Yap Kok Teng

on

Yap Kok Teng 葉玉真 (葉國庭), Zhao'an 詔安上營, Lao Sua Hokkien Cemetery

葉玉真 (honorific name 葉國庭) Yap Kok Teng; tomb dated the 5th lunar month of 民國庚申 (16 June to 15 July 1920)
Ancestral place 詔安上營 Shangying, Zhao'an · Lao Sua, Hokkien Cemetery

Tomb of Yap Kok Teng 葉玉真 at Lao Sua Hokkien Cemetery, with the inscription 詔安上營 and 民國庚申五月
Tomb of Yap Kok Teng 葉國庭, Lao Sua, Hokkien Cemetery. Photograph: Raymond Goh.

Summary: Yap Kok Teng 葉國庭 was a Hokkien of the Yap clan 葉氏 whose family came from Shangying 上營 in Zhao'an 詔安, Zhangzhou prefecture, southern Fujian. His tomb at Lao Sua, the Hokkien clan cemetery, was set up in the 5th lunar month of 1920 (16 June to 15 July) by seven sons, two daughters and a grandson. The stone gives the date of the tomb, and it does not say whether this is the month of his death. The name Yap Kok Teng appears in a 1907 court case about a pineapple factory in Singapore, in which he was a partner who asked to dissolve the partnership and then contested the arbitration award in court. The name matches the tomb, but the newspapers do not give his Chinese name or home place, so this is a lead and not a proven identification. 

Tomb Inscription 墓碑銘文

碑文Transcription / Meaning
詔安上營Top. The family's ancestral place 籍貫: Shangying 上營, Zhao'an 詔安, Zhangzhou. The place name records where the family came from and does not mean that he was born there.
民國庚申五月Right. "Republic year 9, year 庚申 (gengshen), 5th lunar month". This is 1920, and the 5th lunar month ran from 16 June to 15 July 1920 
顯考諱玉真諡國庭葉公之墓Centre. "Tomb of the illustrious late father, Mr Yap 葉, personal name 諱 玉真 (Geok Cheng), honorific name 諡 國庭 (Kok Teng)". 諡 originally means a posthumous title, and on Hokkien tombs it introduces the name by which the family honoured him. The name used in the newspapers, Yap Kok Teng, is the honorific one.
孝男 慶耀 慶仁 慶義 慶礼 慶智 慶信 慶全Left. Filial sons Keng Yeow 慶耀, Keng Jin 慶仁, Keng Yee 慶義, Keng Lay 慶礼, Keng Tee 慶智, Keng Shin 慶信 and Keng Chuan 慶全.
女 賽月 瑞壬Left. Daughters Sai Geok 賽月 and Swee Jin 瑞壬. The surname 葉 is not repeated before the children's names.
孫 燧松Left. One grandson, 燧松, named on the stone. His father is not stated.

Notes on the inscription:

  • The sons' names. All seven sons share the generation character 慶 (Keng). Five of the second characters, 仁 義 礼 智 信, are the Five Constants 五常 of Confucian teaching (benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, trustworthiness), with 耀 (glory) for the eldest and 全 (completeness) for the youngest. 礼 is the popular form of 禮 and is kept as inscribed. The pattern shows how the father chose the names. It does not show how the sons were educated.
  • The generation character is not in the catalogued poem. The generation poem of the Shangying Yap genealogy described below does not contain 慶, so the stone does not by itself place him in that line.
  • Romanisation. The English forms on this page are Hokkien readings of the characters. Newspapers of the period may spell the same names differently.

Family 家族

RelationshipNameSource
SelfYap Geok Cheng 葉玉真, honorific name Yap Kok Teng 葉國庭Tomb inscription
Sons慶耀 Yap Keng Yeow, 慶仁 Yap Keng Jin, 慶義 Yap Keng Yee, 慶礼 Yap Keng Lay, 慶智 Yap Keng Tee, 慶信 Yap Keng Shin, 慶全 Yap Keng ChuanTomb inscription
Daughters賽月 Yap Sai Geok, 瑞壬 Yap Swee JinTomb inscription
Grandson燧松Tomb inscription
WifeNot named on the stone. The stone is for him alone, and a companion tomb has not been recorded.Tomb inscription

Burial Record 埋葬記錄

ItemRecord
Place of burialLao Sua, Hokkien Cemetery
Name on the stone葉玉真 Yap Geok Cheng (honorific name 葉國庭 Yap Kok Teng)
Date on the stone5th lunar month of 1920 (民國庚申五月), 16 June to 15 July 1920
Burial registerNo public burial register is known for Lao Sua, so there are no entries for age, nationality, date of death or date of burial. Any records may be among the cemetery papers kept in the National Library.

Lao Sua, the Hokkien burial ground at the edge of the Bukit Brown area, belongs to the Hokkien Huay Kuan

Short Biography 生平簡介

Origins. The tomb gives the family's ancestral place as Shangying 上營 in Zhao'an 詔安, the southernmost county of Zhangzhou prefecture, on the border with Guangdong. A genealogy catalogued as 《閩詔寶橋上營葉氏史蹤》 (revised October 1995, 136 pages) describes a Yap lineage of the same place, now Shangying village 上營村 in Shenqiao town 深橋鎮, Zhao'an. The old name of the area was Baoqiao 寶橋, in the Sandu 三都 district. The catalogue names the first ancestor as 萬六郎, who moved from Shaxian in Yanping prefecture at the end of the Yuan dynasty, the ancestral hall as 追遠堂, and the descent as Nanyang 南陽. It also lists branches that went to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. It does not mention Yap Kok Teng, and the stone's generation character 慶 is not in its generation poem, so this is background on the place and the clan and not a record of his line. Another Zhao'an Yap household is recorded on S.T.E.M. in the tomb of Wee Lye Neo 黃來娘, wife of a Yap, who died in 1925.

