more interested in and better at Ren'Py programming! Most of it is thanks to my amazing programmer friend and Ren'Py wizard, Feniks (whom you may know as the programmer for Our Life series), who sparked my interest in programming and helped teach me a LOT. While I'm by no means a professional now at coding, I feel much more comfortable navigating around Ren'Py code and setting up what I need to in the backend of the games I'm developing, which opens up new doors for me for future projects in terms of what kind of features (big or small) that I may be able to include! Though the side effect of that is I looked back at the code I did for Reanimation Scheme from previous years and was immediately horrified by how ugly and inefficient it was. 😂I did redo the backend code of the Gallery and Achievements system a bit, but the rest will just have to stay for now.

I made quite a few new connections within the indie VN dev sphere in 2023! I made a shocking discovery that there's enough number of indie VN developers from Hong Kong to fill half a minibus, and I was lucky enough to connect with them and share our experiences and learn from each other! Due to new project commissions I took on for $$$ (real life financial needs suck), as well as a couple of small game jam projects I joined as programmer to buff up my programming portfolio, I also made some new VN dev friends unexpectedly. It's been really nice, because honestly, solo dev can be a really lonely and isolating endeavor sometimes. I'm super grateful for the new connections I found myself making in 2023!

Looking Ahead: 2024

Okay, that was a lot of rambling for the recap. More than I thought I would write. Now let's move forward to what the future will look like for this studio in 2024 and what goals I'm setting for myself this year!

Priority #1: Finishing Reanimation Scheme

Of course it's Reanimation Scheme. As mentioned above, we're currently at 3 out of 5 routes completed (sans partial voice acting). So the biggest goal for 2024 will be to get the game done. and out. Finally.

I won't be giving a concrete release date until we're like, literally in beta phase for all 5 routes, just so I won't have to announce a delay and let people down. But given the current progress and pace of work, I'd say probably around mid-year — maybe Q3 latest.

I'll be keeping up with the episodic updates of Reanimation Scheme's beta build on Patreon (and Kickstarter) from this month onwards, beginning with Jori's route and then followed by Sebastien's.

The remaining Kickstarter rewards may take a little longer — but ideally, all of them (artbook / lorebook / short stories collections, etc.) will be done by end of the year as well.

Priority #2: Potato's Route DLC for Emberfate

Potato, poor Potato. His DLC had to be put on the sidelines until Reanimation Scheme is done.

Half of the art has already been commissioned and completed by the amazing Remnantation — we're just missing his selfie CG & his MMO character sprite! So the next step would be the script and then the voice acting for the calls part. I won't be able to start on the script until mid-2024 earliest, but given the fact that his route won't be that long if it's parallel in length compared to the existing three routes, it probably won't take too long to do. Perhaps 2-3 months for the development process of the DLC?

I'll likely be releasing his DLC early on Patreon, potentially also episodically as it's completed, like I did with Emberfate. So if you're interested, keep an eye out for it when the time comes!

Something Secretly Brewing in the Shadows?

If you're pledged to this Patreon on $10 tier or above, you'll probably already know what I'm alluding to.

I won't be announcing or talking much about this for now, since I don't know when I'll be able to start working on this project properly (i.e. I need to meet my above two goals first). For all I know, it might end up being not a 2024 thing but a 2025 thing. So I'll only tease it slightly for now here.

Bonus Goal: Market, for the Love of God

If you follow Wind Chimes Games on either Twitter or Tumblr, you'll probably have noticed the sorry state of my social media. I… really do not like marketing or posting on social media. I never know what to post or say. I'm too unfunny and uncreative to meme or write humorous captions that get engagement. 😂It kind of feels like I'm shouting into the void, and nobody really cares about what I have to say on my projects when there's so many cooler and more interesting things out there. So I always try for a brief period of time, and then I give up 😭

This year though, I really really need to take marketing more seriously. With two releases planned for 2024, marketing is going to be important if I want the games to sell more than like 20 copies LOL

So I guess, uh, hold me to it and call me out if I don't start posting regularly after all 🥹

Conclusion

If you've made it this far on this post, thank you so much for listening to me ramble. 🥹 2024 is going to be a very busy year, but hopefully, a productive one that will end with me meeting all of the above listed goals.

Thank you so much for joining me on the wild and bumpy journey that was 2023, and I hope you'll stick around for the exciting things to come this year too! Here's to a great year ahead of all of us!

