The annual Topekong ceremony

[CHUNG Yoon-Ngan <chungyn@mozart.collective.com.au>]

  The annual Topekong ceremony in Johor Bahru, Malaysia

  In Han Suyin's book "My House Has Two Doors" on page 93
there is a paragraph, I quote:

"The Chinese nurses accompanied me to the annual Topekong ceremony.
Johore Bahru was actually a great trading centre for the Hakka Chinese and
had been founded by them in the seventeenth century; the temple then being
erected to honour their 'leader'. who once a year was taken out in a
palanquin into the streets of what had been his city. All the Hakkas of
Singapore came for the ceremony of the Topekong to Johore Bahru."  

Do you know the history of this Topekong?  Han Suyin did not mention its
history in the book. Johore Bahru in Hakka is Sin Sun or Xin Shan (New
Mountain).

  My posting on 2nd January 1998
 --------------------------------
   
   New Mountain or Xin Shan

   In the past, when the Hakkas decided to emigrate or was forced to
move out from the place where they lived, they usually brought with them
the bones of their ancestors. When they arrived at a land to resettle they
called that place New Mountain (Xin Shan in pinyin). They then reburied 
their ancestors.

   Johore Bahru (New Mountain or Xin Shan in Hakka), the capital of the
State of Johore in Malaysia, was a place where, in the beginning of the
19th century some Hakkas decided to settle there when they crossed the
straits from the island of Singhapura (Singapore). They called their new
settlement Xin Shan. Although Xin Shan was later changed to Johore Bahru,
a Malay name, the Chinese, particularly the Hakkas, still stick to the
Hakka name, even up to today.   

CHUNG Yoon-Ngan.