吉宁街是哪一条街? Was it Cross Street or Chulia Street?

This small envelope measures no more than 3 ½” X 2½” and is brown with age. It was an envelope for keeping negative and photograph. By the reckoning of the date written at the back of the photograph inside it, it’s 68 years old.

Other than it was an old envelope, what drew my attention to it was the address and words on it – it tells a story of another age and another time.

I was also drawn to the address of the photography shop printed on the envelope, and prompted me do so some searching and investigative work - in the library and at the street corners!

The shop’s English name was written as: Fee Fee Photographic Store. It stated that it was an: Agency for all kinds of Camera for Profession and Amateurs. Photographic goods and chemicals can be obtained from us at very moderate prices Our enlarging, developing and printing works are under the supervision of the experts. And with: Satisfaction Guaranteed.

However, it did not give its address, which instead was written in the Chinese print.

非非摄影社 (Fei Fei Yingshe – Fei Fei Photographic Studio )
星洲大坡吉宁街一百六十号 (Xingzhou Dapo Ji Ning Jie 160 hao)

The interesting part of the address is - 吉宁街 – Ji Ling Jie (Pinyin) , and where about is this street. Could this be the former Kling Street, I wonder. For Ji Ning Jie is pronounced as Kiat Leng Koi (Hokkien) or Gut Ling Gai ( Cantonese) , which is the dialect terms for Kling.

Not being native born, and when I moved here, many of the old streets were already gone, I did not have an inkling where this street was or is. I knew that Chulia Street was once called Kling Street. Could this shop be then located in Chualia Street, I wonder.

This reproduction of a 1862 map of the town map of Singapore clearly showed that stretch of Chulia Street named as Kling Street. When the word Kling came to take on a derogatory reference to the Southern Indians convicts, it was renamed Chulia, which is the North Indian term for Kalinga. In another map dated 1929, Kling Street had been changed to Chualia Street.

However, while on a Sunday walk I came across this plate - put up by the National Heritage Board and the Singapore Tourism Bureau - at the junction of South Bridge Road and Cross Street which states that - Cross Street was once known as Kiat Leng Kia Kio (Hokkien ) - Gut Ling Zai Gai (Cantonese) - 吉宁仔街 - after the ethnic Indian that used to be concentrated here in the 1800/s.

Though Kiat Leng Kia Koi was left out in the Chinese translation on the plate, the Japanese translation had the word -吉宁仔街- written in Chinese characters. The word - 仔 – kia (Hokkien) or zai (Cantonese variously means - boy, kid or youngster.

Could this Kiat Leng Kia Koi – 吉宁仔街- be the same – 吉宁街- Kiat Leng Koi - where Fei Fei Photographic Store was once located, i.e. at No.160, Cross Street.

.And probably - 吉宁街 – Kiat Leng Koi - was the written Chinese term for the more colloquial sounding 吉宁仔街 – Kiat Leng Kia Koi.

Or is it that - 吉宁仔街 - Kiat Leng Kia Koi - was Cross Street, while 吉宁街 – Kiat Leng Koi - was Chulia Street?


Postscript:

1. My take would be the photographic store would be located closer to this part of the town nearer to Amoy Street and South Bridge Road, as the print on the envelope indicated that it catered more to a Chinese clientele.

2. What price to develop, print and enlarge a photograph in pre-war Singapore?

Size Developing Printing

3 ¼” X 2 ¼” $0.20 Cents per roll $0.04 each
4½”X 2½ ” $0.25 Cents per roll $0.06 each
5½” X3¼” $0.40 Cents per roll $0.10 each

Enlargements

5½”X3¼” $0.15 cents each
6½”X4 ¾” $0.30 cents each
8½”X6½” $0.70 cents each
10”X12” $1.30 cents each

3. This envelope had been kept in the drawer as long as I could remember and had the photograph of dad taken in Singapore when he was on the 1940 high school excursion to- Xingzhou – 星州.

Reference:
a) Singapore - A guide to Buildings, Streets, Places by Norman Edwards and Peter Keys, Times Book International, 1988.

b) The maps are found in the National Library, hung on the walls in the private collection section.

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the graduating class of 1940 – an excursion to Singapore

Old photographs:

In the June of 1940, a group of students from Ipoh Yuk Choy Secondary School - 育才中学 -l went on a excursion to Singapore. This was the graduating class of the 1940 cohort. The students were 16 years old, going by how old dad was then. He was among the 27 students and their form master. Of the 20 odd pictures that were from the vacation many of them were faded and worn. Nevertheless the few photographs that were salvaged from the ‘archeological dig’ thro the old album were in relative viewable condition and with much of the subject preserved.

The photographs appearing here were re-taken using a digital camera. They could have been better captured if it were digitally scan.