[monsterblogging]

Then we started projecting that saying we are going into a ration driven economy, food skyrockets because if you close the pacific ocean, there are 3 ports open after 2020. It’s Vera Cruz, Hong Kong and Vladivostok, those are the 3 ports that are still open, the rest are closed to ship traffic. So there’s a little bit of fishing in Alaska the first few years, but then fishing stops. So imagine the impact that that does to – so we wanted to do that, not verbal, not have people say, “Yes, because it’s 2015.” But you have people say, “This is the beauty of an open port, we can get bread, we can get rice.” We make it a world.

-Guillermo del Toro, on the worldbuilding of Pacific Rim (Source)

[osrphotography]

Maersk Nadi docked at the Ports of Auckland, 2022.

Built in 2008, she is currently sailing under the flag of Hong Kong.

[cell-shade]

architecture of ghost in the shell (1995)

director mamuro oshii's vision of new port city was based on hong kong, a place where tradition intersects with new developments in technology

scans from anime architecture

[entre-image-blog]

Offset Corto Maltese, Hong Kong Port des parfums, Hugo Pratt, disponible sur entre-image.com

[ivlenyxx]

Beyond What the Lights Could Offer - Chapter 1

Soukoku Kowloon Walled City 1980s Filmmakers AU. Prepare thyself for agonisingly slow updates, a lot of references towards Hong Kong and me screaming into the void.

original fic link on AO3 (by yours truly): Beyond What the Lights Could Offer by Lemon(ivlenyxx)

May 14th 2023, 29 years, 10 months since the release of Stray Dogs.

“Nakahara-san, Dazai-dan, nearly 30 years have passed since the release of the hit movie ‘Stray Dogs’,” the interviewer says with a smile. “It has grossed over 800 million USD at the box office and many consider it a classic. Many fans have wondered ‘Just what is the story behind the film?’. Now that’s a question that’s been asked for nearly thirty years now, so we beg of you,” she claps her hands together to form a prayer gesture and bows her head. “What exactly is the story behind Stray Dogs?”

The pair sitting opposite her both chuckle, amused. 

“Alright, alright. Since it’s nearly the 30th anniversary, we’ll tell you.” the man in the fedora answers.

Nakahara Chuuya, age 52, executive producer of “Stray Dogs”, sits up straighter as he ponders the question, combing through his faded copper hair with his hand; his partner, Dazai Osamu, age 51, director of “Stray Dogs”, smirks slightly, wrinkles spreading across his face. “Come on, Chibi, can’t keep our fans waiting,” he nods towards the interviewer and the TV crew across from them. “Unless the Great Nakahara Chuuya is getting slow in his old age.” he teases, leaning over Chuuya’s neck.

Nakahara noticeably bristles under his partner’s breath, that discomfort quickly morphs into annoyance and reaches its stunning conclusion as Chuuya grabs Dazai’s collar. “I swear to God, you shitty mackerel-” he snaps as the other man whines and wallows dramatically under his grip. “We’re the same age! I can’t take a moment to think?!-”

“No! Oh no! Chuuya is attacking me!” Dazai exclaims and yaps, notes of fake panic and amusement dripping from his voice. (The interviewer sits awkwardly in silence while the rest of the crew whisper amongst themselves) “My God, this is marital violence!” He throws up his arms (making sure to flash a gold wedding band at the camera) and easily overpowers his dear Chibi, shoving him onto the far end of the couch before redirecting his attention to the interviewer, the poor unfortunate soul bearing witness to Nakahara making grabby hands at Dazai while the latter holds him off with a hand in his face. “It goes a little something like this…” 

April 29th 1986, 8 years before the release of Stray Dogs.

Chuuya’s not exactly sure how he ended up here, but okay.

The red light floods the crowded, 40 square foot room, Chuuya’s eyes hurt from the strobing lights;Chuuya’s ears are bleeding from the music blasting through the crackling radio.

Oh second thought, not okay. Chuuya wants to leave. 

He puts down the half finished glass of cheap whiskey before manoeuvring his way through mountains and seas of people dancing to the beat of something that just came on. (something American, he doesn’t want to know) The red lights continue to pull assassination attempts on his eyes, which is only made worse by the pixelated screens displaying images of half naked men and women “available” in this cursed brothel-nightclub hybrid. The two dozen people making out in every direction doesn’t help either. 

If there was such a thing as unsee juice in this world, Chuuya would like 10 litres of it, please. 

Finally, Chuuya makes it out of the brothel-nightclub, (thankfully in one piece) he looks back at the bouncer, who doesn’t even spare him a glance. Hell, he didn’t even ask him for any form of ID, despite him obviously being underaged. His short stature speaks for itself.

Guess that’s Kowloon Walled City for ya. 

