Chinese names of streets in Penang
Lo Man-yuk’s “Chinese Names of Streets in Penang” (1900) is a reference compilation documenting the Hokkien and Cantonese vernacular names for the roads, streets, and lanes of George Town, Penang, accompanied by etymological notes explaining the origin and meaning of each name. Published in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, the work follows the precedent of H. T. Haughton’s 1891 list for Singapore and serves as a linguistic and ethnographic record of the Chinese community’s spatial vocabulary at the turn of the twentieth century.
Summary
The compilation is organized alphabetically by the English street name, with each entry providing the Hokkien and Cantonese equivalents (romanized in their respective phonetic systems) followed by an explanatory note. The notes reveal that Chinese street naming in Penang followed several recurring patterns: reference to prominent buildings or landmarks (e.g., the four-storied corner house at Acheen Street and Beach Street giving that street the name “small high tower”), the nationality or dialect group of residents (e.g., Argyle Road as “Bengali lane,” Penang Street Part II as “Quang-tung street” for its Cantonese shopkeepers), the trade or business concentrated in a locality (e.g., Beach Street Part V as “striking iron street” for its blacksmiths, Prangin Lane as “salt-fish yard”), and personal names of notable individuals (e.g., Ah Quee Street after Captain Ah Quee, who presented it to the Municipality).
Beyond the street-by-street entries, the work appends several supplementary lists: notable buildings and places in George Town (government offices, mercantile offices, churches, schools, temples, and Kong-si houses); district names in town and up-country; islets in the vicinity of Penang; and places in Province Wellesley and Dindings. The up-country and Province Wellesley sections incorporate Kheh (Hakka) romanizations, reflecting the different dialect composition of those areas. The Kong-si house listings are particularly detailed, distinguishing Hokkien, Cantonese, Te-chiu, Kheh, Hailam, and Shanghai/Ningpo associations, with notes on the surnames or districts they represent.
The compilation functions as a snapshot of Penang’s social geography in 1900. It records the locations of secret societies (including the Kien Tek Kong-si, whose remains were still visible at the junction of Armenian Street and Pitt Street), the Opium and Spirit Farms, the Chinese Protectorate (with its various colloquial names reflecting its functions under the Contagious Disease Ordinance and the Women and Girls’ Protection Ordinance), brothels of various types, and the physical infrastructure of the town before and after municipal improvements such as the reclamation of ghauts and the construction of the Municipal Water Service.
Key Findings
- The streets radiating from the Prangin Ditch crossing at Magazine were numbered sequentially in Hokkien: Magazine Road (“passed rivulet, number one street”) through Sandilands Road (“passed rivulet, number nine street”), a system that persisted in colloquial usage (pp. 209–213, 220).
- Cannon Street derived its Chinese name Toa Chheng Khang (“big cannon hole”) from a government cannon shot fired into the encampment of the Kien Tek Kong-si (Toa Peh Kong secret society) during the Penang Riots (p. 203).
- Kimberley Street was known as Tio-chiu ke (“Te-chiu street”) because of China-born Te-chiu (Swatow) prostitutes residing there; all had disappeared following the Chinese Government’s prohibition of female emigration from Swatow, enacted upon representations by Te-chiu merchants in the Straits Settlements (p. 210).
- The Chinese Protectorate in Downing Street was known by at least five different Chinese names reflecting its various administrative functions: “Outer Office” (general public business), “Licence house” (issuing licences under the Contagious Disease Ordinance), “Asking questions house” (examining female immigrants under the Women and Girls’ Protection Ordinance), “Tai-jin’s office” (the Protector’s official title), and “Protecting Official’s Office” (pp. 207, 223).
- The Magazine intersection was called Lak chhē lō (“intersection of six roads”) in Hokkien, corresponding to the Malay Simpang Anam, and was also known as Chheng ioh keng (“gun-powder depot”) after the former Government gun-powder magazine and Gō pha teng (“the five lamps”) after the Municipal lamp-post holding five lamps (p. 213).
- The compilation covers approximately 80 streets, lanes, and roads in George Town, plus district names for roughly 30 up-country localities, 6 islets, and over 30 places in Province Wellesley and Dindings, with Hokkien and Cantonese (and sometimes Kheh) equivalents for each (pp. 198–241).
Conclusion
Lo Man-yuk’s compilation is primarily a practical reference work, but its lasting value lies in preserving a layer of Chinese vernacular toponymy that has since largely disappeared from everyday use in Penang. The etymological notes provide an invaluable record of the town’s social and economic geography as perceived by its Chinese inhabitants in 1900—mapping the distribution of dialect groups, trades, secret societies, and institutions across the urban landscape with a specificity that no other source of the period matches.
Context
- The work was communicated by the Secretary of the Straits Branch and draws on information from Mr. Cheam Cheow Heng, Senior Chinese Interpreter of the Police Courts, reflecting the colonial administrative channels through which such ethnographic knowledge was gathered and published (p. 197).
- The compilation follows directly from H. T. Haughton’s 1891 list of Singapore street names with Chinese equivalents, indicating an institutional interest within the Royal Asiatic Society branches in documenting the multilingual toponymy of the Straits Settlements (p. 197).