Baey Yam Keng goes viral after sharing dad’s school-leaving certificate with old spelling of Tampines

SINGAPORE: After Tampines Member of Parliament Baey Yam Keng found his father’s school-leaving certificate and posted a picture of it on Sunday (Jan 11), his post unexpectedly went viral. People were astonished to learn the old way of spelling the GRC Mr Baey now represents.

“I was going through my father’s old documents and found out that he studied at Tampenis (I didn’t know that’s how the school and road names were spelt during that time! Check out the certificate.) School for three years. I didn’t know this part of my father’s life history. What a coincidence!” he wrote in the caption.

Tampines used to be spelled “Tampenis,” though, as Mothership pointed out in a 2018 piece, there were other spellings for the area as well, including Tampinis, Tempines, and Tampenes.

By 1939, the current spelling was adopted by the Singapore Rural Board for the sake of standardization, though, as proven by Mr Baey’s father’s school certificate, old habits die hard.

The name comes from a river that used to flow in the region, Sungei Tampines, which in turn took its name from the polok tempinis timber trees found along its banks.

And while these trees almost grew extinct some decades ago, a replanting programme in the 1990s at Tampines ensured that they would not.

One of the things that struck Mr Baey from his father’s old certificate also struck a number of netizens, who commented on the old spelling of Tampines.

“Yes, Yam Keng, Tampenis. British days’ spelling, but we changed it to Tampines discreetly,” wrote one.

“No wonder they changed the spelling,” commented another.

A Facebook user wrote, “So the elderly like my dad weren’t wrong with their pronunciation… thanks for the insight.”

“At first I thought it was spelt wrongly, till I saw the photo,” shared a netizen.

“Yes. Many either have forgotten or are not aware that the original name was really ‘Tampenis’. Even the then public bus signboard indicated ‘Tampenis Road’,” a commenter noted.

When he first joined politics in 2005, the MP, who is now also Minister of State in the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth and the Ministry of Transport, as well as the Mayor for North East District, contested as part of the People’s Action Party at Tanjong Pagar.

At present, he also chairs the Tampines Town Council. /TISG

Read also: Baey Yam Keng addresses resident’s criticism of the aeroplane design on Tampines North block described as “bad & poor taste”