Southeast Asian personalities of Chinese descent : a biographical dictionary, volume II: glossary and index 9789814345224, 9814345229, 9789814414135, 9814414131, 9789814414142, 981441414X

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent A Biographical Dictionary Volume I

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The Chinese Heritage Centre was established in May 1995 to promote knowledge and understanding of people of Chinese descent outside China and their heritage through research, publications, conferences and exhibitions. It also houses the Wang Gungwu Library which has a specialized focus on the Chinese overseas and their heritage. As the first organization to specialize in the study of Chinese communities outside China, it is most appropriate that the Centre be housed in the former Nanyang University’s historic Administration Block, which itself is a relic of the landmark establishment of the first and only Chinese-medium university outside China founded by the ethnic Chinese.

The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) was established as an autonomous organization in 1968. It is a regional centre dedicated to the study of socio-political, security and economic trends and developments in Southeast Asia and its wider geostrategic and economic environment. The Institute’s research programmes are the Regional Economic Studies (RES, including ASEAN and APEC), Regional Strategic and Political Studies (RSPS), and Regional Social and Cultural Studies (RSCS). ISEAS Publishing, an established academic press, has issued more than 2,000 books and journals. It is the largest scholarly publisher of research about Southeast Asia from within the region. ISEAS Publishing works with many other academic and trade publishers and distributors to disseminate important research and analyses from and about Southeast Asia to the rest of the world.

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent A Biographical Dictionary Volume I

Edited by

Leo Suryadinata Foreword by

Wang Gungwu

INSTITUTE OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES SINGAPORE

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First published in Singapore in 2012 by ISEAS Publishing Institute of Southeast Asian Studies 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Pasir Panjang Singapore 119614 E-mail: [email protected] Website: All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. © 2012 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies The responsibility for facts and opinions in this publication rests exclusively with the authors and their interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views or the policy of the publishers or their supporters.

ISEAS Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Southeast Asian personalities of Chinese descent : a biographical dictionary / edited by Leo Suryadinata. 1. Chinese—Southeast Asia—Biography—Dictionaries. 2. Chinese—Southeast Asia—Biography. I. Suryadinata, Leo, 1941– DS523.4 C5S721 2012 ISBN 978-981-4345-21-7 (hard cover : v. 1) ISBN 978-981-4345-22-4 (ebook, PDF : v. 1) Typeset by Superskill Graphics Pte Ltd Printed in Singapore by Mainland Press Pte Ltd

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Contents List of Advisers vii Editorial Board ix List of Contributors xiii Foreword by Wang Gungwu xxi Acknowledgements xxv Introduction by Leo Suryadinata xxvii Dictionary User’s Guide xli List of Entries xliii Biographical Dictionary (A–Z) 1

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List of Advisers Chairman WANG GUNGWU Professor and Chairman East Asian Institute National University of Singapore

Members PHILIP KUHN Professor Harvard University, USA JAMIE MACKIE† Professor Emeritus Australian National University, Australia CLAUDINE SALMON Director of Research French National Centre for Scientific Research, France TAN CHEE-BENG Professor Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR ZHOU NANJING Professor Peking University, People’s Republic of China

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Editorial Board Editorial Advisers LEE KAM HING Professor University of Malaya, Malaysia KEVIN Y.L. TAN Adjunct Professor Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore; S Rajaratnam School of International Studies Nanyang Technological University SARASIN VIRAPHOL Formerly Governor of Chinese Heritage Centre Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

General Editor LEO SURYADINATA Professor and Director Chinese Heritage Centre Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Country Editors Brunei NIEW SHONG TONG Formerly Brunei Darussalam University

Cambodia LIM BOON HOCK Chinese Heritage Centre Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

Indonesia LEO SURYADINATA Professor and Director Chinese Heritage Centre Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Laos LIM BOON HOCK Chinese Heritage Centre Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Malaysia HO KHAI LEONG Professor and Dean Institute of Chinese Studies Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia Myanmar DAW WIN Chinese Heritage Centre Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Philippines TERESITA ANG-SEE Kaisa Heritage Center, Philippines Singapore HO KHAI LEONG Professor and Dean Institute of Chinese Studies Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia Thailand MICHAEL J. MONTESANO Visiting Research Fellow Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore Vietnam DAVID W.H. KOH Senior Fellow Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore GRACE CHEW CHYE LAY Research Associate Chinese Heritage Centre Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

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Editorial Board

Chinese Heritage Centre Editorial Team KWAN SIU HING Managing Editor Chinese Heritage Centre Nanyang Technological University, Singapore HO YI KAI Research Associate Chinese Heritage Centre Nanyang Technological University, Singapore GOH YU MEI Research Associate Chinese Heritage Centre Nanyang Technological University, Singapore CHEONG WAI YIN Research Assistant Chinese Heritage Centre Nanyang Technological University, Singapore ANG CHER KIAT Research Assistant Chinese Heritage Centre Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

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List of Contributors 1.

Abidin Kusno

2.

Aris Ananta

3. 4.

Angelo B. Ancheta Ang Chak Chi

5.

Ang Lay Hoon

6.

Carmelea Ang See

7.

Teresita Ang-See

8. 9.

Dewi Anggraeni Nick Aplin

10. 11.

Grace Pe Bacani Bernadette A. Bangayan

12.

Beh Loo See

13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

Richard Borsuk Jan Philippe V. Carpio Faye Yik-Wei Chan Sherwin Chan Cheah Boon Kheng

18.

Cheah Kooi Guan

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Associate Professor, Institute of Asian Research and Faculty Associate, Department of Art History,Visual Art and Theory, University of British Columbia, Canada Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore Freelance writer and poet (Philippines) Managing Editor, Tulay (Chinese-Filipino Digest), Philippines Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication, Universiti Putra Malaysia Director, Bahay Tsinoy, Museum of Chinese in Philippine Life Founding President, Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran, Philippines Writer (Australia) Associate Professor, National Institute of Education, Singapore Freelance writer/editor/researcher (Philippines) Freelance writer; Coordinator (Small Discipleship), Union Church of Manila, Philippines Senior Lecturer, Department of Administrative Studies and Politics, Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya, Malaysia Former reporter, Wall Street Journal Freelance writer (Philippines) Independent researcher (Australia) Freelance writer (Philippines) Retired Professor, Department of History, Universiti Sains Malaysia Dean, Graduate School, Universiti Tun Abdul Razak (Kuala Lumpur), Malaysia

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

19. 20.

David Chew H. H. Grace Chew Chye Lay

21.

Chia Oai Peng

22.

Chia Wei Khuan

23.

Chiah Seng

24.

Chiew Chee Phoong

25.

Chin Yee Whah

26.

Lily V. Chiu

27. 28.

Nancy Chng Ch’ng Kim See

29.

Chong Fah Hing

30.

Chong Siou Wei

31.

Terence Chong

32. 33.

Aekapol Chongvilaivan Choo Jun Lee

34.

Chua Chong Jin

35.

Davin Chua Chin Pei

36. 37. 38.

Linette Chua Vincent Chua Stephanie Chung Po-yin

39. 40.

Siu Su Co Charles A. Coppel

41.

A. Dahana

42.

Daw Win

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Ph.D. candidate, Murdoch University, Western Australia Research Associate, Chinese Heritage Centre, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Formerly Associate Professor cum Head of Centre for China Studies, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia Head,Visual and Performing Arts Academic Group, National Institute of Education, Singapore Senior Lecturer, Department of Malaysian Languages and Applied Linguistics, Universiti Malaya, Malaysia Journalist, special assistant to Group Editor-in-Chief, The Brunei Times Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia Assessment Director, Educational Testing Services, United States of America Independent researcher (Singapore) Former Head, Library, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore Lecturer, Department of Foreign Languages, Universiti Putra Malaysia Assistant Professor, Chinese Studies Department, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia Senior Fellow, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore Fellow, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore Writer; Personal Manager, Hua Ho Department Store, Brunei Instructor, Department of Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore Postgraduate in Southeast Asian Studies, National University of Singapore Freelance writer (Philippines) Freelance writer (Philippines) Professor, Department of History, Hong Kong Baptist University Freelance writer (Philippines) Principal Fellow, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne, Australia Professor of Chinese Studies, Faculty of Humanities, University of Indonesia Research Associate, Chinese Heritage Centre, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

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List of Contributors

43.

Aimee Dawis

44.

G. Uma Devi

45.

Marleen Dieleman

46. 47.

Ma. Ceres P. Doyo Aristotle Dy, S. J.

48.

Excel V. Dyquianco

49.

Arvin Tiong Ello

50. 51.

Ginnie Faustino-Galgana Deanie Lyn Ocampo Go

52.

Goh Yu Mei

53.

Mary Somers Heidhues

54.

Heng Pek Koon

55.

Russell Heng Hiang Khng

56. 57.

Hiew Swee Kwang Ho Khai Leong

58. 59. 60.

Ho Tak Ming Ho Wah Kam Ho Weng Hin

61. 62.

Ho Yi Kai Hoon Chang Yau

63.

Huang Jianli

64.

Hui Yew-Foong

65.

Jammes, Jérémy

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Assistant Professor, Department of Mass Communication, University of Indonesia Managing Director, Red Arrow Consulting Pte. Ltd., Singapore Associate Professor, School of Business, National University of Singapore Staff writer and columnist, Philippine Daily Inquirer Director, Ricardo Leong Center for Chinese Studies, School of Social Sciences, Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines Staff writer and researcher, Security Matters Magazine, Philippines Marketing Coordinator, De La Salle University; Member, Freelance Writer of the Philippines/Wikimedia Philippines/Art Association of the Philippines; Blogger Freelance writer (Philippines) Educator, Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran Incorporated, Philippines Research Associate, Chinese Heritage Centre, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Formerly Professor of Southeast Asian Studies, the University of Passau, Germany Assistant Professor, School of International Services, American University, Washington D.C. Formerly Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore Freelance interpreter, Architectural Consultant (Brunei) Professor and Dean, Institute of Chinese Studies, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia Practising physician, Malaysia Academic Consultant, Educare Co-operative Ltd, Singapore Architectural Restoration Specialist Consultant, Studio Lapis, Singapore; Adjunct Lecturer, Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore Research Associate, Chinese Heritage Centre, Singapore Assistant Professor, School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University Associate Professor, History Department, National University of Singapore Senior Fellow, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore Deputy Director, Research Institute on Contemporary Southeast Asia, Bangkok

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

66. 67.

Nida An Khafiyya Kho Tong Guan

68.

Khor Yoke Lim

69.

Neil Khor Jin Keong

70.

Koh Tai Ann

71.

Sining Marcos Kotah

72. 73. 74.

Kudo Yuko Didi Kwartanada U Kyaw Naing

75. 76.

U Kyi Shwin Rosa Concepcion Ladrido

77.

Law Fah Ngin

78. 79.

Lê Haûi Ðaêng Lee Chee Hiang

80.

Lee Guan Kin

81.

Lee Hock Guan

82.

Lee Kam Hing

83.

Lee Yok Fee

84.

Lee Yow Ching

85. 86. 87.

Leong Weng Kam Lew Bon Hoi Francis Lim Khek Gee

88.

Hank Lim

89.

Ivy Maria Lim

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Research Analyst, McKinsey & Company, Singapore Head, Mahua Literature Collection Centre, Southern College, Malaysia Associate Professor, School of Communication, Universiti Sains Malaysia Assistant Professor, Department of English Literature, University of Malaya, Malaysia Senior Associate, Centre for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Vice President for Secondary, Elementary and Kinder Departments, Philippine Cultural College Ph.D. student, University of Tokyo, Japan Researcher,Yayasan Nabil, Jakarta, Indonesia President, Chinese Language School, Lim Clan Association,Yangon, Myanmar Independent scholar (Myanmar) Lecturer, Chinese Studies Program, Ateneo de Manila University, the Philippines Barrister-at-law, Lincoln’s Inn, London, United Kingdom; Writer, Legal and Business Consultant (Brunei) Artist (Vietnam) Associate Professor, Department of Chinese Studies, National University of Singapore Director, Centre of Chinese Language and Culture, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Senior Fellow, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore Professor, Institute of China Studies, University of Malaya, Malaysia Senior Lecturer, Department of Government and Civilization Studies, Faculty of Human Ecology, Universiti Putra Malaysia Engineering Consultant; Former Director, Water Supply, Penang, Malaysia Senior Writer, The Straits Times, Singapore Lecturer, New Era College, Malaysia Assistant Professor, Division of Sociology, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Director for Research, Singapore Institute of International Affairs Assistant Professor, Humanities and Social Studies Education, National Institute of Education, Singapore

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List of Contributors

90. Jason Lim 91. Lim Boon Hock 92. Lim Chooi Kwa 93. Lim Lee Ching

94. Lim Mooi Lang 95. Lim Tai Wei 96. Liu Hong

97. Lo Yuet Keung 98. Loh Wei Leng 99. Sharon Loo 100. Jade Lim Lopez 101. Jamie Mackie (†) 102. Mak Lau Fong 103. Agni Malagina 104. Ruth Manimtim-Floresca 105. Duncan McCargo 106. Michael J. Montesano 107. Sutrisno Murtiyoso 108. U Mya Han 109. Dinesh Naidu 110. Neo Peng Fu 111. Ng Beoy Kui 112. Ng Yean Leng

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Lecturer in Asian History, School of History and Politics, University of Wollongong, Australia Manager, Chinese Heritage Centre, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Professor, Department of Chinese Studies, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia Assistant Head of Programme, General Studies and University Core Curriculum, Singapore Institute of Management Senior Manager, Finance Division, The Lion Group, Malaysia Professor, Japanese Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong Professor and Dean, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Associate Professor, Department of Chinese Studies, National University of Singapore Formerly Professor in History Department, University of Malaya, Malaysia Freelance writer (Singapore) Freelance broadcast and print journalist, documentary and investigative writer and producer (Philippines) Professor Emeritus, Australian National University Senior Research Fellow, Chinese Heritage Centre, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Teaching Assistant, Chinese Studies, University of Indonesia Contributing writer, Manila Bulletin Professor of Southeast Asian Politics, University of Leeds, United Kingdom Visiting Research Fellow, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore Architect and Independent Researcher, Indonesia Retired Senior Research Officer, Universities’ Historical Research Centre, Myanmar Member, Singapore Heritage Society Lecturer, Asian Languages and Cultures, National Institute of Education, Singapore Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Head, Department of Chinese Language and Literature, New Era College, Malaysia

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113. Ngeow Yeok Meng

114. Nguyeãn Thò Thanh Xuân

115. Niew Shong Tong

116. Nishizaki Yoshinori 117. Nyan Kyaw 118. Ana Esperanza Ong 119. Susy Ong 120. Ooi Kee Beng 121. Yu Un Oppusunggu 122. Maan D’Asis Pamaran 123. Rajes Paula 124. Phaïm Hoàng Quân 125. Phan Thò Yeán Tuyeát

126. Pongphisoot Busbarat

127. Angelia Poon Mui Cheng

128. Quah Sy Ren

129. David Reeve 130. Anna Katarina Rodriguez 131. Liway Czarina Ruizo 132. Claudine Salmon

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Senior Lecturer, Section for Co-Curricular Courses, External Faculty Electives and TITAS (SKET), University of Malaya, Malaysia Associate Professor of Literature, Faculty of Literature and Linguistics, University of Social Sciences and Humanities,Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City,Vietnam Population Geographer; Formerly Senior Lecturer, Department of Public Policy and Administration, Universiti Brunei Darussalam Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, National University of Singapore Writer (Myanmar) Freelance writer (Philippines) Independent scholar; formerly working with Metro TV, Jakarta, Indonesia Deputy Director, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore Lecturer, International Law Division, Faculty of Law, University of Indonesia Contributing writer, Manila Bulletin, Philippines Journalist with The Star Freelance researcher on Sino-Vietnamese history (Vietnam) Professor, Vietnamese-Southeast Asian Culture and History Cluster Leader, Faculty of Vietnamese Studies, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University Research Associate, Department of Political and Social Change, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University Assistant Professor, English Language and Literature Academic Group, National Institute of Education, Singapore Associate Professor, Division of Chinese, School of Humanities and Social Science, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Conjoint Associate Professor, University of New South Wales, Australia Freelance writer (Philippines) Faculty member, Department of English and Comparative Literature, University of the Philippines Professor, National Scientific Research Centre, France

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List of Contributors

133. Mari Santiago 134. Seng Yu Jin 135. Serizawa, Satohiro 136. Myra Sidharta 137. Ayke Soraya 138. Stephen Suleeman 139. Leo Suryadinata 140. Andrea Tan 141. Eugene K. B. Tan 142. Kevin Y. L. Tan

143. Marlinda Angbetic Tan 144. Maybelle Tan 145. Mely G. Tan 146. Tan Ai Boay 147. Tan Ai Mei 148. Tan Chong Tin 149. Tan Kar Lin 150. Yvette Natalie U. Tan 151. Teo Han Wue 152. Tey Tai Sin 153. Thung Ju Lan 154. Traàn Sôœ Leä 155. Daniel C. Tsang

156. Tuaán Hoàng

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Freelance writer (Philippines) Curator, Cheong Soo Pieng Exhibition, Singapore Art Museum 2010 (National Heritage Board) Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Nara University, Japan Senior Researcher (Indonesia) Senior researcher, Demographic Institute, Faculty of Economics, University of Indonesia Independent researcher (Indonesia) Director, Chinese Heritage Centre, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Contributing writer, Tulay (Chinese-Filipino Digest), the Philippines Assistant Professor, School of Law, Singapore Management University Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore; Adjunct Professor, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University Lifestyle Executive Editor, The Freeman (Cebu Daily Newspaper), the Philippines Freelance writer (Philippines) Formerly Senior Researcher, University of Atma Jaya, Jakarta, Indonesia Ph.D. candidate, Department of History, University of Malaya, Malaysia Independent researcher (Malaysia) Professor, Division of Neurology, Department of Medicine, University of Malaya, Malaysia Architectural Heritage Research Consultant, Studio Lapis, Singapore Managing Editor, TravelBook.ph, Philippines Director, Art Retreat Museum, Singapore Membership Manager, The Institute of Internal Auditors Malaysia Senior Researcher, Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia Ph.D. candidate, University of Washington, USA Asian American Studies, Economics and Politics Bibliographer, Social Sciences Data Librarian, University of California, Irvine, USA Worked at California State University, San Bernardino Palm Desert Campus (Adjunct Faculty); Studied at University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA

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157. Kornphanat Tungkeunkunt 158. Voon Phin Keong 159. Wan Lei 160. Wang Zineng 161. C .J. W.-L. Wee

162. Johannes Widodo

163. Wong Chin Huat 164. Wong Seet Leng 165. Wong Sin Kiong

166. Wong Wun Bin 167. Wong Yee Tuan 168. Wasana Wongsurawat 169. Peachy Yamsuan 170. Yasushi Sadayoshi 171. Agnes S. K.Yeow 172. 173. 174. 175.

Ching Fatt Yong Yong Pow Ang Yong Sun Yong Yow Cheun Hoe

176. Yu Chin Chai 177. Zhou Zhao Cheng

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Ph.D. candidate, Department of History, National University of Singapore Director, Institute of Malaysian and Regional Studies, New Era College, Malaysia Associate Professor, Fatih University, Istanbul, Turkey Specialist, Southeast Asian Region, Asian 20th Century and Contemporary Art, Christie’s Singapore Associate Professor, Division of English, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Director, Centre for Advanced Studies in Architecture, Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore Lecturer, Monash University, Sunway Campus, Malaysia Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Education, University of Malaya, Malaysia Associate Professor, Department of Chinese Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Singapore Associate Professor, Department of Chinese Studies, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia Head of the Penang Studies Programme, Penang Institute, Malaysia Assistant Professor, Department of History, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand Director, Office of Communications, Archdiocese of Manila, the Philippines Associate Professor, Graduate School for Intercultural Studies, Kobe University, Japan Associate Professor, English Department, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Malaya, Malaysia Reader, History, Flinders University, South Australia China News Editor, Lianhe Zaobao, Singapore Journalist (Malaysia) Assistant Professor, Division of Chinese, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Barrister-at-law, Gray’s Inn, London, United Kingdom; Calligrapher and Lawyer (Brunei) Deputy Chief Editor, Lianhe Zaobao, Singapore

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Foreword

This is a bold project recording the lives of a particular group of Southeast Asians in a distinctive framework. For more than a hundred years, various writers ranging from trade and government officials to journalists and scholars have studied the traders and workers from South China now spread around the world. Most of those adventurous people left China and headed towards neighbouring ports, kingdoms and colonies that are now recognized as a single geographical entity, hence the grouping in this volume of the lives that have contributed in their various ways to the new Nanyang, the strategic region of Southeast Asia. If the authors of the biographies had to trace their respective subjects back to an earlier past, they would have been confronted by many different names for these merchants and adventurers overseas. For example, Europeans like the Portuguese, Dutch and English followed those in the Malay Archipelago by calling them China or Chinese, while they would normally refer . In China, they would be described as to themselves as Tongyan, Denglang or Tangren , people from Fujian and Guangdong and, for a while under the Mongol MinYueren ; later, they were likely to have Yuan dynasty, they were known as Nanren or southerners of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Locally, in been referred to as the subjects or chenmin Southeast Asia, there were also a variety of names, like the Baba or peranakan for Chinese whose first language was Malay; and there were others like the Lukchin, the Sangley and the Hoa among those who lived alongside the Thais, the Filipinos and the Vietnamese. Chinese records rarely recorded the achievements of individuals and were not always polite when referring to those outside China, often purposely emphasizing the illegal status of those who had left their homes in China without official permission. Most of the people whose biographies are included here have settled down in the ten countries that constitute the region. Each of them has either self-identified as Chinese or is comfortable to be known as someone of Chinese ancestry. There are also those who were born in China or elsewhere who came here to work and do business, including seeking help from others who have ethnic Chinese connections. With the political and economic conditions of the region in a great state of flux for the past two centuries, it is impossible to find consistency in the naming process.

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

Confucius had stressed that correct names make for the best relationships. In this case, Professor Leo Suryadinata has been pursuing for decades the elusive goal of finding the right name to give to the large numbers of people who have, in one way or another, made their homes in, or made some difference to, Southeast Asia. I believe that, when he and his colleagues selected the biographies to be included here, they have taken a big step towards the rectification of identities for many leading personalities. In so doing, he has done us all a great service. I notice that he has modestly not included a biography of himself in this volume. Allow me therefore to say a few words about how he meets the criteria for entry into the volume splendidly, and also why I am proud to be associated with his lifework. I had the fortune to meet Professor Surydinata when he first embarked on his lifelong study of the Chinese in the Malay Archipelago. He has always been in a good position to capture in his writings the ambiguities that surround his subject of research. Born in Indonesia of Chinese parents, speaking and writing Bahasa Indonesia fluently, and fully immersed in the lives of those who have long settled in the country, he was formally educated in a Chinese school.The school was one that originally set out to redefine an identity that would fit in with the strong modern state that the new generation of Chinese leaders was building in China. After World War II, however, the school went through a time of radical transitions. Hard choices, therefore, had to be made. His arrival in Singapore to study at the newly established Nanyang University brought him deep into the heart of one of those transitions. This was a time when Chinese who faced the rise of new nations were asked to differentiate themselves from a revolutionary China that was beginning to sow alarm among its smaller neighbours. That was more than 40 years ago. From the start, he faced a world of social discontinuity, political uncertainty and cultural transformations. It is no wonder that he was drawn to the study of nation building in Indonesia, to the political awakening of two generations of leaders both civil and military, to a sensitive understanding of the media and the country’s opinion-makers, and to the thinkers and the creative writers and artists who were all struggling to ensure that a great nation would emerge out of the multiple challenges of decolonization, nationalism and Cold War ideological confrontations. At the same time, he could not but be troubled and fascinated by the special position of those of Chinese descent, the millions who were torn three ways by conflicting loyalties: the pull of their ancestral home, the temptation of their Dutch mentors’ refuge, or the nascent patriotism inspired by the new Indonesian nation. Professor Suryadinata was always interested in the study of literature and history and this interest took him to the subject of prominent people who had made their mark in the transition years from the Dutch East Indies to the Republic of Indonesia. It was therefore not surprising that one of his first published writings was on prominent Indonesian Chinese in the twentieth century (1972). A few years later, he completed his first collection of biographical sketches, a work that has received much deserved attention and one that he has updated and reprinted several times. In short, he has had the subject of personalities on his mind for a long while. For this volume, he has persuaded many others to join him, not only in telling fuller stories about so many lively personalities all over the region, but also to determine more precisely what is remarkable about the variety of Southeast Asians who can be identified by their Chinese descent. When he retired from the National University of Singapore and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies and was appointed Director of the Chinese Heritage Centre in 2005, Professor

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Foreword

xxiii

Suryadinata saw his chance to achieve the goal he set for himself. By careful selection of the personalities here, he provides a larger picture of men and women whose distinctive lives gave them a place in the history of modern Southeast Asia. That makes his a landmark study. I know no one better positioned than he is to produce this collective volume. And while it gives me great pleasure to commend this pioneering work to the reader, I know that he would see it but as a beginning. He would be the first to say that there are many other personalities who could have been included if only we knew more about their lives. Let me join him in hoping that future volumes will follow when more data and documents become available and more scholars are ready to tell the stories that are not in this dictionary. Professor Wang Gungwu National University of Singapore 22 May 2012

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Acknowledgements This book is a collective effort rather than an individual venture. It would not have been written and published without the cooperation of many scholars, writers and friends. First of all, I would like to express my deep appreciation to the 176 writers of this book for their valuable contributions. I would also like to thank the country editors for their efforts and the panel of international advisers for their comments and advice. I am particularly grateful to Professor Wang Gungwu, chairman of the panel of advisers, who has been very generous in giving me his valuable advice, encouragement, support and writing a Foreword for this book. I would also like to express my gratitude to Professor Tommy Koh, former chairman of the Chinese Heritage Centre (CHC), for inviting me to be the director of the CHC which gave me the opportunity to further develop my interest and research, and Professor Su Guaning, successor of Professor Koh, for his continuing support.Without the resources of the CHC, this project could have not been undertaken. My sincere thanks also go to the former and current staff members of the CHC — Lim Boon Hock, Kwan Siu Hing, Ang Cher Kiat, Ho Yi Kai, Goh Yu Mei, Cheong Wai Yin, and Chew Kiat Yin — who helped me in this project. Special thanks also go to Dr Kevin Y.L.Tan and Dr Michael Montesano, who gave me special assistance when it was badly needed. I want to record my deep appreciation to Mrs Triena Ong, Managing Editor of ISEAS Publishing, for her expert advice and kind assistance in editorial and publication matters. I would also like to thank the Lee Foundation and the Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan for their generous grants for the project. Lastly, while thanking all the authors for their valuable contributions again, I would like to state that they are responsible for the facts and the interpretations in the entries that they have written. Leo Suryadinata August 2012

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Introduction to Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary Leo Suryadinata

It is estimated that about 75 per cent of the ethnic Chinese outside China live in Southeast Asia. The Chinese Heritage Centre, established in 1995, is located in Singapore, one of the Southeast Asian states. It is thus understandable that the ethnic Chinese biographical project of the Chinese Heritage Centre started with this region. The biographical dictionary was conceptualized when I was invited to head the Chinese Heritage Centre in 2006. Most of the available publications (see references) at the time were mainly ethnic Chinese biographical dictionaries on a few individual countries, ethnic Chinese historical figures of individual countries, or biographies in a special field. Only three titles — all in the Chinese language — attempted to cover Chinese overseas all over the world (including Southeast Asia). ，English title: Dictionary The first one, Shijie Huaqiao Huaren Cidian ( of Overseas Chinese), was edited by Professor Zhou Nanjing and published in 1993 by Peking University. The 1025-page book includes entries of overseas Chinese organizations, names and contents of publications related to Chinese overseas and biographies of leading Chinese overseas. Strictly speaking, it is not a biographical dictionary. The entries of the figures were very brief. Prof Zhou in 2001 edited and published another book, Huaqiao Huaren Baike Quanshu Renwu ： ，Encyclopedia of overseas Chinese: biographical volume), juan ( focusing on biographies of prominent “overseas Chinese” from all over the world. It was an ambitious and a pioneering publication. The publication is a major improvement of the previous one, but due to difficulty in gathering relevant information in China, the entries were mainly based on secondary sources and the write-ups were still very brief, they are mainly biographical sketches. Some sections on Southeast Asian countries were poorly researched and the information was also dated. An overseas Chinese organization in Taiwan in 2000 published Huaqiao Da Cidian ( ，A Large Dictionary of Overseas Chinese) which also attempted to present biographical sketches on the overseas Chinese in the world, but it is a much smaller number of entries than that of Beijing’s publication, and more limited in the countries covered. Worse still, the emphasis tends to be on those who are affiliated with Taiwan. There is hence a need for a more detailed,

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informative and up-to-date publication in English on Southeast Asian Chinese personalities such as a biographical dictionary on twentieth-century ethnic Chinese personalities and beyond. Unlike some dictionaries which include only dead figures and the volumes of Who’s Who listing only living individuals, this CHC biographical dictionary includes both the dead and the living. The purpose is obvious: to help the readers understand modern and contemporary Southeast Asia in which personalities of Chinese descent have played significant roles. Hopefully, readers and researchers will be able to get a clearer picture of modern/contemporary Southeast Asia and their personalities of Chinese descent from this biographical dictionary. To start the project, I began to identify scholars and writers in the relevant fields. Some Southeast Asian countries have more experts than other Southeast Asian countries. Nevertheless, we were able to have a good team to begin with. Many of these experts were invited to come to the CHC for a brain storming sessions for a day to construct a basic framework. We also started to appoint country editors but the process was not very smooth as a few invitees were busy and declined to accept. After several attempts, the country editors were appointed. Country editors of Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, and Indonesia were the first to organize their respective committees followed by other country editors. Each country editor and his/her editorial committee came up with a list of contributors to be invited. As the project started moving forward slowly, a panel of international advisors led by Professor Wang Gungwu was also established. In the brain-storming sessions, we discussed some of the basic concepts and frameworks of the biographical dictionary. However, as these are complex issues we were unable to resolve all. The following are based on my discussions with other scholars beyond the one-day brainstorming sessions. When there were disagreements I made my own decisions. The first major problem we faced was to come to grips with the definition of “ethnic Chinese” or “person of Chinese descent”. How does one define an ethnic Chinese, or a person of Chinese descent? There are no easy answers. One way is to find out whether a person has/had a Chinese name. Those who have/had Chinese names are very likely to be ethnic Chinese. Leaders or members of Chinese organizations/associations are likely to be Chinese. But what about the descendants of those who intermarried with non-Chinese? If the father is Chinese and the mother is nonChinese, the Chinese identity is usually preserved by their offspring (e.g. among the peranakan Chinese, especially those in Malaysia and Singapore), but if it is the other way around, the descendants are likely to be absorbed into the non-Chinese community. In the case of those who no longer keep their Chinese names, it is more difficult to tell whether they are ethnic Chinese/persons of Chinese descent. The Chinese have lived in Southeast Asia for centuries and many have been assimilated and absorbed into the so-called “indigenous” communities. However, there are many who are only partially acculturated and still identify themselves as Chinese. Some have assumed a different nationality or nationalities but continue to regard themselves as being of Chinese descent. Therefore, while Southeast Asian Chinese share a common ancestry, they may not share the same culture. To determine whether a person is an ethnic Chinese/of Chinese descent, one often has to rely on self-identity, especially in the case of those who are still alive. If a Southeast Asian person of Chinese descent refuses to identify with the Chinese community, the person is not included in our selection. This is out of respect for the individual who identifies himself/herself completely with the “indigenous” community and no longer wishes to be regarded as ethnic Chinese or of Chinese descent.

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It is also important to note here that many Southeast Asians of Chinese origin have been localized and even indigenized, and are reluctant to be called “ethnic Chinese”, let alone “Chinese overseas” or “overseas Chinese”. They claim to be Thai, Filipino/Filipina, Indonesian, Vietnamese, or Burmese/Myanmar, etc. Nevertheless, with the end of the Cold War and the rise of China, many of these Southeast Asians have openly admitted that they are of Chinese descent, e.g. Thai of Chinese descent, Filipino of Chinese descent, Indonesian of Chinese descent etc. In order to include this group of personalities, we use the term “Southeast Asian personalities of Chinese descent” rather than “Ethnic Chinese of Southeast Asia”. In this usage, the former term includes both ethnic Chinese and persons of Chinese descent. , As a matter of fact, in China today, there are three Chinese terms, viz. Huaqiao and Huayi , which may be used to refer to different kinds of “Chinese”. Huaren “Huaqiao” refers to Chinese citizens who are sojourning overseas. “Huaren” refers to ethnic Chinese who are foreign citizens outside China, while “Huayi” refers to non-Chinese citizens who are of Chinese descent but have lost their Chinese culture. Such usage often does not coincide with the Southeast Asian Chinese usage, however. The Southeast Asian Chinese use “Huaren” to refer to those Chinese who were local born or even foreign-born but have lived and identified themselves with the local Chinese. Southeast Asian Chinese also use Huayi to refer to Chinese who have foreign (read: non-Chinese) citizenships regardless of their cultures. Many do not speak, read and write Chinese and are highly “indigenized”. Owing to the above reasons, in order to include a wide range of Chinese in Southeast Asia, we have called this biographical dictionary Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent, not “A Biographical Dictionary of Ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia”. The term “Southeast Asian Personalities” rather than “Southeast Asians” is used for the following reasons: The leading figures included in this dictionary are not all Southeast Asians in terms of citizenship/nationality. As the nationality law of China was only introduced in 1909 and many Chinese in Southeast Asia before the second half of the twentieth century were of dual nationality as the law in China claimed all Chinese overseas as nationals of China while the colonial powers claimed local-born Chinese as their subjects. However, after World War II, many ethnic Chinese, especially the local-born, have adopted Southeast Asian citizenship/ nationality; others have remained Chinese citizens or held non-Southeast Asian citizenship. Only after 1980, with the promulgation of the 1980 nationality law of the PRC which recognizes only single nationality, that the citizenship issue for the ethnic Chinese was resolved. Therefore “Southeast Asian personalities” here refers to ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia, or Southeast Asians of Chinese descent regardless of their citizenships. The personalities that are included in the dictionary have lived in Southeast Asia and made a major impact, including contributions, to Southeast Asian societies or local Chinese communities or both. Foreign nationals of Chinese descent who do not hold Southeast Asian citizenships are also included if they fit into our categories as listed below. Who then are the personalities included in this dictionary?

Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent Definition of “ethnic Chinese” and “of Chinese descent”: The Southeast Asian personalities included in this dictionary are either “ethnic Chinese” or people who are of Chinese descent.

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The term ethnic Chinese here refers to the Chinese who live or have lived in Southeast Asia and consider the region as their permanent or semi-permanent home. Many of them, especially the second generation, were born and brought up in Southeast Asia and hold the citizenship of one Southeast Asian country. Nevertheless, not only are they descendants of the Chinese, more often than not, culturally they still retain some degree of Chinese culture. However, “Southeast Asian personalities of Chinese descent” refer to Chinese people in Southeast Asia or their descendants regardless of their cultural backgrounds. Therefore, the term “Southeast Asian personalities” here is used to include both ethnic Chinese and those of Chinese descent in this region. These persons of Chinese descent were mainly born, raised, and resided or have been residing in Southeast Asia, and whose achievements in certain arena(s) have made a significant impact in the region from the twentieth century to the present. In other words, a person who was born in, but grew up outside the region, made a name outside Southeast Asia, holds non-Southeast Asian citizenship, and never identifies himself or herself with Southeast Asia will not be included in this dictionary (e.g. Hou Jiachang, a PRC badminton champion who was born in Java and “returned” to the People’s Republic of China when he was 16 years of age and emerged as the top player in China and the world. He represented China and contributed to the development of badminton in China throughout the 1960s and the first half of 1970s. He eventually retired in the United States, not in Indonesia). Citizenship: The current nationality of a selected personality may not necessarily be that of a country in Southeast Asia. For example, the personality may have been born and raised in Southeast Asia, but holds the citizenship of another country outside the region. (For instance: Professor Wang Gungwu, an Australian citizen, was born in Indonesia, grew up in West Malaysia and returned to Singapore and Malaysia to work and have made major contributions in those two countries.) It is particularly difficult in the case of personalities before World War II when the issue of citizenship was unclear and ambiguous. (For instance: Tan Kah Kee was born in China, was both a Chinese citizen and a British subject, and eventually returned and died in the People’s Republic of China.) These two examples show that they have/had non-Southeast Asian citizenship but they made major contributions to and significant impact on this region and are hence included in this dictionary. A Southeast Asian citizen who has made a name and significant impact outside Southeast Asia and continues to identify with a particular Southeast Asian country will be included in the dictionary. (For instance: Michelle Yeoh, a Malaysian who became well known making movies in Hong Kong and Hollywood.) Self-identification: As noted earlier, this is the primary criterion for inclusion in the Dictionary. The personality has made known the fact that he/she was/is a Chinese or ethnic Chinese, or that he/she is of Chinese descent. (For instance: Thaksin Shinawatra, former Thai Prime Minister who went to Guangdong to trace his Chinese ancestry and openly admits that he is a Thai of Chinese descent: he has a Chinese surname Qiu or Khoo with a given name Daxin.) Those who are alive and refuse to acknowledge their Chinese ancestry are not included in this dictionary:

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(1) A few Chinese Indonesians and Sino-Vietnamese who belong to this category as most do not want to be identified as “Indonesian or Vietnamese of Chinese descent”. (2) Those who are ambiguous in their descendant background such as award-winning Thai movie director Apichatpong Weerasethakul who is a third-generation Sino-Thai but does not know the surname of his Chinese ancestor and identifies himself as Thai; Rany Bun, the First Lady of Cambodia who was noted by some Chinese publications as a woman of Hainanese descent but this was never confirmed by herself. (3) Those who are known as of Chinese descent but there is a lack of detailed information, e.g. Deputy Premier of Laos, Somsavat Lengsavad, who was identified in Hong Kong’s Yazhou Zoukan as Ling Xuguang.

Assessment of Influence/Impact and Recognition The Southeast Asian personalities of Chinese descent who have been included in this biographical dictionary are selected because they are significant, prominent and have made a major impact, either positive or negative, in Southeast Asia. Because of the Dictionary’s emphasis on personal impact/influence in Southeast Asia, they are not likely to be very young when they made their impact. Evaluation Criteria: Some arenas have their own systems of meritocracy; others do not. The arts and sports arenas, for example, recognize talents by conferring awards, but in the political arena, dissidents or opposition leaders may not be ceremoniously honoured. Furthermore, the yardsticks for assessing excellence or measuring influence/impact, both positive and negative, vary across countries, or may be variably applied even within the same country, or may not be used at all. Each country editor was asked to draw up the general criteria for selection in accordance with his/her country’s standards, use his/her power of discernment, and present a convincing case for his/her selection. Most importantly, the inclusion of these prominent individuals is subject to the quota of each category. The person may be quite prominent but he/she will not be included as the quota for that category is already full.

Various Categories and Selection Criteria of the Personalities The personalities are evaluated and organized into categories in accordance with the areas of their expertise/occupation that are listed in an index volume. 1. Community Leaders: Every community has its leaders. For the ethnic Chinese, the community leaders come from various ethnic organizations/associations. The most common is Chinese clan associations (including federations of clan associations and dialect group associations). As there are many types of dialect groups, the selection of leaders from this category will be based on the eminent positions they held such as founding members, long-serving presidents or leaders that made major impacts on the community. Nevertheless, since the pool of such personalities is large, only 25 are selected for this category. It is well-known that many community leaders

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are also successful businessmen; therefore more often than not we are selecting the leading businessmen as well. Nevertheless, they were not necessarily the wealthiest. The personalities in this category are therefore not selected based on wealth and status, but merits and influence/ power in the Chinese community within the country and beyond. 2. Businessmen/Businesswomen: The ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia are often referred to as a “trading community” or “business community”. They are the entrepreneurs, merchants, bankers, industrialists, real estate leaders, business consultants, etc. Those selected are top leaders in their respective sectors or those who won national or international recognition. Again, the number of entries in this category is limited to 30, and whenever possible, the number is evenly divided among various subgroups. As mentioned in category 1, some of these business leaders are also active in community organizations. But those who are included in the category of business leaders are specially successful and influential in their businesses, not in their community leadership and services. It should also be noted that business leaders who failed or got involved in illegal activities and were in consequence sentenced by the courts are also included. 3. Politicians: The ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia are often thought to be apolitical. In fact this notion is incorrect; the reality has a lot to do with the environments in which they live. In some countries where political activities were/are restricted, no Chinese political leaders, or few of them have emerged. But in many Southeast Asian countries there has been a significant number of ethnic Chinese or Southeast Asians of Chinese descent who were/are leading politicians. A total of 25 of them have been selected in this category for each country. They include holders of important positions in major political parties of the countries, e.g. chairmen and secretaries-general in Chinese or Chinese-dominated parties, outstanding cabinet ministers, members of parliament and bureaucrats, revolutionaries and opposition leaders with strong influence, etc. 4. Professionals: Many ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia are leading professionals such as lawyers, architects, engineers, physicians, natural scientists (such as physicists, life-scientists, etc.), and social scientists (economists, political scientists, historians, etc.). The selection is from among the holders of important positions in professional organizations especially those with achievements and influence, and also authors of works of influence as well as leaders in professions. In this category, a maximum of 15 personalities are selected. The number is, as far as possible, evenly distributed among the professions/fields. 5. Artists: There is also a large number of Southeast Asian artists of Chinese descent. They include painters, playwrights, movie directors, actors and actresses, dancers, choreographers and musicians (conductors, pianists, composers etc.). In this category, artists are selected based on their achievements such as the recipients of awards (international, regional and national); international award winners are given priority over regional and national award winners. If a country has not produced personalities of international recognition, the selection criteria are based on their achievements at the regional or national levels. The maximum number of entries in this category is 12 and when possible, it is distributed evenly among various sub-groups.

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6. Mass Media Leaders: The achievements of Southeast Asians of Chinese descent are likewise well recognized in the field of mass media/mass communication. This category includes press editors, photographers and journalists, and film producers. The selection is based on the criteria listed for artists. The maximum number of entries in this category is 12. 7. Writers: Chinese in Southeast Asia are also well known for their contributions in the literary field. There are many writers who wrote/write in various languages including Chinese, English and some Southeast Asian national languages. The criteria used for this category are similar to those for the Artists. Nevertheless, the impacts of these writers may be confined to the local, rather than the national, community. For example, the impacts of some ethnic Chinese writers (writing in Chinese) are often confined to the local Chinese community, but are included for being equally significant. The maximum number of entries in this category is 15. 8. Sportsmen/Sportswomen: Southeast Asians of Chinese descent have been active in sports since the second half of the twentieth century and have made remarkable achievements in the world arena. These sportsmen and sportswomen include badminton players, swimmers, footballers, athletes, martial art experts, bowlers, table tennis players, weight lifters, etc. Again, the selection criteria are similar to those for the 5th category for the Artists. The maximum number of entries in this category is also 15. 9. Educators/Promoters of Education: One of the major characteristics of Southeast Asian Chinese is the great attention they place on education. The Chinese are known to value education highly and put a lot of effort into building Chinese schools for their children after migrating to new places. Initially they built Chinese-language schools but as time passed, they also built schools in local languages. In this category, we include personalities such as school principals and influential contributors to education who may not have been educators (e.g. Tan Kah Kee). The selection criteria are based on the national and international recognition of the individuals, the highest positions held/have held in the educational institutions and the extent to which they made/have made a difference. The maximum number of entries in this category is 12. 10. Religious Leaders/Promoters of Religion: After migrating to a new land, the Chinese also built temples, as religion became an important part of their daily life. However, they were not confined to worshipping traditional Chinese religions; some of them also took up nonChinese religions. This category includes the founders of religious groups or religious leaders who made/have made significant contributions to the host country. The maximum number of entries in this category is 12. 11. Others: There are many other personalities who may not fall into the above categories. However, they have been included in this dictionary as they played important roles and made an impact on Southeast Asian Chinese communities and national societies. These personalities include philanthropists, social-political activists, public intellectuals, national heroes, military leaders, etc. The criteria for selection of these people include the extent of their recognition by the communities within the country and beyond. Many of them may also be included in other

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categories such as businessmen, professionals and education promoters. The maximum number of entries in this category is 15.

