The Emperor of Kowloon is dead. He was once a peasant, then an unknown madman, at last a king.

Imagine Hong Kong in a time-lapsed movie: tall buildings sprouted upon landfills, people multiplied like fungus under subtropical heat, Mercedes jammed the roads, smog and hurricanes, came and went. Can you also see the Emperor's graffiti flickered, here and there?

For 50 years, the city must have been to him like an eternal SARS scene. A world silenced. Masked people. Nervous and discriminating eyes. A great city is always a great solitude, and to him, a great canvas as well.

For 50 years, he had written on walls and poles, in broad calligraphic strokes, the same nonsense:

Kowloon Emperor. New China Emperor. Chinese-British Emperor. Tsang Tsou Choi...

His calligraphy has a complex and strange charm: repetitious, obsessive, pompous,

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