Amoy Street, Singapore
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Amoy Street () is a one-way
street A street is a public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, ...
located within
Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...
, 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 Telok Ayer Street is a street located in Singapore's Chinatown within the Outram district, linking Church Street to Cecil Street. Telok Ayer MRT station is located at the junction of Cross Street and this road. Etymology 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 Cross Street ( Chinese: 克罗士街; ms, Jalan Silang) is a street in Singapore starting from Shenton Way in Downtown Core and ending at the junction of South Bridge Road in Chinatown which is in Outram Planning Area which then becomes Upper ...
.


Etymology and history

The name Amoy is an English transliteration of the
Zhangzhou Zhangzhou (), alternately romanized as Changchow, is a prefecture-level city in Fujian Province, China. The prefecture around the city proper comprises the southeast corner of the province, facing the Taiwan Strait and surrounding the prefec ...
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 Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles (5 July 1781 – 5 July 1826) was a British statesman who served as the Lieutenant-Governor of the Dutch East Indies between 1811 and 1816, and Lieutenant-Governor of Bencoolen between 1818 and 1824. He is ...
' 1822 Plan. In
George Drumgoole Coleman George Drumgoole Coleman (179527 March 1844), also known as George Drumgold Coleman, was an Irish civil architect who played an instrumental role in the design and construction of much of the civil infrastructure in early Singapore, after it wa ...
's 1836 ''Map of Singapore'', the street was labelled as "Amoi Street", likely as a reference to the many migrants who came from Amoy. 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 The Hokkien () variety of Chinese is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is one of the national languages in ...
, it was called the ''ma cho keng au'' (rear of the Ma Cho Temple), in
Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...
, the (behind the
Kun Yam Guanyin () is a Bodhisattva associated with compassion. She is the East Asian representation of Avalokiteśvara ( sa, अवलोकितेश्वर) and has been adopted by other Eastern religions, including Chinese folk religion. She w ...
temple). In both dialects, it referred to
Thian Hock Keng Thian Hock Keng. & ( or the Tianfu Temple, literally "Palace of Heavenly Happiness"), is a temple built for the worship of Mazu, a Chinese sea goddess, located in Singapore. It is the oldest and most important temple of the Hokkien ( Hok ...
located on Telok Ayer Street where both goddesses were worshipped. Also in Cantonese, the street is also known as , being the Cantonese pronunciation of the characters. Colloquially, the street was also known as Free School Street or ( front of the school) as the ''Cui Ying'' School was built here in 1854.


Notable locations


Anglo-Chinese School

The Anglo-Chinese School (ACS) was founded on 1 March 1886 by Bishop
William Fitzjames Oldham William Fitzjames Oldham (15 December 1854 – 27 March 1937) was a British-American bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church and missionary Bishop for South Asia. He distinguished himself as a missionary, an author and a church official. He wa ...
as an extension of the
Methodist Church Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related Christian denomination, denominations of Protestantism, Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John W ...
. The school's first location was a
shophouse A shophouse is a building type serving both as a residence and a commercial business. It is defined in dictionary as a building type found in Southeast Asia that is "a shop opening on to the pavement and also used as the owner's residence", a ...
at 70 Amoy Street with a total of 13 pupils. The name of the school came from its practise of conducting lessons in Chinese in the morning and English in the afternoon. By the following year, enrollment had increased to 104 and the school moved to Coleman Street. ACS in the following year moved out of the shophouse and the original shophouse has been marked as a historic site.


No.22 Amoy Street Shophouse

No. 22 Amoy Street shophouse, situated in the north-eastern edge of Chinatown that fringes the Central Business district of Singapore, is a Late Shophouse style. It has elements of western classical architecture and influences of the neoclassical jalousie windows of Europe, which can be seen on its facade: rhythm of three vertical bays with distinguished horizontal bands in the form of centrally paired door height window shutters; the Georgian-style fanlights, the Classical Roman Doric moldings, the use of Classical proportions and orders, Doric piers and Corinthian pilasters. On top of that, there is a mixture of Chinese and Western decoratives too. The shophouse also has elements of vernacular architecture with the jack roof, veranda, and louvred windows.


Siang Cho Keng Temple

Siang Cho Keong (仙祖宫), located at 66 Amoy Street was built in 1869 and was originally named as Zhi Yun Miao (紫云庙). It was founded by Ven. Zheng Ming who brought the statue of Lu Fu Xian Zhu (呂府仙祖) from China. The temple was built in the Hokkien style, where the ends of the curved roof ridge sweeps outwards like swallow tails and the clay roof tiles are not glazed. Its foundation plaque indicated that the temple was located on current site because of its good feng shui (geomancy) location as the temple used to be facing the sea (before land reclamation) and Ann Siang Hill is at the back of the temple.Siang Cho Keong
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References


{{Authority control Roads in Singapore Outram, Singapore Chinatown, Singapore