Number of Entries The number of entries in each category (between 12 and 25) is arbitrary. The rationale is that Southeast Asian personalities of Chinese descent who are involved in the first three categories are large and hence have to be given a larger proportion (80 out of 188 entries). Nevertheless, the role of these personalities in eight other fields is equally significant and hence should be recognized (108 out of 188). If a country fulfils the quota mentioned above, it will consist of 188 entries. Initially we had hoped to gather around 800 personalities for the project, but we realized in the process of research and writing that it was impossible to get that number of “top leaders” in many countries, especially in the Indochinese states and Myanmar, where there are insufficient materials and where many personalities have complex identities which preclude them from being classified as personalities of Chinese descent (e.g. the deputy Prime Minister of Laos and the wife of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who have been mentioned earlier). Besides, due to the different levels of development in Southeast Asian states, in countries such as Indochinese states and Myanmar, certain types of Chinese leaders are either very small in number or cannot be found. Even Bruneians fill only a few categories. Besides this, we also have problems in getting enough entries on Thailand as fewer Thai scholars/writers can write in English. We therefore set a more realistic target of around 600 personalities, the majority of whom are from the original members of the ASEAN states where there is a larger pool of personalities of Chinese descent and the materials relating to them are easier to obtain. On account of these limitations, this is not a comprehensive dictionary. Nevertheless, the editors are satisfied that it includes the major figures on whom rather detailed information is available. In other words, the Chinese figures included in this dictionary are fairly representative. To a large extent, it reflects the situation of their influence and impact in modern/contemporary Southeast Asia. As stated, we have more than 11 categories and not every category has been able to reach the maximum number of entries. This is due to the fact that Southeast Asian countries are at different stages of development. The more developed the country, the more categories can be found in the country. It is not surprising that some countries have more entries in certain categories and fewer or even none in other categories. As such, the representation of the personalities across the countries is bound to be uneven. Nevertheless, we believe that this work is a fairly accurate reflection of the Chinese community in the respective countries. It is hoped that in providing some detailed information on Southeast Asian personalities of Chinese descent, this work will also be a useful reference for future research.

Country Editors and Actual Number of Entries The following table shows the names of country editors and total number of entries of personalities in each country/region. The original members of ASEAN tend to have more “Chinese personalities” for obvious reasons: they have relatively larger Chinese populations and they have undergone longer stages of economic development which has brought about

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more notable personalities especially in the economic, professional, sports, arts and other arenas. Nevertheless, we have encountered various difficulties as there are not many specialists who studied Southeast Asian personalities of Chinese descent; it is especially difficult to find scholars/ writers on Indochinese states and Burma/Myanmar. In the existing biographical publications on the Chinese in the above countries, entries on Laos and Cambodia are especially difficult to come by. Some dictionaries have only one on Laos and a few on Cambodia. We had foreseen some of the problems but had not been fully aware of the amount of work demanded for the completion of the project. We are fortunate that at various stages, we were able to bring in scholars in residence to write some of the entries. Lim Boon Hock, Grace Chew, Daw Win, and Goh Yu Mei deserve to be mentioned as they contributed tremendously towards the completion of this dictionary. Countries/Region (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)

Number of Entries

Country Editor(s)

Singapore Indonesia Malaysia Philippines Vietnam Thailand Brunei Myanmar Cambodia Laos

§ 161 § 107 § 105 § 92 § 40 § 33 § 31 § 20 § 10 §6

Ho Khai Leong Leo Suryadinata Ho Khai Leong Teresita Ang-See David Koh & Grace Chew Chye Lay Michael Montesano Niew Shong Tong Daw Win Lim Boon Hock Lim Boon Hock

Total

§ 605

—

Contents of the Entries Each entry is between 1,000 and 1,500 words in length. The country editor assesses the suitability of the length in relation to the impact/achievements/importance of the personality, but a maximum of 2,000 words is adhered to. A few entries from the Indochinese countries and Myanmar barely make up 1,000 words as the writers had difficulties in obtaining more information. It is hoped that readers and researchers will build on the information provided in this dictionary in their ongoing research on those personalities. Each entry includes the following: • Formal names (local names, Chinese names and Chinese characters, if available) • Year of birth and death • Importance/Significance of the personality • Country (of residence, not necessarily citizenship)where the impact/contribution was made • Profile • References (in general, maximum of six items)

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The Structure of this Biographical Dictionary The entries in this dictionary are arranged in alphabetical order of names of personalities, not countries. The names are often local names (official names), others are Chinese names rendered in local spellings. A personality is entered by his/her local name, not Chinese name, except for a few who have been well known by their Chinese names before they changed their names (e.g. All England champion Tan Joe Hok, not Hendra Kartanegara.) Readers who only know the persons’ Chinese names (in local spelling or Hanyu Pinyin) should use the volume on Glossary and Index, which are listed in Volume II. The Glossary and Indexes are useful: not only do they give the definitions of some common terms used in the dictionary but they also provide lists of indexes, for instance, of names in Chinese and non-Chinese, of countries, and of occupations. Without these indexes, readers may find it difficult to use the dictionary effectively.

Concluding Remarks This is a big project and is the first book of its kind. There are bound to be inadequacies. Despite obvious limitations as mentioned in the earlier sections of this introduction, I would argue that this dictionary which consists of 605 entries with more than 620 personalities has presented a generally correct picture of Southeast Asian personalities of Chinese descent. It has shown that the Southeast Asian Chinese are not a homogeneous, but a heterogeneous group. The Southeast Asian Chinese do not fit into the old perception that all Chinese are traders who are only concerned with their own community and never change but remain “Chinese” forever. In fact they are not confined to one or two fields but many. They are not a group which resists change but many groups which have changed and are changing. They are not isolated but part and parcel of Southeast Asian history and society. They are Southeast Asian personalities of Chinese descent. Readers and researchers who would like to use this dictionary and analyse the issues and problems relating to Southeast Asian personalities of Chinese descent will find Volume II Glossary and Indexes useful. References English: Aplin, N.G., D.J. Waters, & M.L. Leong. Singapore Olympians: The Complete Who’s Who 1936–2004. Singapore: Singapore National Olympic Council, 2005. Chew, Melanie. Leaders of Singapore. Singapore: Resource Press, 1996. Chia, W. Singapore Artists. Singapore: Singapore Cultural Foundation and Federal Publication, 1982. Entrepreneur Philippines. Success Secrets of the Country’s Top 50 Entrepreneurs (collector’s edition). Quezon City: Summit Books, 2006. Hiscock, Geoff. Asia’s Wealth Club. Who’s Really Who in Business — The Top 100 billionaires in Asia. Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2000. Khin Thet Htar and Mya Tu. Who’s Who in Health and Medicine in Myanmar. Myanmar: Ministry of Health, 2003. Lam, Peng Er & Y. L. K. Tan (eds.). Lee’s Lieutenants: Singapore’s Old Guard. Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1999.

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Lee Kam Hing and Chow Mun Seong. Biographical Dictionary of the Chinese in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: Pelanduk Publications, 1997. Leo Suryadinata. Eminent Indonesian Chinese. Singapore: Gunung Agung, 1981. Leo Suryadinata. Peranakan’s Search for National Identity: Biographical Studies of Seven Indonesian Chinese. Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1993. Leo Suryadinata. Prominent Chinese Indonesia: Biographical Sketches. Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 1995. Li, M. The Interviews of Singapore Musicians. Singapore: SNP Publishing, 1998. Low, K. C. & P. K. G. Dunlop (eds.). Who’s Who in Singapore. Singapore: Who’s Who Publishing, 2000. Low, K.T. (ed.). Who’s who in Singapore 2006. Singapore: Who’s Who Pub, 2006. Malaysia’s Who’s Who 2007. Vol. I & II. Kuala Lumpur: Kasuya Management Sdn. Bhd., 2007. Ministry of Culture. Biographical Notes of the President, Prime Minister and Ministers. Singapore: Publicity Division, Ministry of Culture, 1977. Morais, Victor (ed.). Who’s Who in Malaysia 1965. Kuala Lumpur: Solai Press, 1965. Narong S. Men. Whos’ Who the Most Influential People in Cambodia, 1st ed. MBN International Co., Ltd., 2007–2008. New Malaysian Who’s Who. 2nd ed. Kuala Lumpur: Kasuya, 1995. Ng Jit Thye (ed.). The Historical Personalities of Penang. George Town: Penang State Museum, 1986. Roeder, O. G. Who’s Who in Indonesia. Jakarta: Gunung Agung, 1971. Sim, Victor. Biographies of Prominent Chinese in Singapore. Singapore: Nan Kok Publishing, 1950. Singapore Art Society. Contemporary Singapore Artists. Singapore, 1989. Singapore Artist Directory. Singapore: Empress Place Museum, 1993. Song Zhuo Ying. The Successful Men in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Modern Southeast Asia Publications, 1970. Sung Chek-mei (ed.). Who’s Who in Singapore and Malaysia Series 2, vol. 1. Singapore: SEA Research Institute, 1972. Who’s Who in Malaya, 1925: A Biographical Record of Prominent Members of Malaya’s Community. Singapore: Fishers Ltd., 1925. Who’s Who in Malaysia & Singapore 1983–1984. Petaling Jaya: Who’s Who Publications, 1983. Yap Koon See (ed.). Who’s Who in Malaysia Chinese Community: 1984–1985. Kuala Lumpur: Star Agency, 1984. Chinese: Forbes

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，

、

》。 ： ，1984。 ，1825–1990》。 ： ，1991。 》。 ，2009。 》。 ： ，1990。 》。 ： ，1969–。 》。 ： ，1981。 《 》。 ： ，1967。 》 、 、 。 ： ，1964。 《 》。 ： ，1998。 》。 ： ，1965。 《 》。 ： ，2004。 》。 ： ，1985。 》。 ： ，1984。 》 。 ： ，2007。 ： （ ） 》。 ： ，2007。 · 》。 ： ，2001。 》。 ： ，1993。 · 》。 ： ，1997。 · 》。 ： ，1994。 · 》。 ： ，1994。 》。 ： ，1971。

Bahasa Indonesia and Melayu: Apa dan Siapa: Sejumlah Orang Indonesia 1985–1986. Jakarta: Grafitipers, 1984. Arifin Suryo Nugroho dkk. 10 Tokoh Tionghoa Paling Populer di Indonesia. Yogyakarta: Bio Pustaka, 2009. Junus Jahja. Peranakan Idealis (Idealist Peranakans). Jakarta: Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia, 2002. Mas Osman. Biografi Penulis Brunei. Brunei: DBP, 1987. Nio Joe Lan. Riwajat 40 Taon dari Tiong Hoa Hwe Koan - Batavia (1900–1939). Jakarta: THHK, 1940. Profil Tokoh-Tokoh Gemilang. Malaysia: University Malaya, 1999. Sabapathy, T.K. and Piyadasa, Redza, ed., Pameran Retrospektif Pelukis-Pelukis Nanyang. Kuala Lumpur: Muzium Seni Negara, 1979. Sabaruddin Sa. Apa & Siapa: Sejumlah Orang Indonesia 1985–86. Jakarta: Staline Books, 1994.

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Introduction to Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

xxxix

. Jakarta: Kepustakaan Populer Sam Setyautama. Tokoh-tokoh Etnis Tionghoa di Indonesia Gramedia, 2008 Sinematek Indonesia. Apa Siapa Orang Film Indonesia 1926–1978. Jakarta: Yayasan Artis Film & Sinematek Indonesia, 1979. Tan Hong Boen. Orang-orang Tionghoa jang terkemoeka di Jawa (Who’s Who). Solo: The Biographical Publishing Centre, 1935. Thai: Prathip Mueannin. 100 Thai Writers (Roi nakpraphan thai). Bangkok: Suwiriyasarn, 1999. Viet: HoaΩi Thanh-HoaΩi Chaân. Thi nhaân Vieät Nam. Saigon: Thieàu Quang Publisher, 1967. Thöôïng Hoàng, Giai Thoaïi veà Caùc Tæ Phuù Saøi Goøn Xöa. Treû Publisher, 1998.

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00 SEA_Ch V1_Prelims.indd 40

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Dictionary User’s Guide 1. The dictionary is arranged in alphabetical order. 2. The entry usually starts with the surname of the individual. For a Chinese name, it is easy as the first word is the surname (e.g. Goh Keng Swee; Lie Kim Hok), but for a non-Chinese name it follows the customary usage. 3. For Vietnamese-Chinese names/Vietnamese names, the first name is the surname and the entry is listed in accordance with the first name: Ðaëng Vaên Thaønh; Ngoâ Dö Hieäp. 4. For Chinese Indonesian names, usually the Indonesian “surname” is often used in the entry, for instance, Salim, Soedono rather than Soedono Salim; Wanandi, Jusuf rather than Jusuf Wanandi. 5. The Indonesian Chinese name used in the entry is the original old spelling, unless the person himself changed it to a new spelling; For examples, Liem Koen Hian, not Liem Kun Hian; but Ciputra, not Tjiputra. 6. For Chinese Thai names, usually the first word of the Thai name is used, not the surname. For instance, Bunchu Rotchanasathian, not Rotchanasathian, Bunchu; Chuan Likphai, not Likphai Chuan. 7. Transliteration of Thai names and terms in this volume follows a modified version of the Thai Royal Institute/United States Library of Congress guidelines. 8. For Chinese Filipino names, usually the surname is used. For instance, Go-Belmonte, Betty; Ty, George S. K.; SyCip, Washington. 9. For Chinese-Burmese names, usually there is no surname; therefore the entry uses the first word as the entry name: Hoke Sein; Kyee Paw. 10. In general, the name used in the dictionary is the original name in the local spelling (e.g. Lee Dai Soh), the name can be Chinese (e.g. Kwik Kian Gie) or non-Chinese name (Silalahi, Harry Tjan), if it is not a Chinese name, it is followed by Chinese full name (if available) and followed by characters (if available), name in hanyu pinyin,year or birth and death, and category, and country where the contribution/impact was made. For instance:

00 SEA_Ch V1_Prelims.indd 41

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

Lee Dai Soh , Li Dasha, 1913–89) ( Cantonese story-teller, broadcaster, Singapore Another example: Bunchu Rotchanasathian , Huang Wenbo, 1922–2007) (Ui Bun Bo, Leading businessman, politician, Thailand 11. If the personality is well-known by his/her other name rather than original name, especially for writer or artist, the other name (or pseudonym) is adopted as the entry name. For instance, Marga T. rather than Tjoa Liang Tjoe, Botan rather than Supha Sirisingha, Wu An rather than Qiu Liji, Tan Joe Hok rather than Hendra Kartanegara. 12. As noted, some individuals are known to have a few names, for instance, Rudy Hartono Kurniawan, a badminton champion from Indonesia, is listed under Kurniawan, Rudy Hartono. But many may only know his name as Rudy Hartono or Rudy Nio or Nio Hap Liang or Liang Hailiang, these names are listed in the accompanying Volume II: Glossary and Index. 13. It is therefore important for the reader to also refer to the accompanying Volume II which consists of glossary, indexes of list of various names, indexes by gender, by author, by country and by category. 14. Each entry contains basic information about the person. The length of each entry is between 1,000–1,500 words, except a few major leaders such as prime minister or president or a towering figures or two figures combined. 15. At the end of each entry, references are included. With the exception of a few entries, almost all have listed only six items due to space limitation. 16. Chinese or local languages in the text of the entry are translated into English; in the references section, Chinese and foreign languages are not translated as they are meant for researchers.

00 SEA_Ch V1_Prelims.indd 42

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List of Entries 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

Aik Htun 3 5 Aing Khun 7 Alim, Markus 9 Amphon Bulaphakdi 11 Ang Kiukok 14 Ang Peng Siong 16 Ang, Samuel Dee 18 Ang-See, Teresita Aquino, Corazon Cojuangco 21 24 Aung Twin 26 Aw Boon Haw 28 Bai Yao 30 Bangayan, Teofilo Tan 33 Banharn Silpa-archa 35 Benedicto, Francisco Botan 38 Budianta, Melani 40 43 Budiman, Arief 45 Bunchu Rotchanasathian Cabangon Chua, Antonio 49 51 Cao Hoàng Laõnh 54 Cao Trieàu Phát 57 Cham Tao Soon 59 Chamlong Srimuang 62 Chan Ah Kow 64 Chan, Carlos 67 Chan Choy Siong 69 Chan Heng Chee 71 Chan, Jose Mari 74 Chan Li-Yin, Patricia 76 Chan Sarun 78 Chan Sui Kiat 80 Chan Sze Jin

00 SEA_Ch V1_Prelims.indd 43

82 34. Chan Wai Chang, Rose 83 35. Chao Tzee Cheng 36. Charoen Siriwatthanaphakdi 85 87 37. Châu Traàn Taïo 90 38. Châu Vaên Xöông 92 39. Cheah Fook Ling, Jeffrey 95 40. Chee Soon Juan 97 41. Chee Swee Lee 99 42. Chen Chong Swee 101 43. Chen, David 103 44. Chen, Georgette 105 45. Chen Huiming 107 46. Chen Lieh Fu 109 47. Chen Su Lan 111 48. Chen Wen Hsi 49. Cheng Ching Chuan, Johnny 113 116 50. Cheng Heng Jem, William 119 51. Cheong Soo Pieng 121 52. Chia Boon Leong 123 53. Chiam See Tong 126 54. Chiang See Ngoh, Claire 128 55. Chien Ho 130 56. Chiew Chee Phoong 132 57. Chin Fung Kee 135 58. Chin Peng 138 59. Chin Poy Wu, Henry 140 60. Chin Sophonpanich 142 61. Ching Banlee 144 62. Ching, Jeffrey 63. Chiongbian, William Lee 147 149 64. Chiu Kim She, Santos

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xliv

65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105.

Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

Chock, Angela 151 154 Chong Ah Fok 156 Chong Kah Kiat 159 Chong King Liong 161 Chong, Rosemary 163 Chong Wan Oon, Steven 165 Choo Hoey 168 Choo Seng Quee 170 Choo Yeang Keat, Jimmy 172 Choong Ewe Beng, Eddy Choy Su-Mei, Elizabeth 175 176 Chua, Antonio Roxas 179 Chua Ek Kay 181 Chua, Gerry 184 Chua Kaw Bing 186 Chua Mia Tee 189 Chua Soo Bin 191 Chua, William T. 194 Chuan Likphai 196 Chuan Tanthana 198 Chuang Chu Lin 201 Chuk Mor 204 Chung Duï Quang 206 Chung Tiong Tay 208 Ciputra 210 Co, Charlie Coseteng, Anna Dominique M.L. 213 215 Cu Unjieng, Guillermo A. 218 Dai Xiao Hua 220 Dakay, Benson 222 Dananjaya, James 224 Ðaëng Vaên Thành Darmaputera, Eka 227 229 Dee Ching Chuan 232 Dhanin Chiarawanon 233 Dieäp Bá Hành 236 Dieäp Truyeàn Anh 238 Dieäp Truyeàn Hoa 241 Ðôùi Ngoan Quân 243 Dö Thò Hoàn 245 Dy, James

00 SEA_Ch V1_Prelims.indd 44

106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147.

Dy, Manuel B., Jr. 248 250 Ear Cheam Heng 252 Ee Peng Liang 254 Ee Tiang Hong 256 Eu Tong Sen 259 Fang Beifang 261 Fang Xiu 263 Fann Wong 265 Fong Chong Pik 267 Fong Swee Suan 270 Gaisano, Henry 272 Gan Say Hong 273 Gautama, Sudargo 276 Go Ching Hai Go, Josiah Lim 279 281 Go Kim Pah 284 Go-Belmonte, Betty 287 Goh Chok Tong 289 Goh Choo San 292 Goh Keng Swee 294 Goh King Chin 296 Goh Poh Seng 299 Goh Then Chye 300 Gokongwei, John Jr. 303 Gotianun, Andrew L. Sr. 305 Gozali, Hendrick 307 Gunarsa, Singgih D. 310 Hà Laõn Hùng 312 Han, Awal 314 Han Min Yuan 317 Hàng Vay Chi 319 Hann Khieng 322 Hardjonagoro 324 Harsono, FX 326 Hasan, Mohammad Bob and Sy Chiu Hua Hau Chiok 329 332 Hiaguang-iam Iamsuri 334 Ho Ching 336 Ho Kwon Ping 338 Ho Kwong Yew 340 Ho Minfong 342 Ho Peng Yoke

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List of Entries

148. 149. 150. 151. 152. 153. 154. 155. 156. 157. 158. 159. 160. 161. 162. 163. 164. 165. 166. 167. 168. 169. 170. 171. 172. 173. 174. 175. 176. 177. 178. 179. 180. 181. 182. 183. 184. 185. 186. 187. 188. 189.

Hoke Sein 345 347 Hon Sui Sen 349 Hong Kok Tin 352 Hong Taechawanit 354 Howe Yoon Chong 356 Hsu, Teresa 358 Hsu Yun-Tsiao 361 Hu Yi Huang, Daniel Patrick Lim, S.J. 363 365 Huang Yao 368 Huang Yun Yo 370 Huyønh Thuûy Lê 373 Inthilath, Xay 375 Iskandar, Nathanael 378 Jahja, H. Junus 380 Jao Trieäu Phát, Frank 383 Jinarakkhita, Bhikku Ashin 385 Jing Junhong 387 Jun Hong 389 Jusuf, Ester Indahyani 391 Jusuf, Tedy 393 Kan Hok Hoei 395 Kartajaya, Hermawan 397 Karya, Teguh 399 Khachon Tingthanathikun 401 Khaw Kai Boh 404 Khine Khine Maw 406 Kho Ping Hoo 408 Khong Kam Tak 410 Khoo Kay Kim 412 Khoo Kim Hai, Eric 415 Khoo Oon Teik 417 Khoo Seok Wan 419 Khoo Teck Puat 422 Khun Sa 423 Kim Beng 426 King, Angelo A. 428 Ko Kwat Tiong 431 Koa Chun Tee 433 Koa, Johnlu Go 435 Koh Thong Bee, Tommy 439 Koh Tsu Koon

00 SEA_Ch V1_Prelims.indd 45

190. 191. 192. 193. 194. 195. 196. 197. 198. 199. 200. 201. 202. 203. 204. 205. 206. 207. 208. 209. 210. 211. 212. 213. 214. 215. 216. 217. 218. 219. 220. 221. 222. 223. 224. 225. 226. 227. 228. 229. 230. 231. 232.

Kong Hee 441 443 Kong Hiap 445 Kuan Yin Choi 448 Kuek Ho Yao 450 Kuo Pao Kun 453 Kuok Hock Nien, Robert 455 Kurniawan, Rudy Hartono 457 Kwa Tjoan Sioe 459 Kwan Wai Meng, Robert 461 Kwee Hing Tjiat 464 Kwee Tek Hoay 467 Kwek Leng Beng 469 Kwik Djoen Eng 472 Kwik Kian Gie 474 Kyaw Khine 476 Kyee Paw 478 Kyin Bin 480 La Doaõn Chánh 482 Lai Kui Fang 485 Lao Lianben 487 Lau Ah Kok 489 Lau Hong Siong 491 Law Fah Ngin 494 Law Sit Han 496 Lee Chee Shan 498 Lee Chong Wei 501 Lee-Chua, Queena N. 503 Lee Dai Soh 505 Lee, Dick 508 Lee Hau Shik 511 Lee Hsien Loong 513 Lee Khoon Choy 515 Lee Kim Sai 517 Lee Kok Liang 519 Lee Kong Chian 521 Lee Kuan Yew 525 Lee Lam Thye 527 Lee Loy Seng 529 Lee Man Fong Lee, Ricardo Arriola 532 534 Lee San Choon 536 Lee Seng Gee 539 Lee Seng Peng

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xlvi

233. 234. 235. 236. 237. 238. 239. 240. 241. 242. 243. 244. 245. 246. 247. 248. 249. 250. 251. 252. 253. 254. 255. 256. 257. 258. 259. 260. 261. 262. 263. 264. 265. 266. 267. 268. 269. 270. 271. 272. 273. 274. 275.

Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

Lee Seng Wee 541 542 Lee Siew Choh 544 Lee Sin Cheng 546 Lee Tzu Pheng 549 Lee Wee Nam 551 Lee Yee 552 Lembong, Eddie 555 Leong Yew Koh 557 Li Boon Tin 558 Liang Wern Fook 560 Liao Kongpo 562 Liaw Yock Fang 565 Lie, Dharmawan 567 Lie Kim Hok 569 Lie Tek Tjeng Lie Tjeng Tjoan, John 571 Liem Bwan Tjie 573 576 Liem Koen Hian 579 Liem Swie King 580 Liem Thian Joe 583 Lien Ying Chow Lim, Alfredo Siojo 585 588 Lim Beng Thai 590 Lim Bo Seng 591 Lim Bon Liong, Henry 594 Lim Boon Keng 597 Lim Cheng Choo 599 Lim Chin Siong 601 Lim Chin Tsong 603 Lim Chong Eu 605 Lim Chong Keat 607 Lim Chong Yah 610 Lim Chooi Kwa 612 Lim, Elena Sen 615 Lim Fong Seng 617 Lim Geok Chan 619 Lim Geok Lin, Shirley 621 Lim Goh Tong 624 Lim Hak Tai 626 Lim Kean Siew 628 Lim Kek Tjiang 631 Lim Keng Lian 633 Lim Keng Yaik

00 SEA_Ch V1_Prelims.indd 46

276. 277. 278. 279. 280. 281. 282. 283. 284. 285. 286. 287. 288. 289. 290. 291. 292. 293. 294. 295. 296. 297. 298. 299. 300. 301. 302. 303. 304. 305. 306. 307. 308. 309. 310. 311. 312. 313. 314. 315. 316. 317.

Lim Kim San 635 638 Lim Kit Siang 639 Lim Kok Wing 642 Lim Lean Teng 645 Lim Lian Geok 647 Lim, Mary 649 Lim Nee Soon 651 Lim Phaik Gan 654 Lim Poh Imm, Catherine Lim, Roseller T. 656 658 Lim, Samson 660 Lim Seng Kok 663 Lim Siew Ming, Arthur 665 Lim Siew Wai, William 668 Lim Swee Tin 670 Lim Teck Hoo 671 Lim Tong Hai Lim,Vicente Podico 674 677 Lim Yew Hock and Teh Siu Yong Limpe, James 679 681 Lin Dieyi 683 Linsakoun, Tei 685 Liu Kang 687 Liu Thai Ker 690 Liu Yin Soon 692 Loh Boon Siew 694 Loke Wan Tho 697 Loke Yew 700 Looi Lai Meng 703 Loot Ting Yee 705 Lopue, Benjamin 708 Low Thia Khiang 710 Lu Do 712 Lu Lay Sreng 714 Lum, Olivia 717 Löông Chí CöôΩng 719 Löông Thieáu Hàng 722 Löu Quang Xe 724 Lyù Lan 726 Lyù Ngoïc Minh 728 Ly Sing Ko 731 Lyù Vaên Hùng

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xlvii

List of Entries

318. 319. 320. 321. 322. 323. 324. 325. 326. 327. 328. 329. 330. 331. 332. 333. 334. 335. 336. 337. 338. 339. 340. 341. 342. 343. 344. 345. 346. 347. 348. 349. 350. 351. 352. 353. 354. 355. 356. 357. 358. 359. 360.

Lyman, Susanta 733 736 Ma Mon Luk 738 Mallare, Florencio Tan 741 Mang Lee 743 Marga T. 745 Masagung 747 Maung Maung Than 749 Murdaya, Siti Hartati 751 Myint Shwe 754 Na Teng Choon, James 757 Neo Chee Keong, Jack 759 Neo Chwee Kok 762 Newn Ah Foott, George 764 Ng Eng Teng 766 Ng Keng Siang 768 Ng Teng Fong 770 Ngan Ching Wen 774 Ngeow Sze Chan 776 Ngiam Tong Dow 777 Ngô Duû Hieäp 780 Ngô Quoác Tuaán 782 Ngô Thanh Hoa 784 Ngor, Haing S. 786 Nianlamei 788 Nio Joe Lan 790 Nubla, Ralph 792 Nyau Tze Lim 794 Nyoo Cheong Seng 796 Oei Tiong Ham 798 Oei Tjoe Tat 800 Oey, Abdul Karim 803 Oey-Gardiner, Mayling 805 Oey Kim Tiang 807 Oey Tong Pin 810 Ojong, Petrus Kanisius 812 Ong Beng Seng 814 Ong Boon Pang Ong, Charlson Lim 816 819 Ong Chiow Huen 821 Ong Chuan Seng 823 Ong Hok Ham 826 Ong Ka Ting 828 Ong Keng Sen

00 SEA_Ch V1_Prelims.indd 47

361. 362. 363. 364. 365. 366. 367. 368. 369. 370. 371. 372. 373. 374. 375. 376. 377. 378. 379. 380. 381. 382. 383. 384. 385. 386. 387. 388. 389. 390. 391. 392. 393. 394. 395. 396. 397. 398. 399. 400. 401. 402. 403.

Ong Kim Kee 831 833 Ong, Lawrence Dy 835 Ong, Omar Yoke Lin 838 Ong Pang Boon 841 Ong Poh Lim 843 Ong Soon Hock 845 Ong Teck Mong, Timothy 847 Ong Teng Cheong 850 Ong Tjoe Kim 852 Ongpin, Roman 855 Onn Siew Siong 857 Ophat Hanvanich 859 Ouw Tjoei Lan 861 Paik Wan 864 Palanca, Ellen Huang 867 Pan Shou 869 Pangestu, Mari 871 Pangestu, Prajogo 874 Pao Shih Tien 876 Paua, Jose Ignacio 878 Pedro, Cecilio 880 Peng Eng Lee 883 Phaichit Uwatthanakun 885 Phan Thieåu Vân 887 Phan Xích Long 889 Phat, David 890 Pho Chaeng 892 Phoa Keng Hek 895 Phonlachet Kitaworanat 896 Phraya Ratsadanupradit 899 Pitt Chin Hui 902 Preecha Phisitkasem 903 Puey Ungphakon 905 Pung Kheav Se 907 Pusadi Kitaworanat 909 Quách Ðàm 911 Quách Taán 914 Quek Leng Chan 916 Quek Suan Hiang 919 Rahardja, Hendra 920 Rattanavan, Bou 923 Riady, James Tjahaja 926 Riady, Mochtar

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xlviii

404. 405. 406. 407. 408. 409. 410. 411. 412. 413. 414. 415. 416. 417. 418. 419. 420. 421. 422. 423. 424. 425. 426. 427. 428. 429. 430. 431. 432. 433. 434. 435. 436. 437. 438. 439. 440. 441. 442. 443. 444. 445.

Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

Robredo, Jesse Manalastas 928 931 Sahat Mahakhun 933 Salim, Anthony 935 Salim, Soedono 939 Sampoerna, Putera 941 Sarasin Viraphol 943 Savanvaly, Thao Leng 945 Seah Cheng Siang 947 Seck Hong Choon 949 See Chinben Seow Houtseng Sribunrueang 952 954 Setiono, Benny Gatot 956 Shaw, Runme 959 Shen Demin 961 Shen Ren Shi 963 Shen Ting 965 Shih Choon Fong 967 Sia, Isidro C. 970 Siauw Giok Tjhan 973 Sidharta, Myra 975 Sidharta, Priguna 977 Siem Piet Nio 979 Silalahi, Harry Tjan 981 Sim Kee Boon 983 Sim Mow Yu 985 Sim Wong Hoo 987 Sima Gong Sin, Jaime Lachica 989 991 Sindhunatha, Kristoforus 994 Siong Khye 996 Soe Hok Gie 999 Soeryadjaya, William Soesastro, Hadi Marwoto 1002 1005 Soeto Meisen 1007 Somsath, Boun Iene 1008 Song Ong Siang 1010 Soon Peng Yam 1012 Soon Seng Lee 1015 Su Bin 1017 Su Guaning 1019 Sun Yanzi, Stefanie 1021 Sung, T.S.

00 SEA_Ch V1_Prelims.indd 48

446. Suryono, Bambang 1023 447. Susanti, Susi Lucia Francisca 1025 1027 448. Sy, Henry 1030 449. Sy Kong Triv 1031 450. Sy Sieng Suy 1033 451. Sy Yinchow 1036 452. SyCip, Washington 1040 453. Taï Maõ Vieãn 454. Tam Assou, Franciscus Xaverius 1041 1044 455. Tan Ah Tah 1046 456. Tan Chay Yan 1048 457. Tan Chee Khoon, David 458. Tan Chee Yioun,Vincent 1050 1052 459. Tan Chee-Beng 1055 460. Tan Cheng Lock 461. Tan Chi’-Loong, Benedict 1058 1060 462. Tan Chin Tuan 1062 463. Tan Chong Tin 1065 464. Tan Chye Cheng 1067 465. Tan, George G. 1069 466. Tan Hong Boen 1071 467. Tan Howe Liang 1073 468. Tan Joe Hok 1075 469. Tan Kah Kee 1079 470. Tan Keng Yam, Tony 1081 471. Tan Koon Swan 1083 472. Tan Lark Sye 1086 473. Tan Lo Ping 1088 474. Tan Lok Han 1090 475. Tan, Lucio 476. Tan, Mary Christine RGS 1093 1095 477. Tan, Mely G. 1097 478. Tan, Michael L. 1100 479. Tan, Paulino Yu 1103 480. Tan, Samuel K. 1105 481. Tan Siew Sin 482. Tan, Sofyan 1108 1110 483. Tan Swie Hian 1113 484. Tan Tai Bin

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List of Entries

485. 486. 487. 488. 489. 490. 491. 492. 493. 494. 495. 496. 497. 498. 499. 500. 501. 502. 503. 504. 505. 506. 507. 508. 509. 510. 511. 512. 513. 514. 515. 516. 517. 518. 519. 520. 521. 522. 523. 524. 525. 526. 527.

Tan Thoon Lip, John 1116 1117 Tan Tian Zhen 1119 Tan Tjeng Bok Tan,Vidal Arceo 1121 1124 Tan Wee Hin, Leo 1125 Tan Yoke See, Henry 1127 Tancaktiong, Tony 1130 Tang Choon Keng 1133 T’ang Leang-Li 1135 Tang Pui Wah 1138 Taw Sein Ko 1140 Tay Chong Hai 1142 Tay Kheng Soon 1145 Tay Lian Soo 1147 Tee Han Kee 1149 Teehankee, Claudio M. 1152 Teh Hong Piow 1154 Teo Bak Kim 1155 Teo Eng Hock 1157 Teo Soo Cheng 1160 Thái Thaïch 1162 Thaksin Shinawatra Thaw Kaung 1166 1167 The Teng Chun 1169 Thee Kian Wie 1171 Thio Thiam Tjong / 1174 Thio Tiauw Siat 1176 Thung Sin Nio, Betsy 1178 Ting Pek Khiing 1180 Tio Ie Soei 1182 Tiong Hiew King 1184 Tjan Tjoe Siem 1186 Tjan Tjoe Som 1189 Tjiok San Fang, Elsie 1191 Tjoa Hin Hoeij, Mrs. 1194 Tjoe Bou San / 1196 Tjong A Fie 1199 Toh Chin Chye 1201 Tong Djoe 1204 Tong, Stephen 1206 Too Joon Hing 1209 Traàn Chí Kiên 1211 Traàn Ðông Sanh

00 SEA_Ch V1_Prelims.indd 49

528. 529. 530. 531. 532. 533. 534. 535. 536. 537. 538. 539. 540. 541. 542. 543. 544. 545. 546. 547. 548. 549. 550. 551. 552. 553. 554. 555. 556. 557. 558. 559. 560. 561. 562. 563. 564. 565. 566. 567.

Trieäu Quoác Höng 1213 1215 Trònh Thuœy Diêu 1217 Tröông Hán Minh 1219 Tsai Ming-liang 1222 Ty Eng Liong 1224 Ty, George S.K. 1227 UE 1229 Uray, Burhan 1231 Uthen Taechaphaibun 1233 Uy, Alfonso A. and Visonnavong,Vithoune 1236 Visonnavong,Vouavansy 1239 Vöông Bái Xuyên 1241 Vöông Hoàng Seån 1243 Vöu Khaûi Thành Wanandi, (Albertus) Sofjan 1246 1248 Wanandi, Jusuf 1250 Wang Gungwu 1253 Wee Boon Ping 1255 Wee Cho Yaw 1258 Wee Chong Jin 1260 Wee Kim Wee 1262 Wee Swee Teow 1264 Wen Zichuan 1266 Widjaja, Eka Tjipta Widjaja, Mira 1268 1271 Winarta, Frans Hendra 1273 Wong Hie King, Ruth 1276 Wong Hock Boon Wong Hong Kwok, Alfred 1278 1280 Wong I Ek 1282 Wong Kee Tat 1284 Wong Meng Voon 1286 Wong Peng Soon 1288 Wong Pow Nee 1291 Wong Yoon Wah 1292 Wu An 1295 Wu Jiyue 1296 Wu Lien-Teh 1299 Wu Teh Yao 1302 Xiao Yao Tian

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l

568. 569. 570. 571. 572. 573. 574. 575. 576. 577. 578. 579. 580. 581. 582. 583. 584. 585. 586. 587. 588. 589.

Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

Xing Ying 1304 1306 Yan Weizhen 1308 Yang Quee Yee 1310 Yao, Alfredo Macam 1312 Yao Tuo Yap Chioh Hiong, Arthur 1315 1317 Yap Chong Teck 1319 Yap, Daza Jullie 1321 Yap Thiam Hien 1324 Yap Tjwan Bing 1326 Yeap Chor Ee 1328 Yen Ching-hwang 1330 Yen,Y.C. James 1332 Yen Yuan Chang 1335 Yeng Pway Ngon 1336 Yeo Keng Lian 1339 Yeo Kuei Pin 1341 Yeo Liat Kok, Philip 1343 Yeo Weiling, Joscelin 1346 Yeo Yong-Boon, George Yeoh Chu-Kheng, Michelle 1347 1350 Yeoh Ghim Seng

00 SEA_Ch V1_Prelims.indd 50

590. 591. 592. 593. 594. 595. 596. 597. 598. 599. 600. 601. 602. 603. 604. 605.

Yeoh Sock Ping, Francis 1352 1355 Yip Cheong Fun 1357 Yong Chee Shan 1359 Yong Pung How 1362 Yong Shook Lin Yong Sooi Nghean, Gregory 1365 1367 Yong Yin Fatt, Roderick 1370 You Jin 1372 Young, Fifi 1374 Young, Grace 1376 Yu Chin Chai 1378 Yu Khe Thai 1380 Yu, Lily Monteverde 1383 Yuchengco, Alfonso T. and Yuyitung, Yuyitung, Quintin 1385 Rizal 1389 Zhang Jing Yun

Addenda: 1391 606. Chua Thian Poh 1393 607. Soeto Tjan 608. Tjahaja Purnama, Basuki

1395

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Biographical Dictionary (A – Z)

01 A-C entries.indd 1

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01 A-C entries.indd 2

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

3

A Aik Htun ( , Li Songzhi, 1948– ) Former banker, leading businessman, Myanmar

A

ik Htun is currently chairman of Shwe Taung Development Co. Ltd., one of the most successful construction companies in Myanmar, incorporated in Yangon in 1994. He is also chairman of the Myanmar International Trade Promotion Association which promotes trade between Myanmar and the People’s Republic of China. Prior to this, he was associated with the Asia Wealth Bank (AWB), which was suspended during the financial crisis in Myanmar in 2003. U Aik Htun was reportedly born in 1948 to a poor Chinese family in a village named Mong Kaing in the Nansam district of Southern Shan State in Upper Myanmar. He received his secondary-level Chinese education at Yangon Nanyang Zhong Xue ), in Bahan township, Yangon, ( which is one of the two renowned Chinese schools in Yangon during 1950s-60s and currently the No. 2 State High School, Bahan. As such he speaks both Burmese and Mandarin (Putonghua) well. At the age of twenty he moved to Yangon and made his living as a humble driver, a roadside biscuit vendor, and later a grocery shopowner in downtown Yangon. When he turned forty-two, around the time Myanmar announced its open door policy in 1989, he reportedly ventured into business with his twenty-year savings of Kyats

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3,000,000 (about US$30,000). Together with some friends in Yangon, he established the Olympic Construction Co. in 1990, which later became the Shwe Taung Development Co. (1994) and acquired the Asia Wealth Bank. Between 1997 and 2000, in collaboration with the Government Housing Development Agency and Yangon Municipality, the Shwe Taung Development Co. contracted many housing development projects and supermarkets such as U Wisaya Plaza, Myaing Haywin Housing, Kanthaya Plaza, Olympic Tower, Junction Eight Supermarket, and later, Riverview Garden. U Aik Htun became famous when he partially controlled Asia Wealth Bank (AWB) as a sister company of the Olympic Construction Co. AWB was registered on 30 April 1995 with an initial paid up capital of Kyats 664 million (World Bank 1999). It developed into the then largest and best known private commercial bank of the twenty private banks that were mostly established during the same period of time in Myanmar and had many branches countrywide. It had mainly Chinese business links and some agricultural projects in the Irrawaddy Delta and Magwe Division in Upper Myanmar. As a successful banker, U Aik Htun had his name mentioned in Bangkokbased newspapers and, according to several reports, was even invited to attend the Asian Development Bank conference held in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in May 2000. Under his management, AWB introduced and distributed bankcards, gift cheques, and traveller’s

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cheques. In 1996 it became the first bank in Myanmar to issue credit cards. At the end of 1999, the bank introduced “New Generation” credit cards to its clients and in 2001 also became the first Myanmar bank to offer “online” banking facility. By 2002, AWB had kyats 170 billion in assets, 3,000 staff, 39 branches, 1,000 computers, and claimed a 45 per cent market share in the bank-loan business in Myanmar. In February 2003 several of his businesses became insolvent and were not able to pay their staff members and workers. To halt a serious bank run, several private banks were ordered to stop withdrawals that resulted from the loss of confidence when news of non-performing loans broke out. Some private banks were found to be in breach of the Financial Institutions Law in their lending.The local magazine, Living Colour (2 March 2003), noted that the AWB had made loans amounting to about fifty times its capital.The multiple failures of the bank led to the financial crisis in Myanmar in 2003 and AWB was suspended. U Aik Htun recently re-emerged with a new “face” as chairman of Shwe Taung Development Co. and chairman of the Myanmar International Trade Promotion Association. He has also been appointed executive vice-chairman of China Trade & Commerce Promotion Association ( ). In early 2011 China’s Foreign Trade (Beijing) magazine published an interview which was conducted with U Aik Htun in its volume 4 issue of 2011. Shwe Taung Development Co.’s business focuses on construction and property developments; national infrastructure construction projects such as Paunglaung dam, Yeywa (near Kyaukse, Mandalay Division), hydropower plant (the largest in Myanmar), Myanmar-India border roads, key bridges, among others. The company has cooperated

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with China’s leading companies such as the , a leading Ge Zhou Ba Group ( China dam building company) and Da Tang , one of China’s leading Group ( telecommunication companies). Shwe Taung has also diversified its businesses to foreign investment, particularly in many provinces of China such as Yunnan, An Hui, and Guangxi. U Aik Htun is the founding chairman of the Myanmar International Trade Promotion Association, which is a non-governmental trade promotion organization founded in 1998. The association started with forty members from Chinese-Burmese enterprises and now has fifty-eight members from all aspects of businesses, including property developers, manufacturers, jewellery traders, and others. The association has business networks in over sixty countries. As chairman of the association, U Aik Htun leads Chinese-Burmese businessmen in travelling annually to China for business exposure outside Myanmar. For example, his team in 2006 travelled to Qin Zhou Beibuwan ) in Guangxi ( ) Province; in ( ) city; in 2011 to 2007 to Maanshan ( ) city. He also led twenty-five Yan Tai ( Chinese-Burmese businessmen who actively participated in the Sixth ASEAN-Chinese Enterprises to invest in West China Promotion, and the Asia Pacific Dialogue held in Kunming ) city, Yunnan ( ) Province in June ( 2008. He often attends VIP business receptions and receives foreign business delegations. For instance, on 20 November 2010, he attended the inauguration of the Yunnan Trade and Business Office (Yangon branch), which was held at the Traders Hotel Yangon; on 23 May 2011, he received a business promotion team led by the executive director Li Zhi Qiang ) of the Singapore China Product ( International Wholesale Market, a large

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investment cooperation company registered in Singapore with the support of the Chinese Government, the Singapore Government, and China Investment Holdings Pte. Ltd. He also led more than one hundred local enterprises in attending the promotion meeting where he even delivered the welcoming speech on behalf of the local enterprises. For his dedicated service to the ethnic Chinese society, U Aik Htun has been appointed honorary president of the Myanmar Chinese Chamber of Commerce ( ), honorary president of the Myanmar Overseas Chinese Charity and Reliefs Association ( ), and honorary chairman of the Yangon Yunnan Clan Association ( ). U Aik Htun is a charitable person, concerned with the education of the young, and the welfare of ethnic minorities. Among his other contributions, he also donated a twenty-five-bed hospital and a school building in Mong Kaing Township in Southern Shan State (New Light of Myanmar, 14 July 2004) on behalf of the Olympic Co. He is also involved in promoting the welfare of the Chinese community. For instance, in May 2008 when Myanmar was hit by Cyclone Nargis, he took part in the relief work and the rebuilding of houses for the victims in the Thanlyn area, Yangon division. He has a Chinese wife, Zeng Yuan Xiang ), and three children: Sandar Tun, Mi ( Mi Khaing, and Aung Zaw Naing. Daw Win

R E F E R E N C E S New Light of Myanmar (local English newspapers). “Secretary-1 tours Kehsi, Mongkai, Namhgan, Hsihsen, Taunggyi, Nyaungshwe in Shan State” (South). 14 July 2004.

