Whampoa, Novena

Coordinates: 1°19′29.38″N 103°51′24.96″E / 1.3248278°N 103.8569333°E / 1.3248278; 103.8569333

Whampoa is a housing estate located in the subzone of Balestier, which is a part of the district of Novena in Singapore. The area was named after Hoo Ah Kay, who was better known as "Whampoa" (due to his origin from China) during the early years of Singapore as a British settlement. His many contributions to the Straits Settlements, and that he could speak both Chinese and English well, thus made him an important bridge between the two communities. The respect for his contributions thus resulted in this area being named after him.

The Whampoa area has a significantly higher proportion of elderly and has garnered significant media attention with regards to active ageing programmes.

Facilities

As the area is mainly a housing estate, it consists of many blocks of the HDB flats, along with some recreational facilities such as a wet market and a hawker centre. There is also a community club, a mosque, a NKF kidney dialysis centre in it, and a bus terminal also known as the Saint Michael's Bus Terminal.

Novena

A novena (from Latin: Novem, meaning Nine) is an act of pious Roman Catholic devotion often consisting of private or public prayers repeated for nine successive days in belief of obtaining special intercessory graces.

The recitation of novena prayers are primarily found in the Roman Catholic Church, while some members of the Anglican Church, Eastern Orthodox Church and Lutheran Church also share in an effort for church renewal.

The prayers are often derived from devotional prayer books, or consist of the recitation of the rosary (a "rosary novena"), or of short prayers through the day. Novena prayers are customarily printed in small booklets, and the novena is often dedicated to a specific angel, saint, a specific Marian title of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or it invokes one of the personages of the Holy Trinity.

Within the Roman Catholic discipline, novena prayers for public use must have an Imprimatur, Nihil Obstat, and Imprimi potest. These ecclesiastical sanctions are usually granted by a bishop or any ranking prelate for publication and approval.

Novena, Singapore

Novena is an urban planning area located within the Central Region of Singapore. The town borders Toa Payoh to the north, Bukit Timah to the west, Tanglin to the south and Kallang to the east.

It is served by the North South MRT Line at the Novena MRT Station.

Etymology

Novena and its associated roads, buildings and Mass Rapid Transit station are named after the Novena Church located in the area.

The current premises of the Novena Church were owned by a wealthy Chinese businessman, Wee Kah Kiat. The premises were bought over by the Redemptorist priests in 1948 where a small church dedicated to Our Mother of Perpetual Help named the Church of Saint Alphonsus was built in May 1950. According to tradition, the novenas to Our Lady of Perpetual Help began in January 1949 and were heavily publicised and instantaneously became widespread in 1951 as intended by Pope Pius XI.

Housing

Land in Novena is very expensive because of its prime location. There are few HDB flats in Novena; most houses in the area are condominiums or private housing.

Novena (computing platform)

Novena is an open-source computing platform by Andrew "Bunnie" Huang and Sean "Xobs" Cross. It will be released by Kosagi and funded by a crowdfunding campaign which began on April 15, 2014. The launch offering is a 1.2 GHz Freescale quad-core ARM architecture computer closely coupled with a Xilinx FPGA. It is offered in "desktop", "laptop", or "heirloom laptop" form, or as a standalone motherboard.

On 19 May 2014 at 06:59 UTC, the crowdfunding campaign concluded having raised just over 280% of its target 250.000 USD. The extra funding has allowed the project to achieve 4 "stretch goals": the development of Free software graphics drivers; the inclusion of a general-purpose breakout board; the inclusion of a "ROMulator" breakout board; and the inclusion of the MyriadRF software defined radio with the "system-level" offerings. They were set on 24 April. The first was achieved on 12 May, and the latter 3 were achieved on the 16th.

This is the only laptop that ships simply with a screwdriver; users would be required to install the battery themselves, screw on the LCD bezel of their choice, and obtain speakers as a kit instead of using speaker boxes. Owners of a 3D printer can make and fine tune their own speaker box. The main boards are manufactured by AQS, an EMS provider.

Whampoa

Whampoa is a romanisation of 黄埔, the name of a region of Guangdong, China now Huangpu District, Guangzhou, People's Republic of China. The romanisation has also been used in places and entities named for the region.

Since the adoption of pinyin in the People's Republic of China in the mid-20th century, "Huangpu" has largely replaced "Whampoa" in mainland China except for a few historical establishments:

As of the 21st century, it is still in use to refer to other places in the greater China region and diaspora:

Whampoa Station

Whampoa Station is the under-construction terminus station on the Kwun Tong Line of the MTR in Hong Kong. It is located within the developed area of Whampoa Garden immediately adjacent to the stern of The Whampoa which is a symbol of identity for the area and its history. The station will consist of a platform tunnel between two separate concourses and will be mainly underground except for the entrances and ventilation shafts. The West Concourse will be located at the junction of Hung Hom Road and Tak Man Street while the East Concourse will be located along Tak On Street and be crossed by Shung King and Tak Ting Streets. The station was originally due to be open in 2015, but due to the station having technical problems underground, the MTRC has pushed the opening date to mid-2016.

Below the underground concourses only one side platform will be built, similar to the structure found in Po Lam Station. Due to the expected lower traffic demand within its service area, half of the Kwun Tong Line trains may terminate at preceding Ho Man Tin Station rather than this station, approximately 4 minutes per train during rush hour.