These old photographs gave an interesting glimpse of the place and the time then – they have a story waiting to be told - of a group of youths from Ipoh on vacation to Singapore - 67 years ago.

Backdrop – 1940:

This graduating class would probably have been the last of the pre World War II batch of student taking a school excursion from Ipoh to Singapore.

The war had broken out in Europe in the September 1939 less than a year ago. Over at the east, the Sino-Japanese War had seen many ferocious battles being fought since 1937. However, judging from these pictures the sign of an impending war that would come to the shores of Malaya and Singapore was nowhere visible.

Many of their parents would have left China in their younger days in the early 1900/s in search of a better living in Nanyang -南洋- the South Seas, and they had traveled to British Malaya and via Singapore and subsequently settled in Ipoh – a relatively new up-country town compared to the port cities of the Straits Settlements such as Singapore and Penang.

The 1930/s in which these youths grew up was a period of relatively economic prosperity for Ipoh. The tin canning industry had brought a new found economic boom to town. Located in the center of the Kinta valley, Ipoh was the administrative and business center serving the outlying tin mining districts. The parents of these youths would be involved directly or in-directly with the tin mining industry. They would be the sons of the tin miners or those engaged in the supporting industries, such as providing logs and timbers to the open cast mines, and Ipoh was the town that tin built.

To these youths other than Penang in the north, Singapore would be the other big city that they would long to visit. From Ipoh it would have been a journey of 12 hours odd by the FMS railway.

The planter’s hat :

Interestingly one could see that many of the students were carrying a planter’s hat. The broad brim hat would provide a welcome shade to the tropical sun. It seems that the hat was part of the fashion statement then. It was probably made popular by the colonial masters who together with their khaki uniform would be the standard attire in this part of the empire in the first half of the 20th century. Even the form master in his smart white suit and tie was carrying one.

From the photograph one could see that over their white short sleeve shirt, the students wore the Sun Yat Sen jacket – 中山装 - as their uniform. The attire was made popular by Sun Yat Sen -the revolutionary leader who overthrew the Imperial Qing and established the Republic of China in 1911.

Impending war:

What were uppermost in the minds of these youths then? Being a student from the Chinese medium school, upon graduation many would ended up to help with their family’s business, or be employed in the Chinese run biz , or perhaps even venture into their own tin mining biz. Maybe a few of them would have thought of furthering their studies to China, had it had not been for the war there.

However, in less that a year and a half after their vacation, the war came suddenly upon them. Many of their dreams would have been shattered and it was misery and suffering for the next 3 years and 8 months.

Looking back to the June of 1940 - the vacation that they spend with their fellow schoolmates in Singapore would perhaps had been one of the most memorable experience of their youth.



Notes:

1. Order of photographs - from top right, clockwise:

a. in front of Raffles Museum
b. at Haw Par Villa - group photgraph,taken on 20-6-1940
c. at Haw Par Villa - rock pavillion
d. at Yang Zheng Xue Xiao -养正学校 - (Yang Zheng School)
-the triangular flag reads : Perak Yuk Choy Secondary School Visiting Group - 霹雳 育才中学参观团
e. at th Botanic Garden by the bridge
f. at the Botanic Garden by the tree, 21-6-1940

2. June 1940 or July 1940

The were two set of dates written at the back of the photographs. One set of dates was in June, and another set, which seemed a different handwriting, was in July.

Some of the photographs have the date written in pencil from 17.7.1940 to 23.7.1970. These dates were written together with the names in Chinese. The 17.7.1940 date was on a photograph of a bridge in Kuala Lumpur, though the picture of Kuala Lumpur Museum was dated 20.6.1940
The photographs with the dates written in ink were in English, and the date was date 20-6-1940.

I’ve taken the dates written in ink as the actual date of the vacation to Singapore, noting that June being be more commonly appearing month of in the photographs. (back of the group photograh taken at Haw Par Villa)

The probably stopped over in Kuala Lumpur as there were two photographs of scenery from Kuala Lumpur mentioned above.

Of the places visited in Singapore & the notes at the back of the photographs, mainly with pencil and in Chinese:
Botanic Garden, 植物园
Har Par Villa, - 虎跑别墅
Raffles Museum – 博物院
Hong Deng Matou (Clifford Pier) – 红灯码头
A-La-Bo Hua Yuan (garden which in Chinese was called the Arabia Garden – 亚拉伯花园
Yin Xin Xue Xiao nei ( probably school in Fo Association)
Hua Chiao Zhong Xue Chian Men -华侨中学前门
Yang Zheng Xue Xiao – 养正学校
Duan Meng Xue Xiao Chian Men - 端蒙学校前门
Shui Can Xue Xiao ( Marine Academy) – 水产学校

2. Yuk Choy High School

It’s now one of the major independent Chinese Schools in Malaysia - located in Ipoh.

http://www.yukchoy.edu.my/

记: Menglembu/Perak



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