IF someone were to insult Mr Ho Eu Jin with this classic line, ‘You think this is your grandfather’s road, ah?’, he would have the perfect retort.

He could smile and reply, ‘Actually, it is my great-grandfather’s road.’

That is because he recently discovered that a Singapore road used to belong to his great-grandfather.

Mr Ho, who was born in Malaysia and is now a Singapore permanent resident, has finally managed to confirm after some research that Tan Boon Chong Avenue, off Holland Road, was named after his great-grandfather.

The 31-year-old first heard about the road when he was a young boy from his father, Dr Ho Keong Bin.

‘My father said that his grandfather was a rich businessman who owned land in Singapore, so a road on that plot of land was named after him.’ Mr Ho said.

Dr Ho, who lives in Kuala Lumpur, is the son of Mr Tan Boon Chong’s daughter.

Mr Ho said: ‘I like history so I became curious when my dad told me about Tan Boon Chong Avenue.’

Mr Ho has been working as an IT manager in Singapore since 2003. He said: ‘Before I left for Singapore, my dad told me about the road again and my memory was jogged.’

On arrival, one of the first things he did was to visit the road after looking it up in the street directory.

But Mr Ho was unsure of the origins of the road name because its Chinese name was different from his great-grandfather’s.

He said: ‘In Mandarin, the road name is Chen Wenzong, but my great-grandpa’s name is Chen Wenchong.’

Mr Ho went to the National Archives and the Hokkien clan associations here for help, but neither could provide him with information.

As he could not make any headway in his search, Mr Ho gave up his quest in 2004.

Then in June this year, while shopping in Orchard Road, he came across the Asia Paranormal Investigators’ (API) roadshow.

ASKED FOR HELP

After hearing API founder Charles Goh talk about the group’s work, which includes investigating the origins of Bukit Brown Chinese Cemetery, Mr Ho asked them for help.

Mr Goh, who heads API with his brother Raymond, said: ‘We agreed to help Eu Jin as we don’t just investigate strange phenomena. We also investigate anything related to Singapore’s heritage.’

It helped that Mr Ho had prepared his family tree with his aunts’ help.

Mr Goh said: ‘I looked up records in the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) to check the ownership of the land around Tan Boon Chong Avenue, since the Tans were said to own land in the area.’

SLA’s records showed the land was bought in 1957 by Mr Tan Kay Swee’s company, Soon Kee, for $100,000. In 1960, the British government acquired the plot to widen nearby Holland and Ulu Pandan roads.

This made Mr Goh certain that the road was named after Mr Ho’s great-grandfather as the family tree showed Mr Tan Kay Swee as one of Mr Tan Boon Chong’s four sons.

Mr Goh said: ‘Eu Jin also confirmed that his granduncle’s firm was Soon Kee.’

But why the difference in Chinese names?

Mr Goh explained that when the British government named the road after Mr Tan Boon Chong, they never considered providing a Chinese name for it.

When Singapore became independent, the authorities could have given it a Chinese name using similar-sounding Chinese characters.

Mr Raymond Goh also visited the National Library on Victoria Street to look up a book called Collection of Famous Personalities in Nanyang, published in Penang in 1930.

The book stated that Mr Tan Boon Chong came from Tong Ann in Fujian, China.

Besides owning land in Singapore, Mr Tan Boon Chong traded in coconuts and rice in Selangor. He also obtained distribution rights to British American Tobacco’s products.

He was also a Justice of Peace and a city parliamentary member.

When the Goh brothers told Mr Ho of their findings, he was overjoyed.

He said: ‘It’s exhilarating…It achieves something because Singaporeans can now know who Tan Boon Chong is.

‘It’s also satisfying to prove that there’s a road named after my great-grandfather.’