My great-grandfather's story (Mr Heng Chiang Mong 1856-1931)

You could say that this story is the one that started it all: my great-grandfather's story. My father has passed me a copy and I know my roots. I wanted you all to know yours so I made you interview your relatives. 


The Story of Mr Heng Chiang Mong (1856-1931) by HENG MUI KIAH

My father was born in China. He lived in Tng Pee village of Kat Yeo district in the Canton Province. It was his custom to go to Swatow

frequently to obtain information for his business and also visit friends if he wished.

On one occasion, as he visited Swatow, he was attracted by some English missionaries who had gathered a large crowd to hear the preaching of the Gospel. They could speak the Chinese language (Teochew dialect ) fluently and also sing Chinese hymns. They were also distributing Chinese tracts. My father was filled with curiosity and was anxious to know what else they would do. So he approached and listened to them. When they saw him, they gladly handed him some Chinese tracts and invited him to sit on the bench. Afterwards, one of them explained what was good in being a Christian through the teaching of God’s Word. Before he left, they persuaded my father to make up his mind to become a Christian and to bring his whole family to attend the following Gospel Meetings.

When he reached home, he told his wife about this incident. But she was scared to become a Christian. She spoke of what would happen

to them that they would be expelled from the village, and they would be excommunicated by their own people, should. They find out what

he intended to do.

After he had thought over it carefully, and had faith in God’s Words, he decided to attend the following Gospel meetings and from there,

he came to believe the Saviour for the forgiveness of his sins and for the salvation of his family.

So great was God’s encouraging words that touched his heart that he anxiously persuaded his wife and brought her to the meeting and on the next day, she too accepted Christ as her personal Saviour and, they both became Christians.

As they thought that they would not serve the idols any more, they decided to take down the idols from the altar and bury them or dump them in the pond. As soon as their relatives and the villagers discovered that they worshipped God instead of the idols (as he had taken them away), they became angry and scolded my father.

They excommunicated him from any relationship and also boycotted talking to him. They then posted a notice on the enclosure of the village well accusing him as traitor and prohibited him to draw water from the well. They strongly claimed that the well belonged to their ancestors who were idol-worshippers. When he considered that they would have no business to do with him, with all the trouble they did to him, he being in his right conscience, he felt sorrow and regret for them. He willingly gave up his claim to the well. He then prayed for God to provide him a well as He did to Abraham of old. Then taking his changkol, he dug a new well further away for himself. It was near to a hill and he was greatly surprised to see clear fresh water rushing out of the ground just like a spring from the mountain rock. This happening greatly increased his confidence and trust in God.

During this time, there were few Christians, as they were so scared of being hated and criticized by their own relatives and friends who mockingly called them as the worshippers of European IdoIs" or "Ang Mo Lau yar" in Chinese. These Chinese idol-worshippers were ignorant and rude, and had no respect for the Christian’s worship-place . They would intentionally put the bad-smelling nightsoil tubs against the walls of the worship-house, and some of them would purposely drip bad-smelling water on the ground as they passed in front of the house of God.

My fatherrs life was greatly changed.. My father was fond of seeing the Chinese "wayang" or "theatricals " in the village every night in

China, and due to this, he neglected the work in his farm. Once, when he saw his neighbour’ s plants were better than his, he stole into the neighbour’s field on a quiet moonlit night and ploughed out all his plants in jealousy. When he was confronted by them, he denied it. Later, when he accepted Christ, he remembered his wrongdoing to his neighbour, and quickly found a way to apologize to him and to befriend him again. He too made up his mind to stop going to see the Chinese Theatre from that day onward. He said that he would not like Jesus to see him again enjoying such an evil-pleasure after

he had repented.

My father was the second son of a very rich farmer who had only two sons and would have inherited vast paddy farm-lands after his father's death. When my father called on his elder brother to ask for his share of income derived from the estate, his elder brother told him that there was no income from his share but instead some debts were due to his share of the farm property. As he could not earn enough money to upkeep the family, he told his elder brother to buy over his share of the farm-land and to pay him the balance after deducting the expenses and debt owed by him. The share he finally received

did not help him very long because his brother was not honest. He then considered what he should do in the future.

Some of his kind relatives took pity on him and advised him to come to Singapore that he might earn enough money to support his family.

