• “马打” originates from a term used by the Indonesian Chinese during the Dutch colonial period. In the book Gong An Bu (《公案簿》) by the Chinese Council of Batavia (Kong Koan), the term “㐷礁” is used. “马打” (mata) is a phonetic abbreviation of the Bahasa Indonesia term mata-mata. The root word mata refers to eyes, and by extension, matamata refers to a “detective” or “spy”. In Malay, mata-mata refers to the police.

In the early days, when Mandarin was not commonly used, locals mainly conversed in Malay and Hokkien. The term “巴刹” is a transliteration of the Malay term pasar, “马打” originated from the Malay term mata-mata for police. As for “厝”, it is the Hokkien term for “house”. As such, hospitals were known as “老君厝”, fire stations were known as “打火厝” and police stations were known as “马打厝”. (Lianhe Wanbao, 10/10/2018)