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Taw Taw and Kyaw Zwa Moe. “Financial Panic Continues”. The Irrawaddy, 18 February 2003. Turnell, Sean. Fiery Dragons: Banks, Moneylenders, and Microfinance in Burma. Denmark: NIAS Press, 2009. —

〈 〉，

，2011，

4 ， 40–42。

Aing Khun ( , Hong Qun, 1957– ) Community leader, educator, Cambodia

A

ing Khun is vice-president of the Cambodian Hokkien Association and head of the Hokkien Association ) in Min Sheng School ( Phnom Penh. Unlike educator Li Huiming who was a migrant, Aing Khun was born in Cambodia in 1957. His father was a graduate of the Xiamen ) in Navigation Academy ( China who migrated to Cambodia to work as a teacher. Aing lived with his father in the teachers’ living quarters, and was thus exposed to teaching in the Chinese language since he was young. In 1970, General Lon Nol who was pro-United States and anti-the People’s Republic of China came to power, and most of the Chinese schools in Cambodia were closed down, except in the Kratie Province near the Vietnam/Cambodia border where the Khmer Rouge was in control. Aing’s father, who was jobless, went to Kratie province to teach. Aing also continued his schooling there and Li Huiming was one of his teachers at Kratie. According to Aing Khun, during his student days at Kratie, he often helped his father to communicate with his students as his father did not speak Cambodian well. In 1971 when he was only fourteen years of age, he started to be a teacher, with many of his

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students being older than he was. Apparently Aing enjoyed teaching and only ceased to be a teacher in April 1974 when the Khmer Rouge closed down all Chinese schools. There had been two factions within the Khmer Rouge and the pro-Chinese faction eventually lost to the anti-Chinese faction. In 1975 the Khmer Rouge succeeded in “liberating” Cambodia and both Aing and his father became jobless. Aing was deported to a village to become a farmer. The Khmer Rouge was at war with the Vietnamese and many of its soldiers were killed. Aing was then forced to join the Khmer Rouge army and as he was tall and strong, they put him in the artillery unit. There were about fifty Chinese young men from his village who were recruited into the army and they received only three days’ training before being sent to the battlefield to fight the Vietnamese. Aing who was then seventeen years old, was made a leader in charge of the rocket unit.While the Vietnamese had tanks and were armed with good weaponry, the Khmer Rouge used buffalo carriages to transport their weapons. Fearful of being killed, Aing and twelve other young Chinese decided to escape. At midnight, they abandoned their weapons and ran to the edge of the forest where they met the Vietnamese troops. Because they were unarmed and had fairer skin than other Cambodians, they were detained only for a while and were eventually released unharmed. Aing Khun returned to Kratie Province and from there went to Phnom Penh to look for a job. In 1976 he started to run a small business on the Cambodian-Vietnamese border, from which he made a lot of money. Then in 1988 he purchased more than ten stalls at the Phnom Penh market at low prices and managed to resell them at high prices, thus becoming a rich businessman. He had a dream

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to reopen a Chinese school, but did not take any action towards this end until something happened to his two daughters and one son who were studying in a Cambodian school. His children were discriminated against by their ethnic Cambodian teachers and his son was even beaten by a teacher. Aing spoke up regarding the persistent ethnic prejudice in the Cambodian school and the fact that many Chinese children were ill treated by their Cambodian teachers. He eventually decided to take his children out of the school and teach them Chinese at home. Two months later, his Chinese neighbours started sending their children to his place for a Chinese education. The number of students increased rapidly and within two years, Aing’s house could no longer accommodate the students. Aing Khun then began to look for a place to build a proper school. By coincidence, he met Dr Haing Ngor, the movie star of The Killing Fields. Haing Ngor owned a piece of land near the Min Sheng School where Aing’s father was a headmaster in the 1950s. Haing Ngor said Aing could rent the place to build a Chinese school, an offer Aing immediately accepted. He spent US$50,000 to build twelve classrooms and other facilities. Initially there were only 300 students. Within a short period of time though, the student number increased to 1,000. It continued to grow and soon there was a problem with space. In March 1999, the Cambodian Hokkien Association succeeded in regaining the building of the old Min Sheng School that was being used by the Cambodian school there. However, before the building was returned to the Hokkien Association, the association was required to compensate the Cambodian school with another school building. Aing, who was a leader of the Hokkien Association, volunteered to offer his school in exchange for

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the Min Sheng School. However the land of his school belonged to Haing Ngor who had just passed away. Fortunately Haing Ngor’s relatives agreed to donate the land to the Cambodian Government, which thus made the exchange possible. The Hokkien Association was grateful to Haing Ngor and his relatives and to commemorate the contribution of Haing Ngor, the Min Sheng School named one of the school buildings after Haing Ngor ( ). It is interesting to note that Haing Ngor’s younger brother is the minister for agriculture in Cambodia. Aing became principal of the Min Sheng School, following in the footsteps of his father. Under Aing’s leadership, Min Sheng has been able to develop into a good school in Phnom Penh. Lim Boon Hock and Leo Suryadinata R E F E R E N C E S C.H. Tay’s ( 2012.

) e-mail to Leo Suryadinata, 19 January

Lim Boon Hock’s interview with Aing Khun, May 2008. 〈 — ： 》。 2009， 166–68。

：

〈 ： ： 》。 2009， 169–73。

：

〉，《 ， 〉，《 ，

Alim, Markus ( , Lin Wenguang, 1951– ) Entrepreneur, community leader, Indonesia

A

lim Markus, better known in the Chinese-speaking community as Lin Wenguang, is president-director of the P.T. Maspion and Maspion Group which

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produces plastic ware, glassware, and electrical home appliances. He and his family were listed in Forbes (2006) at no. 38 of “Indonesia’s 40 Richest”. Alim Markus is also general chairman of the Indonesian Federation of ). Fuqing Associations ( Alim Markus was born on 24 September 1951 in Surabaya and went to a local Chinese ), who school. His father, Lin Xueshan ( later changed his name to Alim Husin, had four sons. Alim Husin was the founder of a modest business firm known as UD Logam Djawa, which produced aluminium kitchenware. Alim Markus was the eldest son in the family. After receiving only junior school education, he quit school in 1965 when he was about fifteen to help his father run the family’s factory. He was, however, eager to learn and could read and write Chinese. Besides teaching himself English and Japanese, he also learned accounting. Through self-education he acquired a vision in business. In the later stage of his life, he went on to complete a management course at Pan Pacific Professional Management in Taiwan, and a short course in the executive education programme at the NUS (National University of Singapore) Business School. At the age of twenty, Alim Markus was able to convince his father to expand the business. In 1971 father and son succeeded in establishing a new company called P.T. Maspion, with its Chinese name as Jin Feng or golden peak). Maspion is an acronym ( for “Mengajak Anda Selalu Percaya Industri Olahan Nasional” (Inviting you to put your trust in national industrial products).To expand the business, the young Alim Markus paid a visit to the provincial governor and asked for a piece of land to build a new factory. He gained the support of the governor and the factory gradually developed into a multimillion business group. These days Maspion products

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are seen everywhere, and they are not only kitchenware, glassware, and electric home appliances, but also steel products and pipes for oil. According to its official website, the company employs 13,000 people in four industrial sites, including Sidoardjo and Gresik (East Java), and one factory in Jakarta (West Java). But according to Global Outstanding Chinese Biography, the company has sixty factories and employs 30,000 people. Under the leadership of Alim Markus who is supported by his three brothers, Alim Mulia Sastra, Alim Satria, and Alim Prakasa, P.T. Maspion has become a multinational company with subsidiaries in Southeast Asian countries, China, Japan, the United States, and Canada. It has become one of the largest producers of consumer durables in the world and its products can be found in well known retail stores in the United States and other major countries worldwide. Unlike many Indonesian MNCs which are based in Jakarta, P.T. Maspion is based in Surabaya, the second largest city in Indonesia. When asked by the Metro TV anchor whether this had helped or hurt his business, Alim Markus replied, “Surabaya, when you look at the map, is [located] at the centre of Indonesia…[it has] a good harbour and the workers are very good, very nice, and I think the costs of production are 25 per cent lower than in Jakarta, so we can compete.” Because of his stronghold in Surabaya, East Java, he has been elected vice-president of the East Java Indonesia Chamber of Commerce. When asked about his business philosophy, Alim Markus said, “We grow together with our distributors, suppliers, stakeholders or share holders, even our staff and workers.” This “we grow together” philosophy has made his Maspion group grow increasingly bigger in Indonesia. In another interview with a

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business professor, he elaborated on this concept which has led to his success in business. He noted that it is extremely important to have a structured and systematized organization with appropriate boundaries, proper management, and utilization. He further noted the importance of “establishing strong ties with business partners, including suppliers, the management team, and every staff member. This is because each individual plays an important role in contributing towards growing the business”. It is interesting to note that in Indonesia, Alim Markus also uses patriotism to promote sales. Maspion’s advertisements on television always end with the following remark: “Love your Indonesian products” (Cintailah Produk Produk Indonesia!). He has also been active in the local political scene. It was reported that he was an economics consultant to President Abudurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur), as well as consultant to Speaker of the House Agung Laksono. He was also an honorary consul of Canada for Surabaya. As the boss of an MNC, Alim Markus has also invested in southern China since the 1980s. He has led a few Indonesian delegations to China, and urged China’s investors to invest in Indonesia. Owing to his business connections with China, he has been elected president of the Indonesia-China Business Council and has played host to various highlevel PRC delegations to Indonesia; he has also entertained top-level Taiwanese delegations to Indonesia. As a second-generation Chinese Indonesian who has received some Chinese education, Alim Markus has been interested in promoting the Chinese language and culture. After the fall of Soeharto, an organization for promoting Chinese language and Chinese education was established in East Java, and Alim Markus assisted the organization financially.

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There was a “Study Mandarin” fever and he, together with his brothers, established a trilingual school called the Singapore ) which National Academy ( teaches English, Mandarin, and Indonesian from primary to secondary levels. One of the buildings in the academy is named after his late father who died in 2003. Alim Markus has also been active in local Chinese organizations. He has served as general chairman of the Indonesian Fuqing (Hokchia) Organization, general chairman of the Indonesian Lim Surname Association, and permanent honorary chairman of the Indonesian Hakka Association. In addition, he has also served as consultant for various organizations in China and Indonesia. Owing to his contributions to the Indonesian economy, especially in East Java, the Universitas 17 Agustus (17 August University) in Surabaya conferred on him an honorary doctorate degree in March 2009. He is married to Sriyanti, and they have six children. Leo Suryadinata R E F E R E N C E S “Alumnus in Conversation: Mr Alim Markus”. NUS Business School website (accessed 26 January 2012). “Kisah Sukses Alim Markus Pendiri Maspion”. (accessed January 2012). “Presdir Maspion Group, Alim Markus”. (accessed January 2012). PT Maspion. (accessed 26 January 2012). 〈 ：

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， ： 〉， 《 》 (Global Outstanding Chinese Biography)。 ，2011， 56–61。

〈

〉，CRIonline 。 (accessed December 2011).

Amphon Bulaphakdi ( , Huang Zuoming, 1909–87) Chinese community leader, businessman,Thailand

A

mphon Bulaphakdi was a well known Thai businessman involved in the rice industry. As the owner of Thanya Thai Co., a leading rice exporter in Thailand, he was respected for his expertise in the trade. As a result, he was also involved in advising the Thai government on policies regarding the export of rice. He was also noted for his efforts to promote international trade and cultural exchanges between Thailand and other countries, especially China, during his term as chairperson of the Thai-Chinese Chamber of Commerce from 1962 to 1987. Amphon was born on 11 November 1909 in the Talat Noi area of Bangkok. His ), was a rice trader in father, Huang Ren ( Thailand. When Amphon was eight years old, his father sent him to Shantou to receive his education. When he turned fifteen in 1924, he returned to Thailand, where he continued his schooling and learned the Thai and English languages in a local school. After he graduated, he worked in the Li Kun Ji Rice Mill ( ) for nine years. He next worked ), in Qian Sheng Rice Trading ( where he gained a good reputation for his work performance. He was then invited by ), Thailand’s rice milling Ma Liqun ( tycoon, to assume a key position in the Thai ). In his years there, Rice Company ( he gained more experience in the rice trading business.

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In 1955 Amphon set up his own business, Thanya Thai Co., which specialized in exporting rice and local produce. He was also involved in the management of other companies, both related and unrelated to the rice industry, and became chairperson of the board of directors of the International Rice Trading Company Limited ( ), Zhen Xing Tai Rice Mill ( ), and Yu Xing Insurance Company Limited ). When he founded the ( Extinguisher Industry Company Limited of Thailand in 1958, he was concurrently the managing director of the Bank of Ayudhya. His rich experience in the rice industry was highly regarded by the Thai government, as well as society. He assumed many important positions relating to rice exports and export policy. For example, he was the chairperson of the Rice Export Committee, the Joint Committee for Rice in the Board of Trade, and the Food Committee in the Board of Trade. In addition, he was also a member of the Quality Control Committee of the Ministry of Finance, the Import and Export Promotion Committee, and the Board of Trade. In 1959 he was elected chairperson ). of the Office of Rice Merchants ( As the organization’s leader, he initiated the relocation of its office and the change in its name to the Association of Rice Merchants ). He was even invited several times ( by Thailand’s agricultural university to give talks on issues in the rice industry. Amphon was also one of the longest serving chairpersons of the Thai-Chinese Chamber of Commerce. He was first elected chairperson in 1962 and was re-elected consecutively for another three terms. After the organization re-registered under the government’s new policy, he was again elected chairperson of the new committee

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for ten consecutive terms. As chairperson, he was enthusiastic in establishing trade between Thailand and other countries. For example, Amphon led a delegation to Malaysia and Singapore in 1964, meeting the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in these destinations, and examining the possibility of establishing trade between Thailand and these countries. In 1966 he hosted the Fourth Asian Chinese Businessmen’s Conference ( ), and later the Second Conference of Chinese Logistics Businessmen ( ). During the conferences, he tried to initiate a global network in financial matters and transportation so as to facilitate international trade. After China and Thailand established diplomatic relations on 1 July 1975, Amphon, representing the Thai-Chinese Chamber of Commerce, led Thai commercial delegations to visit China in 1975 and 1978. He thus opened a new chapter in ThaiChinese friendship. Under his leadership, the Thai-Chinese Chamber of Commerce played a leading role in promoting mutual economic and cultural exchanges between the two countries, such as mutual visit arrangements, business reconnaissance, business negotiations, and business investments. Being the chairperson of the highest Chinese association in Thailand, Amphon was also concerned with the welfare of the local Thai-Chinese community. When the Thai government issued policies which undermined the interests of the Thai-Chinese, he would plead with the government for a revision of the policies. Often the government would heed his advice. For instance, when it banned the trading of second-hand goods Amphon pleaded, on behalf of many Chinese traders who had lost their jobs as a result, for a revision of the ban. The Thai government eventually accepted his request. On another occasion,

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the Thai government issued a policy requiring Chinese schools to decrease the number of hours of Chinese lessons. He pled for the withdrawal of the policy.The Thai government subsequently withdrew the policy. Besides being active in the commercial sector, Amphon was also actively involved in the local community. He was director of the Hua Chiaw Poh Teck Tung Foundation, a member of the standing committee and honorary chairman of the Teochew Association of Thailand, director of the Thian Fah Foundation Hospital, chairman of the committee for the building of the Jie Shou ), and honorary chief director Tang ( of the Huang Clan General Association ( ). When parts of southern Thailand were seriously damaged by floods, he initiated a fund-raising event in the name of the ThaiChinese Chamber of Commerce, and enlisted the help of various Chinese associations. This event raised 379,600 baht, which were donated to the Thai government to help in the relief efforts. In recognition of his contributions to the society and economy of Thailand, as well as the building of Thai-Chinese friendship, the Thai king bestowed a total of eight medals on Amphon, which included the Knight Grand Cross (First Class) of the Most Noble Order of the Crown of Thailand in 1969, and the Knight Grand Cross (First Class) of the Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant in 1979. Amphon died of illness on 16 April 1987 at the age of seventy-seven. Goh Yu Mei R E F E R E N C E S Commemorative Volume for Amporn Boolpakdi’s 72nd Birthday. 11 November 1979. 〈 》。

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〉，《 ：

，1983.

11

Ang Kiukok ( , Hong Jiuguo, 1931–2004) Artist, Philippines

A

ng Kiukok’s expressionist paintings are intense, distorted, and bold. They are testaments of the artist’s worldview of the human condition: the angst and the anguish. For years, he endured the ignorance of the public, how they saw his works as ugly and violent. Instead of yielding to the whims of others, Ang persisted in creating visual metaphors of his honest image of the world. Resigned to being unpopular, he persisted in painting the world as he saw it. It was only in the latter years of his life that the public began to open their eyes belatedly to the genius that was always there. He was proclaimed National Artist for Visual Arts in 2001, the highest accolade bestowed on a Filipino artist, a master of contemporary art. Ang Kiukok was born on 1 March 1931 to impoverished immigrant Chinese parents, Ang Sy Pong and Chin Lim. At the time of his birth, Ang’s father, as testimony to his nationalism, named him Wah Shing, meaning “Chinese born”. When it was later found out that an elder cousin was similarly named, the baby boy was given a new one, Kiu Kok, meaning “Save the Country”. Growing up in Davao City as the only male child in a brood of six, he showed early signs of his inclination towards the visual arts. While helping out with the family’s sari-sari store, he would spend hours drawing and copying advertisements in newspapers. In school, he would be charged with drawing huge backdrops for activities. He began formally studying art at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila from

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1952–54. So focused was he in honing his craft that he barely paid attention to other aspects of his education. His hard work and dedication began to pay off though and he started to show promise as an artist. At the age of twenty, he was awarded an honourable mention by the Art Association of the Philippines for his work, Still Life. In 1954, he held his first one-man show at the Contemporary Art Gallery, a small gallery in Mabini Street, Manila City. Under the tutelage of other great Filipino artists — Victorio Edades, Disodado Lorenzo and, most significantly, Vicente Manansala — many of whom were early modernists, Ang refined his art. Even as a student, Ang’s brushwork was so impressive that Manansala used Ang’s watercolour samples as teaching aids, showing these to future art students. Ang’s early works were characterized by sombre and austere still life subjects: shanty houses, crates, cabinets, and fish skeletons. Most of these were rendered in monochromatic greys, greens, and yellows. They created the effect of palpable neglect and misery, a world of want. Art critics noted the development of skills and techniques that would later characterize his body of work. His paintings of barungbarong or shanties were a study on perspective. The sizes and forms of the houses allowed him to sharpen his skill in rendering illusions of depth. The juxtaposition of different objects with varying colours allowed him to work on portraying distance.These incremental changes did not go unnoticed. In 1955, Calesa won third prize in the Shell National Students Art Competition. In 1959, The Bird was awarded first prize by the Art Association of the Philippines. The 1960s was a prolific decade for the painter. It was during this time that he created his android series and still life series. When Ang began dabbling in depicting androids, he rendered human anatomy as geometrical examinations carefully transitioned to man as

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a machine. Not only did joints and limbs and heads become geometric planes, but they also became blades, sheets of metal, interlocking gears. The android was the epitome of man as he saw it: alone and desolate. On Ang’s canvas, man has ceased being man, and is far removed from his nature. It was also during this phase that Vicente Manansala, his lifelong friend and mentor, introduced Ang to Christian iconography. Manansala was commissioned to work on the “14 Stations of the Cross” murals for the University of the Philippines chapel at Diliman, Quezon City. Ang was his assistant. This was the same decade that he began to be acknowledged as a worthy artist. In 1961, he was recognized as Outstanding Overseas Chinese in Art by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office. In 1963, he was awarded various prizes by the Art Association of the Philippines for his works: Still Life in Red, Fish, and Geometric Still-Life Fish. The year 1965 proved to be pivotal in his artistic development.When he went on his first trip to the United States with Manansala, he was exposed to a highly commercialized and industrialized society. He saw individuals who were isolated, alienated, and dehumanized. After such an experience, his works resonated with powerful metaphors of anguish, dissatisfaction, and anger. Images such as knives, tongues of fire, claws, and fangs began to emerge from his canvasses. He began to ascend the pinnacle of his surrealist, cubist, and expressionist influences. The 1970s saw the emergence of his series on domesticated animals, such as dogs and cocks (roosters), yielding to their fearsome nature. Dogs are seen baring their fangs in rabid frenzy. Cocks are poised to slit their challengers. No other artist has presented such fierce and aggressive images: metaphors of man’s own menacing tendencies.

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Of all the recurring themes the artist explored, his most seminal works were those involving Christian iconography. In the 1960s, Ang began the Crucifixion series. During this phase, he began to weave intricately together his Chinese ancestry, his conversion to Catholicism, and his insights of the world.The medium was the Chinese brush and ink on ecru, or off-white rice paper. The figures of Christ were shown in varied poses of excruciating pain.The geometric representations of Christ’s body were a confluence of his works on androids. Paradoxically, while Christ became mechanical the grotesque positions and images seemed to heighten his suffering. Far from the sanitized images of Christ’s crucifixion and death, Ang’s works were distorted and disconcerting, an honest account of suffering, death, and salvation. It was not mere coincidence that this mildmannered man created his most violent and gruesome works at a time of stark repression, the Martial Law years. Although not a vocal critic of the Marcos regime, his visual representations of people living in squalour, contorted scenes of cruelty, and domestic animals such as rabid dogs and frenzied roosters in violent stances, were protest enough. He painted the world as honestly as he saw it: grim and ghastly. In later years the public began to accept and embrace the visions he brought forth. He was known and appreciated for his figurative expressionistic style. In 1980, his Images of Modern Angst was a finalist in the Mobil Art Awards, sponsored by Mobil Oil Philippines through the Mobil Art Foundation. In 1990, he was featured with Onib Olmedo and Solomon Saprid in a show entitled, Three Figurative Expressionists, held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Figurative expressionism is a style characterized by its distortion of figures to represent emotions. Similar to Ang, Olmedo and Saprid amplified

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devices of distortion and warping to convey horridness of the human condition. Throughout his years of painting, he maintained the intensity and stamina of a great artist dedicated to his craft. He drew and painted everyday, comfortably shifting media: oil, watercolour, acrylic, ink, and gouache. He once revealed that he sometimes worked on six to eight paintings at the same time. As he toiled daily on a chosen theme, he produced an average of ten sketches a day. When he finally arrived at the form and angle that best captured it, he transferred this form to canvas. His painstaking efforts to find the perfect form belied the swiftness of his work on the canvas. It was but typical for him to finish a large painting in about four days. On 9 May 2004, Ang succumbed to cancer. His remains lie at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes Memorial Park, reserved for Filipinos with outstanding service to the nation — national heroes, including national artists and scientists). His works remain mesmerizing and compelling in museums in countries around the world. More significantly, his works remain burning in our memories. “It is not a pretty world,” the painter said. Human life is riddled with pain and privation. Ang rendered this truth in his works, all sublime and transcendental. Anna Katarina Rodriguez

R E F E R E N C E S Ang, Arlene. “The Cynic, The Idealist”. Kulay-Diwa Gallery of Philippine Contemporary Art website. Retrieved 14 May 2009 from . Coseteng, Alice ML. “Man on Fire, Ang Kiukok”. In A Portfolio of 60 Philippine Art Masterpieces. Manila: Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, 1986.

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Cultural Center of the Philippines. Cultural Center of the Philippines Encyclopedia, Volume IV: Visual Arts. Manila. Gatbonton, Esperanza Bunag. Kiukok: The Artist and His Works. Manila: Paulino Que, 1991. National Commission on Culture and Arts. “Ang Kiukok”. Retrieved 14 May 2009 from . Roces, Alfredo. Kiukok: Descontructing Despair. Mandaluyong City: Finale Art Gallery Publication, 2000.

Ang Peng Siong ( , Hong Bingxiang, 1962– ) Sportsman, national swimmer, two-time Olympian, Singapore

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he fourth of five children born to Ang Teck Bee (a judo Olympian of 1964 and a former pool supervisor at Farrer Park), Ang Peng Siong (born on 27 October 1962) is best known in Singapore for having once ranked number one in the 50 metre freestyle. His record time of 22.69 seconds, which he set in 1982 at the United States Nationals, remains the Singapore national record. Ever since his father taught him to swim at the age of five, Ang Peng Siong’s swimming techniques have grown from strength to strength. Much of Ang’s success may be attributed to his father, who placed him on a strict weight training routine from a young age when most coaches believed it was damaging to the athlete. Due to the strict physical training regime of his father, Ang has a high regard for the man. Indeed, he considers his father to be a role model, leader, disciplinarian and motivator. In addition to his father, Ang was also fortunate to have dedicated swim coaches in the form of Anglo-Chinese School teachers, Wee Moh Nam and Lenn Wei Ling. He met both these men at the Anglo-Chinese School

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Shaw Pool and they trained him rigorously. As he was a very gifted swimmer, he was readily accepted into the strong Anglo-Chinese School swimming family even though he was then a student of Anderson Secondary School. Eventually, he became a student of AngloChinese School and was able to continue both his formal education and swimming training there. By 1977, Ang had already established himself as one of the budding swimming talents in Asia when he won a silver medal in the 4 × 100 metre freestyle relay in the Southeast Asian Games in Kuala Lumpur. This further propelled him into the sport. In 1978, Ang made his debut at the Asian Games at the young age of 16, and went on to represent Singapore at the Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984 and in Seoul in 1988. His truly first international competition occurred at the Hawaii International Invitational Swimming Championship in 1980. Whilst there, he was put in the spotlight when he became the only non-American swimmer to qualify for the 50 metre freestyle final. His excellent performance there, as well as his dedication to the sport resulted in him receiving a full athletic scholarship from the University of Houston. While at Houston, he trained under swim coach Phil Hansel from 1980–86. Simultaneously juggling his swimming career and his academic studies, Ang rose from strength to strength. Hansel’s coaching paid off when Ang won the first National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) men’s title for the University of Houston. To be precise, Ang won the 50 yard Freestyle sprint title at the 1983 NCAA Division One Swimming Championships, a championship dubbed by sports pundits as one of the “most exciting and fastest swim meets in the world”. He also

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finished second place in the 50-yard Freestyle at the 1984 NCAA Division One Swimming Championships. Following closely upon his success at the Hawaii International Invitational Swimming Championship, Ang rose to the occasion at the Los Angeles Olympics by clinching the consolation final of the 100 metre freestyle in a national record of 51.09 seconds. Prior to the Olympics, Ang had already risen to national acclaim in the Asian Games in New Delhi in 1982 and by winning a bronze medal in the Asian Games at Seoul in 1986. His achievements to the Singapore sports scene led to national acknowledgement of his skills and he was named Sportsman of the Year for three consecutive years in 1982, 1983, and 1984 by the Singapore National Olympic Council. He was also inducted into the Singapore Sports Council Hall of Fame. The 1980s were his golden period when he competed in many events and clinched several medals. 1982 was truly a golden year for Ang as he won the gold medal at the US Nationals in 22.69 seconds. For that achievement, he was dubbed the ‘World’s Fastest Swimmer’ of 1982 by Swimming World magazine. It is a record that is still marvelled at today. Ang had many such achievements throughout the 1980s. For instance, he was placed first in the 100 metre freestyle for the Olympic B finals in 1984 after finishing at 51.09 seconds. He had missed the A finals of the Seoul Olympics by only one place. Although he has not competitively swum since the mid-1990s, Ang continues to be active in the sport. Indeed, he has participated regularly in one of the premier international swimming competitions, the World Masters, since 2000. The dedication with which he keeps himself in form was evident in 2002 when he clocked 24.64 seconds for the 50 metre free style at the World Masters in Christchurch. This timing is

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remarkable because it is only two seconds off his personal best record when he was aged 20. Despite his retirement from competitive swimming in recent years, Ang still holds the record for the world’s best time of 22.69 seconds for the 50 metre freestyle in 1982. Unfortunately, that record was set before the event was officially recognized in the Olympics. However, Ang repeated that feat in the Seoul Olympics in 1988 when the event was finally introduced. He held the fastest time by an Asian for the 50 metre freestyle event until 1996, and his time of 22.69 seconds remains a Southeast Asian record, thereby continuing to inspire young swimmers in Asia. At the time of his retirement from competitive swimming in August 1993, Ang needed to raise $75,000 to compete in the Asian Games. However, sponsorship was not forthcoming. Two years later, in 1995, he established the Aquatic Performance Swim School at Farrer Park so as to promote swimming as a competitive sport and to encourage sponsor interest in the sport. Through the Aquatic Performance Swim School, Ang has trained national swimmers like Leslie Kwok and Mark Chay. He also coaches swimmers from the Singapore Paralympics Team. Currently, he is deemed to be semi-retired from competitive swimming and has been head coach of the Singapore swimming team at the Southeast Asian Games, Asian Games, Commonwealth Games and Olympic Games, and has since become a member of the board of directors of the Singapore Sports School. In 2004, he quit his position as managing director of the Aquatic Performance Swim School so as to devote his time and attention to planning the policies and objectives of the national team with the Singapore Swimming Association. Furthermore, he has also established the Ang

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Peng Siong Swim School where he continues to nurture the swimming talent of Singapore by promoting a water safe society, competitive swimming as a healthy sport, increasing the number of swim meets, promoting professionalism in swim coaching and teaching, as well as promoting synchronised swimming and quality learn-to-swim programmes. Sharon Loo R E F E R E N C E S Ang Peng Siong Swim School. “Ang Peng Siong Biography”, 2002. (accessed 14 December 2010). Joshua Chia Yeong Jia. “Ang Peng Siong”. Singapore Infopedia, National Library Board, Singapore, 2 June 2009. (accessed 14 December 2010). Low Kar Tiang. Who’s Who in Singapore 2006. Singapore: Who’s Who Pub., 2006, pp. 35–36. National Heritage Board. “Ang Peng Siong”. In Singapore: The Encyclopedia, Tommy T. B. Koh, et al., ed. Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2006, p. 32. Nicholas Aplin, David Waters, and May Lai Wee-Leong. Singapore’s Olympians: The complete who’s who 1936– 2004. Singapore: SNP Reference, 2005, pp. 167–71. Singapore Book of Records. Singapore Book of Records. Singapore: Singapore Book of Records, 2006, p. 149.

Ang, Samuel Dee ( , Hong Pengsheng, 1951– ) Surgical oncologist, Philippines

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r Samuel Dee Ang is a renowned surgical oncologist in the Philippines, who, throughout his career, has operated on politicians, celebrities, the clergy, taipans, and the poor alike. Earlier on, he had chosen to return to the Philippines to serve his countrymen, giving up a very lucrative practice in the United States.

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Ang was born on 31 March 1951, the eighth among ten siblings. He has eight sisters and a brother, all born in Davao City, in the southern island of Mindanao. His parents, Ang Sin Tong and Dee So Cho, were from Nan’an in Fujian Province, China. Ang is the only one in his family to have pursued a professional medical career. His other siblings are all in business. The Angs were one of the two major clans in Davao, Philippines. While most Chinese Filipinos in other parts of the Philippines were originally mainly from Jinjiang, most of those in Davao were from Nan’an, where the surnames Ang and Te were dominant. In fact, elder Chinese describe Davao as “Ang Thi ), a Hokkien term which Te Tue” ( literally means “the Angs occupy the sky, the Tes occupy the earth.” Ang’s grandfather had been trading in Zamboanga in Mindanao during the late nineteenth century. He died just before Ang’s father, Ang Sin Tong, was born. Ang Sin Tong came to the Philippines in 1917 to help his older brother, Ang Ang Tiong, who had already built a flourishing business by then. After a few years with the business, the younger Ang went back to China to marry Dee So Cho at an arranged wedding.The latter then followed her husband to the Philippines in the early 1930s. All their ten children were born practically one after the other between 1935 and 1955. Ang’s parents were hard-working people. His father sold copra and had a small variety store as well as a small restaurant business to feed the family of twelve. Ang had a typically Chinese-Filipino upbringing — helping out with the family business by watching over their store as well as helping around the kitchen of their small restaurant. Among Ang’s relatives include famous artist Ang Kiukok and successful engineer Alfredo Ang Hua Sing. Throughout Ang’s

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childhood, it was his mother who carried the responsibility of looking after the family because his father was sickly and eventually died in 1965.At the time, he was just fourteen years old. He wanted to be an engineer like his cousin, Alfredo, but his mother’s counsel paved the way for the young boy to choose medicine instead. He fondly recalls his mother being a natural healer, sought after for the treatment of ailments and injuries.When he was still young he noticed people paying her visits at their home. After graduating from Davao Chinese School in 1967, Ang took Biology at Ateneo de Davao University from where he graduated in 1971 cum laude. From there, he took a proper course in medicine at the University of Santo Tomas where he graduated magna cum laude in 1975. Ang had actually applied for admission at two local universities — the University of the Philippines (UP) and the University of Santo Tomas (UST). However, as he was a Chinese citizen prior to the Naturalization Law of 1975, his application was rejected by UP due to citizenship issues. His entry to UST was not without difficulties either, as he had to overcome the foreign citizenship quota at the time. UST had instituted a quota of five foreign students from a pool of 120 applicants. Ang was chosen along with two other Philippineborn Chinese and two American citizens. He passed the Medical Board examinations in 1976, the year he was granted Philippine citizenship. He then decided to take up his general surgery residency at the Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school in the United States. Before his departure from the Philippines in 1977, he married Vilma Uy. He was the first in his family to go overseas. After passing the American Medical board examinations with excellence, he was accepted for the surgical oncology fellowship at the Memorial SloanKettering Cancer Center in New York. He

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was also later certified as a diplomate of the American Board of Surgery in 1983. Ang returned to the Philippines in 1984 because of his ailing mother and took care of her until she passed away that same year. This was a year of many activities for Ang, as he opened his first clinic in the Chinese General Hospital. That same year, he was certified as a diplomate of the Philippine Board of Surgery, a credentialing board that certifies Filipinos as capable of practising surgery in the country. He also took up two teaching jobs — at UP and at his alma mater, UST. Due to his increasing duties, he later gave up his faculty job in UP, but kept the teaching position at UST as an assistant professor. In 1991, the United States beckoned him again, this time through the Wilshire Oncology Group in Los Angeles, the biggest private cancer group in the United States at that time, consisting of sixteen oncologists. In 1993, Ang decided to return to the Philippines for good. He had wanted to stay in the United States to give his four children a better education, but they convinced him to go back home to use his skills better by helping his countrymen. The Chinese General Hospital gave him back his old clinic. A year later, William Quasha, the head of St Luke’s Medical Center, invited him to head the newly formed Cancer Institute. Ang did this for eight years, and due to his contributions, he was elevated to director emeritus of the Cancer Institute. Subsequently, the Cardinal Santos Medical Center asked Ang to be chairman of the hospital’s Department of Surgery. He also became chairman of the Philippine Board of Surgery in 2005. He has other prestigious honours, and is a proud member of various scientific societies, both in the Philippines and the United States. In his home country, he is a member of the Surgical Oncology Society of the Philippines, and a fellow in the Philippine

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College of Surgeons; in the United States, he is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, and a member of the Society of Surgical Oncology, an institution based in Atlanta. In his private capacity as a surgical oncologist, he has been keeping a database of all his patients. He hopes that one day this database can form part of a national database on survival rates of various cancers in the Philippines. He is now actively involved in the launching of the Philippine’s Breast Cancer Society. His professional career spans many years and he has helped many people from all walks of life. He has operated on prominent citizens such as politicians, tycoons, and taipans, and has also done surgeries for people from the religious sector, which he does for free, seeing it as his way of helping people who selflessly do God’s work. Apart from his involvement in esteemed organizations and his practice, Ang has written various publications, both locally and in the United States. One of his notable contributions is a chapter on nutritional support in a book entitled, Parenteral Nutrition, edited by Professor John Rombeau of the University of Pennsylvania. Ang now serves as associate medical director for the Chinese General Hospital, and also director for the Cancer Center of the Cardinal Santos Medical Center. All his four children have followed in his footsteps and pursued careers in medicine. Sherwin Chan R E F E R E N C E S Ang-See, Teresita. “In the spirit of service”. Tulay Monthly, vol. 1, no. 10, 1998, p. 11. Ariston, Arlene. Dreams and Escapes (Blog of a cancer survivor). Retrieved May 2012 from . Personal Interview, May 2008.

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Ang-See, Teresita ( , Hong Yuhua, 1949– ) Social activist, scholar, community leader, Philippines

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eresita Ang-See, wife of the late Chinben ), is a leading social activist, See ( crime fighter and advocate for the integration of the Chinese into mainstream Philippine society. She is also a scholar of Chinese-Philippine studies and promoter of Chinese cultural heritage in the Philippines. Teresita Ang was born on 25 December 1949 in Manila. Her father, Jose Ang, migrated from Fujian when he was eight years old to work in a restaurant near Divisoria, a marketplace in Manila. He received very little formal education but taught himself to read. Teresita’s mother, Carmen Davenport Barraca was a Filipino-American mestiza who received two years of college education in pre-war Manila. They were married during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. Jose Ang passed away at the age of 44, leaving Carmen to raise their eleven children. Teresita and her siblings knew the hardship of life from childhood, taking on odd jobs during summer vacations for their school needs. Her mother paid attention to her children’s education and Teresita did very well as a student. She finished primary education as valedictorian at AngloChinese School. She was an honour student through four years of high school at Chiang Kai Shek College. She obtained a four-year university scholarship and eventually graduated in 1971 from the University of the Philippines with a B.A. degree in Political Science. After graduation, Teresita joined the Unity Pagkakaisa Sa Pag-unlad ( for Progress) a Chinese-Filipino organization which advocated the integration of Philippine

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Chinese into mainstream Philippine society. Pagkakaisa, organized in 1971, actively lobbied for the adoption of jus soli principle of citizenship by birth at the Constitutional Convention convened that year to amend the Philippine Constitution. With her degree from the University of the Philippines she could have opted to work in the corporate world but she chose to serve as the Executive Secretary of Pagkakaisa Sa Pag-unlad from 1971 to 1976. She led young college students, most of whom were children of affluent families, in volunteer work in indigent communities and in rural areas. She recounts: “I didn’t expect that in my job, I had to help our volunteers to cross the street.These young adults have not experienced crossing a busy street in congested communities before.” When a big flood devastated Central Luzon in 1972, she led volunteers to the flooded areas, first riding a bus, transferring to an amphibian truck, and then to motorized bancas to reach the communities. “We slept in church pews with flood water under the benches and rain leaking from the roof. The difficulties were eye-opening experiences for our young volunteers,” she reminisced. They went to rural areas on medical missions, meeting old people who shared that they had never seen a doctor in their lives before. In 1975, just before the Philippines’ establishment of diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China, then-President Ferdinand E. Marcos relaxed the nation’s policy on foreigners’ acquisition of Philippine citizenship in the hope that not too many Philippine Chinese would become citizens of communist China. Pagkakaisa took the opportunity to encourage and actively help the Philippine Chinese to apply for local citizenship. Teresita, who was still in Manila then, worked a seven-day week to help indigent Chinese applicants fulfill their requirements.

