Author: CHUNG Yoon-Ngan
Date: 12-15-01 12:42
Yap Ah Loy ¸¨È¨Ó (1)
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 (©P¥Ð¶m) village near a town called Dan Shui Zhen (²H¤ôÂí) in the county of Hui Yang (´f¶§¿¤) of Guangdong province (¼sªF¬Ù). He was named Yap Te Loy (¸¼w¨Ó), 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 (¦Ñ¤j 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 (¤T¦r¸g) 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. The Taiping Heavenly Revolution was in 1851
and Yap Ah Loy 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.
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 (½æ½Þ¥J). 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 his parcel
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. Yap Ah Loy went to work in a place called Durian Tunggal (ºhÃì¥V¥[),
about ten kilometers 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 (¥[¤s) and worked as a shop assistant in a grocery shop which belonged to a distance relative called Yap Ng (¸¤) who came from the same village as Yap Ah Loy.
In 1856 Yap Ah Loy went with Yap Foo (¸ºÖ), who was the younger brother of Yap Ng, to work as a cook in a tin mine at a place called Lubok China (Ī°©). 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 live pigs and tin ore to Sungei Udang
(Âù·Ë¯Q¦¥) to sell.
CHUNG Yoon-Ngan (¾G¥Ã¤¸)
All rights reseved 2001
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