Everything about Tan Kah Kee totally explained
Tan Kah Kee (
Hokkien: Tân Kah-kiⁿ) (
October 21,
1874 -
August 12,
1961) was a prominent businessman, community leader, and philanthropist in colonial
Singapore, and eventually a respectable
Communist leader in the
People's Republic of China.
Life
Mr Tan Kah Kee was born in Jimei,
Xiamen,
Fujian Province,
China, and went to Singapore in
1890, when he was 16 years old, to work for his father's rice store. After his father's business collapsed in
1903, Tan started his own business and built an empire from
rubber plantations and
manufacturing,
sawmills,
canneries,
real estate, import and export brokerage, ocean transport to
rice trading. His business was at its prime from
1912-
1914, where he was known as "
Henry Ford of
Malaya".
With the profit that he made from his business empire, Tan contributed greatly to the community, both in Malaya and his native Fujian Province. He set up the Jimei Schools (now Jimei University) in 1913. In
1919, he set up
The Chinese High School, now named
Hwa Chong Institution in
Singapore, while in
1921, he set up the
Xiamen University and financially supported it until the Government of the
Republic of China took it over in
1937. In
1920, he married his daughter Tan Ai Li to
Lee Kong Chian, who worked under him and who later became a famous Singaporean
philanthropist and businessman.
Lee Kong Chian, like Tan Kah Kee, was a great philanthropist and patron of education. Lee was a pupil in the prestigious Tao Nan School. Tan Kah Kee was one of the 110 founding members of Tao Nan School. Famed for its traditional Chinese culture and excellent pupils, Tao Nan School is now a greatly respected and prestigious school. The school's current location is in Marine Parade, Singapore, and has attracted many students.
Tan was one of the prominent
ethnic Chinese Malayans to financially support Chinese efforts in the
Second Sino-Japanese War which broke out in 1937 and organized many relief funds under his name. . He was also a participant in the
Legislative Yuan of the
Nationalist Government under
Chiang Kai-shek in
Chongqing. After the Japaneses invaded and
occupied Malaya and Singapore during the
Battle of Malaya and the
Battle of Singapore, these contributors were defined as "undesirables" and were subjected to systematic extermination in the
Sook Ching Massacre, although Tan survived. Tan Kah Kee strongly rejected proposals to attempt to negotiate with the Japanese, regarding any such attempts as characteristic of a
hanjian (
traitor of the Chinese), and petitioned the pessimistic
Wang Jingwei to dissuade him from any such activities.
Tan was the
de facto leader of the
Singaporean Chinese community, serving as chairman of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and helped organise the Hokkien clan association. However, he lost this role when the
Chinese Civil War divided the Singaporean Chinese community into
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and
Kuomintang sympathizers. Tan was a CCP supporter as he was disillusioned with the corruption within the Nationalists. After the Communist victory in China, Tan tried to return to Singapore in
1950, but was denied entry by British colonial authority which was concerned about communist influence in Singapore and Malaya. He then moved permanently to China and served in numerous positions within the CCP. He died in
1961 in
Beijing and was given a state funeral by the
People's Republic of China. In Singapore, the Tan Kah Kee Scholarship Fund, which later became the Tan Kah Kee Foundation, was established in memory of this philanthropy.
In 1943, while taking refuge in
Java from the Japanese, Tan began writing his memoirs,
The Memoirs of an Overseas Chinese of the Southern Ocean . This work became a valuable resource of the history of overseas Chinese.
References
- The Memoirs of Tan Kah Kee. Ed. & Tr. AHC Ward et al. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1994.
- Yong Chin Fatt. Tan Kah Kee: The Making of an Overseas Chinese Legend. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989.
- Tan Kah Kee, The Memoirs of an Overseas Chinese of the South Seas (in Chinese). Taiyuan: Shanxi Guji chuban she,1996.
Further Information
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