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Tan Kah Kee

From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.

Tan Kah Kee

Tan Kah Kee (陈嘉庚, pinyin: Chén Jiāgēng, Hokkien: Tân Kah-kiⁿ) (October 21, 1874 - August 12, 1961) was a prominent businessman, community leader, and philanthropist in colonial Singapore.

Tan was born near Xiamen, Fujian Province, China, and went to Singapore in 1890, when he was 16 years old, to work for his father's rice store. But after his father's business collapsed in 1903, Tan built a business 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".

Statue of Mr.Tan Kah Kee in front of his memorial hall in Xiamen University.

With the profit that he made from his business empire, Tan contributed greatly to the community, both in British Malaya and his native Fujian Province. 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 over in 1937.

Tan was one of the prominent ethnic Chinese Malayans to financially support Chiang Kai-shek's effort the Anti-Japanese War of Resistance in China and organized many relief funds under his name. After the Japaneses invaded and occupied Malaya and Singapore (see battle of Singapore), these contributors were defined as "undesirables" and were subjected to systematic extermination in the Sook Ching Massacre.

Tan was the de facto leader of the Singapore Chinese community, serving as chairman of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and helped organize 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 Nationalist Party sympathizers. Tan supported the CCP because he saw the corruption within the Nationalists. He returned to China in 1950 and served in numerous positions within the CCP. He passed away 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 (later became the Tan Kah Kee Foundation) was established in memory of this philanthropist.

In 1943, while taking refuge in Java from the Japanese, Tan began writing his memoirs, 南侨回忆录 (pinyin: Nánqíao Húiyìlù, The memoirs of an overseas Chinese of the South Seas). This work became a valuable resource of the history of overseas Chinese.

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