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Close to 90 per cent of ethnic Chinese living in the Philippines became Filipino citizens by virtue of Marcos’ Administrative Decree. It was in the course of their work that Teresita met her husband Chinben See, at that time the Director of the organization for Southern Philippines. They were married in Taiwan where Chinben had a research fellowship at the Academia Sinica from 1975-78. Upon their return to the Philippines, Chinben and Teresita gathered the former Pagkakaisa core group members together especially when there were pressing issues affecting the Chinese-Filipino community. They started writing a column called “Crossroads” ( ) published in the Orient News (《 》) during martial law. In 1983, upon the assassination of former Senator Benigno S. Aquino, the couple, together with Pagkakaisa core group members, started work to revive and reorganize the group. The Philippine economy was at its worst after the assassination because foreign investors pulled out and funding agencies refused to channel more funds to support the Marcos dictatorship. During the 1986 EDSA revolution, Chinben and Teresita, together with other former Pagkakaisa members, participated in the People Power Revolution. Chinben was at that time diagnosed with liver cancer but continued to actively promote the cause until he was bedridden. He passed away that same year. Having lost the family breadwinner, Teresita took several part-time jobs to have flexible working hours and at the same time look after their two children, ages one and nine. The restoration of democracy after the fall of the Marcos government gave ample space for non-government organizations. Former members of Pagkakaisa and other likeminded young Chinese Filipinos, reorganized the Pagkakaisa into a new organization, Kaisa ) to Para Sa Kaunlaran (

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continue Chinben’s unfinished work. After some hesitation and reluctance due to family responsibilities, Teresita took up the challenge and responsibilities to be the founding president of Kaisa. They worked with the Chinese-Filipino community to hasten its full integration as a significant part of the country by participating in its social and political processes. With the help of all sectors of the Chinese-Filipino community, she spearheaded the foundation of the Kaisa Heritage Center which houses the Bahay Tsinoy — Museum of the Chinese in Philippine Life, the Kaisa Research and Data Bank, and the Chinben See Memorial Library. Apart from promoting cultural activities Teresita was also a socio-political activist. In the 1990s the state of law and order in Manila deteriorated and many Chinese-Filipino businessmen were kidnapped by kidnap-forransom syndicates, some of which were linked to law enforcers. She came out to defend the kidnapped victims despite being threatened many times. Her children and her own safety were at stake but she did not back down. As a tribute to her the local Chinese newspaper called her “the Hua Mulan of the Philippines.” (Hua Mulan was a young maiden during China’s Northern Wei Dynasty who disguised herself as a man to join the army — in place of her aging father — to expel invading Mongols.) Teresita’s courage in the face of adversity and her work for integration brought her recognition not only from the ChineseFilipino community but also the Philippine government. President Corazon Aquino awarded her the “Outstanding Women in the Nation’s Service” in 1992. During President Joseph Estrada’s administration she was appointed member of the Presidential AntiOrganized Crime Commission. In 1993, she helped organize the Movement for Restoration

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of Peace and Order and the Citizens Action Against Crime, two of the country’s leading anti-crime NGOs that worked actively to fight against the scourge of kidnapping and for reforms in the criminal justice system. In 2005, in recognition for her work as a staunch advocate of peace and order, she was among the 27 Filipino women included in the 1,000 women of the world nominated for the Nobel Peace Award. Teresita has long realized that scholarly pursuit is important in promoting the welfare of the Philippine Chinese community. Like her late husband, she became active in the study of the ethnic Chinese in the Philippines, not only nationally but also internationally. Teresita busied herself presenting academic papers in international conferences and was involved in establishing the International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas (ISSCO) in San Francisco in 1992. She was subsequently President (2004–07) and currently the Secretary and Treasurer of ISSCO (2007–13). With Kaisa as publisher, Teresita has written and co-authored more than 16 books, mostly on the Chinese in the Philippines. Among them are Tsinoy — the Story of the Chinese in Philippine Life, a coffee table book that documents the history of the early Chinese immigrants and their transformation to today’s Tsinoys, significant members of mainstream Philippine society and the three volumes of Chinese in the Philippines: Problems and Perspectives published in 1990, 1997 and 2004 respectively. She delivers lectures and papers in local and international academic conferences. Teresita has one daughter (Meah) and one son (Sean), who are both involved in teaching and research, Meah in Education and Sean in Chemistry. Leo Suryadinata

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R E F E R E N C E S Ang-See, Teresita (ed.). The Chinese Immigrants: Selected writings of Professor Chinben See. Manila: Kaisa Para Sa Kaunlaran, 1992. Go Bon Juan and Ang-See, Teresita. “Bridge Builder in our Midst: The Story of Professor Chinben See, An Anthropologist”. Tulay Literary Journal, Vol. I, No. IV, August (1988): pp. 89–97. Joy Buensalido and Abe Florendo. 100 Women of the Philippines. Manila: Buensalido and Associates, 1999. Teresita Ang-See. Chinese in the Philippines: Problems and Perspectives, Vols. 1 and 2. Manila: Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran Inc., 1997. Teresita Ang-See. “We could not stay as bystander”. In Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, 2 February 2006. Retrieved September 2011 from . Written information by Teresita Ang-See sent to the author.

Aquino, Corazon Cojuangco (1933–2009) President, Republic of the Philippines

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hen Corazon Cojuangco Aquino was proclaimed President of the Philippines, she was recognized as the first female president not only in the Philippines, but also in Asia. The 1986 People Power Revolution, which catapulted Aquino into the presidency, proved that a drastic change in government, in both form and leaders, need not be marred by violence and bloodshed. The first television revolution enabled the world to witness different Filipinos from all walks of life coming together to overthrow the Marcos leadership. Instead of guns and ammunition, they brought flowers and offered rosaries and prayers. People from all over the world admired the peaceful transition and Corazon C. Aquino was the centre and stronghold of this

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pivotal moment in history. She became an international symbol for peace. In the aftermath of the People Power Revolution, similar revolutions took place in different countries: the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, Solidarity in Poland, the anti-apartheid protests in South Africa. Through these sweeping movements against authoritarian and dictatorship regimes, there was renewed belief in the change that can be achieved by non-violent protest — the influence of People Power in the Philippines. The Aquino administration moulded the country in various ways. It was responsible for drafting the 1987 Philippine Constitution that restored democracy in the country. The political institutions that were newly restored or newly created slowly began to take their place in the structure of the government. It hurdled several coup d’état attempts that threatened to overthrow Aquino’s presidency. It also led the country’s economy towards the road to recovery. Most of all, it was responsible for the country’s generally peaceful transition from a military to a democratic government. Even after her presidency, Aquino continued to be a pillar of democracy in Philippine politics. When there were movements to oust then President Joseph Estrada for his string of political controversies, Aquino lent her support to what was dubbed EDSA People Power II. When former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was charged with tampering with the electoral system, Aquino advised Arroyo to step down. Whenever there were threats to the democratic system — schemes to change the 1987 Philippine Constitution, plans to prolong the term of the president, policies that violated democratic rights — Aquino was there to reprimand leaders and remind them of their responsibilities.

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Amazingly, Aquino did not personally choose to be an icon for democracy. She was thrust into the limelight and the fight for freedom when her husband, Senator Benigno Aquino Jr., was assassinated in 1983. The Senator’s outspoken criticism of the Marcos Administration earned him the ire of the authoritarian president. The ensuing years of his life, as well as the lives of his wife and their five children, were beset with the difficulty of his imprisonment for seven years, his campaigning from his prison cell, and his subsequent heart attack and exile in the United States. In 1983, the country was going through political unrest, with Marcos’ health deteriorating and different political forces clamouring for domination. During this time, Benigno expressed his desire to return to the Philippines in spite of the threat to his life. On 21 August 1983, while he was disembarking from the airplane, he was gunned down by an assassin. His death, though not unexpected, gripped the country with disbelief and outrage. From the tumultuous political and social events that followed, Corazon Cojuangco Aquino stepped out of the shadow of her slain husband and became the symbol of hope for the country. When President Marcos declared snap elections in 1985, she competed with him for the presidency. The election results were believed to be fraudulent with the systemic use of guns, gold, and goons, in favour of Marcos. On 22 February 1986, the military, headed by then Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile and head of Philippine Constabulary, Fidel V. Ramos, broke away from the Marcos administration. Aquino, together with Roman Catholic Church Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin, called upon the Filipino people to take their protest to the streets and convene in the Epifanio Delos Santos Avenue (EDSA).This led

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to the 1986 People Power Revolution. Corazon C. Aquino made the great leap from being in the background to being in the limelight as the country’s first woman president. This was a far cry from Aquino’s childhood spent in Tarlac, where she was born on 25 January 1933. The green fields of Tarlac, flourishing with sugar and rice crops, are comparable to the lands of Fujian, China. The similarity of Tarlac’s land to the Cojuangco patriach’s past homeland and the promise that it symbolized might have been crucial in luring him to bring his family to take root in this land. In a state visit to China during her presidency, she made a side trip to the Hongjian manucipality in Zhangzhou, Fujian province, to meet the Co ( ) relatives of her migrant ancestor, Co Giok Huan, who sailed to the Philippines in the 1800s. A son (Aquino’s great-grandfather, Jose), later contracted their Chinese name from Co Giok Huan to Cojuangco, which she, a fifth-generation descendant, and her other relatives, still use. On conversion to the Catholic faith, Jose Cojuangco and his wife, Antera Estrella, had three children — Ysidra, Melecio, and Trinidad, whom they nurtured to become productive and responsible members of society. Melecio Cojuangco, being the only son, was encouraged to pursue a higher education. He was given the best education in preparation of his being the leader of the clan. On 16 October 1907, he was inducted as a member of the first Philippine Assembly. Unfortunately, his promising career ended early with a heart attack. His four sons — Jose, Juan, Antonio, and Eduardo Sr. — were nurtured by his father, and then by his sisters, Ysidra and Trinidad. Of the three,Ysidra proved to be the greatest influence on the brothers’ lives. When they became of age, each was given his own responsibility

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in the management and supervision of the family’s growing business. The eldest, Jose, married Demetria Sumulong, a descendant of a powerful family in the Rizal province. They had eight children — Ceferino, Pedro, Josephine, Teresita, Carmen, Corazon, Jose, Jr., and Maria Paz. While managing the Paniqui Sugar Mill, Jose was also a member of the Philippine Assembly, representing the First District of Tarlac. He also became president of the Philippine Bank of Commerce, the first 100-per cent Filipino owned private bank in the Philippines, which he and his brothers founded with the support of their aunt,Ysidra. Jose Jr.’s sixth child, Corazon, took after his introversion and shyness. At an early age, she was exposed to the political leanings of her family. It was said that her mother was an indefatigable campaign manager for her father and even her brothers and sisters were involved in the campaign activities. It was only the young Corazon who constantly shied away from the limelight. When the Second World War broke out, the family moved to the United States for their safety. She and her sisters continued their studies at Raven Hill Academy and then later at Notre Dame Convent School. Corazon Cojuangco obtained a bachelor’s degree, with a majors in mathematics and minor in French, from the College of Mount St Vincent. Although most of her younger years were spent in the United States, she and her family went home regularly to the Philippines to rekindle their ties. After graduating from university, Corazon Cojuangco returned to Manila for good. She enrolled in law school at the Far Eastern University because she was interested in the discipline involved in the profession. Meanwhile, she and Benigno Aquino Jr. continued their courtship that had begun

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during her junior year in university in the United States. They married on 11 October 1954, and were both twenty-one at the time. On assuming the presidency, Corazon Aquino earned the distinction of being Time Magazine’s Woman of the Year, the first woman to be awarded this since 1952, when Queen Elizabeth II was newly crowned. Her unique experience earned her an invitation to speak before the Congress of the United States of America, where she thanked the United States for its support for the resurgence of democracy in the Philippines. Over the next twenty years, Aquino’s voice of compassion and integrity acted as a barometer for politicians and public officials. For her, the words “Public Service is a Public Trust”, never rung more true. She stood as a living reminder of that trust even when standing at the frontline during the impeachment of President Joseph Estrada in 2001. In 2008 the Aquino family announced sad news of her fight with colon cancer. Filipinos expressed their commiseration through prayers and various forms of support. Her condition continued to worsen amidst fervent prayers for her recovery and on 1 August 2009, she passed away and the nation was swept with grief. Thousands of Filipinos flocked to her wake to pay their last respects. Hundreds of thousands gathered in the streets, thousands of Filipinos escorted the casket of their dear president. The outpouring of sorrow and grief was shown in the shower of yellow confetti that fell from the sky, the flowers and photos that lined her house, and the yellow ribbons worn by Filipinos. Even as the nation mourned her passing, it vowed to safeguard her legacy of democracy. On 30 June 2010, her son, Benigno Cojuangco Aquino III, was sworn in as the fifteenth president of the Republic of the Philippines. On him rests the legacy of his parents, and the hope of the Filipino people,

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whose only desire is to be lifted from poverty, and live dignified lives. Anna Katarina Rodriguez R E F E R E N C E S McMurray, Marisse Reyes. Tide of Time. Makati City: Jose Cojuangco & Sons, Inc., 1996. Time Magazine Special Report. “Corazon Aquino (1933– 2009): The Woman Who Changed Asia”. 17 August 2009.

Aung Twin ( , Su Tianfa, 1936– ) Artist, Myanmar

U

Aung Twin is a talented artist in both visual and performing arts. Due to his outstanding drawing and sketching of the “Lawka Chantha Abaya Laba Muni Buddha image” and its moulding scale model, which happens to be the world’s largest marble Buddha image, U Aung Twin was awarded a Medal for Excellent Performance in Social Field (Second Class) by the Government of the Union of Myanmar in 2002. He has delivered lectures on the performing arts in university as a professor, and he is currently an adviser with the Ministry of Culture, Myanmar. U Aung Twin, born on 31 March 1936, is a third-generation Hokkien Chinese in Rangoon (now Yangon), Myanmar. He was the second child of U Chian Soon (Su Chain Soon) and Daw Kyin Hmone (Tan Kyin Hmone). His father was also born in Rangoon while his grandfather, Su Chain Ku, and grandmother, Tan Shu Wa, were migrants from Fujian Province, China, who settled in Rangoon during the prosperous years of the British Administration in Burma. His grandfather opened a small grocery shop at

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Sooratee Night Bazaar in Kyimyingdaing (West Yangon) after his arrival in Rangoon, with the financial support of a Pashu (Nyonya) lady who had migrated from Penang, and became a family friend. U Aung Twin was thus brought up in a family of mixed traditional Hokkien and Straits Chinese cultures. As a child and teenager, U Aung Twin was educated in a Myanmar Buddhist school, an English missionary school, and later a Chinese school. He started primary and secondary education at a private school in Kyimyindaing township in Yangon, then at Daw Mya May Buddhist High School, where he met his first art master, U Thein Nyunt, a famous painter (1923–95). He matriculated from St John’s Diocesan Boys School in Yangon, the top state high school currently. As a descendant from a traditional Chinese family, he was once sent to study Chinese for one year in Zhong ) in 1947. The Hua Primary School ( school was situated in Strand Road, Ahlone township in Rangoon, but has ceased to exist since 1962, when the military government under former General Ne Win took control of the country and nationalized all education institutions during his reign. U Aung Twin was trained at the Teachers’ Training College in Rangoon, but it was his further studies in the Fine Arts that really had an impact on his career. In 1960 he graduated with a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Rangoon (now University of Yangon), majoring in arts. Dissatisfied with his training, he actually visited China, two years before his graduation, to check out possibilities to further his studies. In 1965 he obtained a diploma in fine arts with a scholarship funded by the Chinese Government under a Cultural Exchange Programme of the Central ), Academy of Fine Arts ( an institution of the Chinese Government Ministry of Education, becoming one of the

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few Myanmar Chinese who furthered their education in Chinese studies during the turbulent years in Myanmar. In China, U Aung Twin learnt from famous artists such as painter sculptor U Hla Tin (1914–93), painter U Ba Kyi (1912–2000), who was well known for his graceful Buddhist murals. U Aung Twin also learnt Chinese painting and sculpture there from renowned contemporary Chinese artists , 1904–93), and the such as Liu Kaiqu ( then principal of the Central Academy of Fine , Arts and professor Fu Tian Chou ( 1920–90). Besides the above mentioned awardwinning artwork, U Aung Twin has done a lot of sculpture works as well, including colouring clay figures of a Myanmar couple in traditional costume, a duet dance in plaster of Paris, a princess in ceramic, a solo dance in postline, a variety of clay figures of people at the Myanmar palace, a Chinese steel worker in terracotta and postline, figures of Ramayana, Puppet belu (Orga), and Puppet Zaw gyi (Necromencer), etc. In Myanmar, U Aung Twin has held several high profile exhibitions, some examples of which are the Annual Arts Exhibition (1957) at the Fine Arts Association of the University of Rangoon; the Annual Arts Exhibition (1960) at the Department of Education; the Annual Arts Exhibition (1962) at the Burma Arts Council; the Annual Arts Exhibition (1963) at the Burma Translation Society; the Ten Flower Arts Exhibition (2001) at the Envoy Hall, Yangon; the 57th Arm Forces Day Art Exhibition (2001) in Yangon, and the Golden Jubilee of Fine Arts School Exhibition in Yangon. Outside Myanmar, he has reportedly held several arts exhibitions in countries such as the Soviet Union (1973), Thailand (1991 and 1993), Japan, Yugoslavia, and Brunei Darussalam (1997),Vietnam (1998), Cambodia (2000), and Beijing, China (2001).

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U Aung Twin last held the position of director of production at the Department of Fine Arts with the Ministry of Culture. In 1994, he was the leader of the Myanmar Culture Delegation which paid official visits to Laos, and later in 1995, as a member of Pagoda Festival Ceremony, visited Nepal. He retired on 31 July 1996 and became its adviser. Among other things, he is currently treasurer of the Myanmar Traditional Artists and Artisans Association, and a team member of the ASEAN Culture and Arts Ministerial Level Co-operation. U Aung Twin has continued his contributions to the arts and culture even in his current retirement years. Besides being a gifted visual artist, U Aung Twin is also a creative choreographer of Myanmar traditional dance. His derivations of dance form from floral design, and ancient and modern Myanmar language alphabet, are good examples. His creations in Myanmar performing dance and costume design have been widely recognized and used in Myanmar performing arts. Through ASEAN culture and arts cooperation, he is able to promote his works in ASEAN countries. He visited Brunei Darussalam as a member of the ASEAN Performing Arts Tour in 1997, and later visited Hanoi, Vietnam, on the ASEAN Performing Arts Tour in 1998. He visited Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in 2000 on the ASEAN Performing Arts Tour, and as a member of the Myanmar Artists Delegation to China, in 2001. His creations, especially the Ramayana style, are still popular in Myanmar and have been appreciated and preserved by the lovers of Myanmar traditional arts. Among other places, it has been staged at the Annual Myanmar Traditional Cultural Performing Arts Competitions sponsored by the Ministry of Culture. Since 2006, the annual competitions have been held in Nay Pyi Taw (the new capital of Myanmar).

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As a visiting professor, U Aung Twin delivered lectures on his creative performing arts to students of the Southeast Asian Studies course at the Southeast Asian Studies Centre, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, during the 2002–04 academic year. U Aung Twin is married to Daw Khin ), whose parentage is Nyein Lwin ( Hokkien Chinese and Burmese. She became a Chinese teacher after completing Chinese high school education at Nanyang Zhongxue ( ) in Rangoon. They have a son, U Myat San, who runs an accounting and auditor firm after obtaining a bachelor in commerce degree from Yangon University Institute of Economics. Daw Win R E F E R E N C E S Instructors: Name Listing of Southeast Asian Studies Course Organizers and guest lecturers and research field of interests (2002–2004). (accessed 10 January 2011). Myanmar Traditional Artists and Artisans Organization. (accessed 10 January 2011). “Secretary-1 attends conveying ceremony of marble image from Sakyintaung to Yangon”. 10 July 2000. U Aung Twin and U Myo Nyunt. “Myanma Patta La (Burmese percussion instrument resembling xylophone) Le La Khyak” (written in Myanmar language). Yangon, 1987. U Aung Twin. “Myanmar Visual Arts: Working for the future of Arts and Crafts in Myanmar”. Unpublished manuscript in the English language

Aw Boon Haw ( , Hu Wenhu, 1882–1954) Pharmaceutical dealer, newspaper publisher, banker, philanthropist, Singapore

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w Boon Haw was best known as the “Tiger Balm King” for the promotion of the Chinese cure-all “tiger balm”.

This traditional medical oil is still a household name among overseas Chinese not only in Southeast Asia, but also in many parts of the world. His other major contribution was his newspaper publishing business, especially various Chinese dailies in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, and mainland China. The most notable Chinese daily that he founded is Sin Chew Jit Poh which continues to be published in Malaysia and Singapore (where it ceased in 1983 after merging with Nanyang Siang Pau to form a new newspaper called Lianhe Zaobao) since 1929. He was also a professional banker who set up Chung Khiaw Bank in both Malaya and Singapore in 1950. The bank was later merged with other local banks to form the current United Overseas Bank (UOB). He was equally well known for his charitable activities. Aw donated a huge sum of money to education, hospitals, orphanages, and homes for elderly. He also built the Haw Par Villa, one in Singapore and the other in Hong Kong; both villas have become tourist attractions in the two cities respectively. His only regret was his controversial visit to Tokyo to meet the then Japanese prime minister during the Second World War, and this visit somewhat tainted his fame as a patriot during the war. Aw was born in Rangoon, Myanmar (Burma), in 1882. His family was of Hakka roots which could be traced to Eng Teng ) in Fujian Province, China. District ( ), In Rangoon, his father (Aw Chu Kin, together with his uncle, founded a medical shop, the Hall of Everlasting Peace (Eng Aun ) as early as 1870. His father had Tong, three sons, but the eldest passed away at a young age, leaving Boon Haw, the second eldest, and ), the youngest. Aw Boon Boon Par ( Haw was said to be very notorious as a child. He played perpetual truant from school and was banished at the age of ten to his family’s ancestral village after he was expelled from

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the school for beating up his teacher. He was then educated in traditional Chinese classics in the village for four years. After his father passed away in 1908, he, together with his brother Boon Par, inherited and managed the business. It seemed that the two Aw brothers were bequeathed a secret recipe for a pain relieving ointment from a local pharmacist. They perfected the recipe and called it “ban kim ewe” (ten thousand golden oil), which later became known as the Tiger Balm. Apart from the tiger balm, his medical shop also sold other ), Tiger products such as headache cure ( ), chee thone san ( ), pat kwa tan ( ). and “chinkawhite wind mixture” ( Boon Haw made use of his ethnic Hakka ties to sell his ointment to local Chinese medicine shops in Myanmar. He then expanded his business to other parts of Southeast Asia. In 1923, he expanded his business in Singapore by opening a branch in Amoy Street, and in 1926, built a factory in Neil Road. He then turned the Singapore branch into his business headquarters while his younger brother, Boon Par, still remained in Rangoon. In 1932, Aw Boon Haw moved his headquarters to Hong Kong so that he could capture the larger market in China. During the Japanese Occupation, he continued to operate his business in Hong Kong while his brother closed the Singapore branch and went back to Rangoon. After the war, Aw Boon Haw returned to Singapore and re-established his business there. As a result of his success in marketing several of his patented medicine products, he became one of the richest men in Asia then and was known as the tiger balm king. By the mid-1930s, his business empire reached its peak, covering Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, and southern China. In the late 1940s though, his business empire in China faded somewhat as a result of his loss of favour from the Nationalist Kuomingtang Government due to his son’s

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involvement in a currency smuggling incident. It was also rumoured that he cooperated with Japan during the Japanese Occupation. Aw Boon Haw was also a press magnate. As far back as 1913, he went into the newspaper publishing business by founding ) and Chen Bao ( Yangguan Jit Poh ( ) in Yangon, but his publishing business only made headway when he founded Sin Chew Jit Poh, a Chinese daily in Singapore in 1929. Two years later, he published another Chinese ) in Swatow, daily, Sing Hwa Yih Pao ( Guangdong Province, China, followed by Sing ) in Amoy in Fujian. Kong Yih Pao ( In 1935, he founded another Chinese daily in Singapore called Sin Chung Jit Poh.Three years later, he published two additional newspapers, ) in Hong Kong, Sing Tao Yih Pao ( ) in Penang. and Sing Pin Jih Pao ( Then he formed the Sin Poh (Star News) Amalgamated Limited or for short, the Star Group, to manage these newspapers with him as the managing director. After the war in 1946, he founded another Chinese daily, Sing ) in Bangkok and his Siam Yih Pao ( first English daily, the Hong Kong Tiger Standard. On 3 July 1950, he founded his second English daily, the Singapore Tiger Standard in Singapore. In 1952, he published Qianfeng Ribao ( ) in Sarawak. Aw used these newspapers to advertise and promote his Tiger products. Some of his newspapers made losses and had to be cross-subsidized with his medical earnings. The publishing business continued to remain strong in Hong Kong as the Sing Tao Group under his daughter’s leadership after his death. Apart from medicine and publishing businesses, Aw also went into banking and finance. In 1950, he set up Chung Khiaw Bank with the aim of providing banking services for the ordinary people in Singapore and the bank had been described as the “small men’s bank”. He also established the Public

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Insurance Company ( ) in Singapore and was involved in mining operations in south-west China. Aw Boon Haw was also well known for his philanthropic activities in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, and China. His charities covered generous donations to schools, hospitals, maternity clinics, orphanages, homes for aged, and other charitable institutions. In addition, he built two villas, one in Hong Kong in 1936, and another in Singapore in 1937. The villas were formerly known as the Tiger Balm Garden ( ) and later renamed Haw Par ). Both villas were opened to Villa ( the general public and have since become one of the renowned tourist attractions in Singapore and Hong Kong respectively. In public service, he was the president of the Singapore Hakka Association, and also founded with Lim Keng Lian (1893–1968), the Chung Cheng High School in 1939. For his contribution, he was conferred the Order of the British Empire by King GeorgeVI of Great Britain in 1938 for his “endeavours in commerce and philanthropy”. In 1950 he was awarded the title of the

“Associated Knight of the Venerable Order of St John of Jerusalem” by the then governor of Hong Kong. Aw died in Honolulu on 5 September 1954 at the age of seventy-two on his way back to Singapore after his medical operation in Boston in the United States. He left behind four sons and two daughters. Ng Beoy Kui R E F E R E N C E S Huang, J. “Entanglement of Business and Politics in the Chinese Diaspora: Interrogating the Wartime Patriotism of Aw Boon Haw”. Journal of Chinese Overseas, 2, no. 1 (May 2006): 79–110. Huayinet. (accessed March 2008). Lee, K. H. and Chow M. S. Biographical Dictionary of the Chinese in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: Pelanduk Publications, 1997. Tan, B. “Aw Boon Haw”. Singapore Infopedia, Singapore: National Library. (accessed March 2008). 《 ，1995。

》。

：

B Bai Yao ( , 1934– ) Intellectual activist, playwright, poet, Malaysia

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ai Yao’s original birth name is Lau Pak , Liu Boyao) and he is also Yiu ( , Liu known as Lau Kwok Kin (

Guojian). He was born in 1934 in Guangdong, but lived in Malaysia from 1957–81. Bai Yao is Lau’s well-known pseudonym, ), Liuge ( ), but he also uses Linjian ( ). He received his preand Lingleng ( college education in both China and Hong Kong before studying history at the National Taiwan University. He went to Singapore in 1957, and shortly afterwards, moved to Kuala

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Lumpur where he worked until emigrating to the United States in 1981. His significant contribution to the Malaysian Chinese community lay in his roles as intellectual activist and influential creative or rebellious writer, with the latter being more conspicuous, tangible, as well as controversial, for many years. As an intellectual activist, he confined his brainstorming activities indoors, advocating neither violence nor street demonstrations such as public rallies. He could be regarded as working for an ideological group that operated as a balancing force between two rival titanic regimes — the Communist Party in Mainland China and the Kuomintang (KMT) in Taiwan, but Lau himself was never heard to have uttered a word about politics in his contacts with his literary followers. His personal charm and charisma in socializing, guiding and inspiring contemporary youth, stand out most. Two main vehicles through which this group propagated its ideological programmes ) and Chao were the Student Weekly ( ). These were literary Foon Monthly ( magazines that published articles contributed by the public. Innumerable young Chinese Malaysians, especially budding writers, were drawn to write for these magazines in a free and self-styled format, at a time when most writers were overwhelmed with proletariat literature. Of the many renowned and accomplished Chinese writers in the cohort, Lau stood out as the most approachable and inspiring poet. Under the umbrella of the Weekly, the group ran a string of clubs or associations in many parts of Malaya/Malaysia, including Singapore, Batu Pahat, Muar, Malacca, Seremban, Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh, Kuala Kangsa, Taiping, Penang, Alor Star, and Bentong.These clubs offered attractive regular programmes encompassing a choir, drama, dancing, literature, fine arts, and sports. The majority of the club members were school students, many

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of whom were alienated by, and disoriented in a sea of fast, vast, and confusing socio-political ) as he was known change. Lau or Liu Ge ( by all the members, visited the various clubs in bigger towns almost once a month, besides the nationwide gatherings. The total number of members was no less than 1,000 in any one year, and these clubs were active for a period of fourteen years from 1956 to 1970. Also during this period, fiftyseven major gatherings were held, of which seventeen learning and retreat camps for selected office bearers from the various branches. Each gathering lasted between one and three weeks. The popular locations for such activities were the Cameron Highlands, Fraser’s Hill, Port Dickson, Malacca, and Pangkor Island. The Chao Foon Monthly also organized a number of writers’ camps for its contributors. As a drama enthusiast, Lau proposed the creation of the Festival of Musicals and Dramas , Ge Le Jie) in the Kuala Lumpur area. ( He was responsible for staging the first eleven of the hitherto forty performances. Lau, as the chief executive organizer of all those activities, shows himself to be a born social engineer with charisma, confidence, and cordiality. The clubs had probably functioned as a stabilizing factor in Malaysian society in the politically turbulent times, during which their young members by the hundreds were imbued with the perspective of self-realization through educational attainments. They eventually furthered their studies either locally or abroad, having been inspired by their role models and pioneers, of whom Lau was the most salient model of them all. Furthermore, the two literary magazines had in one way (space for publishing) or another (occasional gatherings for writers) produced no fewer than twenty editors, a large number

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of writers, and the formation of literary study groups and associations of poets throughout ), Huang Yuan Malaysia, such as Hai Tian ( ), and Xin Chao ( ). ( Lau himself is also a writer, not only a visible but also a controversial one at that. His literary works are distinctively non-ideological and refreshing where proletariat literature prevailed. As a playwright, he earnestly ), promoted his stage work, Han Li Po ( a drama featuring a princess and her marital life in the court of the early Malay Kingdom. Lau also has two other major plays to his name, which feature local legends and personalities. His mark on local drama history cannot be easily ignored or overlooked. In China, after the May Fourth Movement in 1919, the masses in China were urged to learn Chinese writing in the modern form ( ). Thereafter, a score of famous poets in China started writing less structured Chinese poems. The effect was far-reaching. Some Chinese immigrants in then Malaya followed suit. This literary transformation was not a rebellious leap forward until the late 1950s when Lau boldly introduced and promoted vigorously the new format of poetic writing, ). loosely known as Modern Poetry ( Whether Lau should be credited with writing the first Chinese modern poem in Malaysia is still hotly debated, but the poem in question is agreeably of the finest quality. This influential poem entitled, “Breathing the ), published Silence at River Muar” ( in March 1959, is acclaimed to be a classic, not just because of its high standard, but more so because it has opened up a whole horizon of poetic writings. As a poet, Lau was rather prolific during that time, and many of his fine poems and other writings in the past fifty years, have been included in his 2007 anthology titled Away from the Green Green Grass of ). Without any doubt, Home (

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this volume will become a milestone in the history of literary development especially in the Malaysian Chinese literary community. Mak Lau Fong R E F E R E N C E S 《 7–14，185–309。 〈《 10–12。

》。

》

《 》。 2005， 565–81。 〈PJ 500 (2008)：13–16。

： 〉，《

，2007， 》500 (2008)：

： ，

， ENCORE〉，《

》

Personal communication, past and present (2010).

Bangayan, Teofilo Tan ( , Lei Miantai, 1930– ) Cardiologist, community leader, Philippines

O

ne of the Philippines’ most eminent cardiologists, Dr Teofilo Bangayan, boasts a patient list comprising members from the highest echelons of society down to the poorest of the poor. He initiated and organized the first open heart surgery facilities in the Chinese General Hospital (CGH) and the first Intensive Care Unit in the Philippines — thus opening the operating room doors for Filipinos to get their much needed heart surgeries. Bangayan and his wife, Shirley, used their talents and skills to further the cause of alleviating poverty by instituting long-term, sustainable, community-based programmes with a holistic approach. From building houses to developing the community, this heart doctor shows the country what it truly means to live with an open heart. Born on 23 July 1930, Bangayan was only one, when his mother, Tan Sok, who was in

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her early thirties, was widowed. She took over the small sari-sari (variety) store her husband, Isabelo, left behind, and despite the hardships, raised Teofilo and his four brothers to be honest and responsible people. Although Tan Sok could not read nor write, she managed to keep the small store in a remote village in Zamboanga thriving. Fondly nicknamed ‘Babu Crisanta’ (Aunt Christmas Santa) by their neighbours because of her kindness and her genteel and cheerful nature, she shared stories with customers, and even became an unofficial matchmaker to the town’s eligible individuals. She allowed the townsfolk to buy groceries on loan and trusted them to pay her back with ‘IOUs’ that she could neither read nor account for. Despite her own family’s hardship, she was willing to give when asked for help. During the Japanese Occupation, she had to close shop and the family survived by selling kangkong (swamp cabbage) in the streets. Two of her five sons were not able to go to school, but together with their third brother, they later became successful copra traders and businessmen. Bangayan, became a doctor. Babu Crisanta, until her demise at age ninetysix, was a good role model and inspiration to her five boys. Bangayan in particular, must have imbibed his mother’s spirit of sharing and giving, having literally taken saving lives to heart, not only as a distinguished cardiologist, but through his advocacy of social development work to alleviate poverty and uplift the lives of the poor by turning depressed areas into sustainable communities. Bangayan graduated from the University of the Philippines College of Medicine in 1958 and finished his graduate course in internal medicine at the New York University Medical School the following year. He had a one-year residency in Internal Medicine at the NewYork Medical College, one-year senior residency in Internal Medicine at the Washington Hospital

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Center, and a two-year residency in Clinical Cardiology at the Philadelphia General Hospital. Immediately after the completion of his postgraduate course in Internal Medicine and his residency in Internal Medicine and Cardiology in the United States in 1963, Bangayan returned home to practise and teach at the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH). The young and active American-trained Bangayan could have stayed on and practised in the United States, but to him, it was not an option as the challenge in his profession lies in the Philippines. In 1970, he became chair of the Department of Medicine and concurrently the chief of the Department of Cardiology at the CGH in Sta Cruz, Manila. Heart surgery was not yet popular in the Philippines then and only a few closed-heart operations were being done. Patients who had coronary heart diseases and who needed surgery had to go to the United States for operations if they could afford it. Patients who were poor would have no access to surgery because of the prohibitive costs. Even those who only had rheumatic heart diseases could not afford to buy good quality antibiotics for treatment. In 1972, Bangayan initiated and organized the first open-heart surgery facilities in CGH and the first Intensive Care Unit in the Philippines. He invited Dr James Yao, a noted cardiologist from Toronto, Canada, and a team of American nurses and anesthesiologists to the hospital and together with Dr Manuel Tayao, the eight-member team operated on thirteen open-heart surgery patients, all of which were successful. One of the successful open-heart surgery patients happened to be the daughter of then President Ferdinand Marcos’ barber. It was this successful undertaking that triggered the idea of having the Philippine Heart Center for Asia built as one of the former First Lady Imelda Marcos’ projects.

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Bangayan’s patients characterize him as being very straightforward and direct when addressing their health concerns and issues, which they like.Years of his reputable practice as a cardiologist enabled Bangayan to gain not only his patients’ trust, but also a significant list of ‘important’ patients who consulted him regularly. The link with these important patients was providential as they have been instrumental for the success of the fund-raising drives launched by Bangayan and his wife, Shirley, in their foray into social development work later on. In his personal capacity as a cardiologist and medical practitioner, Bangayan, who had access to medical facilities, doctor colleagues, and charity funds, was able to organize, initiate, and mobilize medical missions to far-flung barangays (the smallest political unit in the local government) and medical relief outreach programmes for calamity and typhoon victims. In 1994, the Bangayans, together with their Couples for Christ prayer group comprising entrepreneurs and professionals, founded the Living for Christ Foundation, Inc. (LFCF), which shares blessings with the less fortunate. With their vision of “building educated and self-reliant communities with values anchored on love of God”, the group’s first project was to adopt and transform the notorious slums in Bagong Silang, Kalookan, extending financial and organizational support to the barangay, and giving seminars on values formation, livelihood, and skills training. Not long afterwards, the LFCF Center in Bagong Silang was built, complete with training and workshop areas, seminar rooms and a chapel for community use, to integrate their community development programme fully. In 1999, the LFCF incorporated a low-cost shelter programme to their community-based development work on the premise that improving homes or having homes to call their own changed

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people’s perspectives and attitudes towards family and community life, imbibing a sense of responsibility as well. The success of the seminal Bagong Silang project was to become the model for Gawad Kalinga’s nationwide programme for low-cost housing for the poor. From 2005 until 2009, Bangayan was the medical director for the CGH and Medical Center. He is a consultant of cardiology and internal medicine at the Makati Medical Center and the UP-PGH, and has been the cardiology consultant of the Philippine Airlines since 1965. He is also a member of various medical and civic associations such as the Philippine Heart Center Association, Philippine College of Physicians, American College of Cardiology, Filipino Chinese Medical Society, Manila Medical and Philippine Medical Association, and the Rotary Club of San Francisco Del Monte. In recognition of his community service and social work initiatives,Bangayan has received various awards, namely the Presidential Award for Rescue Services, rendered to victims of the Ruby Tower collapse in the 1968 earthquake; the National Service Award, given by Rotary Club of Makati West for mobilizing and leading medical volunteers to help Central Luzon typhoon victims in 1973; the Dr Jose Rizal Lifetime Achievement Award for Medicine and Community Services in 2005; the Ozanam Award of the Ateneo de Manila University in 2006, for distinctive and continued service to fellowmen in accordance with the principles of justice and charity; the Federation of Filipino Chinese Chamber of Commerce, Inc. Award in 2006, for spearheading the Nayong Tsinoy projects, building unity between Chinese Filipinos and the poor through integral poverty alleviation and social formation; the Distinctive Award for Poverty Alleviation conferred by the U.P. Alumni Association during its centennial year, 2008.

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Bangayan’s wife, Shirley, graduated magna cum laude from St Theresa’s College in 1960. She is a certified public accountant and stockbroker who founded her own stock trading firm.The Bangayans have four children: Lorraine, a Chicago-based cardiologist, is married to Homer Abiad, an infectious disease specialist, and they have a daughter, Alia aged 10; Jason, does web designing; Cindy is married to Jonathan Chan, and they are engaged in the car accessories business, own the “Cuts 4 Tots” kiddie salon chain, and have a son, Ivan, aged fourteen and Nina, aged twelve; Maybelle is married to Raymond Kenneth Ti, and has a daughter, Sophie, aged five and a son, Gavin aged one. Andrea Tan R E F E R E N C E S Ateneo de Manila University website. “Traditional University Awards to be conferred July 25”. Retrieved November 2008 from . Living for Christ Foundation, Inc. website . Sy, Joaquin. “Sumusulpot na parang kabuti ang mga bahay”. In Tulay Fortnightly, 5 July 2005. Personal Interview, October 2008.

Banharn Silpa-archa (Be Tek Siang, Politician,Thailand

B

, Ma Dexiang, 1932– )

anharn Silpa-archa, one of the most well established politicians in Thailand, was born on 20 July 1932 (a date later changed to 19 August 1932) into a Teochew immigrant family in the Mueang District of Suphanburi Province, about 100 kilometres north of Bangkok. His father, Be Saeng Kim ), had emigrated from Guangdong (

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Province to Suphanburi in 1907, when the number of Chinese immigrants to Thailand reached a peak. Banharn’s parents sold daily consumables at a small shop-cum-house, Yong ), in the market town of Yu Hong ( Suphanburi’s Mueang District. The fourth of six children in the family, Banharn was given ), the Chinese name Be Tek Siang ( which he retained until the 1940s. A short distance away from Banharn’s house was a jewellery shop-cum-house, Chuan Limthong, where his future wife, Jaemsai Lekwat, grew up. She came from a land-owning upper-class Chinese family, which, in addition to trading in gold, had interests in rice milling. Banharn and Jaemsai often played together when they were small. The fortunes of Banharn’s family rose considerably soon after his birth. His father won a public bid to acquire a then-legal opium plant and an alcohol distillery in Suphanburi. The distillery produced a whisky called Mae Nam Suphan (Suphan River). In 1947 Be Saeng Kim used his enhanced wealth to found the Chinese Association of Suphanburi and became its first president. (His photo still hangs at the entrance of the association.) He also opened what was then the only fivestar hotel in Suphanburi — Sai Au — which Banharn’s elder sister, Sai Jai, managed. In addition, Be Saeng Kim launched a beverage retail shop named Thai Sombun in Lan Luang Road in Bangkok, an area dominated by immigrant Chinese. Banharn’s two elder brothers, Sombun and Udom, ran the shop and in 1951 also became the agents for selling liquor in the bustling Taling Chan District of Thonburi. Banharn graduated from a local secondary school, Prathip Witthayalai (which no longer exists), in 1946 at the age of fourteen. Because he was particularly good at maths, he was allowed, as one account has it, to jump two

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grades at school. Wishing to study medicine at Chulalongkorn University, he took the entrance examination for a famous preparatory school in Bangkok, but failed. His early youth was quite uneventful. In 1949 Banharn migrated to Bangkok to help his elder brothers with their beverage retail business at Thai Sombun — a decision that was to change his life forever. He left Suphanburi by boat — the only mode of transport to Bangkok at the time — on 11 November, with only five baht in his pocket. His daily job in Bangkok was to deliver drinks using a bicycle-drawn cart, for which he earned thirty to forty baht a month. In the course of doing this job, he became acquainted with highranking officials at the Department of Public Works, who regularly ordered soft drinks from the nearby Thai Sombun, located less than 200 metres away. Banharn then worked at ), a successful SinoThai Yong Phanit ( Thai construction company, also located just a stone’s throw from Thai Sombun. He learned the ins and outs of the construction industry at the company while deepening his ties with officials in the Department of Public Works. This experience led him to found his own construction company, Saha Srichai, along with executives of Thai Yong Phanit, who probably supplied the start-up capital, in March 1953, just four years after he migrated to Bangkok. He was only twenty-one years old. In 1957, as then Prime Minister Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat initiated a massive rural development effort, Banharn’s company won a lucrative ten-year monopoly to install tap-water pipes throughout Thailand for the Department of Public Works. In the 1960s, Banharn started using part of his new-found wealth to initiate development works — hospital wards, schools, temple restoration — in his home province. One school he founded was officially opened by

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the royal couple in 1975. He also donated his wealth to local charities for the less fortunate and to the Village Scouts, an anti-communist movement sponsored by the monarchy to stem growing insurgency in rural Thailand. These deeds enhanced his reputation as a generous developer of Suphanburi, culminating in his landslide victory in the parliamentary election of 1976 — the first election he had ever contested. Banharn ran as a member of the conservative Chat Thai Party, consisting mainly of former military officers. Starting as deputy secretary general, he went on to become secretary general and leader of this party in subsequent years. While many Thai parties came and went, Chat Thai remained strong enough to be in government as a coalition partner for seventeen years between 1979 and 2004. During this period Banharn served in several key cabinet posts, including as minister of agriculture, transport and communications, finance, and interior. In July 1995 he became Thailand’s twenty-first prime minister. A superstitious man who believes in astrology, Banharn changed his birth date from 20 July to 19 August on becoming prime minister because Prem Tinsulanond and Anand Panyarachun, two of the most respected former prime ministers of Thailand, both have Leo as their star signs. The change did not do the trick. A year later Banharn was compelled to resign amidst mounting public criticisms of his government’s corruption and mishandling of the Thai economy, which contributed to the devastating financial crisis of 1997. Banharn’s political career spanning thirty years ended abruptly in December 2008 when Thailand’s Constitutional Court barred him (and numerous others) from politics for the next five years and disbanded Chat Thai (along with several other parties) on account of electoral fraud. Banharn adapted to the change by

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establishing a new party, Chat Thai Phatthana, and by having his younger brother, Chumphon, become its leader as his proxy. Thus, although not a politician anymore, Banharn was able to retain a good deal of political influence. During his political career, Banharn attended steadfastly to expanding his base of support in Suphanburi. He did so mainly by securing unprecedented sums of state funds to build an impressive array of local infrastructure projects. Particularly conspicuous projects are roads and schools, many of which are reputed to be among the best in the country. In channelling these projects to his native province, however, Banharn allegedly engaged in shady behind-the-scenes deals with “crony” bureaucrats and contractors, earning him an unflattering reputation as a “walking ATM” that indiscriminately dispensed and accepted dirty money. Also, having a weakness for something “big” or “tall” (which tends to be associated with modernity in rural Thailand), Banharn used his own and local — predominantly Chinese — notables’ donations to build several seemingly wasteful and ostentatious projects, including the 123-metre-high observatory tower (named after Banharn and his wife) and the world’s largest dragon-shaped statue at the Chinese-style City Shrine. Nonetheless, these grandiose projects won Banharn strong support among the bulk of the population of formerly backward Suphanburi, which had traditionally received short shrift from the state before Banharn’s arrival as a politician. In each of the elections that he contested between 1976 and 2007, Banharn won resounding victories, capturing 63–94 per cent of the votes cast. To ensure a smooth transfer of political power to younger members of his Silpaarcha clan, Banharn started making strenuous efforts to groom his eldest daughter, Kanchana (b.1961), and his only son, Worawut (b.1973), as Suphanburi MPs in the mid-1990s. Thanks

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to his characteristic behind-the-scenes manoeuvring, both attained ministerial posts — Kanchana served as deputy minister of education (1999–2001), and Worawut as deputy minister of transport and communications (September–December 2008). Both were, however, stripped, along with Banharn, of their political rights for five years by the Constitutional Court ruling of December 2008. Neither Banharn’s wife nor his other child, a daughter named Parichat, has shown any interest in politics. The succession issue loomed ominously and increasingly large for Banharn, aged eighty in 2012. Yoshinori Nishizaki R E F E R E N C E S Association of Suphanburians. Hoksip pi samakhom chao Suphanburi (Sixty Years of the Association of Suphanburians). Suphanburi: 1996. Khomduean Choetcharatfa. Chiwaprawat lae thatsana Banharn Silpa-archa nayok ratamontri khon thi 21 khong Thai (The Life and Viewpoints of Banharn Silpa-archa, Thailand’s 21st Prime Minister). Bangkok: Soi Thong, 1995. Yoshinori Nishizaki. Political Authority and Provincial Identity in Thailand: The Making of Banharn-buri. Ithaca: Cornell University Southeast Asia Studies Program, 2011. ———. “The Gargantuan Project and Modernity in Provincial Thailand”. Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 8, no. 3 (2007): 217–33.

