Tan Kah Kee

Did You Know?

• One of his relief funds raised ten million Straits dollars in 1937 alone.
• He escaped the Japanese invasion of Singapore in 1942 and hid in Malang, East Java, Indonesia.
• Tan founded the Chiyu Banking Corporation in Hong Kong in 1947, with profits intended for education in Fujian.

Life

Tan Kah Kee entered the world in 1874 in Jimei, Fujian Province, under the Qing dynasty. At sixteen, he left for Singapore in the Straits Settlements to lend a hand in his father’s rice trading business. When that venture failed in 1903, Tan launched his own company and grew a sprawling business empire spanning rubber plantations, manufacturing, sawmills, canneries, real estate, import-export brokerage, ocean transport, and rice trading. His fluency in Hokkien, the dominant tongue among overseas Chinese in Singapore during the 19th and 20th centuries, gave him a strong edge. His business hit its stride between 1912 and 1914, earning him the nickname “Henry Ford of the Malayan community.” Tan was one of 110 people who founded Tao Nan School in Singapore. In 1919, he started The Chinese High School, now Hwa Chong Institution. A year earlier, he had established the Jimei Schools, today Jimei University, in Xiamen. He sat on the Anglo-Chinese College Council and in 1919 pledged S$100,000 to a proposed Anglo Chinese School College. When the government rejected the plan, he redirected S$30,000 of that pledge to physics and chemistry funds, which helped finish the Secondary School at Cairnhill in 1928. In 1921, Tan founded Xiamen University and bankrolled it until the Nationalist government took over in 1937. In 1920, he orchestrated the marriage of his daughter Tan Ai Leh to his protégé and fellow businessman Lee Kong Chian.

Personal life

Tan Kah Kee had nine sons: Tan Chay Bing, Tan Khuat Siong, Tan Pok Ai, Tan Pok Chay, Tan Kok Kheng, Tan Guan Khai, Tan Guan Chay, Tan Kok Whye, and Tan Guan Aik. He had eight daughters: Tan Ai Leh, Tan Lay Ho, Tan Ah Hui, Tan Siew Mui, Tan Mary, Tan Lay Choo, Tan Poh Tee, and Tan Ai Eng. Several of his children married prominent Chinese figures in Singapore; for instance, Tan Ai Leh married Lee Kong Chian, and Tan Lay Ho married Lim Chong Kuo, eldest son of merchant Lim Nee Soon.

Legacy

Places and establishments named after Tan Kah Kee include the Tan Kah Kee Memorial Museum in Jimei, the Tan Kah Kee Foundation offering postgraduate scholarships, and Tan Kah Kee MRT station in Singapore. Schools in the Anglo-Chinese School family have houses named after him, and Chongfu School's Main Hall bears his name. Tan Kah Kee Hall at the University of California, Berkeley, and the asteroid 2963 Chen Jiageng are also named after him.