I spent a fair amount of time in the walled city in the 1980s before it got torn down and turned into a park. I'm still friends with people who grew up within it's "walls". Strictly speaking it was China in the middle of HK and thus HK laws/police didn't really find their way in and obviously China couldn't supervise it either. Impoverished illegal immigrants/refugees from China would likely not have had to find themselves staying there but individual circumstances and family connections, especially to less savoury members of society meant that those who found themselves living there were kind of looked down on by HKers. The tiny temple and garden(?) right in the centre was surreal.
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It was dark, especially the street level. Narrow very dark passage ways with 100 years worth of dust, oil and grime on a mass of electric cables and pipes all along the passage ceiling and walls. Always seemed to be dripping wet, broken pipes and water seaping down from the structures that were all piled up on top. Tiny, haphazard shack like rooms if they had the grill door open you could look in and see all kinds of random mini industries inside......usually just some crude incandescent bright white tube lights rigged up above dentists, wig makers, plastic toy factories, fiery wok sounds from makeshift takeaway food preparers, tailors, metal smiths etc. As soon as you went in the people who needed to know, knew that you were there. I got a bit known by some of the "rude boys" who were like low level doing the odd jobs and patrolling about and also some of the "shop" guys so I could go in and not have doors slammed and such bad suspicious stares at me. So after weaving around the total winding chaotic passage ways, like I said, right in the middle there was this tiny little garden with a temple, where as far as I can remember there was some clear view up to the sky. I took friends there on a sort of tour a few times and one time I really remember was this guy from Europe who was a photographer. We did the scramble all the way through, it was hot summer and 99% humidity. Right near the end we got to a bigger grill that was wide open. It was a grimy white tiled room, but the tiles were far from white anymore. Inside were giant filthy cylindrical tanks like 5ft high and 3 ft wide with gas burners underneath and there were hooks hanging down from the ceiling racks. The smell for him was not good and when he saw what was going on inside I completely saw all the blood in his face disappear. The tanks were filled with boiling water and used to get the geese skin ready for removing the feathers. I think they are called Chinese Geese, quite tall and large. Some hanging from the hooks, some on the floor, blood everywhere, necks hanging over the tanks, some honking, some twitching and their feet flicking on the floor. Wet, matted feathers everywhere. The man with his blood covered apron and short rubber boots standing with a knife slicing their necks and then throwing them to the floor or directly into the boiling water tank. So this photographer looked really bad and I quickly got him out into the air outside the place and he vomited so much and had to rest he was so shocked! I think it really made a deep impression on him.