Chuuya makes his way through the interconnected hallways, counting and reading the posters plastered all over the place. 1, 2, 3, 4… 28. He thinks half of them are advertising stuff for the Port Mafia Gang. Interesting. He’d heard of them, of course. The most powerful underground organisation of the Walled City, operating in the dark (well, as dark as the City of Darkness could get) or even beyond. He’d heard rumours of them stretching all the way to Lantau Island and the Shatin District. Hell, even Cheung Chau’s underworld carries traces of their interference! 

Not that he’s ever personally been down there, of course. The underworld, he means.

Chuuya kicks at his feet as he makes his way up to the rooftop of the building, the gate creaks agreeably every time he pushes it and it returns to its original position with a pleasant clang! He squeezes his way through the drying sheets, careful not to bump into them in his dirty clothes, and legs it across a huge pile of scrap. At last, he reaches the edge of the rooftop and leans on the railing, taking in the sight of the City in the middle of the night. There are still a few lights on at this hour, not counting the establishments of the night, aka the opium traders, nightclubs, gambling dens, makeshift casinos etc etc. He spies one on the far left, the light of the balcony flickers in a way that reminds him of moths flapping their wings, and under the light is a boy his age with black hair and a bandage over his right eye, teetering back and forth on his feet, fingers gripping tight on the handrail. His eyes are downturned, expression blank.

What a weirdo. Chuuya thinks. He turns away to light a cigarette and takes a long drag. The next time he looks, the light is off, the boy is gone. 

He can’t help but feel disappointed, somehow. 

Chuuya shrugs off the feeling and takes another drag of the cigarette, looking straight ahead, beyond the Walled City, at the Kai Tak Airport. Planes take off and land dangerously close to the buildings nearby, another few soar mere metres above Chuuya’s head, their loud, rumbling engines sing a comforting tune to accompany the city’s orchestra of dripping air-cons and creaky pipes down below.

It’s as beautiful as ever.

One of these days, I’m getting outta here. He vows, before putting out the cigarette and flicking it off the roof. 

He doesn’t know how many hours have passed, only that this is the perfect way to celebrate his fifteenth birthday.  

Chuuya continues to admire the view of the Kowloon Bay, occasionally glancing over to Victoria Harbour for a glimpse of its colourful and lively skyline. The best part about this corner of Kowloon Walled City? It contains the tallest building. One can pretty much see everything within a 20 km radius, and if one’s lucky, the clouds’ll part for the stars, and even the shortest, most 150-centimetre-ed of people could enjoy their glory.

He reaches for the radio beside him, switching between channels until he finds one that plays something that suits his favour. 

It ends up being an English channel, playing something from a new writer from America. 

“Now playing: The Tell-Tale Heart, by Edgar Allan Poe,” the presenter states calmly, before a low and unsettling voice takes its place, narrating the tale of an insane man who murdered his elderly housemate. 

Chuuya listens absent-mindedly as he lights another cigarette and continues to watch over the Walled City, his position giving him a handy bird’s-eye view over everything else. More lights have switched on, the opium dens are starting to close, the bars and brothels are chasing people out like a restaurant owner at animals like you see in movies or it’s 20-something A.D. and they have leprosy. Must be nearly morning. 

Oh shit it’s nearly morning. 

His eyes widen as he catches the faint blue ring of the sun rising over the horizon and slowly but surely evolve into a blinding orange light that pours over the Sai Kung District to the east, then to the Uni of Sci and Tech, to Tseung Kwan O- Chuuya throws his cigarette over the railing for the second time before shutting off the radio and making a mad dash for the gate, legging it over the scrap, nimbly contorting his body to avoid touching the sheets, before finally bolting down the stairs and out of the building. He passes the town square - a relic from the Walled City’s past as a Song Dynasty military outpost - and nearly slams straight into a bunch of bakbaks and popos doing taichi. A couple of them yell at him for his insolence. He zips his way through alleyways full of drunkards and shakes off a madman trying to gut him with a knife, (it’s the Walled City, he’s seen worse) he looks up for a split second and stops in his tracks.

He can see the sky from here.

The small slit of bright, warm blue peeks out amongst the mess of pipes and haphazardly built roofs, the clouds dance across it in pinks, soft oranges and light yellows. Chuuya stares up at that beautiful sight through the gap, the City has never been this generous before, the most daylight he ever got to see was approximately none, except for when he headed out of the Walled City every few months to run for supplies that the Triads couldn’t access. 

Chuuya looks around for a landmark that he can bookmark into his memory, and spots another one of the Port Mafia Gang’s posters on the wall to his left. 

He sighs. That oughta do. And so the poster enters his mind. 

He allows himself several more minutes of staring at the sky before booking it back home, he just hopes that Shirase and Yuan won’t be too pissed.

Unbeknownst to him, a boy with jet black hair and bandages all over has been looking at him through a window for a while now.