Benedicto, Francisco ( , Zhou Qingqi, 1939– ) Businessman, diplomat, Philippines

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mbassador Francisco Benedicto has served the country for close to twentyfive years. A businessman by profession, he however willingly served the country as ambassador to Singapore and to China,

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putting to good use his knowledge of the Chinese language, on top of English, Filipino, and the Cebuano dialect. Through his efforts, Benedicto College was established in 2000 to provide affordable, globally-in-demand, best fit, quality elementary, secondary, tertiary, and technical-vocational education. In an Independence Day message on 12 June 2009, Ambassador Francisco Benedicto summed up his own life’s work. “What is asked of us now is a humbler though no less heroic sacrifice. We are called upon to give of our skills and sinews, our might and minds, so that peace, progress and prosperity can take deeper root and cast wider shade in our motherland.” Throughout his life and for all his work, the peace, progress, and prosperity of the Philippines has always been his prime mover. He has always felt privileged to serve in foreign missions around the world representing his country. To him, the best part of foreign assignments is when he sees Filipinos excelling in their respective fields. Right now, he is ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and concurrently accredited to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Mongolia from February 2010 to the present. Born on 12 February 1939, Benedicto attended primary and secondary school at the or Tong Hong Far Eastern Institute ( Institute) in Cebu, Southern Philippines. He took up a Bachelor of Science in Commerce course at the University of San Jose Recoletos, also in Cebu City in 1964, and was awarded a doctorate in humanities, honoris causa in 1987 by his alma mater. He first worked in his father’s industrial hardware and merchandise business and later became board member and executive committee board member of the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce

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and Industry, and vice-chairman of the board of the Cebu Tong Hong Institute. After the 1986 People Power Revolution, which catapulted Corazon C. Aquino to be president of the Philippines, Benedicto was appointed ambassador to Singapore. He promoted business and cultural exchanges between the two countries, and set up the Philippine Cultural and Trade Center in Singapore to provide a convenient meeting place for Filipino workers in Singapore. He also set up a female dormitory for domestic workers who fall out with employers or are terminated, so they have affordable lodgings while settling a conflict or are waiting to go home. There are almost no gaps in his years in the diplomatic corps. Testament to Benedicto’s excellent track record, successive presidents assigned him to different posts. His first posting was as ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the Republic of Singapore from 1986–93. He next headed off to the Republic of Korea, then the Federative Republic of Brazil, concurrently accredited to the Republic of Venezuela, Republic of Colombia, and Republic of Suriname from 1996–98, and on to Canada until 2005. Benedicto came home to become undersecretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs until 2008, when he was assigned to the Republic of India, and concurrently accredited to Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal. It was Benedicto’s great grandfather who first came to the Philippines from Yong ), Fujian province. His father, Don Chun ( Bernardo Benedicto (Chiu Ching Hun, , 1898–1990), started the family business, the North Negros Sugar Company, in 1929, which was involved in sugar plantation and in shipping. They were also involved in fishing and general merchandise, and later, industrial hardware. Eventually, the family business diversified into an import and export trading company, engaged

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in industrial and construction materials. Thereafter, they established a manufacturing firm producing steel products, and also a real estate development firm. The whole Benedicto family is known for its philanthropy as a way of sharing the many blessings they have received. They have led the construction of more than twentyfive public elementary school buildings in various parts of Cebu Province, which were turned over to the government. As well, the family built for public use the Don Bernardo Benedicto Gymnasium in Zapatera Elementary School, Don Bernardo Benedicto Cultural Center in Mabolo Elementary School, both in Cebu City, and the Don Bernardo Benedicto Community Center in Cadiz City, Negros Occidental. Several cultural stages for the use of different elementary schools in Cebu City were also constructed. These are in addition to the family’s contributions to various charitable, civic, and religious organizations, as well as to victims of calamities. In recognition of the family’s altruistic activities, Don Bernardo was adopted as a son of Cebu City in 1968. As well, streets in Cebu City were named after the ambassador’s parents, Don Bernardo Benedicto in 1990, and Doña Emilia Benedicto in 1978.Another street in Lapu-Lapu City was named Don Bernardo Benedicto in 2000. Continuing with his parents’philanthropic work, Benedicto became president or chairman of various chambers of commerce and industry, trade organizations, business corporations, civic associations, charitable institutions, and foundations such as the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Rotary Club of Cebu, and the Sacred Heart Church Foundation and the Bernardo Benedicto Foundation. He founded Benedicto College in 2000 to serve as an affordable alternative for the “less

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privileged who, armed with braveness of heart and indomitable will, are bent on improving the quality of their life”. As a diplomat and an educator, Beneditcto believes in building peace through a wealth of knowledge in the art of diplomacy. “As we connect with information, we should also connect with people, after all, what is the use of much knowledge, if people continue to live in a divided world?” From its initial College of Information Technology, Benedicto College has expanded into six more academic colleges, and offers basic education and short-term courses as well. Like Francisco, an elder brother, Ceferino, is quite well known in the ethnic Chinese community. Known as a steel magnate and diplomat, he is chairman of the Benedicto Steel Group of Companies, executive vicepresident of the Philippine Chambers of Commerce, vice-president of the International Chamber of Commerce, and vice-president of China Committee on Foreign Trade. He also stepped on the diplomatic path as consul general for Sri Lanka. Because of his friendship with the Sri Lankan ambassador to the Philippines, Ceferino was sent to a post there during a civil war in 1990. The Sri Lankan ambassador recommended him as consul general to attend to diplomatic needs at the time of diplomatic crisis. His supposed short stint lasted ten years. He then became ambassador of Albania to the Philippines. Born in 1935, Ceferino was nine years old when the Japanese invaded Mindanao, and the whole family had to hide from trouble. He vividly remembers their escape in the dark of night, with just the moonlight as guide. They rowed a small boat and escaped to an unoccupied small island, hiding there for a year before finally moving to Cebu. These uncertainties and anxieties in his childhood years made him seize opportunities to build a more stable future.

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In 1955 he went to Manila to study engineering, and returned to Cebu after graduation to help his parents. From his studies and several years of experience, he established in 1960 the CLB Engineering and Supply, Inc. He met with many obstacles when he started, but slowly moved forward. The Benedicto Steel Group of Companies, established on 6 March 1969, became a leading manufacturer of high carbon wire and rope and also prestressed concrete wires and strands used in electrical and phone cables. He established a factory in Manila in 1975 to expand his business and he now has two other factories outside in Pasig City, south of Manila, and in San Pedro, Laguna, in Southern Luzon. Products include iron, steel, and galvanized iron. The high carbon steel wires became an export product.The company then went into specialized manufacturing of products for construction, ships, and roads, and the factory produced 1,000 tons annually. In the mid-1990s, it was one of the biggest steel manufacturing companies in the country. Another elder brother, Juanito ( ), is a well-known business executive, who is likewise active in the Chinese literary circle. Like his brothers, he also served in the Philippine diplomatic corps as ambassador to Bolivia. The Benedicto brothers, therefore, have distinguished themselves not just as accomplished businessmen, but for their involvement in the political life of the country. Considering that they came from Cebu in the Visayas region, and not in the stronghold of Metro Manila from which many ChineseFilipino leaders hail, the Benedicto siblings are among the pioneers who have become fully integrated into mainstream society. Carmelea Ang See

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R E F E R E N C E S Cebu Daily News. “Benedicto appointed acting DFA secretary”. 7 June 2008. Retrieved March 2011 from . College Upgrades Curriculum, Facility For Nursing, IT Courses. 14 May 2007. Retrieved March 2011 from . Embassy of the Philippines, New Delhi. “Message of the Ambassador on the 111th Anniversary of Philippine Independence”. Retrieved March 2011 from . Official websites: Benedicto College ; Benedicto Steel . 《 ，1998， 722。 — 〈 《 》 2006，页47–49。

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Botan (Supha Sirisingha, 1945– ) Writer,Thailand

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otan is one of the most celebrated female writers in Thailand, famous for her three novels about Chinese immigrants in Thailand, especially Letters from Thailand. This book won her the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) prize for literature in 1969, making her the youngest writer to be awarded this literary prize at the time. She went on to write many other novels for both adults and children, and won other literary awards. In recognition of her achievements, she was named a national artist in the field of literature in 1999, the highest honour in Thai literary circles.

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Botan, whose real name is Supha Sirisingha (née Luesiri), was born on 13 August 1945 in Phasi Charoen District, Thonburi. Botan, meaning “peony” literally, is probably her most well known pen name. She started using this pen name in 1965 while writing for Satrisan, a women’s magazine in Thailand, and has published at least sixty novels, including several award-winning novels under this pen name. Her father, whose surname was Li ( ), was an immigrant from southern China while her mother was an ethnic Chinese born in Thailand. Her parents owned an orchard in Thonburi, where she spent much of her childhood helping them out. Although she is from a family of ethnic Chinese, Botan’s upbringing does not seem to have been more heavily influenced by Chinese culture or the Chinese community in Thailand than a typical Thai girl of her age. Education did not come easily for Botan because her father was not supportive of her determination to continue her studies. If she had not won her first scholarship when she was nine years old, she may well have stopped going to school after her four years of compulsory education. The rest of her education was made possible by the subsequent scholarships that she won. Botan received her primary and lower secondary education at Sutham Sueksa School and later transferred to Watthana Sueksa School for her upper secondary education. She eventually attained her high school diploma from Triam Udom Sueksa School. On graduating from Triam Udom, she furthered her studies at the Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, and graduated in 1966, with a bachelor of arts degree and a double major in English and Thai. After graduation, Botan worked for a brief period as a teacher in a private school. She later took a job at Thai Wattana Panich Press,

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where she worked on various publications for women and children. Chaiyaphruek and Satrisan were the two most notable among them. Botan married Wiriya Sirisingha, an editor of Chaiyaphruek, in 1975. The two subsequently left Thai Wattana Panich to establish their own publishing company, Chomrom Dek, which specializes in children’s books. Botan had been a serious author long before she started working in the publishing industry. She started her writing career in 1964 when she was still a student at Chulalongkorn University. Her first published work was a short story that, in her opinion, was “an undistinguished romantic tale”. She is best known for her works that relate to the lives and culture of the ethnic Chinese in Thailand. Among these works, Letters from Thailand (Chotmai chak mueang Thai) is probably the most well known internationally, having been translated into various languages. Letters from Thailand, whose story line spans some twenty years, is about the life of Tan Suang U and his family in Bangkok. It reflected the lives, experiences, and values of Chinese in urban Thailand in the post-1945 period. Botan obtained inspiration for this novel from her own life experiences. It is said that Tan Suang U is the composite of her father and uncle, and Botan herself admitted that Tan Suang U’s youngest daughter is very much like herself, who aspired to excel despite her father’s prejudice against daughters. In 1969, Letters from Thailand was named the “best book of the year”, and won Botan the SEATO literary prize. She thus shot to fame as the author of the novel, and the youngest writer to be awarded the SEATO literary prize. Letters from Thailand was controversial and attracted both compliments and criticisms. The book invited complaints from both ethnic Chinese and Thais. Its Chinese critics were displeased

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that Botan had depicted ethnic Chinese as greedy and predatory beings who do not wish to assimilate into Thai society, while the Thais were unhappy that the Thais in the novel were shallow, vain, and hypocritical. In spite of that, the book became assigned reading for all high school students three years later because many quickly realized that the book did not vilify a particular ethnic group, but rather questioned various prejudices and problems that readers were quick to pick up initially. This novel also enjoyed international fame through the translation of the book into various languages such as English, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, and others. Nevertheless, the path towards international readership was not a bed of roses. In the early 1970s, Botan and the translator of the initial English version, Susan F. Kepner, had a hard time finding a publisher for the translated work. Many American publishers and university presses were not interested in publishing Thai literature. When the translation was finally published by Duang Kamol in 1977 in Bangkok, six printings were sold out over the next decade without much publicity effort from the publisher. The book has also enjoyed favourable response from its international readers. Botan’s work is generally recognized as exposing prevalent social problems, in particular with regard to women and children. Many important social issues, such as child abuse, women’s rights, and race, were addressed in her writings. For example, she highlighted the problems of people sending their sons to monasteries, and daughters to brothels, in order to solve their financial problems.This was not recognized as a potential social problem initially, though it later proved to be a factor in the spread of AIDS, one of the more serious issues in Thai society. Besides these works, which address social issues, Botan also wished

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to write a good book for children, which was both entertaining for children, and inspiring for adults. In an interview, she commented, “I have spent more than half of my life publishing children’s books but none of these satisfies me. I am content with my work but not 100%.” As an established writer in Thai literary circles, Botan received the highest recognition possible for a Thai writer when she was honoured as a National Artist in 1999. Goh Yu Mei R E F E R E N C E S Bangkok Post. “Profile/ Botan”. 18 October 1999. Kepner, Susan. “Translator’s Introduction”. In Supha Sirisingha, Letters from Thailand, translated by Susan Kepner, pp. v–xii. Bangkok: Silkworm Books, 2002. ———. The Lioness in Bloom: Modern Thai Fiction about Women. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. Prathip Mueannin. 100 Thai Writers (Roi nakpraphan thai). Bangkok: Suwiriyasarn, 1999. Sirisingha, Supha. “Women and Books in Thailand”. Asian Book Development 21, no. 3 (1990): 3–4.

Budianta, Melani (Tan Tjiok Sien, 1954– ) Academic, researcher, Indonesia

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elani Budianta is an educator and scholar of Feminist Theory, Cultural Studies, Postcolonial Studies, and Multiculturalism. She is the first ChineseIndonesian woman to become professor of the School of Humanities at the University of Indonesia. Following in the footsteps of her parents who were school teachers in Malang, East Java, Budianta began her career as a volunteer teacher while still pursuing her Bachelor’s

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degree in English Literature at the University of Indonesia. Although her degree is in English Literature, she taught street children Indonesian language composition. Upon her graduation, she continued to write articles and conduct workshops on teaching Indonesian literature. Budianta went on to earn her Master’s degree in American Studies from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California, the United States, in 1981. She was awarded her doctorate in English Languages and Literatures from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, the United States, in 1992. In between the attainment of her Master’s and doctoral degrees, Budianta began teaching at the University of Indonesia. She became program secretary for the Women’s Studies Program between 1982 and 1985. On her return to Indonesia in 1992, following the attainment of her doctorate, she assumed the position of program secretary for the Literature Department between 1992 and 1995. She was appointed head of the English Department in 2002 and head of the Literature Department in 2003. She achieved her full professorship at the School of Humanities on 28 January 2006. Apart from teaching, Budianta is active in various research and academic organizations. Her positions at these organizations are: team member, Task Force for International Women, American Studies Association (1996–97), advisory board member for the Association of American Studies in Indonesia (1998–2002), director for the Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives (Hong Kong) (2000–03); advisory board member for the Voice of Concerned Mothers (2000-present); coordinator for the Modern Indonesian Literatures, Southeast Asian Community (2001–04); vice-president for the Association of the Indonesian Literature Scholars (2001– 03); member of Research and Publication

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Division of the Association of International Malay Languages (2002–04); director for Asian Scholarship Foundation, Thailand (2002–06); academic senate member for the School of Humanities at the University of Indonesia (2004-present); member of the Selection Committee for the Southeast Asian Studies Regional Exchange Program (2004–05); and the national panelist member for the International Fellowship Program (2005– present). In addition to her active membership in the above organizations, Budianta is a committed editor and prolific scholar. She has served on various editorial boards such as: the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Journal, Routledge (2000–present), the American Anthology for Asian Readers (2000–present), the Lontar Association (2002–03), the Malay Journal: International Journal for the Malay World (2004–05), Wacana magazine for the School of Humanities, the University of Indonesia (2005–present), and Manabu magazine (2005–present). She has also published and presented more than 100 articles and conference papers throughout her career on topics such as Feminism, Postcolonial Studies, and Multiculturalism. On top of her editorial and scholarly obligations, she conducts various international workshops and trainings on these topics while critically analysing how ideologies operate through literature and public discourse. For Budianta, issues of gender and ethnicity are irrelevant to her achievements. Budianta firmly believes in equality and finds that women are capable of realizing their aspirations based on their own abilities. Her sister, Yunita Triwardhani Winarto or Tan Tjiok Swan, has also excelled in academia. Triwardhani was a famous anthropologist at the University of Indonesia for many years before assuming a prestigious position

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at Universitas Gajah Mada (UGM) as the Indonesian academic professor. Budianta is careful to point out that for women in academia, their responsibilities as wives and mothers, as well as their financial situations, might hinder the attainment of a doctorate or a professorship. Hence, she deeply appreciates the intricacies and nuances of all women’s lives — not just Chinese women — that might hinder them in pursuing those goals. When asked to comment on ChineseIndonesian women, she refused to make generalizations, pushing instead to explore the “complex and different social and cultural conditions that make each woman unique”. These words encapsulate her diverse works on feminism, ranging from the middle-class construction of the housemaid in “Pembantu Rumah Tangga dalam Sastra, Konstruksi Budaya Kelas Menengah” (Srinthil, 8, 2005) to women’s activism in post-1998 Indonesia in “The Blessed Tragedy: The Making of Women’s Activism during the Reformasi Years (1998–1999) (Heryanto and Mandal, 2003). More recently, Budianta explored the realm of cultural identity within the framework of cultural studies. Her first scholarly work on this subject matter can be seen in her journal article, “Globalization and the Discourse of Cultural Identity: The Case of Indonesia during the Monetary Crisis 1997–1998”. She further examines conflicting and changing Chinese identities in post-1998 Indonesia in one of her most recent articles, “The Dragon Dance: The Shifting Meaning of ‘Chineseness’ in Indonesia”. Even though she appreciates and encourages a Chinese cultural identity among Indonesians of Chinese descent, Budianta insists the essence of “Chineseness” lies in its “hybridity” — the intermingling of Chinese and local cultures. Hybridity is most evident

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in a sixth or even seventh generation Chinese individual such as herself. Born in 1954 and growing up in Malang, Budianta was exposed to more Javanese than Chinese culture. Her family fully embraced traditional Javanese culture and she played the gamelan in a traditional Javanese musical orchestra and performed in countless wayang puppet shows during the early years of her life. Since Javanese culture formed a substantive part of her everyday life, she felt distanced from Chinese culture. It was only when the era of reform arrived in 1998 — following the fall of Soeharto’s regime, and bringing with it the revival of Chinese culture and language — that she began appreciating Chinese culture in terms of its arts and philosophy. This was also when she started exploring the notion of cultural identities in further depth. Melani Budianta continues to be recognized internationally through her articles, papers, training, editorial work, and seminars. Nevertheless, her love and affinity for Indonesian culture have driven her to become a dedicated Indonesian educator and scholar first and foremost. Aimee Dawis R E F E R E N C E S Budianta, Melani (28 January 2006). “Meretas Batas: Humaniora dalam Perubahan”. Speech delivered during the Ceremony for the appointment of Melani Budianta as full professor of the School of Humanities, the University of Indonesia, 28 January 2006. Hartiningsih Maria, and Ninuk M. Pambudy “Pendobrak Batas dalam Perubahan”. Kompas, 5 February 2006. Heryanto, Ariel and Sumit Mandal, eds., Challenging Authoritarianism in Southeast Asia: Comparing Malaysia and Indonesia. Routledge Curzon, August 2003. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 1 no. 1, April 2000. Katherine Robinson, ed., Self and Subject in Motion — Southeast Asian and Pacific Cosmopolitans. Hampshire, UI: Palgrave, 2007.

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Budiman, Arief (Soe Hok Djin, , Shi Furen, 1941– ) Public intellectual, writer, psychologist, sociologist, Indonesia

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rief Budiman is a public intellectual of Indonesia. Born as Soe Hok Djin into a lower middle class family in Jakarta, his father, Soe Lie Piet, was a peranakan writer and a journalist. His mother was a housewife who was “barely literate”. Nevertheless, he and his younger brother Soe Hok Gie were later known as writers and social activists. Hok Djin was born (on 3 January 1941) and brought up in Jakarta and received his formal education in Indonesian schools until he graduated. During his school days he was already interested in writing. When he was at SMA (Senior High School) his essay entitled “Why do I not like Girls” was published in the school magazine. Immediately he became the laughing stock of his classmates who thought he was a gay. He later explained that he read too many philosophy books and was carried away. Nevertheless, his interest in writing essays continued. In 1963 when he was still studying at the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Indonesia, he was awarded the Best Essay Prize for his “Manusia dan Seni” (Man and Art) by Sastra, a well-known Indonesian literary monthly. In the same year he became a signatory to the Manikebu (Manifest of Culture), an anti-communist cultural manifesto, together with a number of indigenous Indonesian intellectuals. In 1964 he attended the College d’Europe in Belgium for a semester.When he returned to Indonesia, he was active in student demonstrations, which contributed to the downfall of Soekarno. He was a regular contributor to a number of Jakarta newspapers: Kompas, Sinar

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Harapan, and Indonesia Raya. He also served as an editor of Horison (1966–72), a leading literary journal of which Mochtar Lubis was the editor-in-chief. In 1968 he obtained a Drs degree in Psychology from the University of Indonesia after defending his thesis, “Manusia Dalam Persoalan Eksistensiilnja” (Man and his existential problem), using the prominent Indonesian poet, Chairil Anwar, as a case-study. In 1968 he was appointed as the first deputy chairman of the Arts Council of the City of Jakarta. In the period 1968–71 he served as a member of the Film Censor Board. In 1970 he became the leader of the Anti-Corruption Campaign. When the general elections were about to take place in 1971, he co-founded Golongan Putih (or Golput), the “White Group” consisting of liberals and intellectuals who refused to vote in the general elections. The term Golput has become a common term used in Indonesia today to denote the group who declines to participate in a general election. His political activities eventually led to his detention by the Soeharto regime. In October 1972 he left Indonesia and worked in the Association for Cultural Freedom in Paris as a staff member for a year. It was during this period that he began to be exposed to Socialism. In September 1973 he won a scholarship and went to Harvard for further studies; he did not take Psychology but Development Sociology. It was at Harvard that he left his liberalism and became a socialist. In 1980 he obtained a Ph.D. in Sociology after successfully defending his dissertation entitled “The Mobilization and State Strategies in the Democratic Transition: The Case of Allende’s Chile”. This dissertation was later published in Indonesian under the title: Jalan Demokratis Ke Sosialisme: Pengalaman Chili dibawah Allende (Democratic Way to Socialism: Chili under Allende) (Jakarta, 1987).

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On his return from Harvard he joined the Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana (UKSW) in Salatiga, Central Java. He was also teaching at the postgraduate programme at the above university and was very involved in social and cultural activities. He became the speaker for the weak and the poor and has been a frequent commentator on socio-political issues in Indonesia. Although his field is sociology, he did not give up his love for literature. As an advocate of Sastra Kontekstual (Contextual Literature) he was accused of attempting to insert socialist values into Indonesian literature. He admitted that he was a socialist, but denied the accusation. He noted that “Contextual Literature is a kind of literature which rejects the argument that literary values are universal”. Hok Djin is married to Siti Leila Chairani, a psychologist who is an “indigenous Indonesian” woman. He became a Muslim after marrying her in 1968(?). There was time when his sincerity in converting to Islam was questioned by some Muslims who criticized him for not being a “good Muslim”. He openly challenged his critics saying that he was probably a better Muslims than his critics who did not do any good deeds. He also argued that only God, not any human beings, would be able to judge whether he was a good Muslim. As a peranakan Chinese he is well integrated into the indigenous society. When Soeharto introduced the regulation of name changing in 1966, Hok Djin adopted an Indonesian name, like many Chinese Indonesians. When the Soeharto regime changed the terms referring to ethnic Chinese and China from “Tionghoa” and “Tiongkok” to the derogatory term, “Tjina” (Cina), which is similar to “Chink” in the United States of America, he went along with the change and used the term Cina consistently. As a result

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he was criticized by the Chinese community. Arief defended his position. He said that initially he also felt hurt when people called him “Cina”, but after a while he accepted it as it was not possible to change it back. He took the view that it was thus better to accept the derogatory term and made it to become a neutral one. His view was not shared by many Chinese Indonesians, especially those who were Chinese-educated and who came from a Chinese cultural background. Arief was a popular lecturer on campus and his courses were well liked by the students. His house near the campus became a meeting point for writers and public intellectuals. He was not only a social and political critic outside campus, but also an advocate of democratic values. In November 1994 he protested against the appointment of the vicechancellor (Rektor) of the UKSW who was not properly elected, and Arief was dismissed by the University in August 1995. He fought back but without much success. He eventually decided to go overseas. In the mid-1990s he succeeded in applying for a new position at Melbourne University and became the first Indonesian to hold a full professorship at Melbourne. On 9 October 1997 he delivered an inaugural lecture entitled “The Lonely Road of the Intellectual: Scholars in Indonesia”, as Foundation Professor of Indonesian, and Head of the Indonesian Programme, Melbourne Institute of Asian Languages and Societies. He stayed at this university until he retired in 2007. In his inaugural lecture, he cited the poem by Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken”, noting that “the road taken by the intellectual is the ‘one less traveled… ’. It is the road full of dangerous risks. It is a road that sometimes even your close friends and immediate family may fail to appreciate, in the present world in which pragmatism rules.”

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His publications include Chairil Anwar: Sebuah Pertemuan [Chairil Anwar: an encounter] (Jakarta, 1976), which was based on his Drs thesis; Pembagian Kerja Secara Seksual [Division of work by sex] (Jakarta, 1981); Sistem Perekonomian Pancasila dan Ilmu Sosial di Indonesia [Pancasila economy and social science in Indonesia] (Jakarta, 1990); Indonesia: the uncertain transition (2001, co-editor with Damien Kingsbury). Leo Suryadinata Editor’s note: Soe Hok Djin’s Chinese surname was often written as “ ”, which is incorrect. It should be “ ”. R E F E R E N C E S Apa & Siapa: Sejumlah Orang Indonesia 1985–86. Jakarta: Staline Books, 1994, pp. 138–39. Arief Budiman. Chairil Anwar: Sebuah pertemuan. Jakarta: Pustaka Jaya, 1976. ———. “The Inaugural Professorial Lecture”. Melbourne: Institute of Asian Languages and Societies, the University of Melbourne, 1999. Dewi Anggraeni. “Arief Budiman: Defying the Chinese Stereotype”. Jakarta Post, 2 June 2008. Intisari Jakarta, June (1974): 129–36. Jalan Demokratis Ke Sosialisme: Pengalaman Chili dibawah Allende (Democratic Way to Socialism: Chili under Allende) (Jakarta, 1987). Suryadinata, Leo. Prominent Chinese Indonesia: Biographical Sketches. Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 1995, pp. 9–10.

Bunchu Rotchanasathian (Ui Bun Bo, , Huang Wenbo, 1922–2007) Leading businessman, politician,Thailand

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unchu Rotchanasathian is ranked among Thailand’s post-1945 most important businessmen, political figures,

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and social and political visionaries. Born on 20 January 1922 in Chonburi Province on Thailand’s eastern seaboard, Bunchu was the son of Hainanese carpenter Ui Yu Chun, who used the Thai first name San and who had immigrated to Siam and quickly established himself as a prominent contractor. Bunchu’s Chonburi-born mother was named Lamai. Bunchu attended Bangkok’s Kuomintangaffiliated Xin Min School, completed his secondary education at Wat Sam Phraya Thewaratchakunchon Commercial School, and at age eighteen enrolled as an accountancy student at Thammasat University. During his three years at Thammasat, he was renowned for his academic achievements and wide reading, worked as a book-keeper at a sawmill in which his father was a partner, and took his first course in banking from a young Oxfordeducated aristocrat and man of letters named Khuekrit Pramot. Even before graduating from Thammasat in 1943, Bunchu began work in the National Banking Bureau,Thailand’s proto-central bank. This work exposed him to the managerial and financial practices of Allied nations’ commercial banks that had come under Thai government control during the Pacific War. After less than a year, Bunchu left government service to found an accounting firm of his own named Banchikit, and a law and accounting office in partnership with the former Chinese school principal, rice miller, and Thammasat-educated lawyer Prasit Kanchanawat (Khou Tong Mong). A former schoolmate of Bunchu’s at Xin Min School, Prasit did legal work for Chin Sophonphanit (Tan Piak Chin) and his Asia Trust Company. On Prasit’s recommendation, Chin engaged Bunchu as that firm’s auditor. In 1952, with the eight-year-old Bangkok Bank at risk of collapse, its directors named Chin, the bank’s second general comprador, as managing director. Chin then turned to

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Prasit and Bunchu to assist him in rescuing and restructuring the bank. Starting as internal auditor and soon taking responsibility for internal administration,Bunchu worked to make the Bangkok Bank Thailand’s most progressive and dynamic financial institution. He joined its board and became assistant managing director in 1954, second only to Chin himself in the bank’s hierarchy. He gave the bank the organizational capacity to operate on a large scale, recruited talented staff, and in 1962 launched a pioneering research and planning unit whose publications — in Thai, English, and Chinese — became authoritative sources of data on and analysis of the Thai economy. After 1958, with Chin in exile, Bunchu effected the bank’s accommodation of the government of Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat, patron of Thai developmentalism, and his successors, Field Marshals Thanom Kittikhachon and Praphat Charusathian. Bunchu recognized opportunities for the Bangkok Bank in Thailand’s push towards “development”. In light of the stress on the rural sector in Thailand’s First National Economic Development Plan, covering 1961–66, Bunchu established an agricultural credit unit at the bank in 1962. That unit introduced a shared-liability model of farm lending centred on borrowers’ groups. Its example led other Thai banks to enter rural financial markets. From 1973, the Bangkok Bank also began to channel credit to farmers through the state’s Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC). The years of Bunchu’s rise to prominence as one of Thailand’s most powerful business figures also saw his involvement with a series of progressive writers and journals. He and Prasit were partners in the Rungnakhon Printing House, which, during the 1950s, printed an official Communist Party of Thailand

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periodical. Bunchu also played an active role at Prasit’s weekly Kanmueang, which offered sympathetic coverage of and information about the communist world to Thai readers and published the work of a group of largely Thammasat-affiliated moderate leftist followers of the exiled Pridi Phanomyong. For many years Bunchu extended financial support to the close Pridi associate, offspring of Thai aristocrats, and Marxist journalist Supha Sirimanon. Rungnakhon printed Supha’s ideologically independent, “radical socialist”, foreign-affairs-oriented monthly Aksonsan from 1950 to 1952, and Bunchu financed the publication of Supha’s 1951 study of capitalism, the first in Thai. Not least, these activities and commitments reflected Bunchu’s and Prasit’s exposure to left-wing Kuomintang influences as students at Xin Min. The Thanom-Praphat dictatorship collapsed in October 1973. Bunchu was appointed to the national assembly charged with drafting a new constitution. As elections under that constitution approached, Bunchu established a political party. The socialist orientation of Singapore’s People’s Action Party, what Bunchu knew of its branch structure, and its commitment to nation building impressed him. He decided to call his party the “Social Action Party”. His Thammasat lecturer Khuekrit Pramot agreed to serve as party leader, while Bunchu became founding secretary general. Spending lavishly to win a parliamentary seat for his native Chonburi in the January 1975 polls, Bunchu became finance minister in a twelve-party coalition government formed in mid-March. Khuekrit served as prime minister. The participation of so prominent an ethnic Chinese businessman as Bunchu in electoral politics reinforced the trend, dating from the Thai elections of 1969, in which business

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figures began to eclipse soldiers and former bureaucrats as leading actors in Thai politics. This pattern has defined Thai parliamentary politics ever since. Bunchu had concerns beyond the narrowly political on his mind. Worried about the social and political consequences of Thailand’s urban-rural divide, he was determined to link the fortunes of rural Thailand and of commercial Bangkok. He spoke frequently in the Thai parliament during 1975–76 about poverty and inequality. With Khuekrit, he undertook measures relating to agricultural price supports, land reform, and irrigation. But the measure for which the 1975– 76 Khuekrit-Bunchu government remains best remembered, subdistrict development funds or “ngoen phan”, made money directly available to subdistrict councils for small infrastructure projects to support seasonally unemployed residents of rural Thailand, prevent downward pressure on urban wages resulting from seasonal migration, and nurture grass roots democracy through devolution of decision-making power. Less well remembered but more important in the long run was Bunchu’s policy of channelling commercial bank lending to the Thai rural sector in unprecedented volumes. Banks could extend farm credit either directly or through the BAAC. This policy revolutionized farm lending in Thailand. The BAAC, relying largely on loan disbursement through borrowers’ groups, would for some two decades thereafter play a leading role in promoting the prosperity of rural Thailand. Forced to call elections in January 1976, Khuekrit failed to win re-election in April. Bunchu’s tenure as minister of finance was over. But thirteen months, from March 1975 to April 1976, he had earned his place among Thailand’s most important and successful post1945 social and political visionaries.

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Following the bloody coup of October 1976, hundreds of Thai students and others fled to the maquis to join the forces of the Communist Party of Thailand. Assuming the presidency of the Bangkok Bank during 1977–80, Bunchu extended its provincial branch system, modernized its operations, and consolidated its position as Thailand’s dominant bank. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, as students began to return to Bangkok from the jungle, Bunchu found work for many of them in one or another of the firms in which he had interests while they reintegrated themselves into society. In March 1980, Bunchu became deputy prime minister and “economic tsar” in the first cabinet of General Prem Tinasulanon. While his service in that position proved short, his articulate espousal of the idea of “Thailand Inc.” — a fast-growing, industrializing Thai economy — caught the imagination of the business sector and of many in government. His thinking anticipated the trajectory of rapid growth on which Thailand would embark in the mid-1980s. After briefly heading the Siam City Bank, Bunchu returned to politics in 1986 as the founding leader of the Democratic Action Party. He subsequently held important posts in the Solidarity, Phalang Dhamma, and Democrat Parties.The undiminished flair that he brought to Thai politics notwithstanding, his best years in that arena, were long past. On the eve of the Thai elections of March 1992, Bunchu famously said on national television that the outgoing unelected technocratic government of Prime Minister Anan Panyarachun deserved top marks for its compliant service to the military junta that had installed it. In September of the same year, and in his brief political swan song, Bunchu joined Prime Minister Chuan

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Likphai’s first government as a deputy prime minister. Including three other former chief executives of Thai commercial banks — Amnuay Wirawan, Suphachai Phanitchaphak, and Tharin Nimmanhaemin — that cabinet marked the high-water mark of Thai bankers’ participation in government, participation pioneered by Bunchu himself in the mid1970s. Already, the rapid economic growth that began in the mid-1980s was diminishing the national banking sector’s previous dominance of the Thai economy. The Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 and the large stakes that foreigners subsequently took in Thai banks would make this development obvious. The crisis took a toll on Bunchu’s finances. In its aftermath, he left politics and devoted himself principally to the Chiva-Som spa and health resort in Hua Hin. Typically ahead of his time, he had founded Chiva-Som in 1991 out of an interest in wellness. Likewise, the policies that he pioneered in the 1970s were widely credited with inspiring the “populist” measures through which Thaksin Shinawatra transformed Thai politics after becoming prime minister in 2001. Bunchu died of leukaemia in Bangkok on 19 March 2007. He and his wife Renu,

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a Songkhla native whose maiden name was Praphatsathon and whom he married in 1947, had one son and one daughter. Michael J. Montesano R E F E R E N C E S Aphiwat Wannakon. The Life, Achievements, and Thought of Bunchu Rotchanasathian (Chiwit phon ngan lae naew khwamkhit khong Bunchu Rotchanasathian). Bangkok: P. M. Book Center, 1982. Bangkok Bank, Ltd. Cremation Volume for Chin Sophonphanit (Nai okat sadetphraratchadamnoen phraratchathan phloeng sop nai Chin Sophonphanit po.cho., po. mo.). Bangkok: Bangkok Bank, 1988. Kasian Tejapira. Commodifying Marxism: The Formation of Modern Thai Radical Culture, 1927–1958. Kyoto and Melbourne: Kyoto University Press and Trans Pacific Press, 2001. Morell, David, and Chai-anan Samudavanija. Political Conflict in Thailand: Reform, Reaction, Revolution. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Oelgeschlager, Gunn & Hain, 1981. Nawi Rangsiwararak. On the Political Path of Bunchu Rotchanasathian (Bon thanon sai kanmueang khong Bunchu Rotchanasathian). Bangkok: Pakarang, 2005. ———. The Dreams and Hopes of Bunchu Rotchanasathian (Fan lae wang khon Bunchu Rotchanasathian). Bangkok: Samakhisan (Dok Ya), 1993.

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C Cabangon Chua, Antonio (1934– ) Businessman, diplomat, Philippines

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ntonio Cabangon Chua ( ) is a magnate whose business empire includes insurance, health care, banking, property management, car dealership, newspapers and magazines, radio stations, a hotel chain, pre-need plans and memorial services, memorial parks, and other business ventures. Today his passion for organizing new ventures, beyond the profit motive, is a way of doing good, of creating more job opportunities for Filipinos. Cabangon Chua’s life is a modern success story, a testament to a man’s will and determination to overcome obstacles in life. “Whether you’re rich or poor, everyone has 24 hours in a day,” he loves to remind everyone.“It’s what you do with your 24 hours that counts.” The central force of Chua’s life is his mother, Dominga Cabangon Lim of Catanauan, Tayabas (now Quezon), born on 12 May 1910. When she was twenty years old, she eloped and lived with Tomas Chua, a lumber dealer, without any formal marriage ceremony. Cabangon Chua would always mention that he was “born out of wedlock”. Lim and her son lived a comfortable middle-class life in a house in Malate, Manila, where Tomas Chua had set them up. In 1944,

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Tomas Chua went missing and was believed to have been killed by the Japanese. The burning and destruction of Manila during World War II marked the beginning of a rags-to-riches story for Cabangon Chua and Dominga Lim: a mother and son’s struggle to survive the daily demands of putting a little food on the table and paying for a rented room every month, without losing their sense of honour and self-worth. Sheer hard work kept both of them alive. Lim made and sold bucayo — grated coconut meat caramelized in muscovado sugar. She worked as a laundrywoman, washing the heavy uniforms of American soldiers in newly liberated Manila. Manila’s liberation in 1945 saw Cabangon Chua, eleven years old at the time, queuing for canned sardines and relief goods. “I hated myself for being too small to work and too big to just stay at home.” A scavenging trip to an American military camp for leftover food gave him the idea of shining shoes for the hundreds of American soldiers around. A neighbour made him a wooden shoeshine box that he has treasured to this day. Chua vows that he will never throw it away. It reminds him “not to be proud” and “not to look down on people who do what I used to do”. As he puts it, “I had a burning desire to succeed in life because of the way my mother was treated by our rich relatives when I was very young. It pushed me. It motivated me.” His frugal mother saved and borrowed enough money to open a mom-and-pop variety store that eventually expanded into a

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large grocery in Barrio Vergara, Mandaluyong, by the Pasig River. This gave them the much needed sense of financial security, however modest. The young Chua tended the store after school, bought grocery supplies, and hauled the heavy load of merchandise to their store. He eventually bought a jeep to carry store supplies and he even drove it as a passenger jeep, and leased it out to others — thereby showing early on his entrepreneurial flair to generate more money. As a young boy, Chua already knew that he could support himself and earn an honest living. Never afraid of hard work, he fished and set traps in the pristine Pasig River. In the mornings, he hawked fish and clams, and gathered driftwood and sold them as firewood. In the afternoons, he roamed Luneta Park and sold popsicles. It was at this time that his mother was hospitalized for six long months. Through grit and tenacity, he made every centavo count. He was thus able to pay the monthly rent of their room to relieve his sick mother of worrying too much. Every day for six months, Chua cooked and brought his mother’s favourite food to the hospital. Such was his unwavering love and devotion to his mother.Years later, he would name the buildings he owned after her. Lim, who had very little formal education, taught her son his ABCs. He also read Liwayway and Silahis magazines, before selling them in the streets of Manila. Chua spent primary school in Namayan Elementary School (now Isaac Lopez Elementary School) in Mandaluyong, and Sta. Ana Elementary School in Manila. He was good in arithmetic. After all he was always selling something in the streets. He walked barefoot to school, the only one to do so in class. He had dreamed of becoming a doctor,

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but knew well enough that his mother could not afford to let him go to medical school. After high school at the University of the East (UE) in 1953, he settled for a course that could be finished in the shortest time possible. In 1956, the young and ambitious Chua, at the age of twenty-two, finished his business administration degree from the University of the East in three years instead of the standard four years. In 1960, he passed his CPA (Certified Public Accountant) examination. As a new graduate in 1956, he got a job at an accounting firm, J.S. Zulueta, Inc., where he stayed for only two years to learn the accountant’s trade: how to audit, read balance sheets, and to prepare financial statements — skills that would be very useful for all his business ventures in the years to come. It would be the only time that he would work as a salaried employee. Chua then opened Filipinas Pawnshop, Inc., in 1958. He was “the manager, clerk, cashier, and janitor”. Filipinas Pawnshop is still around. Chua considers it “the cornerstone of my fortune”. This little pawnshop marked his very first business success and established his reputation as a man whose word can be trusted. A young man in a hurry, he had set a target for himself: to be rich and successful, and a millionaire, by age forty. He did make it to the millionaire list a few years before he turned forty. When he hit this age in 1974, Chua did three things: first, he set up a flagship company, ALC Commercial and Industrial Corporation; second, he built a mausoleum for his mother in Mandaluyong Catholic cemetery; and third, he built a plush home for his large family in Wack Wack Village, Mandaluyong. Chua was always hungry to acquire more skills and knowledge. While a student

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of commerce at UE, he also enrolled in an engineering course at a nearby university, the Far East Asian Technological Institute (FEATI). Later he had to drop engineering and take on a vocational course: automotive mechanic in FEATI, and diesel mechanics at the Guzman Institute of Technology. He also took typing and stenography courses. Later, he enrolled in law at the Adamson University for two years, but had to give it up when his pawnshop business demanded all his time and attention. He was always open to learning something new. He tried yoga in the late 1960s; and courses on creative thinking and problem solving; and even hypnotism in the early 1970s. On the more pragmatic side, he enrolled in a Dale Carnegie course in 1960; attended seminars on real estate, problems in business management, and effective business communication. All his life he has learned to value the power of education to improve lives. In 1978, he established the Dominga L. Cabangon Memorial Foundation in honour of his mother. It provides educational assistance to children of his employees. It gives full scholarship to honour students of his elementary schools. It also supports the Catholic Church by helping priests further their education. His ambassadorial stint in Laos (January 2003 – August 2004) led to full scholarships for six Lao students with leadership potential to study in the Philippines. To date the foundation has supported more than 200 scholars. Recently Chua set up the Quijano de Manila Foundation in honour of Nick Joaquin, National Artist for Literature, and his late friend and biographer. This foundation aims to continue Joaquin’s dream of helping young writers, especially children of veteran journalists, who have chosen writing as a career. Every Saturday afternoon since his mother’s death in 1962, Chua visits her grave

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site, offering flowers and praying for her soul. Every Friday afternoon he goes to Quiapo Church, recognizing that everything he has accomplished is ultimately due to God’s grace. Rosa Concepcion Ladrido R E F E R E N C E S Joaquin, Nick. Antonio Cabangon Chua: A Saga of Success. Paranaque: Brown Madonna Press, Inc., 1986. Lacaba, Jose F. and Eric S. Caruncho. Antonio Cabangon Chua: The Continuing Saga of Success. Paranaque: Brown Madonna Press, Inc., 2007.

