Author: CHUNG Yoon Ngan
Date: 01-30-07 10:48
Dear All,
The city of Kuala Lumpur is the capital of Malaysia. How it began? Well,
it was all due to a Hakka Chinese named Yap Ah Loy (葉亞來), who arrived
from China as an indentured labour. He single-handedly kneaded from a little
swampy settlement into a town. In 1880s the British made this town the State
capital of the State of Selangor and later the capital of the country Malaya,
now Malaysia.
葉亞來與吉隆坡 Yap Ah Loy and Old Kuala Lumpur
By J.M. Gullick
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A brief biography of 葉亞來 (Yap Ah Loy 1837AD to 1885AD )
Yap Ah Loy, the Hakka man, the founder of Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia was born on 14th of March 1837 in Zhou Tian Xiang (周田鄉) village near a town called Dan Shui Zhen (淡水鎮) in the county of Hui Yang (惠陽縣)
of Guangdong province (廣東省). He was named Yap Te Loy (葉德來), but people called him Ah Loy. Eventually he was known as Yap Ah Loy. His parents had five children; three boys and two girls. Yap Ah Loy was the Lao Da (老大 the eldest). When Yap Ah Loy was five years old his father sent him to study in the village school. At school he studied the Three-Character Classic (三字經) and Thousand-Character Classic. However, due to poverty, two years later his father could not afford to send him to school. In order to lessen the burden of feeding the five children his father got him a job as a cowherd to look after the neighbour's buffalo. At that time Yap Ah Loy was eight years old.
In 1840, there was the Opium War which was fought in Guangdong province. Yap Ah Loy was only three years old. When the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (太平天國) was established in 1851 he was fourteen years old. When he was 17 Yap Ah Loy heard that the Malay States in the Malay Peninsular required labour force to develop the land.Yap Ah Loy asked his parents permission to go to Nanyang (南洋 the present day Malaysia and Singapore).
When the contractors came to Zhou Tian Xiang village to recruit workers
to work in Nanyang Yap Ah Loy signed up, not knowing that he had signed
away his freedom for two years. Under the conditions of the contract he
had to work for the contractors for two years without any pay, but food,
shelter and clothing were provided. The contractors would pay for his passage to get to Nanyang and he would be free to embark upon his own undertakings after he had given two years of free labour to his contractors - indentured labourer or Mai Zhi Zai (賣豬仔). The parents of Yap Ah Loy received twenty silver-coin dollars from the contractors. Yap Ah Loy's parents were happy to receive the payment but sad to see Lao Da (the eldest) leaving home.
Leaving Home, Yap Ah Loy said goodbye to his parents, younger brothers and sisters. Shouldering a bundle of his old clothes, Yap Ah Loy walked to the assembling place in the town of Dan Shui Zhen.
The contractors took Yap Ah Loy and many others from the region to Hong
Kong,which became a British colony and from there Yap Ah Loy embarked on a British steamer and set sailed to a strange land, Nanyang.
After sailing for several weeks Yap Ah Loy arrived in a strange country.
The contractors arranged Yap Ah Loy to work in Malacca which was one of
the British Strait Settlements; the other two were Singapore and Penang.
Yap Ah Loy was assigned to plant pepper corns. Thus Yap Ah Loy began his
new life as an indentured labourer in a foreign country. Life was harsh
but Yap Ah Loy was tough and strong. However, it was estimated that there were about four thousand Chinese in Malacca. There were many Hakkas among the Chinese so Yap Ah Loy was able to maintain his Chinese way of life in a new land.
Soon after, the two years was over and Yap Ah Loy was free from the slave bondage. In 1854 Yap Ah Loy went to work in a place called Durian Tunggal (榴鏈冬加), about ten kilometres north of Malacca. He was employed by a man to dig a pond to rear fish. Yap Ah Loy did not like this kind of job. So he resigned after four months and went to Jasin (加山) and worked as a shop assistant in a grocery shop which belonged to a distance relative called Yap Ng (葉五) who came from the same village as Yap Ah Loy.