Name. The inscription gives his personal name 諱 as 玉真 (Geok Cheng) and his honorific name 諡 as 國庭 (Kok Teng). The newspapers of 1907 use Kok Teng, and this entry uses it as the name by which he was known.

A pineapple factory partnership, 1906 to 1907 (lead). A Yap Kok Teng appears in the Singapore press in June 1907 as the respondent in an appeal in the Straits Settlements Court of Appeal, in the matter of an arbitration between him and Wee Hong Thye, Wee Su Hua and Lim Kiew Siong. According to the Singapore Free Press of 21 June 1907, all of them had been in partnership in a pineapple factory. On 21 August 1906 Yap Kok Teng gave notice to the others to dissolve the partnership. The question of how to divide the assets was referred to arbitration, with the Secretary of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce as the chief arbitrator. The arbitrators made an award of the sum due to him for his share, and on 26 February 1907 he wrote to offer to take it up, and did so. He later became dissatisfied and applied to the court to set the award aside, and the Chief Justice set it aside. The three other partners appealed. The Straits Budget of 27 June 1907 gives the reason as the finding that three arbitrators had been appointed and only two had signed the award. The appeal, heard on 20 June 1907 before Mr Justice Thornton and Mr Justice Fisher, was dismissed with costs, so the order setting aside the award stood. Counsel for the appellants asked the court to consider the translation of the Chinese document of arbitration, and the court declined to hear evidence that had not been taken in the court below, because no record of the interpreter's evidence had been kept.

The case shows a Hokkien businessman with a share in a pineapple factory in 1906. The canning industry was largely Hokkien-owned: a study of Hokkien business history states that there were at least ten pineapple-canning factories in Singapore in the first decade of the twentieth century, most of them owned by Hokkiens, and BiblioAsia reports that Singapore exported 846,000 cases of preserved pineapples in 1907. The identification with the man of the Lao Sua tomb is not proven. The articles give no Chinese characters, no home place and no age, and the name Yap Kok Teng may belong to more than one person, so the link rests on the name and the Hokkien setting.

Family. The tomb of 1920 names seven sons, two daughters and a grandson, so his household was large and had reached a third generation. By the date of the stone, at least one grandson was old enough to be named. The sons' names, listed above, follow a single plan, and the stone is set up by all nine children together.

Death and burial. The stone is dated the 5th lunar month of 1920, 16 June to 15 July. 

Newspaper Record 報章記錄

Each entry links to the page in NewspaperSG, National Library Board, Singapore.

DateNewspaper and pageSummaryLink
21 June 1907Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser (article 1.2.56)Court of Appeal, arbitration between Yap Kok Teng (respondent) and Wee Hong Thye, Wee Su Hua and Lim Kiew Siong, partners in a pineapple factory. Appeal dismissed with costs.Read
27 June 1907Straits Budget (article 1.2.28)Partnership suit: appeal against the decision of the Chief Justice, heard on 20 June. The award had been set aside because only two of three arbitrators signed it. Appeal dismissed with costs. The newspaper misprints the respondent's name.Read
27 June 1907Singapore Free Press (weekly edition, article 1.2.24)A repeat of the 21 June report.Read

Sources 資料來源

S.T.E.M. 新加坡墓碑銘集录 logo

About this record. This entry is part of Singapore Tombstones Epigraphic Materials (S.T.E.M.) 新加坡墓碑銘集录, a specialised digital documentation project and archive recording historical tomb inscriptions in Singapore, with a focus on Bukit Brown Cemetery 武吉布朗坟场, the adjoining Hokkien Huay Kuan burial grounds of Lao Sua and Kopi Sua 羔丕山, and other early Chinese burial grounds. Each record transcribes the original Chinese inscription, gives an English translation, cross-checks it against the burial register where one exists, and adds a short biography drawn from contemporary newspapers and archival sources.

Cite this entry as:
Raymond Goh. "Yap Kok Teng 葉玉真 (葉國庭), Zhao'an 詔安上營, Lao Sua Hokkien Cemetery." Singapore Tombstones Epigraphic Materials (S.T.E.M.), tombs.bukitbrown.org, https://tombs.bukitbrown.org/2026/10/yap-kok-teng.html. Accessed [date].

Keywords: Yap Kok Teng, Yap Kok Peng, 葉玉真, 葉國庭, Yap Geok Cheng, Yap Keng Yeow, 慶耀, Yap Keng Jin, 慶仁, Yap Keng Yee, 慶義, Yap Keng Lay, 慶礼, Yap Keng Tee, 慶智, Yap Keng Shin, 慶信, Yap Keng Chuan, 慶全, Yap Sai Geok, Yap Swee Jin, Zhao'an, 詔安, 上營, Shangying, Zhangzhou, Yap clan, 葉氏, Five Constants, 仁義禮智信, pineapple factory, Chinese Chamber of Commerce, 1907 arbitration, Lao Sua, Hokkien Cemetery, Heng San Teng, 1920, 民國庚申, Chinese tomb inscriptions Singapore, Singapore Tombstones Epigraphic Materials, S.T.E.M.

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