Cao Hoàng Lãnh (Phan Thêm, , Gao Hongling, 1905–2008) Revolutionary, diplomat,Vietnam

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renowned revolutionary, intelligence agent, and diplomat of Vietnam, Cao Hoàng Lãnh succeeded in organizing the youth of Quaœng Nam in the struggle for both national and class liberations. He was one of the strategists behind the numerous uprisings against the French colonialists which finally led to the military victory of the Vietnam Communist Party. A disciple of Ho Chi Minh, he was among the key leaders who planned the unification of the country. Cao Hoàng Lãnh was the older cousin ; of La Doãn Chánh (Luo Yunzheng , musician and martyr pseudonym: La Hoái of Hoi’an). His mother was La Thò Am ( ; name in the La geneology: La Ngoïc Am ), the second child of La Caàm Hoa and his ), popularly called fourth wife, Phan Thò ( Bà Thiên. Lãnh was born on 2 May 1905 in Hoi’an. His official name at birth was Phan ); however, he was more Haûi Thâm (

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popularly called Phan Thêm. “Thêm” which means “the extra” in Vietnamese, says he was unplanned, as his parents wanted to stop at their fourth child, Phan Thò Laïc. Phan Thêm’s father, Phaïm Ngoïc Cö, came from a family which moved in the post-Lê era (1740–86) to Hoi’an. Phan Thêm was a protégé of Ho Chi Minh, the late President of Vietnam and founder of the Vietnam Communist Party. Ho named him Cao Hoàng Lãnh ( ) because of his fond memories of the mountainous region of his hometown in Hà Tónh province (Central Vietnam) called Hoàng Lónh (pronounced as “Hoàng Lãnh” in Central Vietnamese vernacular). The range is renowned for its ninety-nine summits. The name is also a light-hearted allusion to Phan Thêm’s towering physique of 1.75 metres. Cao Hoàng Lãnh later changed his written name in the Chinese script ,” the middle character “ ” to “ meaning red and signifying communism. Lãnh’s immediate family has also adopted the family name of Lãnh instead of Phan. Lãnh had as many names as the multiple roles he played in the politics of Vietnam. He was born in Xã Minh Höông (the Minh Huong ), Phöôïng Minh An (formerly village called Phöôïng Minh Höông) in Hoi’an. It is not easy to talk about Lãnh’s past without broaching the political changes that occurred in Hoi’an, where he was born. The seed of patriotism and revolution seemed to have been sown among the residents of Hoi’an and across the country since the late nineteenth century after the French colonial beginnings in 1858. In the nation’s twentieth-century nationalism, Phan Boäi Châu and other patriots from the central region of Vietnam sought a way to liberate the country from the French. Huyønh Thúc Kháng and Traàn Quy Cáp were two of the familiar faces at Lãnh’s family

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abode, as they were among the hot-blooded intellectuals of Hoi’an who were fans of the books sold by Lãnh’s family. Lãnh’s parents ran a bookshop called ) from their classical, ChineseÐöùc An ( style house located at 129 Tran Phu Street in Hoi’an (formerly no. 83 Rue du Pont Japonais [Japanese Bridge Street]). Although the place was a medical hall selling Chinese medicinal herbs, Ðöùc An sold “New Books” (in ), advocating new Vietnamese, Tân Thö ideas such as democracy and modernization that originated in the West. It is said that following the news of the execution of Traàn Quy Cáp by the French, Ðöùc An burned its stock of “new books”. Lãnh was then about two years old. He learned Chinese characters until he was more than ten and later learned French, a language taught in the French school he attended in Hue. Like the intellectuals of his era, he became attracted to the writings of French political philosophers such as Rousseau and Montesquieu.The ideals of nationalism thus came to Hoi’an, thanks to French and Vietnamese language books and such magazines as Chuông Rè, Ðông Pháp Thôøi Báo, and Vieät Nam Hoàn, of which Lãnh was an avid reader. The ardour of earlier patriotrevolutionaries such as Phan Boäi Châu and Phan Chu Trinh, and the spirit of revolution endorsed by Sun Yat-sen continued to intensify in Hoi’an in the 1920s. Since his school days, Lãnh had observed the social and political inequities between children from the ruling and wealthy local families and those from ordinary homes. At the age of twenty, he began to spread revolutionary ideas via different channels. He formed a youth football team which he named Aurore (Bình Minh), and directed theatrical plays with revolutionary contents. In 1927, he went to Quaûng Trò, the province in the north central part of Vietnam where

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the previous royal capital of Vietnam, Hue, was sited. There, he made connections with the Vietnam Association of Revolutionary Youth and returned to Hoi’an in October that year to set up his new bookstore, Vaïn Sanh (万生), meaning “forever living“ at No. 76, Le Loi Street, where he published and disseminated revolutionary information. From his family home, he also organized the Hoi’an chapter of the Vietnam Association of Revolutionary Youth, served as its secretary, and recruited members who initially numbered only three, including himself. His home, commonly called nhà Ðöùc An ( ) by denizens, was designated a heritage site in 2005 and has been a place of interest for tourists since February 2010. In 1928, during a conference of the Vietnam Association of Revolutionary Youth held in Danang, plans were drawn for the expansion of the youth organization at the provincial level, led by Ðoã Quang. Lãnh became a committee member of the association of the south-central province of Quaûng Nam. This position motivated him to play an even greater role in promoting the revolutionary movement. His role grew in significance after Ho Chi Minh merged the various communist organizations in Kowloon, Hong Kong, in February 1930 to establish the Vietnam Communist Party (VCP). In 1935, Lãnh accepted an invitation to join the Indochinese Communist Party (Ðaûng Coäng saûn Ðông Döông) in Nanking. Together with the pioneering members of the VCP, he participated in the strategic planning of the party, and studied politics. However, his study was terminated when he was asked to return to Kunming in China. In Kunming, between 1939–41, he established the guerilla zones in Northern Vietnam and the secret border routes for his comrades. In 1941 he escorted his peers, Phaïm Vaên Ðoàng and Võ Nguyên

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Giáp, to Tónh Tây ( ), Guangxi, to meet Ho Chi Minh. Phaïm Vaên Ðoàng later served as prime minister from 1955 to 1987. Lãnh was one of the three officials who accompanied Ho Chi Minh to Paéc Bó (north-eastern province of Cao Baèng), where he strategized numerous uprisings which culminated in the August Revolution (Cách maïng tháng Tám). In Cao Baèng, he nurtured the guerilla fronts, including instilling the organizational culture in the Viet Minh cadres and reinforcing their skills. Then in 1942, together with Phaïm Vaên Ðoàng, in Tân Trào (Tuyên Quang province), he established a nascent committee that would work towards the unification of the country.Tân Trào was the temporary revolutionary site where decisions on uprisings were made. Lãnh’s co-workers were General Võ Nguyên Giáp, Vuõ Anh, and Chu Vaên Taán, who became the first defence minister of the Democratic People’s Republic of Vietnam. Lãnh further undertook the crucial but risky responsibility of unifying the various groups of ethnic Chinese Communists in Chôï Lôùn, which was heavily guarded by the French at the time. From 1948–50, while commuting between Bangkok and China for his project, Lãnh established the sea passage to transport ammunitions between Hong Kong and Bangkok, reviving in the process the committee of military logistics for the southern part of Vietnam. When the French withdrew from Vietnam, Lãnh was selected to sit on the Resistance Committee for the South (UŒy ban Kháng chieán Nam Boä) to spearhead the next stage of political development. In 1957–58, he became consul general at the consulate of Vietnam in Kunming. Owing to his experience in cross-border travels and negotiations, in addition to his multilingual skills, Lãnh was instrumental in negotiating with the Chinese and the Soviet Union for their continued assistance and support from

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the 1950s until 1964. He served as deputy chief of the Commission for Foreign Relations of the Central Committee of the VCP from 1959–77, when he continued to nurture junior diplomatic staff. He retired in Hanoi in 1977. Lãnh passed away in Hanoi on 20 July 2008, leaving behind his wife, Ðaëng Thò Giang (born in 1924 in Udon Thani, Thailand), and five children — two sons and three daughters. He was given a state funeral. Grace Chew Chye Lay R E F E R E N C E S Công Ty Trách Nhieäm Höõu Haïn Chim Laïc. Ðeà Cöông Tröng Bày Nhà Löu Nieäm Ðoàng Chí Cao Hoàng Lãnh. Hôi An: Ban Quaûn Lý Nhà Ðöùc An, October 2007. (Chim Lac Co. Ltd. An Outline of the Home Commemorating Comrade Cao Hong Lanh. Hoi An: The Management Committee of Duc An Home, October 2007). Lòch söû Ðaûng boä Thò xã Hoäi An. Ðà Naüng: Ðaûng Coäng Saûn Vieät Nam Thò Xã Hoäi An, 1989, pp. 15–37. (A History of the Party in Hoi’an. Danang: The Vietnam Communist Party of Hoi’an, 1989, pp. 15–37). “Möøng thoï nhà cách maïng lão thành Cao Hoàng Lãnh tròn 100 tuoåi”, Báo Ðà Naüng, 7 June 2004. (accessed January 2010). Private interview with the grandson of Cao Hoàng Lãnh, Phan Ngoïc Trâm, in January 2006 and October 2010, Hoi’an (Central Vietnam).

Cao Trieàu Phát ( , Gao Chaofa, 1889–1956) Religious, military and political leader,Vietnam

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ao Trieàu Phát was the manager of the most partisan of the dozens of Caodaist branches of the communist cause. Caodaism was legalized in 1997 and is now Vietnam’s third largest religion after Buddhism and Catholicism. Phát was also a promoter of

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the Scout movement, connecting this with his religion as a military strategy in his struggle against the French. He also bridged the old Sino-Vietnamese and Western secret societies, several denominations of the new Cao Ðài religion, and those of the nationalist and communist factions. Phát was born into a wealthy landowning family in a remote area in Baïc Liêu province, in the Mekong Delta of the southern region of Vietnam. His grandfather, Cao Caàn Thieät, was a migrant from Chaozhou who arrived in Cochinchina at the age of eighteen and married a Vietnamese woman. Their son, Cao Minh Thaïnh (1860–1919), the father of Cao Trieàu Phát, was chief of Baïc Liêu province and married a Sino-Vietnamese woman, Tào Thò Xúc (1858–1901). Phát was born on 17 April 1889 in Vónh Hinh hamlet in the Vónh Lôïi village of Baïc Liêu province and was the fifth of eight siblings. He graduated from Chasseloup-Laubat College in Saigon in 1910. As one of the few privileged young Vietnamese, he attended this French-speaking school in which the Indochinese elite was educated to meet the administrative needs of the colonial system. After a training course in law at the Court of Saigon, he accepted a job as secretarytranslator at the court of Baïc Liêu. He then decided to marry Lê Thò Löïu (1894–1953) and the union bore one son, Cao Trieàu Liêm, born in 1912. His wife soon revealed a fragile health and the marriage ended. Phát married again in the 1930s. With his new wife, a young Sino-Vietnamese girl named Châu Thò Tùng (1912–2005), he had two daughters and a son. In 1914, during the First World War, he volunteered to leave Vietnam for France as a sergeant and translator, to take charge of Vietnamese soldiers enlisted into the French

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Army. In 1917, during his eight-year residence in France, he was initiated in 1917 into the freemason lodge, “Les Francs chevaliers d’Écosse et la solidarité réunis” (“The FrancScottish Knights and the joined solidarity”) in Bordeaux. The lodge aimed to promote intellectualism and preserve the Scottish rite. It also required members to make large financial contributions. Returning to Cochinchina in 1922, Phát began his political career and founded the Indochinese Labour Party (Ðông Döông Lao ñoäng Ðaœng) on 12 November 1926, which existed until 1931. He also worked as a political editorialist for two newspapers of the time, L’Ère nouvelle (“The New Era”) and Nhöït Tân Báo (the “First Modern Newspaper”), which were both prohibited by the French in 1929. In 1930 he was nominated to the Administrative Board of Cochinchinese (Hoäi ñoàng Quaûn haït Nam Kyø). Caodaism emerged between 1925 and 1926 in the Mekong Delta when the supreme divinity, Cao Ðài Master, revealed himself ) or through a flying phoenix (phò loan spirit-writing séances, to Vietnamese civil servants. “Cao Ðài” — the supreme platform — is the abbreviation for ‘Cao-Ðài Tiên-Ông Ðaïi-Boà-Tát Ma-Ha-Tát’ ( ), which means the “Supreme Platform for the Highest Immortal and Great Bodhisattva Mahasattva”, with an implicit and millenarian reference to the heavenly jade emperor of the Chinese. Caodaists directly controlled a large part of southern Vietnam, establishing their own army during the Japanese Occupation and the ensuing war of independence. Phát did not become a Caodaist until the demise of his political party, the Indochinese Labour Party. He converted from Buddhism to Caodaism on 30 April 1932 in Thái Döông Minh temple of Baïc Liêu and

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joined the Tiên Thiên ( ) denomination in 1932. A series of lost political battles against the French colonizers undoubtedly led him to recalibrate his rhetoric into a religious one, as he considered Caodaism to be a new, but very powerful force of mobilization. Evidence indicates deliberate attempts on the part of Caodaist leaders to catch the attention of Phát. For example, in 1926, his younger sister, Cao Thò Khieát (1895–1920), who died from disease four years after her wedding, was elevated to the Caodaist pantheon as the incarnation of the ninth immortal, cöûu nöông ), surrounding the Golden Mother of ( the Jasper Pond — Diêu Trì Kim Maãu ( ). The planned incarnation of his sister was the factor that motivated his religious conversion. He was given the religious ) — which appellation, ‘Thuaän Ðaït’ ( means to “reach a spirit of harmony”, and took the pseudonym Sôn Kyø Giang, meaning “the strange river of the mountain” — a metaphor pertaining to his patriotism. He was simultaneously attracted by the communist proposal to join forces in order to dispose of the colonial yoke. Aware of the economic crisis that had struck Indo-China since 1930 and weakened the resources of the Tây Ninh denomination — the denomination that was most numerically substantial — Phát established in Baïc Liêu a new denomination called Minh Chôn Lý ( ) or Minh Chôn Ðaïo ( ) — the “Way of the enlightened truth” — with the support of Traàn Ðaïo Quang (1870–1946), a ) secret Taoist leader of the Minh Sö ( society. He was nominated cardinal (chöôûng ) in this Caodaist denomination, pháp the only remaining denomination with ties to the communists. He used his paternalistic influence as the plantation owner of a pool of labourers to found this Caodaist denomination;

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it is estimated that he had 5,000 hectares of plantations.The League for the Independence of Vietnam (Vieät Nam Ðoäc laäp Ðoàng minh Hoäi or Vieät Minh) found in the “family network” of Phát a powerful ally. In 1941, Phát became a member of the provincial committee of the Communist Party (originally a clandestine operation formed in 1939) in Baïc Liêu, and subscribed to the Vieät Minh cause for independence. He was soon afterwards named vice-president of the Committee of National Liberation — UÛy ban Giaûi phóng Dân toäc — for Baïc Liêu. Coming from a local wealthy and powerful family, he naturally became president of the committee in 1945. Around this time he started a Caodaist Scout movement which attempted to bridge the various Caodaist denominations. It was in Saigon and within the Minh ) — the last of the new-born Tân temple ( Minh secret societies — that he organized the “Federation of the Virtuous Youth” (Thanh niên Ñaïo ñöùc Ñoàn) in 1945, opening a scout section with the participation of three other Caodaists: the journalist, Phan Tröôøng Maïnh (1895–1967), Doctor Tröông Keá An (1899– 1983), and the politician, Phan Khaéc Söûu (1905–70), who would later become president of the Republic of South Vietnam from 1964– 65. The Scout movement was conceived like a semi-military structure in which recruits were being instilled with the values of the rituals and ideas of national liberation. At the beginning of 1946, in the struggle against the French Army, Phát withdrew to his “Holy See” of Baïc Liêu — that means the main church of his denomination in a Caodaist vision — and founded a base of resistance there. On 14 October 1947, he coordinated a clandestine conference at Ðoàng Tháp Möôøi village, with the objective of creating a “unified association of the twelve Caodaist denominations for patriotic salvation” (Hoäi Cao Ðài Cöùu Quoác

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12 phái Hôïp Nhöùt). Its main objective was to organize Caodaists into a patriotic front against the colonial invaders for the Communist cause, following the example of other religions such as Catholicism and Buddhism. As president of the management committee of the aforesaid association, he was assisted by two Communist vice-presidents: Nguyeãn Ngoïc Nhöït, son of the Caodaist Pope of Beán Tre province, and Nguyeãn Vaên Khaûm, from the Tiên Thiên denomination. However, Phát and the Vieät Minh failed in their political objective, primarily because of the weak military support and institutional legitimacy given by France to another Caodaist denomination, the Holy See of Tây Ninh. During the Geneva Conference on 21 July 1954, Phát concluded that all pro-Vieät Minh Caodaist dignitaries had to move to Cà Mau, a marshy area in the extreme south of Vietnam which French soldiers would find difficult to access. Weakened and old, he decided to travel to North Vietnam by air on 17 September 1954 to meet President Ho Chi Minh. On the Lunar New Year’s Day of 24 January 1955, he organized a religious ceremony at 48 Hòa Mã Street in Hanoi, which was to become the first Caodaist temple in the Communist North. The temple is still active today. On 9 September 1956, Phát died at the B.303 Hospital in Hanoi. The government of President Ho Chi Minh organized a solemn funeral in remembrance. Jérémy Jammes R E F E R E N C E S Cô Quan Phoå Tông Giáo Lý Ðaïi Ðaïo (Agency for Doctrinal Dissemination of the Great Caodaist Way). Lòch söû ñaïo Cao Ðài. Truyeàn Ðaïo (1926–1938) (History of the Cao Dai Religion. Proselytism), pp. 456–500; 587–91. Ho Chi Minh City: Tôn Giáo Publisher, 2008. Jammes, Jérémy. Le caodaïsme: rituels médiumniques, oracles et exégèses, unpublished dissertation. Nanterre: University of Paris X, Nov. 2006.

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Phan, Vaên Hoàng. Cao Trieàu Phát, Nghóa khí Nam boä (Cao Trieu Phat or the chevalereque spirit of the South). Ho Chi Minh City: Treû Publisher, 2001.

Cham Tao Soon ( , Zhan Daocun, 1939– ) Academic, engineer, Singapore

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ften credited with building up Nanyang Technological University (NTU) into a tertiary institution of high repute, Cham Tao Soon has had a long career in academia. Due to his long service as a university lecturer and researcher, Cham has contributed a great deal to the field of engineering in Singapore. Born in 1939, Cham completed his education at Raffles Institution. He followed this by reading engineering in the University of Malaya, from which he graduated with an honours degree in civil engineering in 1964. Upon graduation, he worked briefly as a consulting engineer. However, the lure of learning and sharing that which he had learnt soon led to him returning to the educational fold. Thus, he applied for a lecturing position at Singapore Polytechnic. He was successful in his application and he remained at Singapore Polytechnic until he went for further studies. His experience at Singapore Polytechnic stood him in good stead, for he secured a place at the University of London two years later. At the University of London, he worked hard and came away with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics, with honours. After completing his education at the University of London, Cham went to Cambridge University in the United Kingdom on a Commonwealth Scholarship. It was from Cambridge University that he obtained his Doctor of Philosophy in Fluid Mechanics. Eager to contribute to the area of theoretical engineering and desirous of

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developing young minds in the different fields of engineering, Cham took up the position of lecturer with the University of Singapore in 1969. His dedication to his field and his students ensured his steady rise within the faculty, culminating in his promotion to the position of dean of the Engineering Faculty in 1978. He remained in this position until 1983. Owing to his excellent work as both lecturer and dean of the Engineering Faculty at the University of Singapore, he was appointed President of the newly re-incepted NTU (known at the time as Nanyang Technological Institute or NTI) in 1981. As the former incarnation of that institution, Nanyang University, had been ‘absorbed’ into the University of Singapore to form the National University of Singapore in 1980, the newly re-incepted NTI was in need of strong and innovative leadership. Cham provided just that and was duly appointed professor of NTI in 1983. He must have been very assiduous in his duties, for NTI was accorded university status in 1991 and changed its name to Nanyang Technological University. Thus, it could be said that Cham had likely played a significant role in NTU becoming the second Englishmedium University in Singapore. He remained in his position as President and professor at NTU until 2003, whereupon he was appointed Distinguished University Professor. During his long tenure at NTU, Cham oversaw the transformation of the institution from NTI to NTU. At the same time, he was also responsible for building up NTU into a tertiary institution comparable to its sister, the National University of Singapore. Indeed, he is still known as the man who helmed NTU from 1981 to 2002, and is still acknowledged as the founding President of NTU. Contrary to the common misconception of engineers and academicians being disinterested in anything outside their

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research fields, Cham is also a patron of the arts. This patronage undoubtedly sprang from his earnest desire to foster the intellectual and creative growth of young Singaporeans. Thus, he served as Chairman of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (2002 to the present), Singapore Symphonia Company (1999 to the present), NatSteel Ltd (1988 to the present), and Wearnes Technology Pte Ltd (1986–99). In the spirit of nurturing engineering talent in various fields within the discipline, he had also served as the director of Keppel Corporation (1982–2002), Adroit Innovations, the Land Transport Authority, TPA Strategic Holdings, and Robinson & Company. Additionally, he has been the deputy chairman of Singapore Press Holdings since 2004. He is also presently serving on the Singapore Institute of Management (SIM) University Board of Trustees and has been in that position since 1997. Cham is still very highly regarded in academia for he is acknowledged as Professor Emeritus of Nanyang Technology as well as the Chairman and Chancellor of SIM University. As a testament to his wide range of interest in engineering, culture and the arts, he also holds the post of director of WBL Corporation, Soup Restaurant Group and Singapore International Foundation. In these various capacities, Cham has been instrumental in encouraging the development of various fields of engineering in his students. To date, he is a fellow of the Institution of Engineers in Singapore, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in the United Kingdom and the Royal Academy of Engineering in the United Kingdom. For his contributions to academia and his efforts, achievements and research in engineering, Cham was made a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques in 1979, admitted into the Distinguished Service Order in 2003, and awarded with the Royal Academy of

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Engineering Inaugural International Medal in 2006. Although his tenure as Chairman of Wearnes Technology lapsed in 1999, Cham’s contributions and insights into the field of engineering technology are still very much valued. This may be gleaned from the fact that he is still an independent and non-executive director at Wearnes Technology, a post to which he was re-elected in 2008. Already well known for his contributions to academia and the field of engineering, Cham’s innovative spirit and unflagging spirit continues to serve the public in his many nonacademic capacities. He was appointed to the United Overseas Bank (UOB) board of trustees on 4 January 2001 and was so upright and effective in his position that he was re-elected as the director of the board on 30 April 2008. In his capacity as an independent and nonexecutive director, he sits on the Chair of the UOB audit committee and is a member of the bank’s executive, nominating and remuneration committees. Additionally, he also serves as the director of UOB’s subsidiaries, such as Far Eastern Bank and the United Overseas Bank in China. Concurrent to his post as UOB nonexecutive director, Cham is also Chairman of MFS Technology and the Singapore-China Foundation. Currently, he is a member of the Council of Presidential Advisers. For his public spiritedness and contributions to the academic scene in Singapore, he was awarded with the Public Administration Medal (PPA) and the Distinguished Service Order (DUBC). Likewise, his academic contributions to the various fields of engineering have resulted in the University of Strathclyde, the University of Surrey, Loughborough University and Soka University conferring honorary degrees upon him. Sharon Loo

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R E F E R E N C E S National Heritage Board. “Cham Tao Soon”. In Singapore: The Encyclopedia, Tommy T. B. Koh, et al., ed. Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2006, p. 89. United Overseas Bank. “Board of Directors: Cham Tao Soon”, 2010. (accessed 15 December 2010). WBL Corporation Limited. “Board of Directors: Dr Cham Tao Soon”, 2010. (accessed 15 December 2010).

Chamlong Srimuang (Lu Kimhor, , Lu Jinhe, 1935– ) Army officer, politician, protest leader,Thailand

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hamlong Srimuang, an ethnic Teochew with the childhood nickname of Kim Hor, was born on 5 July 1935, in Thonburi, across the river from Bangkok. His father, Lu Hasiew, a trader who had emigrated from China, fathered two sons with his Thaiborn wife Boonruean, a street hawker who was also of Chinese descent.The elder son was sent to China to be raised by his grandmother but died during the Second World War. Chamlong, the younger son, was barely three years old when his father died. At the age of 12, Chamlong took the surname “Srimuang”, when his mother married a postman by the name of Chot Srimuang. As a poor boy seeking social advancement, Chamlong applied to the Army and Navy cadet schools, was accepted by both, and opted for the Army. He graduated from Class 7 of the Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy, where in his final year he served as chief cadet. However, his graduation was marred by a conflict with the senior officers of the Academy, whom he had accused of corruption. He ended up being punished for raising funds by organizing showings of outdoor movies, which

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were then banned under martial law regulations. For this offence he was stripped of his position of chief cadet and saw his graduation delayed, only receiving his graduation sword long after his classmates. Chamlong was subsequently assigned to the Signals Corps rather than the more prestigious infantry or cavalry, but he remained an important player in Class 7, which emerged as one of the leading cliques in the Thai Army during the 1970s and 1980s. As a signals officer at the height of the Cold War, he was sent on two training assignments to the United States, totalling eighteen months, in the early 1960s. In 1964, Chamlong married Army Major Sirilak (Nonglak) Khiawla-o, a “star” Chulalongkorn University pharmacy graduate. Chamlong saw combat during a special mission to Laos in 1968. Ironically, he later claimed that he had only been sent to Laos by mistake. He also served a tour of duty in South Vietnam, and spent two years at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, where he gained a master’s degree in 1974. He returned to Thailand to become an intelligence officer at the headquarters of the Supreme Command during the heady mid-1970s. His role in the events of 6 October 1976 later became the subject of controversy; he has admitted involvement in a rightist demonstration at the Royal Plaza on that day, but has always vigorously denied that he was involved in the massacre of students at Thammasat University. Chamlong’s political debut came in 1980, when he was appointed secretary-general to Prime Minister General Prem Tinsulanonda. Prem had been installed in office through the backing of a group of Class 7 officers popularly known as the Young Turks, whose leaders included Colonel Manun Rupkhachon. Although he was supposed to be the Young Turks’ point man in the Prem administration,

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Chamlong sided with Prem during the group’s failed April 1981 coup attempt. This meant that his position was no longer tenable, and he resigned soon afterwards, ostensibly because of his strong opposition to abortion. During the late 1970s Chamlong had become a devout member of the Santi Asok Buddhist sect, becoming a vegetarian, giving away his possessions and taking a vow of celibacy. For several years after his 1981 resignation, he travelled around Thailand, living frugally and preaching the dharma while continuing to draw an army officer’s salary. Chamlong was promoted to major-general in October 1985 but served as a general for only two days, before resigning from the Army and standing as an independent candidate for election as governor of Bangkok. Under the banner of the Ruam Phalang (United Force) Group, he won the election after gaining 480,233 votes, almost twice the vote of the Democrat Party candidate Chana Rungsaeng, who had originally been seen as the front runner. After initial resistance to entering party politics, he established the Phalang Dhamma (Moral Force) Party in 1988. For the next four years Chamlong grew increasingly popular, his name closely associated with several themes: the withdrawal of the military from political meddling, the rejection of corruption and money politics, the quest for cleaner and more competent political parties, and calls for greater decentralization of power. Chamlong went on to win a second term as Bangkok governor in 1990 with a landslide 703,671 votes. But, in the wake of the February 1991 military coup, he decided to resign the governorship to run for parliament. In the 22 March 1992 general election, his Phalang Dharma Party won 32 out of 35 parliamentary seats in the capital. Chamlong soon became involved in extra-parliamentary rally politics when

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former army commander and coup leader Suchinda Kraprayun was appointed prime minister, an appointment widely criticized as illegitimate. After first proclaiming a hunger strike, Chamlong assumed the leading role in massive anti-Suchinda street protests in central Bangkok during May 1992, which culminated in a violent military crackdown involving 52 confirmed deaths. On 18 May, Chamlong was arrested; on 20 May, he and Suchinda appeared on television kneeling on the floor before King Bhumibol Adulyadej and listening to a royal rebuke. Suchinda resigned as prime minister shortly afterwards, while Chamlong’s own political ambitions never recovered from this dark and controversial episode. To his supporters, he had helped defeat dictatorship and restore Thailand to democracy; to his detractors, he had acted recklessly and “led people to die”. Palang Dharma lost Bangkok seats to the more conservative Democrat Party in Thailand’s September 1992 general elections, and, while Chamlong later assumed the position of deputy prime minister in a Democrat-led administration, he was never comfortable in this subordinate role. In May 1995, he pulled Palang Dharma out of the coalition government, so removing Prime Minister Chuan Likphai from power and triggering fresh elections. At this point he handed over the leadership of the party to then political neophyte Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire telecommunications tycoon. For the next decade Chamlong served as a somewhat improbable mentor to a man whose materialism, worldiness and incredible affluence seemed the polar opposite of Chamlong’s own values and image. Thaksin was unable to handle the contentious factional politics of Phalang Dharma, however, and he soon launched a political party of his own, Thai Rak Thai.

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In 1996 the ever-restless Chamlong made an unsuccessful bid to regain the Bangkok governorship, losing ignominiously: his political star had now badly faded. With his wife Sirilak, he turned his energies to a range of charitable activities, including a leadership school in Kanchanaburi, a vast dogs’ home near Don Mueang, and a project to provide free dialysis for poor kidney patients. These activities helped him maintain his image in the media, which always formed an important element in his political calculations. In 2006 Chamlong returned to the headlines by leading a public protest against efforts by prominent businessman Charoen Siriwatthanaphakdi to list Thai Beverage Plc, the producer of Chang Beer, on the Securities Exchange of Thailand. Chamlong argued that such a move would further promote and boost alcohol sales. The Chang Beer campaign was just a warm-up, however, for Chamlong’s full-blown return to rally politics. Early in 2006 he broke publicly with his long-time protégé Thaksin Shinawatra, who had by then served as prime minister for five years. Accusing Thaksin of abusing his power and profiting financially from political office, Chamlong became one of the five core leaders of the anti-Thaksin People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD). In effect, the main leader of the movement was media tycoon Sondhi Limthongkun, and Chamlong served as his de facto number two, responsible primarily for the logistics of the protests, which began on 19 February 2006. Through a series of mass rallies, the PAD — wearing trademark yellow shirts that symbolized their professed loyalty to the monarchy — helped destabilize the Thaksin government and so created the conditions for the 19 September 2006 military coup which ousted him. When Thaksin’s People’s Power Party (PPP) won the first post-coup election in

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December 2007, Chamlong’s longtime archrival Samak Suntharawet assumed the post of prime minister. The PAD then re-emerged, seizing Government House from August to November 2008 and holding nightly mass rallies there before moving on to take control of Bangkok’s airports. In December 2008, the PPP was dissolved by the courts, and a new Democrat-led coalition assumed office. Chamlong was among those involved in the creation of the New Politics Party, the ill-fated political wing of the PAD, in 2009. However, he campaigned for a “no vote” (in other words, he urged people not to vote for any party) in the July 2011 elections. Chamlong Srimuang played a crucial role in the unmaking of five Thai prime ministers: Suchinda Kraprayun (1992), Chuan Likphai (1995), Thaksin Shinawatra (2006), Samak Suntharawet (2008) and his successor Somchai Wongsawat (2008). His maverick career, spanning the military, electoral politics, social activism and rally leadership, makes him one of the most extraordinary figures in modern Thai political history. The first decade of his political career from 1985 to 1995 saw some remarkable achievements, but in later years he seemed to lose his way, swinging from ill-judged uncritical support for Thaksin, to a relentless and ultimately self-defeating anti-Thaksin fixation. Despite his flaws — the main one being a complete lack of reflexivity — Chamlong Srimuang’s life has been characterized by tremendous energy and determination, and a remarkable, if not always sustained, ability to grasp the prevailing mood of the Bangkok public. Duncan McCargo R E F E R E N C E S Chamlong Srimuang. The Life of Chamlong [chiwit chamlong]. Bangkok: A.V. Publishers, 1990.

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Chamlong Srimuang. Unite and Fight [Ruamkan su]. Bangkok: Khlet Thai, 1992. Duncan McCargo. Chamlong Srimuang and the New Thai Politics. London: Hurst, 1997. Duncan McCargo. “Thai Politics as Reality TV”. Journal of Asian Studies 68, no. 1 (February 2009): 7–19.

Chan Ah Kow ( , Chen Yajiu, 1912–96) Athlete, national coach, sport administrator, Singapore

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r Chan Ah Kow was a driving force behind attempts to raise competitive sporting standards in Singapore after 1965. From a foundation as a highly talented sportsman, notably during his undergraduate days in the 1930s, he became highly influential both as a coach and an administrator during the 1960s and 1970s. He was the coach of the national swimming team at six consecutive South East Asian Peninsular (SEAP) and South East Asian (SEA) Games between 1965 and 1975. Chan was born in Taiping in 1912. His father, Chan Tai, had migrated from China and established a small, but profitable iron foundry. The young Chan attended King Edward VII School where he became a sports champion. He dominated many athletic events, notably hurdles, becoming school champion three years in a row (1930–32). He was also head boy of the school in 1931 and 1932. His most dramatic year was 1933 — the same year he moved to Singapore to begin his medical studies. Within the space of a month he played Malaya Cup football for Perak and then won the Keith Cup at the first annual athletics meeting of the King Edward VII College of Medicine in Singapore. The crowning moments of the year, however, came

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in December, when he was the champion athlete at the 2nd Singapore Chinese athletics sports meet at Jalan Besar stadium. On the basis of his performances he was selected to represent Singapore at the All-Malayan Chinese Olympiad held in Kuala Lumpur, where he set a new Far Eastern Olympic record of 15.2 seconds in the 110-m hurdles event. In rugby, football, and athletics he attracted attention and developed a reputation as an entertainer. His speed and bravery served him well in most sporting contests. Lee Kip Lee wrote that he was “a most colourful character” who “never failed to capture the attention of the spectators, especially the girls”. “… what attracted the attention of everyone was the garb which adorned his muscular frame. He had a cloth cap on his head, a long-sleeve jersey with a turtleneck, and leather gloves. That, and the many spectacular saves he made, earned him thunderous applause.” The final years of Chan’s medical training coincided with the early war years in Europe. He qualified as a doctor in 1940. Just one month before the Japanese Occupation began, he married Elizabeth Giam in January 1942. In difficult and harrowing times the couple had three children, two daughters — Mei Ling and Vicky, and one son, Bernard. During the immediate post-war years, Dr Chan initially turned his sporting attention to tennis. It was common for him to go to clubs and private residences to play with friends and associates. In 1948, he appeared in the first post-war Singapore Lawn Tennis Association tournament played indoors at the Happy World amusement park. The Chan residence in Mountbatten Road, known as Chansville, became a focal point for tennis practice and competitions. In December 1948 Singapore entered a golden age of sporting success when the

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Malayan badminton team won the inaugural Thomas Cup competition in England. Chan was the medical adviser who attended to the team. This was the first of many major international visits that stimulated his desire for national success. As well as opening his eyes to the sporting practices adopted in other countries, the tournament may also have prompted him to become a generous sponsor of local and international competitions. In 1949 he donated a challenge cup for the new inter-university sporting contests between Hong Kong universities and the combined colleges in Singapore. Chan recognized the need for athletes to capitalize on their experiences abroad. In 1950 the most prestigious competition after the Olympic Games were the British Empire Games. Chan highlighted an important message to younger sportsmen when he advised the seven-man team travelling to Auckland to show the world that Malaya was not only known for tin, rubber, and badminton players, but was also a country of good allround sportsmen. In 1952 he accompanied the Olympic team to Helsinki, where he filmed events for later analysis. It was at this time that the Chan family itself went through a period of dramatic change. Chan and Elizabeth Giam separated. Lucy became Chan’s second wife, and together they had four children. Second son Alex was followed by Pat, Roy, and later Mark. All the children grew up with tennis matches as a regular feature of home life and swimming as a competitive challenge, rivalled only by the pursuit of academic excellence. Throughout the 1960s Chan maintained a close affiliation with the Singapore Lawn Tennis Association (SLTA). In 1960, as vicepresident of SLTA, he was leading the attempts to obtain the affiliation of Singapore as a Davis Cup nation. In 1963, at the time of merger

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with Malaya, he was elected the new president of SLTA and became dedicated to the task of seeking equal representation for Singapore on the proposed Malaysian Olympic Council. It was Chan who introduced innovatory training systems to stretch the potential of his children and other swimmers under his charge at the Chinese Swimming Club. The British Empire and Commonwealth Games in 1966 had proved to be an eye-opener for Chan and a catalyst for change for sports in Singapore. The games represented the first major international event for Singapore after gaining independence. Chan was established as vice-president of the Singapore Olympic and Sports Council (SOSC) and was manager of the swimming team travelling to Kingston, Jamaica. The small Singapore team discovered their sportsmen and women were lagging far behind the larger countries. Chan then became more critical of sporting standards in Singapore and commented that Singaporean athletes at the games were “like secondary school children taking a wide-eyed look at other well-trained far advanced university students”. The strongest message from him was that Singaporeans should only compete in sports in which they stood a chance. Intelligent foresight, combined with sound planning and identification of appropriate sports, could produce success. During the early years of Singapore’s independence, the Chan clan, as it was also known, recorded many national and international successes. From 1965–73, Pat, Bernard, Alex, Roy, and Mark together accumulated forty-seven individual gold medals in the SEAP Games. In 1967 Chan became president of the Singapore Amateur Swimming Association and was identified by Othman Wok, president of the SOSC, as “the best example of a dedicated coach”. This dedication was rewarded in 1970, when

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the new award — Coach of the Year — was introduced. He was to achieve this accolade three times in all. In 1972, Chan published a plan designed to boost Singapore’s chances of success in regional competitions. He focused on selective specialization or the channelling schoolchildren to the sports best suited for their physical and mental make-up. He saw a strong need for incentives such as sports scholarships at all levels of education, and the introduction of a point system in the extra-curricular activities. At the Munich Olympic Games of 1972, Chan was again an accompanying official. He came away with the realization that Singapore would always be chasing the stronger nations. Swimmers in Singapore tended to retire at an earlier age than their rivals from Japan for example. A major consequence of the experience in Munich was the introduction of plans to bring foreign coaches into Singapore and to send potential winners on training stints abroad. In 1973 Chan stepped down as SLTA president, but continued to work for greater participation and better results in swimming. In 1976, he was awarded the Public Service Medal and, in 1985, made an honorary life member of the Singapore Amateur Swimming Association. One decade later he received a long service award from the Chinese Swimming Club. He passed away in March 1996. Nick Aplin R E F E R E N C E S Aplin, N.G., D.J. Waters, and M.L. Leong. Singapore Olympians: A Complete Who’s Who from 1936 to 2004. Singapore: SNP International, SNP Corporation, 2005, p. 487. Joe Dorai. “Dr Chan reports: We’re far behind”. Straits Times, 27 August 1966, p. 22. Lee, Kip Lee. Amber Sands: A Boyhood Memoir.

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Singapore: Times Heritage Library. Federal Publications, 1995. Straits Times. “Show the World Malayans are Good Sportsmen”, 21 January 1950, p. 12.

Chan, Carlos (施恭旗, Shi Gongqi, 1942– ) Entrepreneur, philanthropist, Philippines

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mong the Chinese-Filipino businessmen who ventured into China, Carlos Chan is the most successful. The phenomenal success of Oishi snack food in China is now a model that most business schools would want to teach. Chan’s success in China has redounded to the Philippines. It enables him to help his country more — by promoting the Philippines to Chinese investors, helping the marginalized, and showing to China and the Chinese that the Philippines is a country of great potential. Chan’s brainchild, the Liwayway Group of Companies, is a wholly Filipino company that has penetrated many markets throughout China and across Asia. Today, it operates in China,Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, and Indonesia, and continues to expand its presence. Chan was born in Manila on 26 December 1942. Right after the war, his ) and See Ying parents, Chan Lib ( ) put up a small family business ( repacking flour and coffee products. Liwayway Marketing eventually became the country’s leading supplier of what then became the flagship product of the business, Liwayway Gawgaw (laundry starch). In 1966, the Liwayway Marketing Corporation (LMC) was established, and the business expanded to include the distribution of pomade, starch, coffee, confectioneries, candles, candies, sauces, and other basic commodities.