In 1856 Yap Ah Loy went with Yap Foo (葉福), who was the younger brother of Yap Ng, to work as a cook in a tin mine at a place called Lubok China (蘆骨). For three years Yap Ah Loy worked as a cook and had managed to save a bit of money. Using the saving as his capital Yap Ah Loy began to become a businessman. His new enterprse was to transport life pigs and tin ore to Sungei Udang (雙溪烏戎) to sell.
In the early of 1800s there were already many Hakkas in undertaking tin
mining in the Malay States of Perak, Negri Sembilan, Selangor and Malacca.
It was estimated that in 1847 there were about four thousand and six hundred Chinese in the two tin mining areas of Lubok China (蘆骨 in Negri Sembilan) and Sungei Udang (雙溪烏戎in Malacca). In the State of Malacca in 1850 there were about four thousand Chinese working in the tin mines. In 1857 there were 87 indentured labourers went to work in the first tin mine in area of Kuala Lumpur. Within two months 70 of them died of tropical diseases. That was the horrible page for the indentured labourers (豬仔).
In 1859, Yap Ah Loy arrived in Seremban (芙蓉). He became a friend of Liu
Ren Guang (劉壬光) and Yap Shi Ji (葉石繼). Yap Ah Loy was appointed the
second in command of the security forces in Sungei Udang. The Kapitan China in Sungei Udang was Sheng Ming Li (盛明利). In August 1860, due to a dispute over the right of mining tin in Sungei Udang two Malay Chiefs went to war with each other. Sheng Ming Li was killed in the battle and Liu Ren Guang was wounded. Liu Ren Guang went to work for Qiu Xiu Shan, the Kapitan China of Kuala Lumpur.
When peace returned to Sungei Udang Yap Shi Ji was appointed the Kapitan China of Sungei Udang. Shortly after Yap Shi Ji resigned his position as the Kapitan China and Yap Ah Loy was appointed as his successor as the Kapitan China of Sungei Udang.
In 1861 Liu Ren Guang became the commander of the security forces in Kuala Lumpur. Qiu Xiu Shan died in 1862 and Liu Ren Guang succeeded him as the Kapitan China of Kuala Lumpur.
In 1863AD Liu Ren Guang invited Yap Ah Loy to Kuala Lumpur to help him to administer his two tin-mines in Kuala Lumpur and the import and export business in Klang (巴生). In 1869 Liu Ren Guang died of illness and Yap Ah Loy was officially appointed by the Sultan of Selangor as the third Kapitan China of Kuala Lumpur. He was the supremo of Kuala Lumpur and the surrounding area. Later Kuala Lumpur became the capital of Malaysia.
In the 1870s, a Hakka called Yap Ah-Loy was the owner of a few open-cast
tin mines in the areas of Pudu and Ampang in the State of Selangor (please
refer to the photo). During that time it was very hard to procure cheap
labourers to work in the tin mines. However, Yap Ah-Loy, the tin miner and
land-owner had no difficulty to contract for workers from his old village
in China.
Yap Ah-Loy encouraged a few Hakka friend traders to set up shops near the confluence of the two rivers of Klang and Gombak which were near his tin mines. Many tin mining workers began to build their huts near the vicinity of these few shops which supplied their daily provisions. Within a short period there emerged a little Hakka village which was named as Kuala (estuary) Lumpur (mud) or the muddy estuaries of River Klang and River Gombak which had become muddy after the tailings from the tin mines poured into them. Later Kuala Lumpur became the capital of Malaysia.
Yap Ah-Loy died in 1885 and was succeeded by Yap Ah-Shak (葉亞石), another Hakka, as Chinese Kapitan. Yap Kuan Seng (葉觀盛 there is a road in KL named after him, Jalan Yap Kuan Seng), also a Hakka, took over the Chinese Kapitanship after the death of Yap Ah-Shak in 1889. When Yap Kwan-Seng died in 1902 the post of Chinese Kapitan was abolished.
CHUNG Yoon-Ngan (鄭永元)
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