Following kormmandos’s post on the history behind the name “Hong Kah”, the Singapore Heritage Group has been busy unearthing the story behind Hong Kah. Many thanks to Mok Ly Yng and Eck Keng for shedding light on the history of Hong Kah and allowing us to reproduce the following extract…

It seems that there is a 奉教街（New Market Road) in downtown Singapore. In Hanyu Pinyin, 奉 (feng4) is to obey and 教 (jiao4) is either doctrine or religion. In Teochew or Hokkien (too, I think), these two words are pronounced Hong Kah (i.e. feng4 jiao4). When someone converts to Christianity, Teochews would say the person is ‘hong kah’.

The area where Hong Kah Village was situated had a prominent Teochew presence. From what I read from somewhere (can’t recall now), there was a Chinese Christian community there.

Below is a copy of a map showing Hong Kah Village (close to the red 70):

Keat Hong Village at extreme top-right. Jurong Village is at lower left. Kampong Ulu Jurong is to the lower left of Hong Kah Village. Further down this same road is Huat Choe Village. Huat Choe (发初, fa1 chu1–properous first) was one of Lim Nee Soon’s many names.

This map is a 1943 reprint by the US Army which is an exact copy of a 1941 British War Office version of a 1939 Survey Department of F.M.S. & S.S.’s map. In other words, the info contained in the map dates from 1939 and before. Due to war contingencies, no additional data were added to both reprints of this particular map.

Talking about Chinese place names, I have also read that the name Keat Hong (吉丰, ji2 feng1）should instead be Hong Keat (丰吉, feng1 ji2). The mistake came about because someone read the signboard of a shop (the namesake of the area) in the wrong direction, either left to right or right to left. Don’t know if there is any truth in this though.

Below is another map extract:

This time from the 1935 edition of the same map (as the 1943 reprint). The 1935 edition was followed by the 1939 one, which was the master copy of both the 1941 and 1943 reprints.

Note that the name Hong Kah was not reflected in the 1935 edition. This does not mean that the village or the name did not exist in 1935. But the subsequent appearance of the name does coincide with John Sung’s visit to Singapore in 1935.

Back to the map. By 1935, the Survey Department (Pan-Malayan) had recovered sufficiently from the 1932 slump. The topographical branch was reinstated and during a resurvey of the Singapore Town area, the opportunity was taken to resurvey the entire island. This was completed in 1936.

The new 1:25,000 scale maps were ready for publication in 1937. But apparently the Rural Board or some such department was about to release an official list of village or kampong names. So, the Survey Department delayed the final production and publication of the maps until 1938, after the new village names could be added to the maps. Hong Kah could be one of these new names added in 1938.

After the 1:25,000 scale map was published, the entire series was reduced to 1:63,360 (One Inch to One Mile) and published as a single sheet in 1939. This cost- and time-saving method accounts for the so very fine prints you find on the 1939 edition. The maps were simply reduced photographically without resizing the letterings.