They promised that they would help to look after his family while he was abroad. By their kind supportive advice, he ventured to Singapore by sail-boat that took 3 weeks or a month depending

on the wind-direction.

As soon as he landed in Singapore, he searched for a church, and at rast he came to an attap-roofed church at upper Serangoon Road , 4 ½ milestone. He stayed there and was offered a job of grasscutting in a pineapple plantation nearby. He earned $3 per month by working from early morning till late in the evening and was only allowed

an hour's break for tiffin. He had to be punctual for work everyday.

on his excursion to Singapore, he brought with him a bamboo basket, a bamboo pillow , 2 changes of clothing, one pair of grass sandals , one thin cotton blanket, and a small towel for bathing.

When he had saved enough money by hard work for 3 years, he then resigned and returned to China to re-unite with his family. During the time he was away, his wife had to work in order to support the children. She waited patiently for him to come back, and, was very

happy and shed tears of joy when he returned at last. She never thought of hurting her husband for being away so long, but she always prayed for his safety, as she put her complete trust in God.

My father then decided to bring his family to Singapore on the next trip so that he could Iook after them and also save on household expenses

On the day of their departure from China, all his relatives and friends gave them a warm send-off and reminded him to come back with “many children to increase the population of the Tng Pee village".

As soon as they landed safely in Singapore, they stayed in a rented attap house near this attap church of Upper Serangoon Road , 4 1/ 2  milestone in 1883. At that time, they temporarily worshipped in this church, and also went to the Bukit Timah Church at 7 milestone. (now the Glory Presbyterian Church) for worship services. The distance is

about 12 miles from home, and the only means of transport then was by rickshaw or the hackney-carriage. As they could. not afford to pay the fare, they had to go on foot.

My father was a clever and far-sighted man and also had some experience in the trading business. He now changed his work from grass-cutting to buying and selling. He carried a pole with 2 big rattan baskets to buy fruits , eggs, fowls and vegetables from the country people to sell  to the town people and also bought salt, salted fish,

salted vegetables and sundry goods on his return journey and in these transactions he earned a lot of income.

The members of this temporary attap church called a meeting to discuss the building of a permanent church, but they did not know how to begin. There was none other than Rev. John A. Bethune

Cook , a missionary of the English Presbyterian Church in Singapore and the Malay Peninsula. It became advisable to him to establish a branch of our Chinese Mission here. He was chosen for the pioneer work. The Presbyterian Church here had previously supported a Chinese Catechist who' had gathered together a few Christians at

Bukit Timah. When Rev. Cook arrived, after having a year in Swatow to acquire the language, he took over the supervision of this small congregation. It was no easy task to secure sites, draw up plans, arrange building contracts and gather funds, and at the same time carry on regular evangelistic and pastoral work in a scattered district.

It was Rev. Cook who applied to the local Government and obtained 3 /4 of an acre of freehold land at the junction of upper Serangroon and Bartley Roads and with Missionary Aid Fund, a new church was established consisting of a Z-storey home with brick pillars, plank walls and floor and a tiled roof. It was called “The Chinese Presbyterian Church” or “Aw Kang Tng” in Chinese.

Then following God's instruction in the Bible, Acts 6: 1- 7, the Presbytery called the congregation of this church together and after they had prayed, they nominated the most spiritual persons to

fill the following posts: -

l ) Pastor Say Toh Siew

2) Elders - Heng Chiang Mong

                  Lim Niu Tiew

                  Tan Kwang Hwee

3 ) Workers Madam Ng peng Eng

                    Tow Kee Poh

This announcement was recorded in the Fourth Presbytery Church Conference Meeting in year 1903.

Elder Heng Chiang Mong was a kind-hearted man, honest and trustworthy, sincere and faithful to God’s work that God blessed his family with riches and understanding and a peaceful home.

He was a hard-worker and always gave offerings to God cheerfully as well as to charity, that God blessed him with more and more wealth by his earning. As he thought that it was not safe to keep so much money in the home-safe or hide in his poor attap house, he came up with the idea to keep it in a jar and bury it in the ground inside his house following the example of those in war-time China. When he had enough savings and needed the money to buy some land, he dug out the jar. When he opened the sealed cover, he was shocked to see the jar filled with water covering the silver coins and that

all had become black. He and his wife did a lot of polishing but there still remained stains of black. When he paid the Land Revenue Officer with these stained silver coins, he said jokingly

that my father must have discovered “buried treasure”.

