Here's the first part of a two-part post on the very first FDG (Famous Dead Guy) on Grave Expectations who happens to be a very important (and colourful) character in Malaysian history!
The city of Kuala Lumpur would not have been made were it not for the above interment - Yap Ah Loy.
Yap Ah Loy was born in 1837 to a poor peasant family. At the age of 17, in the midst of social upheavel in China, he decided to venture southwards to Nan Yang (that's what they called South East Asia back then) and arrived in Malacca. He started off working at his relative's sundry shop in Durian Tunggal but soon moved to Lukut to work as a cook [*Anthony Bourdain says: Cooks rule, biatch!*] at a tin miner's canteen. Smart thinking fellow that he was, he used the money he saved up to start a business selling pigs to the miners in exchange for tin, which he then sold to tin merchants for a profit.
After a while, he moved on to bigger things in Sungai Ujong where he befriended Liu Ngim Kong, who was one of Kapitan Cina Shin Kap's right-hand men, and became Liu's assistant. (The Kapitan Cina of a town/city was the appointed community leader of the Chinese in 19th century Malaya, and often enough would also head the dominant secret society of the area!)
So when civil war broke out in Sungai Ujong in 1860 due to feuding Malay aristocrats, in a case of your enemy's enemy is your friend, the two Chinese secret societies of Ghee Hin (of which Shin Kap was the leader) and Hai San joined the fray and paired up with their respective Malay benefactors against one another. Bloodshed ensued and to cut a long story short, Shin Kap was killed. Yap Ah Loy soon succeeded him as the Kapitan Cina not only because he was admired by his peers for his leadership qualities, but also because Yap Ah Shak (who was to be Shin Kap's successor) did not want to get involved in politics and administration.
His old friend, Liu, at the time was already the Kapitan Cina of Kuala Lumpur and asked Yap Ah Loy to go over to assist him. Smelling opportunity as well as repaying his debt of gratitude towards Liu, Yap Ah Loy resigned from his own Kapitan-cy and moved to Kuala Lumpur in 1862 to work for Liu.
(Early Kuala Lumpur. The row of attap houses on the right is where the Sultan Abdul Samad building now stands and the empty ground opposite would be Dataran Merdeka circa early 19th century.)It was to be in Kuala Lumpur where Yap Ah Loy would truly make his mark on history.
