Loke Yah Teng Zeng Ling, a professor of history at Xiamen University, has written that when Stamford Raffles founded what was to become modern Singapore on behalf of the British empire in 1819, its Chinese community was fragmented into native-place associations with the Fujianese, Chaozhou, Cantonese, Hakka, and Hainanese comprising the five largest ones.
廣、客同開「綠野亭」據廈門大學歷史系教授曾玲指出，早在 1819 年萊佛士爵士代表英帝國來新加坡開埠時，華人移民社會便已幫群林立，尤其以福建、潮州、廣府、客家和瓊州（海南島）等 5 大幫群，最為重要。