From Johor Bahru Directory
Wong Ah Fook: Immigrant, Builder and Entrepreneur is a biography written by Lim Pui Huen of her great-grandfather, Wong Ah Fook, a very prominent immigrant, builder, and entrepreneur in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. First published in 2002 by Times Media Private Limited, it is issued under the auspices of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore, and the Institute Sultan Iskandar (ISI) of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM).
2. Who is Wong Ah Fook? Wong was a Chinese immigrant who arrived in Singapore in 1854. Starting life as a carpenter, he rose from an indentured laborer to become a building contractor and eventually ventured into real estate. Wong was also into gambling industry, revenue farming (privatization of government monopolies), agriculture (pepper, gambier, and rubber). In 1903, he started Kwong Yik Bank (not to be confused with Malaysia's Kwong Yik Bank), the first local bank in Singapore. Jalan Wong Ah Fook, for long the busiest street in Johor Bahru, is named after him.[1]
3. How the book came about: The idea to write a biography of Wong Ah Fook was made by the Trustees of the Wong family in the 1980s at a time when Lim was developing an interest in history. Lim caught on the idea as she saw the biography as a way of writing about history and the immigrant experience in Malaya during the 19th century and early 20th century. Placing the context of her great-grandfather's activities within the context of the times in which he lived, the book has become more than just a rags-to-riches story of the family patriarch, as it is told against the background of the social and economic development of Malaya. It describes the role of the Chinese in opening up Johor, as well as discusses the banking and financial patterns of colonial Singapore. This book's story is therefore also a confirmation of the close historical links between Singapore and Johor.
4. Research methodology: The research for this book took Lim many years. Sources include interviews with elderly family members, two visits to Wong Ah Fook's birthplace in Yanjingcun, Guangzhou, China and several visits to the Johor Archives, as well as combing the microfilms of old newspapers in the National University of Singapore Library. Very few biographies of the early Chinese pioneers in Malaya have been written and as Dato' Haji Abdul Ghani bin Othman, the Menteri Besar of Johor, wrote in the preface to the book, "Malaysian historiography continues to be enriched by scholars like P. Lim Pui Huen who, through this book, has added depth and colour to our understanding of our past."
