My Father's Kampung. Shawn Seah
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So, some think the place is bigger, while others think the place is smaller.”
An artist’s impression of historical Aukang circa 1950s.
Incidentally, milestones during my father’s time—literally large stones placed at intervals from each other—were used to mark or indicate important places by how far they were relative to the General Post Office (GPO) at Fullerton Building. This is where Fullerton Hotel is located today.3 For example, the fifth milestone was nearer to the GPO compared to the sixth milestone. Eventually, as rural villages disappeared and Singapore developed a more comprehensive address system, milestones gradually disappeared from everyday use.
My father continued, “However, things get more complicated. In the 1950s and 1960s, the political constituency was even called Punggol, instead of Hougang. In the 1955 State Assembly elections, the electoral division called Punggol-Tampines also covered Aukang, then part of Punggol.”
Incidentally, Teochew Goh Chew Chua, one of the three successful PAP candidates in the 1955 State Assembly elections—the other two being Lee Kuan Yew and Lim Chin Siong—lived in Aukang.4 In 1955, Goh contested in the Punggol-Tampines division, which included Aukang. While more than 29,000 lived in Punggol-Tampines, only about 6,600 were electors, of which 4,500 were Chinese. Goh was later re-elected in Tampines constituency in 1959 and appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister. He passed away in 1971.
My father continued, “In other words, what was named Punggol constituency really referred to what are Hougang and Punggol today, so in the same speech, in one moment, the Member of Parliament could be referring to one part of Punggol—that is to say, the Hougang part—and in the very next moment, referring to Punggol proper. So, in a certain peculiar sense, even ‘Punggol’ sometimes really means ‘Aukang’.
“In fact, in the Legislative Assembly General Election of 1959, a distant relative of ours, Tay Keng Hock, or Hock Ku (Uncle Hock in Teochew), stood as an independent candidate for the constituency of Punggol. We used to live on his huge estate at Jalan Payoh Lai. Of the four candidates, Hock Ku brought up the rear, with less than six percent of the voters finding the coconut tree—the symbol he had chosen for his election posters—appealing.”
I looked it up; it’s true:
| Candidates | Party | Total Votes |
| Ng Teng Kian | PAP | 4,072(46.39%) |
| Tan Jin Hong | SPA | 3,655(41.64%) |
| Quah Heck Peck | LSP | 554(6.31%) |
| Tay Keng Hock | - | 497(5.66%) |
Source: 1959 Legislative Assembly General Election results from the Elections Department.
These revelations prompted me to find out more. To me, the history of a place, and to a certain extent even its geography, is messy with many twists and turns. So, while the terms “Hougang” and “Aukang” did not refer to the exact same boundaries and “Punggol” sometimes meant “Aukang”, it was exciting to learn more about my father’s kampung.
Later, while looking for sources on geographical boundaries I could concentrate on, I found out that Aukang had even been referred to as… a “Teochew Kingdom”.
“Teochew Kingdom” of Aukang
According to an article written by Bryan Goh:
After the Speak Mandarin Campaign in 1979, the Housing & Development Board (HDB) started referring to Hougang Town by its Mandarin-based name “Hougang” instead of the original Teochew name “Aukang”. However, the two names do not refer to the exact same boundaries. Present-day Hougang Town is bordered by the Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway, Upper Paya Lebar Road, Yio Chu Kang Road and Buangkok Drive. This covers a much larger area than the historic boundaries of Aukang which Rev. Fr. Augustine Tay calls a “Teochew Kingdom”. Tay [was] the first Aukang-nang to become the Parish Priest (2002 to 2007) of the Roman Catholic Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Nativity Church) there.
This “Teochew Kingdom” of Aukang comprised of [sic] numerous kampongs [sic] located from around the 5th milestone of Serangoon Road (around Upper Serangoon Shopping Centre today) to the fishery located at the end of Serangoon Road (around Punggol Park today).5
I reported my findings to my father, but he knew that already.
“Told you that Aukang was a Teochew place.”
The Historical Past
One of the oldest kampungs in Singapore, Kampung Punggol (that is to say, Punggol proper, rather than part of Aukang) was here even before Raffles came, according to Penghulu Awang bin Osman, a long-time Punggol resident.6 According to him, the kampung was founded by his great-grandfather and all its residents were related. Two-thirds of them were fishermen.
In 1985, The Straits Times reported that the 500 residents of Kampung Punggol were planning a grand kenduri (community gathering or feast) before they went their separate ways in 1986 to start a new life in high-rise Housing Board flats. The high points in Kampung Punggol’s history were framed in pictures on the walls of Mr Awang’s 100-year-old house. There were pictures of Mr Richard Nixon (then US Vice-President) when he visited them. There were also pictures of then-President Yusof bin Ishak and then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew on other visits. Reportedly, many of these kampung folk eventually moved to flats in Hougang.
How old is Aukang, then? Since the front harbour, Keppel Harbour, was discovered in 1848, and the first dock—Dock No. 1—was built in 1859, we can safely say that Aukang was named the way it was named sometime in the mid-19th century.
The view that Aukang and Punggol were settled during that period is a common one. According to a Punggol Community Club souvenir magazine marking the CC’s official opening:7
In the middle of the 19th century, most of the Chinese immigrants were engaged in plantation work after they had come to Singapore. They planted crops in the river basins around the suburbs. In the early part of the 20th Century, the planting of rubber became an important economic activity. There were many rubber trees planted in the river basins of Punggol suburbs [in this instance, Punggol could refer to either Aukang, Punggol, or both]…
There is evidence that Aukang already had settlers in the 1850s—Teochew coolies who dealt in gambier and pepper, which were usually grown together.
For example, on 28 March 1855, C. R. Rigg, Collector of Assessment and Taxes, reported to Thomas Church for his information that Mr Marquard visited 155 Plantations.8 One of the districts was “How Kang”.
And on 15 May 1855, a survey in The Straits Times revealed that there were 243 coolies in “How Kang”, along with 27 clearings, 487,000 mature gambier trees and 120,000 young trees, 79,900 mature pepper vines and 35,700 young ones.9
Philip Marquard, who was in charge of Siglap Station at “Seglap District”, writing on 17 October 1856 to the Deputy Superintendent in charge of the Police to report about the poor location of his police station, revealed that the “jungle