• “Mata” originated from a term used by the Indonesian Chinese during the Dutch colonial period. In the archives of the Kong Koan in Batavia, the term “majiao” was used. “Mata” is the simplified version of the Bahasa Indonesia term mata-mata. The root word mata refers to eyes, and, in relation, mata-mata refers to a “secret detective”. In Malay, mata-mata refers to the police.

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