My Father's Kampung. Shawn Seah
a level of Teochew higher than what the younger generation can command today.
However, he once unfortunately faced a rude rebuke in Teochew from a towkay neo (lady boss) of a provision shop who was fierce and unsmiling, and spoke no English: “Turng nang buay heow tar turng nang whay”.
Having faced this comment myself a few times before, which means “A Chinese man who cannot speak Chinese”, I definitely empathised with Robert. I have been at the receiving end of a similar comment in Malay: Orang Cina Bukan Cina, or OCBC (nothing to do with the name of the local bank)! But Robert’s experience did demonstrate how strongly some people felt about Teochew culture in Aukang.
Over the years, I have discovered what the past was like from speaking with my father and relatives, and their friends, and other people who have lived in Aukang. As a result, I have come to learn more about Teochew culture and heritage. And this has been a good chance to connect with my father and uncles, as family has become increasingly important to me.
If we do not document my father’s personal stories and memories of his former kampung, as well as the stories of others who lived there, we would eventually lose something intangible but valuable.
Beyond looking at the experiences of the 1940s to 1970s when my father lived in Aukang, my father and I have also examined where we can position Aukang’s history. This book covers the history of Aukang and Punggol from its early days, such as its founding as a Malay kampung which preceded Singapore’s founding by Raffles in 1819. It focuses mainly on the Teochew community, who dominated the Chinese in the area, and highlights the unique history and identity of the Catholic Teochews.
It also tells stories of many Teochews who came from this rural, north-eastern part of Singapore, for example, educator and poet Benedict Teo Kah Leng and pioneer poet Paul Teo Poh Leng; politicians Goh Chew Chua, Ng Kah Ting, and Lim Choon Mong; former Chief Investment Officer Ng Kok Song; former senior civil servant Ng Yew Kang; former principal Lee Boon Kee; and many others.
However, due to the limitations of space, it is unfortunately impossible to cover all the prominent Teochews who came from north-eastern Singapore. Take for example some successful businessmen from humble rural beginnings: businessman Chua Kee Teang once lived at 225 Punggol Road, in a vegetable and poultry farming family, and studied at Xinmin Secondary School from 1961 to 1964, a village school set up by Yap Fun Fong in 1945;8 the successful founder of Leco Motor, Ng Hoy Keng, was born in a Punggol kampung in 1945, the sixth of eight siblings;9 and Koh Yang Kee, who lived in Punggol during his childhood years and whose father was a fisherman, rose from humble beginnings, from driving container trucks for 15 years to becoming a logistics leader in 12 countries, with 1,250 employees, and around four million square feet in warehouse space.10 No one book could do justice to the many successful Teochews and their stories.
This book also examines other groups of people who resided in the area, such as the other Chinese dialect groups, Malays, Indians, Eurasians, and Catholic missionaries like the Gabrielite Brothers. The stories of prominent non-Teochew personalities who lived in Aukang, like Robert Yeo, EW Barker, and Percival Aroozoo, are also covered in this book. And the book even covers Japanese sex workers, spies, and soldiers… well, at least, their remains in Aukang.
While it is as comprehensive as I can make it, the book will not cover everything and does not aim to do so, because north-east Singapore has such a long, complex, and rich history.
Moreover, the history of any place or community in Singapore is not a complete canvas hiding in the dark waiting for light to be shone upon it, but in a constant process of being uncovered, discovered, and rediscovered.
I hope that the history and stories which I have uncovered, discovered, and rediscovered can help to give a sketch of what my father’s kampung was like before, and after, he was born.
If this book inspires more people to find out about the history of places and spaces in Singapore, and the stories of those who have come before us, all the better. And if it can provoke broader reflection, dialogue, or discussion, I would be delighted.
Endnotes
1 Augustine Low, “Kangkar, once noted for fresh fish and Teochews”, in The Straits Times, 30 September 1986, p. 16.
2 Chua Seng Chew, Report on the Census of Population 1957, (Singapore: Lim Bian Han, Government Printer, Singapore, 1964), p. 146.
3 Proportions paint a more accurate picture than absolute sizes. This is because while there were more than 140,000 Teochews in the City of Singapore, there were more than 700,000 Chinese of many dialect groups residing in the area. In contrast, only about 165,000 Chinese resided in Serangoon.
4 Report on the Census of the Straits Settlements, cited in Tan Gia Lim, An Introduction to the Culture and History of the Teochews in Singapore, (Singapore: World Scientific, 2018), p. 50.
5 Bryan Goh, “The Catholic-Teochew Rhythm: Communal Identity in Hougang, 1945–1981”, Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, Vol. 33, No. 1, March 2018, p. 228.
6 Robert Yeo, Routes: A Singaporean Memoir 1940–75 (Singapore: Ethos Books, 2014), p. 40.
7 Ibid., pp. 39–40.
8 Leong Ching, “Chua Kee Teang: Possibilities in Thorny Problems”, in The Story of Singapore Teochews (Singapore: Teochew Poit Ip Huay Kuan, 2018), pp. 28–30.
9 Tan Kog Enn, “Ng Hoy Keng: Driving Ambition”, in The Story of Singapore Teochews (Singapore: Teochew Poit Ip Huay Kuan, 2018), pp. 80–83.
10 Choo Woon Hock, “Koh Yang Kee: From Truck Driver to Logistics Leader”, ibid., pp. 122–123.
Chapter 2
Where was Aukang?
Hougang, as we know it today, is huge. In 2018, it was Singapore’s largest public housing estate based on land area, with an estimated 179,500 Housing & Development Board (HDB) residents and with HDB managing more than 54,000 flats.1 Based on 2017 data, Hougang was more than 1,300 hectares (roughly over 1,300 football fields in size), while Woodlands was the second largest at 1,260 hectares and Tampines was the third largest at 1,200 hectares.
Some readers may think that Hougang and Aukang are the same place. When I first started on this project, I thought that way too. And in a sense the term “Aukang” is the Teochew version of “Hougang”, the Romanised version of the same name in Mandarin. Aukang in Teochew means “back harbour”. The opposite harbour—the one at the front—referred to Keppel Harbour in Singapore’s south.2
So surely, my father’s kampung of Aukang was just Hougang—back then. All that was needed was to trace Hougang’s history.
However, my father corrected my initial view.
He said, “Geographically, these two may not be exactly the same area, since parts of Aukang then are not considered parts of Hougang now.”
“Huh?” I said, confused.
“For example, Kangkar—a fishing village—was part of Aukang, but is not part of Hougang today. Parts of Kangkar are now Sengkang.
“Basically, what constitutes the actual location or area of Aukang itself can be quite controversial. It can vary according to the person you ask.”
According to my father: “Aukang refers to the stretch of Upper Serangoon, from the fifth milestone intersection of Upper Paya Lebar and Upper Serangoon Road up to the seventh milestone, called Kangkar. It also includes Punggol, the whole of Punggol.
“There are also some people, like your mother, who believe