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The Chan brothers, Carlos and Manuel, actively participated in the growing business. Ten years later, under the management of Manuel Chan, LMC diversified into the manufacturing of snack food products, beginning with “Oishi Prawn Crackers” and “Kirei Yummy Flakes”. The snack food business proved to be encouraging, and the company eventually concentrated on this enterprise. Over the decades, Oishi has been the food companion of generations of Filipinos. Upon the death of his father, Carlos Chan bought the family-owned Liwayway Marketing Corporation when his siblings decided to venture into their own businesses. A few years before Chan bought Liwayway, he had set up Chan C. Brothers (CCB) in 1963, a company that manufactured plastic signboards. CCB later ventured into the trading of construction materials, and eventually went into manufacturing commercial and decorative lighting fixtures, outdoor lighting fixtures, and acrylic sheets.Through the years, CCB became quite well known in the country as a provider of high quality fixtures, and so could supply and is still supplying its products to many prominent establishments all over the Philippines. Chan’s equally famous brother, Ben Chan, creator of fashion line Bench, attributed Carlos Chan’s success to his personality. As a young university student, Chan played football — a sport that needed endurance and patience. His artistic inclination, inherited from his mother, gives him incredible people skills and a great public relations persona. He is also a man of vision. Ben Chan recounted: “He dreamt long ago that he would set up business in China even before China opened its doors to the world.” In the 1980s, when China was slowly opening up to the world, Chan was cautiously studying its market. At the time, business conditions were quite restrictive, transportation

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was difficult, and investments parameters were not profitable. With courage and vision, Chan went back and forth to China for five years and finally decided to export Oishi products there first while setting up production facilities for the first cooperative joint venture companies in Shanghai. In 1993, Liwayway started its China operations with two rented factories in Shanghai and 400 employees. In its first year, Liwayway China lost RMB2.9 million as it took time to stabilize operations and establish a more performance-based or profit-oriented management style. Many of Chan’s own managers urged him to give up. Instead, Chan steeled himself to run the factory personally in the face of difficulties. He listened to his employees, valued their ideas, and despite his lack of capital, gave two salary increases, boosting the morale of his workforce. Under his leadership, the entire workforce worked together to manufacture and promote the ”, which fortunately, brand “Oishi turned the tide for the company. Before the cooperative joint venture, the China partner produced prawn chips. After this bittersweet experience, Chan relied on strict and professional management. He was generous to his employees, giving them pay raises and even installing heating in the workers’ canteen, thus getting everyone’s loyalty. He often invited foreign and local experts and technicians to give advice on modernized production methods. Today Liwayway (China) Company Limited (LCCL) has twelve factories, including two fruit juice factories and more than 6,000 employees. LCCL’s Oishi food snack is now among the biggest snack food manufacturers in China, with over US$250 million in annual sales.The China operations of Liwayway China Company Limited include twelve companies, and the products received the Shanghai Famous Brands Award in 2001. The 2004 Report from

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the China Trade Statistics Bureau named Oishi as the leading snack food brand in China. Manufacturing facilities have since also been set up in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (1997), Hanoi, Vietnam (2005), Yangon, Myanmar (1999), Indonesia (2006), and Thailand (2006). Oishi is now also the leading snack food brand in Vietnam and Myanmar, and is continuing to expand in Asia. In the nearly two decades since Chan set ” in Shanghai, the company up “Oishi has won the trust of customers, including government officials. Chan promoted and supported many trade exhibitions held in Shanghai and helped promote Shanghai’s ideal business climate. He was given the Magnolia Gold Award (1998), one of the highest honours given to expatriates by the City of Shanghai. Chan’s ardent love for the Philippines is well-known and unequalled. Wherever a Liwayway factory is located around Asia, a Philippine flag is hoisted, as it is one of the ways that Liwayway manifests its pride in being rooted in the Philippines. The packaging of Oishi products feature the “Wow, Philippines” mark to promote the country as one of the best tourist spots in the world. As part of the effort to promote the Philippines to the world, Chan was one of the major sponsors of the Philippine Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo 2010. For Chinese visitors, it was probably a surprise for them to learn that their favourite Oishi is actually Filipino. Also at the expo, Chan was awarded the Order of Sikatuna conferred by President Gloria MacapagalArroyo during the Philippine Independence Day rites (12 June 2012) conducted at the Philippine Pavilion. The award is for Chan’s pioneering success as an entrepreneur who produces quality food, both in the Philippines and China, and for his strengthening relations between the two countries, as exemplified

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by the philanthropic and cultural projects he envisioned. As with many business tycoons, Chan is not satisfied with just making money. His love for the Philippines encouraged him, and other like-minded friends, to put up the Philippine Soong Ching Ling Foundation (PSCLF, ). Chan was the founding chairman at the foundation’s inception in 2004. The PSCLF aims to carry forward the spirit of Soong Ching Ling and her unfinished cause — helping poor women and children in the Philippines — and to strengthen cultural and educational exchanges between children from China and the Philippines. Through the foundation, Chan brought the Loboc Children’s Choir to perform at the Shanghai Expo, and has since supported the choir and brought them to perform in many cities in China. Through the PSCLF and Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran (Unity for Progress), he has also put up low-cost housing projects in partnership with the Gawad Kalinga organization. Oishi Villages are now in Cavite, Baseco, Manila, and Maralit, Paranaque. Chan’s love for the Philippines is quite evident as he enthused to visitors to the Shanghai Philippine Pavillon about the Loboc Children’s Choir of Bohol. To help promote the choir and the province of Bohol, the choir hummed the Oishi jingle in television advertisements, and printed ads for Oishi in China featuring Bohol’s scenic spots prominently. Going deeper than just promoting its tourist attractions, Chan helps in the development of Bohol through projects such as the installation of lighting in the province. For this, province officials have made Chan a “Son of Bohol”. Beyond promoting the tourism potential of the Philippines, Chan makes sure that Chinese businessmen get to invest in the country. He markets the Philippines’ investment potential

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even as he strives for newer places to promote the company’s expanding product base. Chan personally escorted Expo visitors and talked to them about how the Philippines can emulate the immense growth that has happened in Shanghai. He would point to the frenetic pace of infrastructure build-up and dwell on his wish that the Philippines can play catch-up. Chan is described as a thoughtful and sharing brother. He has brought all his siblings to their father’s Xiamen hometown to see their parents’ original home. Today he teaches his children, Carlson, Archie, Rinby, Larry, Oszen, and Shera the same work ethic that he and his siblings learned from their parents. He reminds them to remember always that it is the Philippines that gave them the opportunity for growth. Carmelea Ang See R E F E R E N C E S Chanco, Boo. “We focused on our best”. In The Philippine STAR, 20 August 2010. Retrieved 10 February 2011 from . China Soong Ching Ling Foundation. “The Philippine Soong Ching Ling Foundation established”. 12 July 2008. Retrieved 10 February 2011 from . Gagni, Lito. “RP flag flies proudly in China plants”. In Business Mirror, 24 August 2010. Retrieved 10 February 2011 from . Mananquil, Millet M. “Carlos Chan and his Shanghai surprise”. In The Philippine STAR, 20 June 2010. Retrieved 10 February 2011 from . Medina, Rachelle. “It’s that time of the year”. In Real Living Space Web log comment 12 March 2008. Retrieved 10 February 2011 from . Official websites: Chan C. Bros. ; Oishi .

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Chan Choy Siong ( , Chen Cuichang, 1934–84) Civil servant, politician, Singapore

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t a time when men dominated the public sphere and political life, Chan Choy Siong rose to break down the gender barrier and became the first woman in Singapore politics. Indeed, Chan was instrumental in shaping the women’s rights movement in Singapore in her roles as first elected female Member of Parliament and head of the People’s Action Party (PAP) Women’s League. Her interest in assisting the elements of society that experienced less representation in socio-economic affairs — namely women, children and the elderly — helped secure the place of women as valued contributors to society. Her efforts in going against the then existent prejudices in society where women were generally considered inferior to men, empowered women to contribute to the world at large. Her interests in improving the lot of women in a male-dominated world may be attributed to her personal history. Born to a poor family, she would help out at her father’s chee cheong fun food stall while still in school. At a time where polygamy was widely practised, and most girls were not educated, her father was fairly progressive and allowed her to study at Nanyang Girls High School. Growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, she saw for herself that education for girls was skimmed over at best. Most girls were not educated, or, at best, primary school educated, and very few had secondary education. Likewise, there were not many jobs for women and they were paid much less than men. She also knew that female participation in the public sphere was frowned upon and female

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participation in politics was ridiculed. Yet she was determined to overcome these obstacles. As a first step in her determination to change these mindsets, she joined the PAP at the age of twenty, five months after the Party was formally inaugurated in October 1954. This was very bold of Chan on two counts. Politics was not seen to be a fit occupation for a woman, as a woman’s place was thought to be at home. If a woman had any interest in politics, she was ridiculed. Participating in active political campaigning was frowned upon because of prevailing societal prejudices against women. Moreover, dabbling in politics in the 1950s was deemed to be a folly, especially if one was allied to a party (such as the PAP) that called for self-rule and independence. It was feared that political parties such as the PAP could potentially clash with the British colonial authority. Nevertheless, Chan was determined to overcome these obstacles. She braced herself against opposition from the Chinesespeaking population and ridicule from the more conservative members of the PAP. Demonstrating her fluency in Mandarin and various Chinese dialects, her strong conviction that women were every bit as capable as men, and her determination to ensure that women were treated fairly by men in both the public and private spheres, Chan soon gained the respect of her PAP colleagues. Once her colleagues saw her capabilities and realized that she shared their passion for radically changing Singapore for the better, the PAP fielded her as a candidate for election when women were granted the vote in 1955. Consequently, Chan managed to win the important votes of women and was elected as a city councillor in 1957. She was subsequently elected to the Legislative Assembly in the 1959 elections and became a Member of Parliament for Delta.

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Her interest in women’s affairs and ensuring the institutionalization of some form of equality for women was most clearly seen during the time she served on the PAP’s Central Executive Committee from 1957 to 1963, where she spearheaded the formation of the Party’s subcommittees for women. Moreover, she led the PAP Women’s League, a forerunner to the present PAP’s Women’s Wing. She campaigned for the Women’s Charter, which called for marriages to be registered with the government, and also demanded the institution of monogamous marriages. Despite much male opposition to the Women’s Charter and the monogamy proposal, the then minister of law, Kenny Bryne, allowed the charter to be passed in 1961. This may be considered one of the greatest achievements not only for Chan, but for all Singapore women. Through the passage of the Women’s Charter, women and their properties would be protected by the law and the state. If they were in any way ill treated, harassed, or abused at home or at the workplace, women could now seek redress from the law. Throughout Chan’s political career, she organized many programmes for women to improve both their lives and their place in society. Following the schism within the PAP in 1961 when members of the party left to form the Barisan Sosialis, the PAP realized the importance of wooing the female vote. Accordingly, Chan led and successfully formed a Women’s Affairs Bureau within the PAP to improve the status of women in society. On her retirement from politics in 1970, Chan, who was married to former Minister Ong Pang Boon, continued to campaign for equal work and equal pay for women. However, following her retirement, no other woman managed to be elected into parliament until 1984. This did not prevent several failed

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bids by several women from opposition parties to enter parliament between 1970 and 1984. By 1984, the trend had changed. It was acknowledged that women in politics could make an important contribution to society just as Chan Choy Siong had done. However, Chan did not live long enough to witness this change as she died tragically in a car accident in 1984. Three PAP female candidates were successfully elected into parliament later that year. In light of all her achievements and the fact that women politicians and community leaders still recall and admire her pioneering work, it may be said that Chan Choy Siong left an indelible mark on the landscape of both the women’s movement and the political sphere in Singapore. Ho Khai Leong R E F E R E N C E S Chew, Melanie. Leaders of Singapore. Singapore: Resource Press, 1996. Mukunthan, Michael. “Chan Choy Siong”. Singapore Infopedia, National Library Board, Singapore, 17 April 1999, revised 2005. (accessed 28 November 2010). Singapore Council of Women’s Organizations. Voices & Choices: The Women’s Movement in Singapore, pp. 144–45. Singapore: Singapore Council of Women’s Organizations and Singapore Baha’i Women’s Committee, 1993.

Chan Heng Chee ( , Chen Qingzhu, 1942– ) Academician, diplomat, Singapore

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nown to many as Singapore’s ambassador to the United States of America from 1996 to 2012, Professor Chan Heng Chee is an empowering figure to Singaporean women. Throughout her career

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she has demonstrated that Asian women are just as intelligent as Asian men. Chan was born in 1942, when the Asia Pacific was still in the midst of the Second World War.When she was of school-going age, she attended Katong Convent. It is possible that Chan gained her passion for public service and interest in political affairs upon witnessing the ensuing rebuilding efforts following the end of Second World War and the country’s struggle for independence. Suffice it to say, her interest in political affairs led to her pursuing political science as a field of study in the University of Singapore. As Chan’s interests revolved around socio-political issues, it was not surprising that her area of studies at the University of Singapore was political science. Whilst at the University of Singapore, she graduated with first class honours in political science.After years of hard work, she graduated with a Master of Arts in Political Science in 1966, and a Master of Arts from Cornell University in the United States a year later. Upon achieving her master’s degree, she pursued journalism as a career. But the desire to learn more about the workings of different governmental systems, the wish to facilitate political discussion, educate others of the value of socio-political knowledge, and encourage political awareness in the young people of Singapore, led Chan to return to the academe. Thus, she joined the Department of political science at the University of Singapore as an assistant lecturer in 1967. Her keen interest in political issues, especially those shaping the country’s physical landscape and the mindset of the people, spurred her to continue her education with the University of Singapore. This occurred concurrently with her time as a lecturer with the department of political science at the University of Singapore. Chan was very hardworking and proved herself adept at handling the exigencies of lecturing on top of her own pursuit of

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further studies. Not only did this demonstrate her tremendous interest in political science as a field of study; it also indicates that Chan was a dedicated researcher and teacher. This was so much so that she proved herself by writing a doctoral dissertation on the one-party state in Singapore and its impact on the country’s socio-political landscape. She finally graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy in 1974. Her dissertation, entitled The Dynamics of OneParty Dominance: A Study of Five Singapore Constituencies brought her to the notice of several think-tanks in the country. By 1984, Chan, who was still lecturing with the department of political science at the university, became a full professor. In that same year, she was appointed head of the political science department. She remained in this position until 1987. Till this day, she is still regarded as professor of political science on secondment at the National University of Singapore. Despite the additional academic and administrative duties of her new post as a professor, she still found time to pursue research in areas of Singapore politics. Her research culminated in a book entitled, A Sensation of Independence: A Political Biography of David Marshall, published in 1986.This insightful and informative book was much lauded, and won Chan the National Book Award in the nonfiction category. Her keen grasp of the political issues and her method of humanising the political situation meant that she was the ideal candidate for the post of founding director of the Institute of Policy Studies. In addition to her career as an academician, she also served as the executive director of the Singapore International Foundation, a Singapore version of the United States Peace Corps, and the director of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

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Her fair-handed manner of addressing all issues, be they political or sociological, brought her to the attention of the People’s Action Party (PAP) government and the international community when they called on her to serve society on a global level. She rose to the occasion and served as Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1989 to 1991. During that time, she also served as the Singapore High Commissioner to Canada and Ambassador to Mexico. She was a member of the International Advisory Board of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations and on the Council at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London as well as the International Council of the Asia Society in New York. Later, in July 1996, she was appointed Singapore’s Ambassador to the United States, a position she held until 2012. It has been remarked that she used her role as ambassador to the United States to improve bilateral relations between Singapore and America. She was so successful in the negotiations that Singapore and the United States signed the U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement in May 2003 — the first Free Trade Agreement that America had entered into with an East Asian country. This, in turn led to the great enhancement of both countries’ ties in defence and security. She has received a number of awards, including Honorary Degrees of Doctor of Letters from the University of Newcastle in Australia and the University of Buckingham. It should be noted her appointment as Singapore’s ambassador to the United States in 1996 caused a bit of a stir in East Asia because Chan was the first woman ambassador from an East Asian country to be assigned to the United States. This proved to be very empowering for women in East Asian

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countries who traditionally are paid less than men. Her appointment also caused a stir in Singapore because she was a mildly vocal critic of the PAP government. Indeed, Chan herself expressed astonishment at her appointment. She is quoted to have said, “I’m anti-establishment and was a bit of a dissident before I was appointed ambassador. It came as something of a shock to me when I was offered the ambassadorship because I was highly critical of government in a society that is not used to being critiqued.” However, Asian women took very well to her appointment.This was so much so that the Organization of Chinese American Women (OCAW) bestowed upon her the Inaugural International Woman of the Year Award in 1998. Her contributions and success in politics also led to her being the first to be awarded Singapore’s “Woman of the Year” award in 1991. To honour her invaluable negotiations and insights that led to the improvement of Singapore-U.S. bilateral ties, she received Singapore’s Meritorious Service Medal, the highest National Day Award, in August 2005. Sharon Loo R E F E R E N C E S Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Singapore. “Chan Heng Chee”. No date. (accessed 15 December 2010). National Heritage Board. “Chan Heng Chee”. In Singapore: The Encyclopedia, Tommy T. B. Koh, et al., ed. Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2006. The Washington Diplomat Newspaper. Ambassador Profile: Singapore — Her Excellency Chan Heng Chee. No date. (accessed 15 December 2010). Washington Life Magazine. “Verbatim: Singapore Ambassador Chan Heng Chee”, c. 2004. (accessed 30 November 2007).

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Washington Times Global.com. “Meeting Ambassador Chan Heng Chee”, c. 2009. (accessed 15 December 2010).

Chan, Jose Mari ( , Zeng Huanfu, 1945– ) Singer, song writer, Philippines

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ose Mari Chan is one of the most successful and treasured Filipino singer/ songwriters and his name has become synonymous with a well loved Filipino Christmas classic. His songs have not only captured the Filipino listeners’ market, but also that of Asia, and the rest of the world, and have been translated into, adapted, and sung in other languages, securing for the Philippines the reputation of being the booming capital of music in this part of the world. Once the Christmas season comes along in the Philippines, its streets are strewn with beautifully lit lanterns, and reverberating in the air are the sounds of distant children’s carols, alongside the jangles of improvized tambourines made of strung flattened bottle caps and empty cans-turned-musical-drums. A quintessential Christmas song, Christmas in Our Hearts, along with other well remembered holiday cheers, fill the air in malls, churches, houses, taxi cabs, jeepneys, and even elevators. These songs are on the lips of virtually every Filipino, and have become part and parcel of the Pinoy identity, representation, and celebration. For the love and sheer experience of this cultural gift of music, we have Jose Mari Chan to thank. Iloilo-born Chan (11 March 1945), the eldest son of sugar industry tycoon Antonio Chan and Florence Lim, is the only Filipino

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recording artist who has achieved the feat of a Double Diamond Record Award, for the biggest selling Christmas album in the entire history of the Philippine music industry, with his well loved albums, Constant Change and Christmas in Our Hearts, and his more recent releases, Thank You, Love, and Souvenirs, which also bagged the multiplatinum reception of the Filipino market, as well as that of Asia, and the rest of the world. With the combination of Filipino sensibilities and traditions, such as hospitality, joyfulness, charity, and the well enshrined value of family, the desire and accompanying flair of bringing to the world the Filipino culture, and the truly inspirational gift of singing and song-writing, he has successfully transcended the dividing strata of race, economic status, and other subcultures prevailing in the country, and contributed greatly to uniting the people through the love for music. Among fans he is known as the “Filipino Jimmy Webb” harking back to the intricate English-language lyrics which set his songs apart from others, and make them all the more easily adaptable to other cultures. His first single, Afterglow, was released in 1967 and became popular in the Philippines even though foreign acts such as The Beatles and The Beach Boys were more popular, which proved that given beautiful music, the market would respond accordingly, and even rally behind a local artiste both in admiration as well as to offer nationalistic support. He was able to release his first long playing album in 1969. Between 1970 and 1974, he composed more than twenty theme songs for movies, some of which earned for him several nominations at the Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences Award. Some of his hits have been revived by equally illustrious artists of different generations, from Gary Valenciano to Lea Salonga and Kyla, proving

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both the timeliness and the timelessness of his craftsmanship. Since Afterglow, he has written hundreds of songs, most of which are memorized with either vague or stark familiarity by Filipinos across a broad socio-economic spectrum.When he returned to the spotlight, Universal Records (formerly WEA) produced a highly successful anthology, Jose Mari Chan: A Golden Collection, which included Counterpoint to Lennon and Paul McCartney’s Here, There and Everywhere, Tell Me Your Name, Beautiful Girl, Can We Just Stop and Talk Awhile, among others. Constant Change (1989) and A Heart’s Journey (2003), won Album of the Year in the Awit Awards, the local equivalent of the American Grammy Awards. He has sold an unprecedented total of thirty-eight Platinum records. His songs — both from his holiday albums as well as romantic ballads — were brought to Filipinos either through record sales or radio broadcasts and are sincere, honest, and delivered with such comfortably familiar melodies that one can easily sing along with them. They are considered the giants of the Philippine music scene because of their malleability and are so relatable and real in their content that they are embraced by Filipinos from all walks of life. Constant Change became a great hit not only in the Philippines, but in other Asian countries as well. Its carrier single, Beautiful Girl, was covered by Asian stars such as Aaron Kwok of Hong Kong. Other artistes in the region who recorded his songs include Paula Tsui (Hong Kong) Sally Yee (Hong Kong),Tomomi Akimoto (Japan), Sandy Lam (Hong Kong), Kamahl (Australia), and Yasuo T. (Japan). Chan’s popularity among the people was so great that he has been commissioned by various companies and institutions to create their theme songs. He created Love at Thirty Thousand Feet for Philippine Airlines,

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the country’s flag carrier. In 2005 he was commissioned to write We’re All Just One, the theme song of the 2005 Southeast Asian Games. He has been well decorated with a host of recognition, including his 1974 TOYM (Ten Outstanding Young Men) award for the Arts, the “Lifetime Achievement Awards” from The Philippine Association of the Record Industry’s Awit Awards, the Composer’s Group, Katha Awards and Aliw Awards, the “Dangal ng Musikang Pilipino Award” from the Philippine Association of the Recording Industry, the “PERLAS Award” for his outstanding contribution to Philippine contemporary music, the “Antonio C. Barreiro Lifetime Achievement Award” from the Metro Pop Foundation, and for his exemplary contribution to the Arts by the Jose Rizal Awards for Excellence in 2006. As an 1967 AB economics graduate of the Ateneo de Manila University, the multitalented Chan has also seen his success in the music profession paralleled by his success in the business sector. He is currently at the helm of his family’s sugar and hotel business, as chairman and president of Binalbagan Isabela Sugar Company, which he has been managing since 1985. He also runs the A. Chan Sugar Group of companies and the Hyatt Regency Hotel Manila. His proficiency in merging both business and the arts became evident as early as his grade school years, when he worked as a radio deejay on weekends, and sang with a band during concerts at university. Today, he is admirably able both to harness musicality, as well as bridge it to the market which he seeks to touch through his songs. During his university years, Chan emceed concerts at various universities until ABS-CBN invited him to emcee “9 Teeners”, the 1960s television variety show aimed at teenagers, with Ces Onrubia, Roman Azanza,

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Tito Osias, and Johnny Salientes as alternates. He squeezed in time to sing his compositions on television until an independent recording company approached him to record a 45RPM of Afterglow. Its success brought him to the attention of Dyna Records [see entry on James Dy] which offered him the chance to do a long-playing record with twelve original songs. His passion for the arts, as well as his magnanimity, are likewise reflected in his facility to give something back from his successes — as founder of the Character Building Foundation of Heidi Sison, based in Samar, and as a member of the board of trustees of the Ateneo Scholarship Foundation, the Philippine Ballet Theatre, and the San Lorenzo Ruiz Foundation. Having realized his ardour for composition and song early on in secondary school at St Clement’s in Iloilo — where Irish priests exposed students to John Keats, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, Edgar Allan Poe — he has dedicated efforts to ensure that this environment of opportunities to excel in the arts is made available to today’s generation, through his various scholarship programmes. Behind this legendary musician is his loved and loving family: his wife Mary Ann, and their children, Elizabeth Ann, Jose Antonio, Michael Philip Ciprian, Francisco Rafael and Marie Angelica. In an interview where he recollected with fondness those days when he and his wife were a missionary couple at the Assumption School in Osaka, Japan, he said of his wife: “Mine is reflected glory. She’s the sun. I’m the moon.” Regarding their elevenyear stay in the United States where he and his wife’s family grew, he reminisced: “Those were some of the best years of my life… In a foreign country we went through various stages of discovery, doing things as a family. We became closely knit. The stay broadened my musical influences. I discovered the

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opera, theater, museums, fine food, the joys of travel.” Liway Czarina Ruizo R E F E R E N C E S Filipinomusica website. “The story of Jose Mari Chan”. Retrieved 19 October 2010 from . Tulay Fortnightly. “Jose Mari Chan”. Vol. 18, nos. 1&2, 20 June 2006, p. 14. Wikipedia. “Jose Mari Chan”. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. Retrieved 6 December 2010 from .

Chan Li-Yin, Patricia ( , Chen Liyan, 1954– ) and the Chan Clan Sports personalities, Singapore

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ne of the most illustrious sporting dynasties in Singapore is associated with the Chan family. Chan Ah Kow created a swimming empire during the 1960s that has had no rivals. Mei Ling and Vicky, the eldest sisters, found success in the pool before pursuing academic and professional ventures. The most famous of the seven siblings is Patricia (Pat). Together with her brothers, Bernard, Alex, Roy, and Mark, she provided Singapore with sporting highlights that helped to define the nation’s independent status after 1965. Bernard, Pat, and Roy all became Olympians. The Chan Clan members were not just successful in the pool as youngsters, but they all also achieved great prominence in their chosen careers. Chan Mei Ling (born 1943) was not a competitive swimmer in the same category as her younger siblings, but she was exposed to recreational sporting activities and claimed that swimming was beneficial in establishing her modelling career. At the age of twenty-

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one, she was the principal of the Hong Kong Modelling Academy. She was probably one of the first Asian models to make an impact in Europe. Mei Ling appeared in films, but is most firmly associated with dress designing and the hotel management business. Vicky Chan Li Hua (born 1945), followed in her father’s professional footsteps, but not before registering a range of victories at the Chinese Swimming Club against European rivals from the Singapore Swimming Club. During the final years of colonial rule in Singapore, the main international challenges for competitive swimmers were the annual quadrangular matches involving teams from Ipoh, Penang, and Kuala Lumpur. Vicky bettered a number of club records in freestyle, backstroke, and breaststroke. As there were no swimming events for women at the first South East Asian Peninsular Games (SEAP Games) in Bangkok in 1959 and Singapore did not send a women’s team to the 1961 Games in Rangoon, Vicky had to wait until 1962 to represent her country. In August she broke the “native” 100-m butterfly record and earned herself a trip to Jakarta for the 4th Asian Games. In 1963, she gained a scholarship to Smith College, Boston, happily branching out and developing what was to be astounding success in her professional career. Vicky graduated summa cum laude from Harvard Medical School in 1975 and pursued a research career in neurobiology. She married Professor Sanford Palay and in 1979 became a fellow of the White House during the time of Jimmy Carter’s presidency. Bernard Chan Cheng Wah (born 8 October 1946) was the first to make his mark on the international scene. He was more fortunate than Vicky, as by the age of fifteen, he had represented Singapore in the 2nd SEAP games. He won silver medals at the Games in December 1961, setting both “native” and “all-comers” records in the 100-m butterfly

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event during the build-up. He was selected for the 1962 Asian Games in Jakarta, where he managed a creditable sixth place in a time of 1:06.9 minutes. By the age of seventeen, he was the holder of national records in the 100-m and 200-m butterfly event, the 400-m individual medley, and the 100-m backstroke competition. He achieved Olympian status in Tokyo in 1964. His most memorable moment occurred during the SEAP Games in 1965 and his gold medal performance there, setting a new record by 5.1 seconds, was the crowning glory of his swimming career. Two years later Bernard also joined the national water polo team. In his professional life, he became well established in the advertising industry. Alex Chan Meng Wah (born 21 January 1953) was seven years old when he first entered a competition.As a nine-year-old,Alex became the star performer at the finals of the Singapore Amateur Swimming Association’s first open age group championships. He was to become a multiple medal winner of backstroke events at the SEAP Games, often in tandem with his sister, Pat. In the 1965 Singapore Amateur Swimming Association (SASA) championships, brother and sister each won the same four 50-metre event in their respective categories — freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke, and butterfly. For the next eight years, from 1965 to 1973, his versatility garnered him many SEAP championship titles. At the age of fourteen, Alex, took first place in the 100-m backstroke, 200-m backstroke, and 4×100-m individual medley, and 200-m butterfly events. Two years later he successfully defended his titles in the first three of those events, and swapped the butterfly gold for a 1500-m freestyle victory. Alex also won bronze medals at the 1966 and the 1970 Asian Games. He attained a first degree in 1975, and followed that with an MBA in business administration at UCLA in the United States. Alex is best known in sporting

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circles as the chairman of the Singapore Sports Council from 2002 to 2010. Pat Chan Li-Yin (born on 12 April 1954 in Singapore) completed her early education in Raffles Girls School, Methodist Girls School, and Anglo-Chinese Schools. She learned to swim competitively in 1960 and dominated the SEAP scene between 1965 and 1973. The “Golden Girl” of swimming also challenged Japanese domination of the Asian Games, winning three bronze medals in 1966, and three silver medals and two bronze medals in 1970. Pat became a five-time “Sportswoman of the Year” award winner (1967–71) and was one of the pioneers of Chan Ah Kow’s revolutionary training methods, acting as a guinea pig for his experimental trials in the water and on dry land. Five visits to the SEAP Games produced thirty-nine gold medals in all for Pat. Her most consistent winning streak was associated with the 100-metre freestyle event. Each final provided not only a gold medal, but also a new SEAP Games record! In 1972 she became an Olympian at the Munich Games. Pat withdrew briefly from competition afterwards, but in 1973 returned to lead the national challenge at the SEAP Games, which were being held in Singapore for the first time. This was to prove her toughest year. There were the psychological demands made by competition and the continuing physical demands of training. Pat was not fully confident, but she edged out Elaine Sng, who was the rising star of the freestyle events, in the finals of the 100-metre event, and claimed individual gold medals in the backstroke events and the 4×50 medley. Today, Pat Chan is a business executive who pursues many challenges and is prepared to take the risks associated with creativity. She has become a successful media and communications specialist who conceptualizes marketing strategies for companies and individuals. She has also branched out into a

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successful career as a jazz singer and continues to serve as a reference point and model for aspiring swimmers in Singapore. Roy Chan Kum Wah (born 28 November 1955) joined his older brothers and sisters in the pool as a seven year old. Just like Alex, his name appeared in invitation races designed for under tens. One year later he was setting agegroup records. Roy capitalized on his father’s rigorous training systems. Specific international events were targeted after Singapore achieved national independence in 1965. Together Alex and Roy proved to be a major force in the men’s competitive arena in the region, often forming the backbone of the nation’s relay teams. Roy picked up four SEAP Games silver medals in 1969 and followed those up with an Asian Games bronze medal in 1970. His speciality was the butterfly and medley events, but he also won medals in backstroke and freestyle events. Like his sister, Pat, he became an Olympian in 1972. He trained under Forbes Carlile in Australia after the 1972 Games together with his younger brother Mark. In 1974 he was named one of eight President scholars and shortly afterwards qualified for the Asian Games. He studied medicine at the University of Singapore and later went to London. He became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London and a fellow of the Academy of Medicine Singapore. He is currently chief consultant in dermatology at the National Skin Centre in Singapore. Mark Chan (born 6 October 1958) continued the Chan tradition of swimming success at the age of seven. He struck gold twice in freestyle events at the 1973 SEAP Games in Singapore, and four years later was involved in a famous first-place tie with Indonesian swimmer Lukman Niode. Mark was selected for both the 1974 and 1978 Asian Games. His swimming career coincided with a general

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rise in Asian standards and the emergence of China as an international sporting rival. He was unwittingly embroiled in a controversial confrontation between FINA (Fédération Internationale de Natation), the international body that governs swimming, and SASA. In 1975, China had yet to be recognized by FINA, so a friendly visit by a Singapore swimming team resulted in a two-year ban for eighteen young Singaporeans. Although later lifted, this ban effectively ended any aspirations that Mark might have had to become the family’s fourth Olympian. Music and the arts became the focal point for Mark. His career as a successful composer, singer, instrumentalist, poet, and painter has now spanned almost twenty years. The collective successes of Chan Ah Kow’s children prompted observers to coin the phrase the “Golden Club”. Nick Aplin R E F E R E N C E Aplin, N.G., D.J. Waters, and M.L. Leong. Singapore Olympians: The Complete Who’s Who 1936–2004. Singapore: Singapore National Olympic Council, 2005, p. 487.

Chan Sarun (Ngor Hong Srun, 1951– ) Politician, Cambodia

, Wu Heshun,

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here are a few ministers in Hun Sen’s cabinet who are Cambodians of Chinese descent. Chan Sarun is one of them. Chan Sarun was born on 13 August 1951 in Trapeang Siap Commune, Bati District, Takeo. He was appointed minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries on 24 August 2001. A member of the Cambodian

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People’s Party, Chan was elected to represent Takeo Province in the National Assembly of Cambodia in 2003. His elder brother, Haing S. Ngor, was a Cambodian-American actor who made his name in Hollywood when he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in the movie, The Killing Fields, in 1985. Chan was born to an ethnic Chinese father, Ngor Kin Chan, and a Khmer mother, Kan Lay. He obtained his high school diploma (BACC II) in 1969, diploma in physics, chemistry and natural sciences in 1970, and diploma in agronomic engineering in 1973. The following year, he passed a qualifying examination and was appointed inspector of water and forests on 19 February 1974. He was a student activist between 1972 and 1974, and was made president of the Student Association of the Forestry Faculty, University of Agricultural Science, Phnom Penh. Between January 1974 and April 1975, he held the post of botanical researcher at the Forest Research Institute, Department of Water, Forest and Wildlife, Phnom Penh. It is interesting to note that during the Khmer Rouge days, the Cambodian regime was hostile towards Cambodians of Chinese descent. Many Chinese Cambodians changed their Chinese names to Cambodian names. Chan was among these and gave up his Chinese name, Ngor Hong Srun. He later joined Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party and began serving in the Hun Sen administration. In October 1979, he became first deputy director of the Department of Forestry and Wildlife, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and was dispatched to Ho Chi Minh City in early June 1980 to receive six months of training in political science before entering the civil service. On 5 May 1987, Chan became director of the Department of Forestry and Wildlife,

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Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. While he was busy in his work at the ministry, he took up a correspondence course for a master of science (Economics) degree at the Russian Academy of Economics between 1985 and 1991. After serving in the ministry for about ten years he was appointed rector at the Royal University of Agriculture of Cambodia on 5 September 1997, and was elected Member of Parliament of the National Assembly of the Kingdom of Cambodia between 22 December 1998 and 10 February 2000. His good performance led to his appointment as undersecretary of state for the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries between 10 February 2000 and 24 August 2001. Chan has shouldered the heavy responsibilities as minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries since August 2001. On 6 August 2004, he was awarded a doctor of philosophy in Business Administration (honoris causa) by the South California University for Professional Studies. On 27 September 2005 he was awarded a doctor of philosophy degree in agricultural science by Chamroeun University of PolyTechnology, Cambodia. Chan has also served in the following professional capacities on boards and committees: he was a board member of SEAMEO Regional Centres for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture between 1 June 1998 and 31 May 2001; he assumed the chairmanship of the PRASAC Steering Committee, a microfinance institution in Cambodia between 11 September 2001 and 31 December 2003; since 2001, he has also served as a member of the board of governors of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). He was adviser to Hun Sen, prime minister of the Royal Government of Cambodia, between 25 July 1995 and 30 November 1998; since 2001, he has held the chair of the Committee

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of Cambodian People’s Party at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. Chan has received numerous awards for his outstanding performance through the years at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. On 3 September 1996, King Norodom Sihanouk conferred on him the prestigious title, “Neak Oknha”, an acknowledgement by the state of his efforts to help rebuild the country. On 25 March 2002, he was awarded the Decoration of National Construction, Gold, for the construction of public schools in Svay Rieng Province. The same year, on 11 April and 26 May, he was awarded the Royal Order of Cambodia, Officer (SENA) and Royal Order of Cambodia, Commander (THIPDINT). He has also received recognition on many other occasions: he was awarded the Royal Order of Cambodia, Grand Officer (MOHASENA) on 4 February 2003; the Royal Order of Monisaraphon, Commander (THIPDINT) for his contributions made in the educational, social, and Buddhism sectors in Takeo Province on 17 June 2003; and the Royal Order of Monisaraphon, Grand Officer (MOHASENA) on 30 June 2006. Chan has written many scholastic papers related to forestry and wildlife issues. His BSc thesis, written in French, was on the “Issue of log supply in Phnom Penh City” in 1973 (fifty-one pages), and his Ph.D. thesis, written in Khmer, was on “Strategies for Increasing Sustainable Rice Productivities” in 2005 (151 pages). He has published many papers on Cambodian forestry and wildlife, mainly in Khmer. In the official biography of Chan Sarun, he is described as a person who has been concerned with the welfare and the living conditions of the families of his retired staff. He has regularly invited his retired staff to join in special national and traditional events, and has gathered ideas so that he could improve his ministry. He has also paid attention to poor

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farmers and provided them with tools so that they can improve their lives. Chan also likes reading poetry. His official biography states that he is fluent in many languages, including French, English, Chinese, and Vietnamese. He is married to Sok Keo and they have one son and three daughters. Lim Boon Hock R E F E R E N C E S Le Hong Phan. “Haing Ngor (1947–1996), Physician, Actor”. In Distinguished Asian Americans: A Biographical Dictionary, edited by Hyung-chan Kim, pp. 264–65. Wesport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1999. Ngor, Haing (with Roger Warner). A Cambodian Odyssey. New York: Macmillan, 1987. Ngor, Haing (with Roger Warner). Survival in the Killing Fields. London: Robinson, 2003. Who’s Who: The Most Influential People in Cambodia (2007–2008). Phnom Penh: MBN International Co. Ltd., 2007, pp. 450–52.

Chan Sui Kiat ( , Zeng Ruiji, 1943– ) Entrepreneur, philanthropist, Brunei

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s a sportsman in his early days, Dr Chan Sui Kiat might not have foreseen himself as a successful entrepreneur in his later years. He eventually emerged as a leader in the Chinese community and one of his many appointments was as president of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB), which was one of the biggest associations in Brunei Darussalam. He made good use of his resources and influence in philanthropy as well. Chan Sui Kiat, alias Chan Hiang Heng, was born in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei,

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on 31 October 1943. His father, Chan Zhao ) Xian, originated from Chao An ( in Guangdong Province. His mother, Lin Qian Zhi, gave birth to six sons and three daughters, with him being the eldest. He pursued his elementary and middle-school education at Chung Hwa Middle School ( ). As a student, he was very active in sports, especially basketball and sailing. He was once captain of the Brunei National Basketball Team and often participated in overseas tournaments. He was later a qualified basketball referee, widely respected within and outside Brunei for being fair and just. After graduating from high school, Chan worked as a secretary in the Sugar and Rice Association, Brunei ( ), being responsible for both internal and external matters, especially those regarding imports from China, such as sugar and rice. In 1964 Chan established a partnership factory that manufactured bricks. He was responsible for the management of the business and also acted as an agent for its building materials, namely sand and stones. He was a talented and hard-working man, and business under him flourished continuously so his many years of hard work paid off for him favourably. In 1980 he took over Maju Motors Sdn. Bhd., which is now renowned for selling European cars, one of which being Volkswagen from Germany, one of the best-selling European cars in Brunei. Besides that, the company also sells cars such as Renault from France, Alfa Romeo from Italy, etc. Chan is also chairman of Chong Radio Sdn. Bhd. and LTK Sdn. Bhd. He has also been vice-president of Brunei’s Windsurfing Club and Association since 1988. In 1998 he became the managing director of International Times Newspaper (Miri, Sarawak) Sdn. Bhd. In November 2006, he was given a doctorate of commercial management by the University of Newcastle, and also won the 6th Asia Pacific

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International Entrepreneur Eyebellema Award 2007, affirming his outstanding performance in the commercial field. ), Chan is married to Mo Li Qing ( who bore him one son and three daughters. At the age of sixty, he left his business to his children and focused on contributing to society. He participated actively in national events and activities in order to bring the government and Brunei’s Chinese society closer together, and also played a role in the development of Chinese education. With regard to national events, he is chairman of Brunei’s Chinese Tug of War Competition, an event held during the sultan’s birthday every year. In the Chinese community, in 1996 he was elected chairman of the Chung Hwa Middle School Alumni and then he was honourable chairman of the Chung Hwa Middle School Alumni. Furthermore, he is also adviser to all the Chinese schools in Brunei except for those in Temburong District, and adviser to several associations as well, including the Miri Teo Chiew Association ), Kwang Hui Association, ( ), Electrical Association, Brunei ( Brunei, Tai Chi Association, Brunei ( 学会), Basketball Association, Brunei, Chess Association, Brunei and Brunei’s first and only informative website, “E-Huawang. ). In 2009 and 2012 Chan was com” ( elected president of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, BSB. As the new man in charge of one of the biggest associations in Brunei, he had high hopes and expectations of taking the association to its peak. During the inauguration ceremony, he revealed in his welcoming remarks ambitious objectives he would try to achieve during his three-year term, namely, to increase ties between the chamber and business associations overseas, and through the established ties, attract more investments into Brunei; to be involved

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in more investment opportunities within the country; and to increase the chamber’s involvement in the government’s activities. Witnessing the auspicious occasion were prominent figures in the Chinese community, such as Pehin Kapitan Cina Kurnia Diraja Dato Paduka Lau Ah Kok, Pehin Kapitan Lela Diraja Dato Paduka Awg Goh King Chin, and Pehin Bendahari China Dato Paduka Onn Siew Siong. Chan is also an honorary committee member of the Chinese Temple in Brunei, invigilating, supervising, and inspecting the temple’s activities. Apart from being involved in the chamber’s management, Chan supported organizations financially as well — he donated $200,000 to Chung Hwa Middle School Alumni for the establishment of new buildings whereby the auditorium was named after him; $120,000 to the Taichi Association, Brunei for the establishment of new buildings whereby their auditorium also bears his name, $150,000 to Chung Hwa Middle School, Kuala Belait, a new multipurpose building also bears his name, to name a few examples. He is well known for being a devoted philanthropist, and is praised by the government for his endeavours in fund-raising in Brunei for the earthquake victims in Pakistan.This earned him a good relationship with the government. In 2012, the Sultan of Brunei Darussalam has appointed him registrar of Chinese Marriage for District of Brunei Muara and Temburong. Yu Chin Chai R E F E R E N C E S Kon, James. “Dr Chan Sui Kiat sworn in as Chinese Chamber of Commerce president”. Borneo Bulletin Weekend, 24 January 2009. Sutera, 2009, pp. 138, 142, 144, 145, and 146. Tai Chi Health Association, Anniversary) Magazine, p. 9.

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(20th

Chan Sze Jin ( , Chen Si’en, 1886–1948) Lawyer, politician, Singapore

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han Sze Jin was born on 6 September 1886 in Sarawak. He was the third son of Chan Fook Nyan, for many years the Chief Clerk of the Kuala Lumpur Sanitary Board, and later of the Chinese Secretariat there. His two older brothers were Chan Sze Kiong (who became a chief clerk) and Chan Sze Pong (a Queen’s scholar and medical doctor); and his younger brother was Sze Onn (a well-known businessman and chartered accountant). Chan Fook Nyan left China for Sarawak before settling in Kuala Lumpur sometime after Chan Sze Jin was born. Chan Sze Jin was educated at Victoria Institution (VI) where he excelled in his studies and in sports. He won the Teacher Scholarship in 1898 when he was twelve years old and followed that feat up by winning the Rodger Medal five times in succession. Interestingly, his godfather, Sir JP Rodger, was the same person who instituted the Rodger Medal at Victoria Institution back in 1895. At school, he was a member of the St Mary’s Boys’ Brigade, and when it was transformed into the VI Cadet Corps, Chan was appointed one of its first two sergeants. As Victoria Institution did not have a special Queen’s Scholarship class, Chan left Kuala Lumpur for Penang in 1901 where he enrolled in the famous Penang Free School. In 1903, following in elder brother Sze Pong’s footsteps, he won the Queen’s Scholarship for 1903 and was named Federated Malay States (FMS) scholar. His scholarship enabled him to take up a law degree at Downing College, Cambridge, in 1904. His brother, Sze Pong, was then also at Cambridge reading medicine.

