Amoy Street, Singapore
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Namesake | Xiamen |
|---|---|
| Nearest metro station | Telok Ayer MRT station |
| Coordinates | 1°16′53″N 103°50′51″E / 1.2814156°N 103.8473785°E |
Amoy Street (simplified Chinese: 厦门街; traditional Chinese: 廈門街) is a one-way street located within Chinatown, within the Outram district in Singapore. The street is close to Tanjong Pagar MRT station.
Amoy Street starts at its junction with Telok Ayer Street and McCallum Street and ends with its junction with Pekin Street, now a pedestrian mall. It is intersected by Boon Tat Street and Cross Street.
The name Amoy is an English transliteration of the Zhangzhou pronunciation of the words 厦门 (pronounced Ē-mn̂g in Standard Hokkien (Amoy).) The Zhangzhou Hokkien pronunciation Ē-mûi was used instead of Standard Amoy Hokkien might because of the overwhelming numbers of Zhangzhou people who left Amoy in China to settle in Singapore through the city's port. Amoy Street is one of the old streets developed during the 1830s defining Chinatown under Stamford Raffles' 1822 Plan.
In George Drumgoole Coleman's 1836 Map of Singapore, the street was labelled as "Amoi Street", likely as a reference to the many migrants who came from Amoy.[1]
Amoy Street was noted for its opium smoking dens. The street was given many names by the local Chinese based on the landmarks located there. In Hokkien, it was called the ma cho keng au (rear of the Ma Cho Temple), in Cantonese, the kun yam miu hau kai (behind the Kun Yam temple). In both dialects, it referred to Thian Hock Keng located on Telok Ayer Street where both goddesses were worshipped.[1]
Also in Cantonese, the street is also known as ha mun kai, ha mun being the Cantonese pronunciation of the characters.[1]
Colloquially, the street was also known as Free School Street or ghi oh khau (义学口 front of the school) as the Cui Ying School was built here in 1854.[1]