My father bought some 33 to 40 acres of forest land in the Ang Mo Kio District of Freehold land, of 999 years lease at a cost of $12 per acre inclusive of legal fees and other expenses, it came to about $15 per acre only. After the paid workmen had cleared and levelled the forest land, there he built 2 rows of long-houses with plank walls and attap roof and cement floor, for his big family of 7 sons and 5 daughters with their children to stay. He also employed workmen to cultivate the whole area of the land by planting pineapples, all kinds of fruit-trees and rubber-trees. He maintained a vegetable garden

and built 4 fish ponds to rear china-fishes. The income derived from the plantation was sufficient for the family budget. The children

would enjoy the fruits and the surplus was sold for cash to pay the expenses. Many friends and visitors came from afar and told my parents they could hear human voices “from across a distance away” and they thought there “must be a village over on the other side”.

My father had thought of the problem of the small children walking on soft ground to attend the Sunday School and church over 2 miles away from home in Upper Serangoon Road. Some had complained of tiredness and sickness and refused to attend the church services, so my father employed a coolie to carry the younger children in big rattan baskets to and fro from the church. As the family increased in numbers and also for convenience, he bought a pair of cows and a bullock-cart to transport them to and fro from the church instead of employing more men-power.

He gave his testimony to his employees how he was saved by God and he invited them to worship God in church and promised them better facilities with salary and free tiffin at church. Tiffin was for members and visitors who remained to attend the evening service.

He supported the church with his tithe in his life time, and he also gave one of his daughters to a preacher in marriage.

As he grew older having done all for the family through his hard work and endurance, because of over-straining in earlier years, he became

weak in his health. He decided to return to China for a change of climate. The refreshing air restored him to his normal health. And for this good result, he revisited China on several occasions by himself.

on several occasions he tried to persuade his children to go back to China with him. He said that China had 4 seasons in a year and that

the food there tasted much better and had more vitamins. Also, the English-educated worker’s salary in China was higher and there was also independence. He assured them there was plenty of employment at that time for those educated in English as there were very few of such in China - There was no need to worry that one did

not have good Chinese qualifications. As there was no response from the children, he dropped the matter entirely.

Many years passed by and then came the order that their church was to be pulled down by the Government because the building was in unsound state. Besides this, the frontage of the land, was acquired for road-widening purposes, so this building was subsequently demolished. In order to carry on God’s work they moved to the

far corner on this rand and an attap house was erected for worship. Among the worshippers were the Tows whose grandsons stayed in this church and ministered in the Lord’s service on Sunday.

Then came the Koh family who also administered to the Lord’s service . By this time, Elder Heng Chiang Mong was called home by the Lord. This church then came under the supervision of the Say Mia Tng session who sent their pastor to administer the Lord's supper by the ordinance of the Presbytery of Singapore.

After my father died, all his children removed to stay in town. There they found more convenient places of worship for themselves.

My father was very religious, and always praised God for His goodness in saving his family and he prayed that God would call his children to be ministers of God. This was his ambition. One of his grandsons who wished to do God's work, met with many problems, lost his ambition. This was not his fault, but through lack of support from his parents.

The late Elder Heng had 7 sons and 5 daughters. All were competent and had good education according to their ambition and ability. For these, he always thanked God for His grace and mercy.

My father lived up to 75 years and died on 26^th June 1931. His wife lived up to 71 and died on 4th May 1934.

I am happy and glad to testify regarding my dear loving parents who fulfilled the task that God had for them in bringing up their children

in the fear and nurture of God’s love and who gave all they could afford for their family.

Our Parents told us their life-history that can be well remembered by their 7 sons and 5 daughters, so they can relate to their children.

SONS

Heng Mui Chong

Heng Mui Keng

Heng Muj Cheng

Heng Mui Seng

Heng Mui Kiah

Heng Mui Thiam

Heng Mui Kiang

DAUGHTERS

Heng Mui Noi

Heng Mui Kim

Heng Mui Huai

Heng Mui Sim

Heng Mui Cheeng

* *** * * * * * * * * * *

Heng Mui Kiah as told to Heng Swee Choon, Philip

September 1974

5 Bartley Road

Singapore.