yeung ching chinese school @ club street
b & w photos from national archives
my regular walking kaki told me that there was a school located at the end of club street in the 50s. he attended gan eng seng school nearby and that area was his playground. today, we wandered along club street and ang siang hill but found no evidence of the school. looking up the 1969 street directory, i found out that the school was called yeung ching chinese school.
yeung ching chinese school was set up by 8 cantonese businessmen in 1905. its first classes were held at park road. it was also around this time that the different dialect groups in s'pore set up their own schools. the hakkas set up yingxin and khee fatt; the hokkien, toh lam (tao nan); the teochew, tuan mong; and the hainanese, yoke eng.
because of the increasing enrolment, yeung ching went through a few extension and expansion programme until eventually it occupied a 5-storey bulding. in 1985, yeung ching merged with telok ayer and peck seah primary schools. it retained its name. the school celebrated its 60th anniversary in the 5-storey building with 48 classrooms.
it surprised me to learn that the school is still around today, in a different location and under a different name. in 1988, it moved to serangoon avenue 3 and became a government school. yangzheng primary school celebrated its 100 years of existence in 2005.
alumnis of this former cantonese school included the late story teller lee dai soh. victor koo blogged about it here. tang liang hong, who stood as a workers' party candidate in the 1997 general election and who now resides in australia, was also a pupil of this school.
although we could not be sure if any of the existing buildings was the former yeung ching chinese school, we came across a number of other interesting buildings and interesting people at club street. we found two barbers plying their trade in the backlane of club street.
club street got its name from the various chinese clubs sited on this street. some say the street got its name after the chinese weekly entertainment kee lam club, which was sited on this street at the end of ann siang road. the club was formed in 1891 and was the leading straits chinese club for several decades. others believe the street name was derived from the chui lan teng club which existed there for more than 90 years.
club street was predominantly a hokkien area. hokkiens living here came from three villages in the tong ann county in fujian province of china. club street was known for its sandalwood idols.
