The Last Holdout in Singapore

choi

The Last Holdout. The Economist, Dec 18, 2021 (under the heading "Singapore" in the Double Issue)
https://www.economist.com/christ ... -vanished-singapore
https://nationalcybersecuritynew ... acking-cyberattack/

Note:
(a) "Along with her three siblings, Ms Sng [Mui Hong] owns Kampong Lorong Buangkok, the last village in mainland Singapore. The kampong, which means village in Malay. * * * Ms Sng (pronounced 'Serng') has every reason to seel the land, as the gadfly property agents buzzing around the kampong remind her. It is worth millions. The government intends to requisition it for redevelopment at some point anyway, so she might as well cash in. * * * Silkie chickens promenade past one storey clapboard houses * * * As Suleiman, a 64-year-old resident, puts it, in the village, with its parklike spaces, 'Your mind is open.' * * * Ms Sng's father was one of the holdouts. In 1956 he was turfed out of his village in the west by the colonial-era housing agency. He had no interest in living in a government flat."  
(i) Malay-English dictionary:
* kampong (n): "(pre-1972) Obsolete spelling of kampung"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kampong
(ii)
(A) Sng in Singapore represents Hokkien (pronunciation sung) for 孙.
(B) Kampong Lorong Buangkok  罗弄万国村
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kampong_Lorong_Buangkok
(" is a village located in Buangkok in Hougang [后港], Singapore. Built in 1956, it is the last surviving kampong located on Singapore Island in the 21st century * * * [section 1 Etymology:] The land which the kampong rests on, was acquired in 1956 from Mr Huang Yu Tu by Sng Teow Koon [孙朝坤], a traditional Chinese medicine seller. At the point of purchase, there were already 4 to 6 houses built on the land. He set up home in the village with his family, and started renting out land to people to build homes. The land was handed down to his children, one of whom is Ms Sng Mui Hong [孙梅虹]. She continues to live in the village with her nieces. Her 3 other siblings, who are the co-owners, have all married and moved out of the village.  It evolved into a kampong. It was initially a swampy piece of land * * * ")
(C) Buangkok  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buangkok  
(table on the right says it is Malay for Chinese-language 万国)  

section 1 Etymology in toto: "The namesake road Lorong Buangkok was named Buangkok, meaning 'united countries,' after the rubber plantation company Singapore United Rubber Plantations Limited's Chinese name 'Multi Nations' (万国 [万国树胶有限公司]) in Teochew [language]. In 1967, a track off Lorong Buangkok was named Lorong Buangkok Kechil.

• Opencorporate.com says Singapore United Rubber Plantations Ltd was founded in 1916 and is now "deregistered."
https://opencorporates.com/companies/sg/S16FC0071E
Throughout its life, the company was based in London, and was dissolved in 2017.
(D) What does kechil mean?
• The Clock Is Ticking on Singapore's Last Village. Remember Singapore, Jan 13, 2015.
https://remembersingapore.org/20 ... at-lorong-buangkok/

two paragraphs:'

'Today, the piece of land that Kampong Lorong Buangkok is standing on, about the size of three football fields, is owned by Sng Mui Hong, the daughter of Sng Teow Koon. Around 28 families are still living in this rustic village, paying tokens as monthly rentals to the landlord. * * *

"The Cheng Lim Farmways was [note past tense] a network of roads between farms and plantations at the southern part of old Punggol (where Sengkang's Anchorvale neighbourhood is today), linked by a small trail named Lorong Buangkok Kechil (kechil means 'little' in Malay). Lorong Buangkok had its network of farmways too; there were Buangkok North Farmways 1 to 4 and Buangkok South Farmways 1 to 4.

Judging from the rest of Note (a)(ii)(D), I think that "a small trail," not tract (meaning an area), was (maybe still is) the designation of "Lorong Buangkok Kechil" mentioned in the Wiki page for Buangkok.   
• The adjective kechil or kecil means small in Malay, whose antonym is sebar (big).

Joel F Mann, An International Glossary of Place Name Elements.Scarecrow Press, 2005, at page 87
https://books.google.com/books?i ... name%22&f=false
("kecil: (Indonesian/Malay) small
kechil: (Malay) small")

• Kok Kheng KHOR, Pulau Anak Bukom. Singapore Infopedia, Feb 6, 2009
https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/in ... 440_2009-02-06.html
("A tiny islet, Pulau Anak Bukom (Malay for 'child of Bukom') [pulau is Malay for island; anak, Malay for child] * * * Pulau Anak Bukom is noted as a nesting and roosting site for resident shore birds.  Pulau Anak Bukom is an islet lying off the southeastern end of its ‘parent’, Pulau Bukom.4
a much bigger islet near Pulau Anak Bukom is Pulau Bukom Kechil, which is located alongside the southern flank of Pulau Bukom Besar. Pulau Bukom Kechil was merged with Pulau Bukom Besar in 1973 through land reclamation [but not Pulau Anak Bukom] * * * Pulau Anak Bukom was so small that it was not included in the list of islands" of official Singapore books or maps)
• Tanah Merah, Singapore
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanah_Merah,_Singapore
(in Singapore; "The Malay name for this area is derived from the red lateritic cliffs along the coast that were visible from the sea, hence the name Tanah Merah or 'red land.' [tanah and merah are a Malay noun for 'ground, land, earth' and a Malay adjective for "red," respectively. There were/are two separate Red Cliffs.] * * * Later, the road leading to 'Large Red Cliff was named 'Tanah Merah Besar Road' while the other was named 'Tanah Merah Kechil Road.' Besar means 'large' while Kechil means 'little' in Malay")
• Map - Pontian District (Pontian Kechil). MapNAll, undated
http://www.mapnall.com/en/Map-Pontian-District_1132741.html
("The Pontian District is a district in southwest Johor, Malaysia. The name Pontian is also used in the names of two towns in the district, Pontian Besar and Pontian Kechil, of which the latter serves as its district capital. The capital was formerly a fishing village which has developed into a small town.  Pontian is noted for its variety of seafood")
(E) road names in Singapore
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_names_in_Singapore
(section 1 Types of road names, section 1.1 Malay-derived generic elements: (besides Kampong)
Lorong: definition in English: alley, lane + transliteration in Chinese: either 罗弄 or 巷)
(F) You may guess correctly by now that in Malay, an adjective or a noun modifier is placed behind the noun.
(iii) requisition (n and v)
https://www.lexico.com/definition/requisition
(iv) Silkie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silkie
, which in Taiwan and, likely, china is 乌骨鸡.
(v) Suleiman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suleiman  
("is the Arabic [spelling of Soloman")]
(vi) "In 1956 he was turfed out of his village in the west by the colonial-era housing agency."
(A) turf (vt): "chiefly British : to eject forcibly : KICK —usually used with out"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/turf
(B) "On 31 August 1957, Malaya became an independent member of the Commonwealth of Nations."  en.wikipedia.org for Malaysia.


(b) "Ms Sng left school at 11 * * * an helped him [her father] muck out the drains * * * The siren call of an air-conditioned flat was difficult to resist -- it was, after all, what growing numbers of Sngaporeans called home -- and most outsiders could not hack life in the village. * * * In 2014 the Urban Redevelopment Authority [URA) 市区重建局] released its master plan"
(i) muck (vt): "to clean up   especially : to clear of manure or filth —usually used with out"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/muck
(ii) An apartment (American English), or flat (British English, Indian English, South African English)"  en.wikipedia.org for Apartment.
(iii) hack (vt): "informal : to manage successfully   <just couldn't hack the new job>"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hack