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Younger brother Sze Onn did not win the Queen’s Scholarship, but was an outstanding student as well, who taught briefly at VI before joining his brother in Singapore. He then started an accounting firm, Chan Sze Onn & Co, with a few other persons, including Kwa Siew Tee, who later became general manager of the Oversea Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC), and father-in-law to Singapore’s first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew. Chan Sze Jin passed his BA and LLB examinations in 1907, and his Law Tripos and History Tripos Part II in 1908, after which he was admitted to Grays Inns in London to read for the Bar examinations. He topped his Bar finals, obtaining a first class, and winning a 100-guinea studentship. He was called to the Bar at Grays Inn in 1910. Instead of returning to Kuala Lumpur, he sailed for Singapore and had himself called to the Bar in Singapore on 20 March 1911. In 1912, he set up the firm of Chan and Swee Teow, with Wee Swee Teow. Chan did not like going to court and did mostly solicitors’ work. A newspaper report from 1935 noted: “Mr Chan is rarely in the courts — his practice is mainly in his office, where his table is usually piled high with papers — so that one sees but little of him in active litigation.” His practice flourished and he soon became a well-known local leader and personality. In 1920, the partnership with Wee Swee Teow was dissolved and he established Chan and Eber with an old Cambridge mate, Reynold Lionel Eber, who had previously been practising at the firm of Braddell Brothers. Chan’s first public appointment was in December 1926 when he was appointed a member of the British Malaya Opium Advisory Committee. On 29 October 1927 he was nominated a member of the Straits Settlements Legislative Council, in place of Song Ong Siang. When his three-year term expired in

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1930, he stepped down and was replaced by his old partner, Wee Swee Teow. Chan obtained his Certificate of Naturalization in July 1928, making him a British subject. In 1935, Chan and WA Fell were appointed temporary unofficial members of the Executive Council in place of Tan Cheng Lock and Sir Arnold Robinson.When Chan’s term expired in 1938, he was reappointed for a further three-year term, but he resigned in 1940 on account of his ill health. Chan also held positions in the Singapore Board of Education, the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council, and the Council of the College of Medicine, Singapore. He was also active in social affairs and, in 1932, became the first president of the multiracial Island Club. John Laycock, another lawyer, was the club’s first captain. In 1941, in recognition of his public service, Chan was conferred the Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George (CMG). The governor of the Straits Settlements, Sir Shenton Thomas, personally went to his home in Emerald Hill Road to confer the honour on him, a rare honour indeed. Chan was, in fact, the first lawyer in private practice to receive the decoration.The only other lawyer to have been conferred the CMG had been Sir Thomas Braddell, first attorney-general of Singapore. Up to this time, the only other Chinese to have been conferred the CMG were Whampoa Hoo Ah Kay, Tan Jiak Kim, and Loke Yew. On presenting Chan the CMG, Governor Shenton Thomas paid him the following tribute: “Mr Chan has shown himself to be one of the ablest and most distinguished of the Straits Chinese, whose counsels at all times have been invaluable to the Colonial Government. He has done great service to his community quietly and unobtrusively especially in matters relating to education and social welfare work.”

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Chan died on 26 September 1948 after a two-month illness. He was only sixty-two years old. Kevin Y.L.Tan R E F E R E N C E S Straits Times. “A Distinguished Public Career — Death of Mr SJ Chan”. 27 September 1948, p. 5. ———. “Chinese Members of Council II”. 8 February 1935, p. 10. ———. “Mainly about Malayans”. 5 March 1939, p. 9. ———. “Mr Chan Fook Nyan”. 25 November 1933, p. 12. ———. “The New Year Honours — CMG Distinction for Mr SJ Chan”. 9 January 1941, p. 8.

Chan Wai Chang, Rose ( , Chen Huizhen, 1925–87) Entertainer but more popularly remembered as “Queen of Striptease in Malaysia”

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alaysia’s best known stripteaser, Rose Chan, was said to have titillated a generation of men up and down the Malay Peninsula and Singapore in the 1950s and 60s. At a time when women feminists had yet to appear on the scene and when women still had to break through to the higher reaches of the professions, Rose Chan was testing the limits of social taboo and discrimination. Women groups were offended by her shows and behaviour.Yet in many ways, her life story is seen as reflecting the struggle of the underclass as she faced odds against the authorities, society, and the economic system that disadvantaged women. Her life story was recently retold in a musical play entitled, Rose, Rose I Love You. Much of what is known of her early life comes from her own accounts and she had probably glossed over some unpleasant and

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unhappy parts. According to Chan she was born in 1925 in Suzhou, China, to parents who performed in acrobatic shows. At the age of six her foster mother brought her over to Kuala Lumpur. She had a few months of schooling and at the age of twelve, by her account, worked in a button-making shop and later in a better paying job making mosquito nets. In 1941 she married an elderly Chinese harbour contractor from Singapore, and later moved to Singapore as her marriage was breaking down. She remained there after her husband left her and as she had to support herself, Rose became a cabaret dancer at the Happy World, an amusement park said to be frequented by her husband. Rose made little reference to the war years and it would be assumed that she continued working at the Happy World through most of the Second World War. In 1951, Rose opened her own cabaret show. This proved popular and she then took her show to all the major towns in Malaya. Earlier, according to her own account, she was runner-up in the AllWomen’s Ballroom Dancing Championship in Singapore in 1949, and the Miss Singapore beauty contest in 1950. Rose recounted how her cabaret performance turned into a striptease act quite by accident.While performing in a cabaret show at the Majestic Theatre in Ipoh, her brassiere snapped and the enthusiastic response from the audience convinced Rose that this was the kind of show that would be popular and rewarding. She worked out a cabaret routine with striptease as the highlight of the show. Almost overnight, Rose Chan became the Queen of Striptease. She took her striptease act all over the country and gained a following. Over the years she introduced new features into her show, such as wrestling with a python, carrying a man on her shoulders, and having motorcyclists ride on planks placed across her body.

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In July 1957 Rose married Mohamed Nazier Kahar, an Indonesian, and, in embracing Islam, took the name of Rosminah binti Abdullah. The marriage lasted three years. She had altogether four marriages and all failed. She had a son each from the last two marriages. By this time, Rose Chan was a well known name in Malaya and associated with risque shows. Notoriety was further gained when reports appeared regularly in the press of police raids to stop her shows because they were deemed indecent. Most of her performances were at the Bukit Bintang Park in Kuala Lumpur and advertised in Chinese newspapers. Rose also performed overseas. At home in Malaysia, she arranged for proceeds of some of her shows to go to charities such as those in aid of education, children, and old folk’s home, and institutions for the blind. In 1967 Chan was banned from performing in Kuala Lumpur following another police raid.That marked the start of the decline of Rose Chan and her shows. Age was also catching up. In 1970 she took her show to Perth, Australia, and there she was arrested for indecent performance. Later she was charged for immoral activities at a massage parlour. She tried to resume her career in Malaysia and continued putting on shows until 1976 even though in 1973 the government revoked her performing licence. Rose tried several business ventures, including opening a restaurant. But all were unsuccessful. Efforts to publish her memoirs with an American publisher fell through over royalties dispute. In 1980 she was diagnosed with cancer and she spent her last days in Penang. Charity shows were organized including a five-night event at the Golden Maid lounge in Penang to raise money for her medical expenses.There was a lot of public sympathy for her plight. She passed away on 26 May 1987.

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Rose Chan continues to evoke mixed reaction and assessment. Many women, especially Chinese women in Malaysia, consider her striptease shows indecent, and her reputation, an embarrassment to them. They see her as exploiting the baser instincts of men for financial gain. On the other hand, there are those, particularly men, who see her as someone from the underclass boldly seeking to make a living in an entertainment field that had yet to gain an acceptable place in society. To them she symbolized the enterprising spirit of immigrant Chinese who went overseas, although what she attempted to do was alien to the norms of the community at the time. Lee Kam Hing R E F E R E N C E S Malay Mail. “Striptease”. 9 September 2007. New Straits Times. “Touched by Rose Chan’s plight”. 26 March 1986. Sunday Star. “Unforgettable Rose Chan”. 9 April 2006. The Star. “Rose Chan pledges $1 million to charity”. 25 September 1986. ———. “Rose Chan”. 1 June 1987. The Sun. “Rose Chan immortalized”. 31 October 2007.

Chao Tzee Cheng ( , Zhao Zicheng, 1934–2000) Forensic pathologist, Singapore

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lternatively nicknamed Singapore’s “Father of Forensic Pathology” and the “Justice of Murder”, Professor Chao Tzee Cheng was internationally recognized for his skills in forensic pathology and locally respected for solving notorious crimes. In his lifetime, he was lauded for his humour and humility, and for raising Singapore’s

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professionalism in the field of forensic pathology. It was a twist of fate that made him turn to pathology. He originally hoped to pursue a career in surgery. However, a weakened right arm sustained in a car accident in West Malaysia dampened that wish. Instead of bemoaning his fate, Chao drew on his resolve to be a surgeon and turned it into one focused on pathology. From his educational history, it is clear that Chao felt a strong calling for the medical profession. Born on 22 September 1934 in Hong Kong to a professor in cultural studies and a school principal who migrated to Singapore in the late 1930s, Chao studied at Catholic High School and then Victoria Continuation School. His excellent academic performance brought him to the attention of scholarship bodies who offered him a chance to study engineering in the United States. Possibly due to his fervent wish to become a medical practitioner, he turned down this offer and proceeded instead to the University of Hong Kong to study medicine, where he obtained his MBBS in 1961.This single-minded dedication towards what he wanted became more marked as he continued with his education and established himself as a pathologist. In his career as a forensic pathologist, he was similarly dedicated to uncovering the truth within the bodies he examined. Following his graduation in Hong Kong, Chao returned to Singapore and served as a medical officer. In the aftermath of his car accident whereupon he turned to pathology, he sought to improve his knowledge of his craft by pursuing a Diploma of Clinical Pathology, a Diploma of Pathology, and a Diploma of Medical Jurisprudence in 1967 and 1968 respectively. By 1968, he had qualified as a pathologist from the Royal London Hospital, Medical College (a college currently under Queen Mary, University of London). On

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returning from London, the Singapore Ministry of Health appointed him forensic pathologist in the Department of Pathology. Shortly after this appointment, Chao was called upon to take his first case — the now infamous murder of Koh Liang Chuen in 1969. He was invited to be an expert witness in this case where he presented the fact that the victim had been strangled before being dumped in the well by her fiancé for refusing his sexual advances. This overturned the accused’s story that Koh had died when she toppled into the well during an amorous encounter. The notoriety of this case brought Professor Chao’s skills in forensic pathology to the forefront and secured his status as Southeast Asia’s forensic expert. As an upshot, he was invited to apply his forensic expertise to cases beyond Singapore, such as in Malaysia, Hong Kong, and some states in West Africa. Despite the political sensitivities of several of his cases, Chao remained the consummate professional and objectively presented the facts he discovered. A notable example of his dedication to truth and justice was his testimony as an expert witness for the defence at the Kuala Lumpur High Court trial of Hugh Ashley Johnston for the murder of his wife in 1975. In this case, his testimony had influenced the jury six-to-one that Johnston had no intention to kill his wife. Among his cases were all the coroner’s cases in Singapore where he aided in the investigation process of several notorious murders such as the Adrian Lim cult murders, the Scripps body parts murder, the Bulgarian murder, and the Flor Contemplacion case. Indeed, he was so respected and professional in his field that his forensic prowess was called upon several times in the investigation of mass disasters such as the Spyros blast of 1978, the Cable Car tragedy of 1983, the Hotel New World collapse of 1986, and the MI 185 Silkair tragedy of 1997.

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He was also so renowned in the field of forensic pathology that he co-authored a book with Audrey Perera entitled, Murder Is My Business, which offered fascinating insights into his thought processes and the analytical methods he utilized in his cases. Besides uncovering the truth behind crimes through pathology, Chao also served as master of the Academy of Medicine (1992–95), president of the Singapore Society of Pathology (1987–90), and conducted a Forensic Medicine Course at the National University of Singapore where he was known as an outstanding and large-than-life clinical professor. Greatly respected on the academic front, Chao published 140 papers in various international medical journals. He also founded the Institute of Scientific and Forensic Medicine and served as a special forensic adviser to the institute when he retired. Similarly, he founded the Medico-Legal Society so as to unite the medical and legal professions and served as its president from 1985 until his unexpected death in 2000. In acknowledgement of his contributions to the field of forensic pathology and his service to the nation, Chao was awarded the Public Administration Silver Medal in 1975, Gold Medal in 1979, and the Meritorious Medal in 1995. At the time of his death in February 2000, he was still one of Singapore’s top forensic pathologist holding the positions of senior forensic pathologist in the Ministry of Health, clinical professor with the National University of Singapore, and special forensic adviser to the Institute of Science and Forensic Medicine. He passed away on 21 February 2000 in his sleep while visiting his sister in New York, thereby leaving the medico-legal community bereft of his skills and insightful methods. In his lifetime, Chao had left an indelible mark not just in the field of forensic pathology in Singapore,

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but in the criminal justice system here as well, so much so that his colleagues dubbed him, “Justice of Murder”, for uncovering the truth behind unsolved murders. Given that he had performed over 25,000 autopsies and was the authoritative expert witness in many unsolved murder cases worldwide, this is not surprising. Even after his untimely death, he was posthumously honoured for his contributions to his field when the Singapore General Hospital named him its emeritus consultant. Sharon Loo R E F E R E N C E S But, Kitty. “Chao Tzee Cheng”. Singapore: Singapore Infopedia, National Library Board, 2002. (accessed 14 February 2009). Chao Tzee Cheng and Audrey Perera. Murder is My Business: Medical Investigation into Crime. Singapore: Landmark Books, 1999. Law Society of Singapore. “Dead Men do tell Tales: The Forensic Medical Investigations of the Unforgettable Professor Chao Tzee Cheng”. (n.d.). (accessed 14 February 2009). Low, K. C. and P. K. G. Dunlop. (eds.). Who’s Who in Singapore. Singapore: Who’s Who Publishing, 2000, pp. 23–24. National Heritage Board. “Chao Tzee Cheng”. In Singapore: The Encyclopedia, Tommy T. B. Koh et al., pp. 93–94. Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2006.

Charoen Siriwatthanaphakdi ( , Su Xuming, 1944– ) Businessman,Thailand

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haroen Siriwatthanaphakdi is one of the wealthiest businessmen in Thailand. He is the chairperson of Thai Charoen Corp (TCC) Group, which includes the Thai Beverage Public Company Limited, a leading

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beer and spirits producer in Thailand. The company, which brews the famous Chang Beer, has a strong market share of about 50 per cent and 70 per cent in Thailand’s beer and spirit markets, respectively. During the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, when many big business families suffered tremendous setbacks, Charoen managed to rise rapidly and expand his business greatly. Charoen, also known as Su Xuming in Chinese, was born on 2 May 1944 in Song Wat Road, Bangkok. His father, a Teochew Chinese immigrant, was a vendor of fried mussel pancakes on the streets of Bangkok. He received his primary education in Puey Eng School in Bangkok, but was forced to leave after finishing fourth grade because of his family’s financial difficulties. To help ease the financial burden of his parents, he started working as a street vendor in the Chinatown area from the age of eleven. His initial business then included selling prize-draw games for children and renting out books. In 1961, Charoen got a job as a clerk at Pan-Inter, which was among the major distributors of Maekhong whiskey. Later Charoen became directly involved in the liquor business when he started working with the Surathip Group, which was the only remaining competitor of Uthen Taechaphaibun’s Suramaharatsadon Group in the Thai liquor market. Charoen eventually took over Surathip in 1982. He also became the first person to break Taechaphaibun dominance in the liquor market and eventually managed to take over Suramaharatsadon in 1987. Charoen subsequently expanded into the beer market where he broke the monopoly of Boonrawd Brewery’s Singha Beer with the introduction of Chang Beer in 1995. With his success in the alcoholic beverages business, Charoen expanded into

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the hotel industry. In 1994, he bought the Imperial Group, a major force in the Thai hotel industry from Akon Huntrakun. The group has since expanded significantly and invested successfully overseas. Besides the businesses mentioned, Charoen also ventured into other industries such as real estate, commercial import and export, and agricultural produce. The five main businesses under the TCC Group are Thai Beverage, Berli Jucker, TCC Land, TCC Capital, and Plantheon. Charoen also went into a joint venture with the Danish Brewery Carlsberg to set up Carlsberg Brewery (Thailand) Company Limited. However, Carlsberg terminated this joint venture in 2003 with the claim that Chang Beer did not invest the agreed assets into the joint venture. The two companies took another two years to reach a settlement, with Carlsberg paying US$40 million and selling its shares in the joint venture to Chang Beer as part of the settlement. In 2004 Thai Beverage tried to list on Bangkok’s stock exchange. However, it faced objections from monks and anti-alcohol activists, who claimed that this move would promote alcohol consumption in Thailand. In view of the objections, Thai Beverage did not proceed with its plan to list in Bangkok. The company was instead listed in Singapore in May 2006. Thereafter, there were attempts to list the company in Bangkok, but they were unsuccessful. In 2010, Thai Beverage said that it was no longer interested in being listed in Bangkok. Chaoren was most celebrated for his success during the 1997 financial crisis. While many critics attributed the cause of the crisis to the traditional style of management in Chinese family businesses, one commented that he succeeded because his business was very old-fashioned. Most of his business then had been based on cash, which enabled

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him to have enough cash flow during the crisis to expand his business. He was also not significantly affected by the appreciation of the U.S. dollar against the baht because foreign lenders had been wary of his non-transparent management. In addition, as his main business was selling cheap beer, sales did not plunge greatly as people turned to the low-priced Chang Beer in times of depression. While many businessmen were quick to sell off their spare assets because of failing business, he was able to buy many properties at a bargain during the crisis. In Chiang Mai alone, he purchased the Kalae Shopping Centre, Chiang Inn Plaza, Anusan Market, Suriwong Hotel, and a prime plot of land by a river, which belonged to the Chutima family. Besides being a successful businessman, Charoen is also a noted and active philanthropist. He has mainly donated to the health care, education, and cultural sectors. He also contributed funds to restore murals in Bangkok’s oldest temple,Wat Pho and donated more than $500,000 in equipment and medical supplies to hospitals around Thailand from 2004–09. In 2009 he was one of the fortyeight philanthropists listed on Forbes’ list of philanthropists in twelve countries. Charoen is married to Wanna Siriwatthanaphakdi, daughter of Jiew Yoong Seng, formerly chairman of Maha Thanakit Finance and Securities Co., and vice-chairman of the First Bangkok City Bank. The couple has five children, who also hold key positions in Charoen’s business empire. Charoen has received several Thai royal decorations, which include the Knight Grand Cordon (Special Class) of the Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant, the Knight Grand Cordon (First Class) of the Most Noble Order of the Crown of Thailand, the Knight Commander (Second Class Lower Grade) of the Most Illustrious

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Order of Chulachomklao, and the Knight Grand Cross (First Class) of the Most Admirable Order of the Direkkhunaphon. He also holds a doctoral degree in management from Huachiaw Chalermphrakiat University, a doctoral degree in business administration from Eastern Asia University, a doctorate of philosophy degree in business administration from Mae Fa Luang University, an honorary doctoral degree in agricultural business administration, from Maejo University, and an honorary doctoral degree in industrial technology from Chankasem Rajabhat University. Goh Yu Mei R E F E R E N C E S Bangkok Post. “MANAGEMENT — Charoen lifts the veil”. 16 December 2003. Chirawat Rochanawan. Tactics and Tips from Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi [Konlayut lae khletlap Charoen Siriwatthanaphakdi]. Bangkok: Wannasarn, 2004. Reuters News. “Thai Beverage cancels Bangkok listing plan”. 14 September 2010. Thai News Service. “Thailand: Forbes list of billionaires contain 3 Thais”. 11 March 2011. The Nation. “10 years after the 1997 crisis”. 13 June 2007. ———. “How Thailand’s wealthiest are making serious money”. 25 March 2008.

Châu Traàn Taïo ( , Zhu Chenzao, 1913–2002) Community and business leader, promoter of education, philanthropist,Vietnam

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he migration history of Châu Traàn Taïo and his business and social contributions both in China and Vietnam were exceptional. His education background stood

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out among the bulk of uneducated migrants then, and within a short span of settling in Vietnam, he attained substantial economic and social success. He first helmed a construction company, but thanks to his sharp business acumen, gradually established niches in an impressive array of business arenas that ranged from services to heavy industries. He left a legacy in the education field both in his ), in China, and in birthplace Tong An ( Saigon, with his generous support.Whether he was in Vietnam, Taiwan, or the United States, he always preserved his ties with Tong An county (China) through continuous support for the school, Cuiying Primary School ( ) that he had established. He left his mark in the Chinese communities where he resided by playing key community roles. In Saigon, for instance, he assumed multiple key leadership roles such as being chairman of Phúc Thieän Hospital ( ), the Fujianese congregation ( ), and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of the Republic of Vietnam. He was concerned about the wholesome development of the descendants of the Chinese in Saigon and thus chaired both Phúc Kieán ) — a school with over School ( a century of history — and the Leä Chí Sports ). Council ( Taïo was born in September 1913 in a village called Tong Zi, located in Ma Xiang town of Tong An county in Fujian province, ). He studied China ( at a primary school in his village called Qizhi ) before transferring Primary School ( ) in the to Jiyou Primary School ( same county. After graduation, he studied at Jimei Commercial School ( ), a private school in Fujian Province, then furthered his education at the business institute of Hujiang University in Shanghai (

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). He returned to his village to establish Cuiying Primary School and became its first principal in 1934.Two years later, at the age of twenty-seven, he left home for Saigon, at the request of his elder brother, to assist him in his construction business. From Saigon, he remitted funds to support Cuiying Primary School — an act which he was to continue until he left Saigon in 1974. After having a grasp of the business environment in Saigon, he ventured into the business of building and repairing ships. At ), which Hieäp Phát Ship Factory ( he owned, he strived to establish a sound reputation by offering reliable and skilful services. He also promptly formed and led the ) in Saigon to Shipbuilding Guild ( complement his business and consolidate his networks. Soon after the end of World War II, he identified the opportunity to exploit and develop the undeveloped river transportation in the vast Mekong Delta, criss-crossed by distributaries and canals. He invested in dozens of lighter boats to facilitate the logistics of transporting goods from ships which arrived at the coastal ports to towns inland, and quickly became the market leader — a pioneer position which inspired him to found the Guild of ) and thus affirmed Lighter Boat ( his credibility. There were ninety-five trade guilds established by the Chinese community of Saigon in 1958. Before the official visit of President Ngô Ðình Dieäm to the Republic of China in 1960, a delegation of businessmen from the Republic of Vietnam was scheduled to arrive before the Vietnamese president for trade and investment talks with the business community in the Republic of China. Taïo, then serving as chairman of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Saigon, was invited to join the delegation. On his return from the trip,

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he responded to bilateral trade opportunities that he found by establishing Công ty Trung ), an Höng (Zhong Xing Enterprise agent distributing imports from the Republic of China. With strategic management, he sold more than two hundred tonnes of cement imported from the Chinese Republic, achieving a breakthrough in the market which had been hitherto dominated by the Japanese. By the 1960s, besides being managing director of Tân Hieäp Phát Construction Company ), he was simultaneously ( chief executive officer of Zhong Xing ), and Enterprise, Da Ya Enterprise ( ). Vietnam Textile Company ( In 1954, as the elected headman of the Fujian Congregation in Saigon, he directed the social and welfare programmes for the congregation. In 1955–58, when he helmed the management board of PhúcThieän Hospital ), which was managed by the ( Fujian Congregation, he charted its expansion course as well as executed new ideas. For example, he channelled the earnings from his development of real estates along Nguyeãn Trãi Street (formerly, Rue Quang Trung and Harteman) and Thành Thái Street to finance the expansion of the obstetrics and gynaecology department of the hospital. Providing poor and needy pregnant women with free medical services thus became possible with the additional source of income for the hospital. His long-lived interest in the education of his community and his belief in the proper grooming of the young kept him actively engaged in the educational affairs of the Fujianese, which landed him the post of chairman for three terms at Fujian School. The primary and secondary school was established in 1923 in Saigon. As chairman of Leä Chí Sports Council, he not only promoted

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sports programmes, but also hosted eastern and western musical and theatrical performances in the council’s premises. His enthusiastic support for education was, however, not confined to the Chinese community. In the late 1960s when domestic immigration into Saigon strained urban facilities, including schools, Trung Tieåu ) was one of hoïc Hùng Vöông ( the new schools designed to accommodate the increasing population of school-going children. Taïo responded positively to the solicitation of funds by the school by organizing the five Chinese congregations to pledge a donation. The three-storey school materialized in 1972, and still stands in District 5 of Ho Chi Minh City today. His philanthropy and social spiritedness were recognized by the Government of the Republic of Vietnam which bestowed on him the Star of Order (First- and SecondClass) for his contributions to education, in addition to the Star of Order of the First-Class and of the Second-Class for his achievements in internal affairs and health respectively. Before the unification of North and South Vietnam in 1975, he left in 1974 for the Republic of China via the Philippines and subsequently settled down in the United States of America, where he became honorary adviser of the Fujian Native-Place Association in Southern California. During his sojourn in Taiwan, he helmed the Taipei Tong An County Native-Plan Association and later became its honorary adviser. He initiated the establishment of scholarships for students at the association and privately funded publications which give information on his place of origin, namely the Tong An ) and Ma Xiang County Gazette ( ). He was also the Ting Gazette ( first director of Taipei City’s Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese of Vietnam.

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In his visit to Tong An county in 1989, he presented HK$100,000 as the seed fund for the establishment of scholarships at Cuiying Primary School. He separately contributed HK$30,000 for the repair of the fence of the school, and further took care of the repair of the tombstones of his ancestors. To this day Cuiying Primary School has been offering scholarships named after its founder. ), Taïo’s adopted son, Zhu Liren ( has grown up acquiring the philanthropic spirit of his father. In 1996, 1998, 1999, and 2002, Liren contributed a total of about 3.5 million yuan to Cuiying Primary School and to the social development projects of Tong Zi village. This sum has been used for the renovation of classrooms in the primary school, the construction of a memorial tower, a public park, and a building in Tong Zi village. Taïo is remembered for his ingenious venture into logistics and his prominence in innovative business and social endeavours. This visionary leader of wide-ranging interests is acclaimed for his magnanimous spirit in realizing social projects. His passion in reaching out to and nurturing the youth in his community in Vietnam and China is most remarkable. Grace Chew Chye Lay R E F E R E N C E S 《 1955， 46–47、50、74。 （

》。

：

，

）〈 —

、 〉。 (Returned Overseas Chinese Federation of Fujian) ， 2002 7月29日 (accessed 20 April 2011). 《 ，1958， 145–46。 〈 ：

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》。

〉，《 》 ，1964， 85–86。

： 、

、

。

Châu Vaên Xöông ( , Zhu Yingchang, 1946– ) Business leader, promoter of education,Vietnam

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hâu Vaên Xöông is managing director of Công Ty Ngheä Xöông ( ) which currently produces and exports wood sculptures and classical furniture. He is an example of how successfully a business can be built out of a passion for art, with the collaboration of highly skilled Vietnamese craftsmen. His company’s products are often used as gifts to foreign dignitaries as they not only have aesthetic and cultural values, but also reflect the success of Vietnam’s economic reform policies. Xöông is the highest honorary adviser of the Vieät Tú Chinese Language Centre ( ) and honorary president of the Calligraphy Art Association, both in Ho Chi Minh City. He regularly supports the twenty-four-year old Lotus Blossom Classical Music and Dance Troupe, the only Chinese dance group in Ho Chi Minh City, and holds the chairmanship of the Ho Chi Minh City Chapter of the Vietnam-Chinese Friendship Association. He is also honorary chairman of the Overseas Chinese Union of Hengli town ( ) in Dongguan City, Guangdong province, China, and used to sit on the board of directors for the MaÏch Kieám Hùng Chinese Language Centre (1992–2000) in Ho Chi Minh City. Châu Vaên Xöông’s middle name should be pronounced ÖÙng in Vietnamese, but he has changed it to Vaên ( ) while retaining his original Chinese name. He was born in 1946 in Siem Reap, Cambodia, and was the third child among five sons in his family. During the turmoil of the late Qing dynasty, his grandfather and father left Banxian Shan village in Hengli town, Dongguan City (

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) in Guangdong province, China and went to Siem Reap. His family later moved to Baêtdâmbâng, Cambodia. At the age of eight, Xöông went to a Chinese-medium primary school and thereafter, a Chinesemedium secondary school in Baêtdâmbâng called Guoguang Lianxiao Zhongxue ( ). After leaving school, he acquired skills such as repairing wrist watches, from his brothers. At night, he worked as a manager for a local cinema. In 1975, he managed to escape from Cambodia and arrived safely in Vietnam, where he began earning his first penny as a watch repairer in the street. He recalls living in a shed built from plank wood and palm leaves from 1975 to 1978 in Tây Ninh province — a province in the south-eastern part of Vietnam bordering Cambodia. Life was miserable at the time, but when Sino-Vietnamese tensions heightened in the mid-1970s and culminated in a border war in 1979, Xöông’s destiny took a turn. He saw many wealthy business households discarding their classical furniture when they fled Vietnam; that spelled opportunity for him rather than disaster. Xöông cleaned and repaired the furniture, then exported them to other parts of Asia. After the ratification in 1986 of what is known as the “economic innovation” (Ðoåi Môùi) of Vietnam, somewhat equivalent to the Perestroika of the Soviet Union, more opportunities came up to better his life. The policies that were formed during this period allowed the creation of private enterprises and the setting of prices by market forces. It was then that Xöông started his serious venture in the crafting of furniture. He has since produced an impressive array of ornaments and handcrafted furniture: antiquestyled chairs and tables with mother-of-pearl inlay, French classical-style furniture, Buddhist sculptures, human and animal sculptures, decorative art, and murals. Xöông has exported

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his products to China, Japan, Southeast Asian nations, Taiwan, and North America. Today the entrepreneur, a citizen of Vietnam, gives credit to the sound economic reforms that enabled his business to flourish, with a special mention of Nguyeãn Vaên Linh, his close friend, as well as general secretary of the Vietnam Communist Party from 1986 to 1991. Linh was a strong advocate of the “economic innovation” who also recognized the contributions of the Hoa (ethnic Chinese) in the independence and development of Vietnam. Xöông was once commended for the part that he played in facilitating medical supplies to the communist army during the Vietnam War. When Xöông was queried about his personal efforts in achieving success, he attributed it to perseverance, thriftiness, and his ability to focus on doing small things first and doing them very well. His proficiency in Mandarin allows him to wax philosophical about the vicissitudes of life and career from the wealth of Chinese and Vietnamese proverbs he knows. His favourite Chinese proverb is “to decide promptly and opportunely” ( ), which, he said, poignantly explains his decisiveness when he ventured into his art and craft business. When he identified the artistic proclivity of the Vietnamese, he immediately decided to make use of it. His souvenirs to the foreign officials who have visited his homecum-workshop were sculptures and art pieces crafted by Vietnamese artists. He currently has about 120 Vietnamese and Hoa subcontractors and craftsmen working with him. Some of them work in his home-and-workshop, which consists of three buildings standing on a land area of about 10,000 square metres. Xöông sees the importance of preserving his Chinese-language speaking ability and calligraphy. He is artistically inclined and finds it easy to pick up Chinese calligraphy

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on his own, using books which he bought in China. He practises calligraphy and polishes his Mandarin comprehension and conversational skills by watching at least two hours of television programmes daily on China’s Phoenix cable channel. Business and leisure apart, he supports Chinese-language education through his role as honorary adviser of Vieät Tú School ( ), one of the Chinese-language centres in the city. The centre retains the original name by which it was known when it was a Chinese-medium school before the country’s unification in 1975–76. It continues to be supported and operated by the Cantonese clan in Ho Chi Minh City. Xöông has also been a long-time patron of the Chinese cultural dance and musical troupe, Lotus ( ), which teaches and promotes Chinese songs and dances. He professes to be a Buddhist who follows a vegetarian diet, believes in taking care of his health for his family’s happiness, and makes it a point to play table tennis with his grandson and daughter-in-law, whom he said has won many table tennis awards. His granddaughter is studying English in Singapore. His son, Châu Quoác Hùng, now manages the family business although Xöông is still its managing director. His daughter, Châu Tieåu Mai, manages her Chinese medical hall called Ðoàng Teá Ðöôøng ) near his home. His family also rents ( out a few properties. Xöông hopes that his descendants will continue to live in Vietnam, which he refers to as his “base of life”. He is confident that his descendants can do better than him, as he has done better than his father in life. He hopes that the future generation will learn to cultivate the spirit of Buddhism, lead a harmonious life, and seek better education. Grace Chew Chye Lay

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R E F E R E N C E S (Guangdong Province Returned Overseas Chinese Association).〈 〉 ，2007 4 17 。 (accessed October 2008). 〈 ： — 〉， ，2007 6 21 。 (accessed October 2008). Private interview with Châu Vaên Xöông in October 2010, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Cheah Fook Ling, Jeffrey ( , Xie Funian, 1946– ) Prominent businessman, philanthropist, Malaysia

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heah, a self-made entrepreneur, is the founder and chairman of the Sunway Group of Companies in Malaysia, a well diversified Malaysian conglomerate with ventures in India, Trinidad, the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, China, and Australia. Its core businesses include construction, property development and investment, manufacturing, trading, tourism, hotel, health care, and tertiary education. Cheah is known as a visionary as this is evident from his achievements in transforming pieces of wasteland into vibrant townships, and his awareness of the importance of building civic institutions, especially tertiary education ones, for the human capital development of Malaysia’s young generation. Cheah was born in 1946 in Pusing, a small town outside of Ipoh, Perak, to a Hakka family of six children. He received his primary and secondary education in Batu Gajah before leaving to pursue his tertiary education at the prestigious Footscray Institute of Technology,

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now the Victoria University of Technology, in Melbourne, Australia. He began his career as an accountant in a motor assembly plant in Malaysia. Hailing from a wealthy tin mining family, he not only ran the family business, but took it to much greater heights. He started a tin mining company, the Sungei Way Enterprise, with a paid-up capital of RM100,000 in 1974. Ten years later he listed the company, Sungei Way Holdings Berhad, which was then engaged in quarrying and asphalt manufacturing, leasing and hire purchase financing, and road construction and earthworks projects. He developed the company into what it is today, the Sunway Group of Companies. His most well known and prestigious development project is the incredible rehabilitation and transformation of an abandoned piece of tin mining land into the now thriving 350-hectare Bandar Sunway, a fully-integrated resort township, distinctly one of Southeast Asia’a best known tourist destinations. Located in the Klang Valley, 20 minutes outside Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, Bandar Sunway has won many international awards, including being regarded as the world’s best leisure project by FIABCI (International Real Estate Federation, Paris) in 2002. And most recently, the Sunway Pyramid, an icon in Southeast Asia located in Bandar Sunway was named the winner of FIABCI Prix d’Excellence 2011. One of the personal hallmarks of Cheah is his immense contribution to society, especially in tertiary education. Cheah established the Sunway University College in 1986 with the sole mission of providing greater and better education opportunities to Malaysian aspiring youths. It was not an easy mission, especially when the college made loses in its early years of operation. However, his determination and dedication turned the college around. After the college had become a very viable and

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profitable business, Cheah decided in 1997 to transfer all his personal shares and ownership of the college into the newly established Sunway Education Trust Fund, which fully owned the Sunway University College. All profits derived from the college, and its portion of profits from its partnership with Monash University Malaysia, are ploughed back into the Trust Fund to upgrade facilities and human resources.The Trust Fund is another institution Cheah had established in accordance with his vision to ensure these educational institutions meet world-class standards and are accessible to all. Cheah’s vision, modelled after that of the Harvard University, is partly anchored on the hope that the Sunway Education Trust will also be able to draw support from the public, and develop into a premier tertiary education institution in the future. The Trust also awards deserving students with scholarships worth more than RM1 million annually.To date, more than RM23 million worth of scholarships have been given out. In recognition of his remarkable contribution, the Sunway Campus of Monash University’s School of Medicine was named after him on 3 September 2007. Cheah’s passion for civic institution development also involved primary schools. His compassion went out to the troubled students back in his hometown of Pusing, and since 1987, he has personally donated more than RM3 million for the construction and upgrading of the facilities at SRJK (C) Pusing, Perak. In the early 1990s, Cheah and his company volunteered to complete an abandoned government school project in Bandar Sunway at its own cost (RM2.5 million). SRK Bandar Sunway is today proudly serving the primary education needs of the community in the township. His burning passion to provide education opportunities to the poor persists, as reflected in his contribution to the school

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development fund of SJK(C) Chee Wen ), in Selangor in 2007. His donation ( of RM3 million is believed to be the highest to a Chinese primary school in the country from an individual entrepreneur. In recognition of his outstanding contribution to education, Cheah has been conferred eight honorary doctorates by leading universities worldwide: Two honorary doctorates of the University from Victoria University (1993), and Flinders University (1994); doctorates of Law from Monash University (1995), and Leicester University (1996); doctorates of Education from University of Western Australia (1994), West Michigan University (1994), and Oxford Brooks University (1998); and doctorate of Business Administration from Greenwich University (2001). His leadership, vision, enormous achievements in the corporate sector, and contributions to society are recognized by both the government and non-governmental organizations, as clearly reflected in his distinguished appointments. In 1990, the Minister of Trade appointed him the director of the National Productivity Centre. In 1995, the prime minister honoured him as a member of the Malaysian Business Council and offered him the chairmanship of the Malaysian Industry-Government High Technology for Construction and Housing (MIGHT). In 1996 he was appointed by the minister of Education to the Higher Education Council of Malaysia, a body responsible for formulating higher education policies in Malaysia. This important appointment is one such example of his commitment to improving civic institutions. In the same year he was appointed an EXCO member of the Malaysian Tourism Action Council by the minister of Tourism Malaysia. The following year, the minister of

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Finance appointed him a council member of the Financial Reporting Foundation. In July 2008 he was appointed honorary officer of the Order of Australia (AO), the highest honour conferred on non-citizens by the prime minister of Australia, in recognition of his meritorious contribution to furthering the excellence of higher education in Malaysia. Due to his immense contribution to society and the country, Cheah is conferred with a few royal conferments. In 1995 he was made Justice of the Peace (JP) by the Sultan of Terengganu. In 1996 he was conferred two royal titles: the Dato’ Seri Paduka Mahkota Perak (SPMP, carrying the title, “Dato’ Seri”) by DYMM Sultan Perak Darul Ridzuan; and the Panglima Setia Mahkota (PSM, carrying the title “Tan Sri”) by the king of Malaysia. In 1988 he received the Darjah Kebesaran Dato’ Paduka Mahkota Selangor (DPMS, carrying the title, “Dato”) from the Sultan of Selangor. In addition to his outstanding success in business and his tight schedule, Cheah stretches himself further and gets involved in non-governmental organizations to serve the society. Among other roles, he is the chairman and co-founder of Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute (ASLI). He was appointed the honorary chairman of the Sin Chew Foundation in 2000; the vice-president of the National Kidney Foundation of Malaysia in 2002; the founding trustee of Malaysian Liver Foundation since 1999; president of the Malaysian Hakka Association 1997–2004; and the first non-Malay honorary member of the Kuala Lumpur Malay Chamber of Commerce since 2002. Other honours bestowed on him are the Paul Harris Fellow Award, Property Man of the Year (Malaysia) in 1993, CEO of the Year (Malaysia) in 1996, and Asia’s Most Innovative Chinese Entrepreneur Award 2005, Fellow

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Australian Society of Certificate Practising Accountants, Fellow of Institute of Directors award. Chin Yee Whah R E F E R E N C E S Cheong, Sally. Chinese Controlled Companies in the KLSE Industrial Counter. Kuala Lumpur: Corporate Resourse Service Sdn Bhd., 1992. Malaysian Business, 16 February 2007. Sunway Webpage.

(accessed August 2008). The Star, 7 July 2008. Wikipedia. (accessed August 2008). 《星洲日报》，2007年10月2日; 2008年7月11日。

Chee Soon Juan ( , Xu Shunquan, 1962– ) Politician, social activist, Singapore

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hee Soon Juan is best known as the secretary general of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) and founder of the Open Singapore Centre. Though he has failed to win a seat in Parliament, he is one of Singapore’s most prominent opposition figures, and his efforts to transform the political environment in Singapore through passive resistance and civil disobedience constantly make headlines. Chee was born in Singapore in 1962 and educated at the Anglo-Chinese School, the National University of Singapore, and then the University of Georgia where he obtained a PhD in neuropsychology in 1990. He returned to Singapore that year and began lecturing in the Department of Social Work at the

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National University of Singapore that June. In December 1992, Chee made news by joining the opposition SDP to contest the by-election in the Marine Parade Group Representation Constituency (GRC). The SDP team, comprising Low Yong Nguan, Ashleigh Seow, Mohd Shariff and Chee, secured just 24.5 per cent of the votes cast. In 1993, Chee was elected assistant secretary general of the SDP. In March that year, Chee was dismissed from the university for misuse of S$226 in research funds, which he allegedly used to courier a copy of his wife’s dissertation to her supervisor in the United States. Chee claimed that his dismissal was politically motivated and staged a tenday hunger strike in protest. He later backed down and called off the hunger strike when it was revealed that he was drinking glucose water while ostensibly fasting. His former head of department and PAP Member of Parliament S.Vasoo also successfully sued him for defamation for intimating that Vasoo had fabricated evidence relating to his sacking. Vasoo was awarded S$315,000 in damages. Chee’s hunger strike caused dissension within the SDP when its then secretary general, Chiam See Tong, censured Chee for his action. When none of the other Central Executive Committee (CEC) members in the SDP supported Chiam’s motion of censure, Chiam resigned as secretary general and Chee took over as acting secretary general. Subsequently, when Chiam made a speech criticizing his own party’s leadership, the CEC voted to expel Chiam from the party. Later, Chiam sued the CEC for wrongful expulsion and won. Chee was elected to replace Chiam as SDP’s secretary general in January 1995, and in 1997, Chiam left to join the Singapore People’s Party which his supporters had established for him.

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Chee was primarily responsible for the SDP’s 1994 manifesto, “Dare to Change: An Alternative Vision for Singapore” which the Party hoped would energize and reinvigorate its members and provide a platform for the next general elections held in 1997. Chee stood as a single-member candidate in the MacPherson constituency and obtained 34.8 per cent of the votes against the People’s Action Party’s Matthias Yao. In the 2001 general elections, Chee helmed an SDP team to contest Jurong GRC. The team secured just 20.2 per cent of the votes. Shortly after these elections, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew both sued Chee for defamation, alleging that in the course of electioneering, Chee alleged that they had misled Parliament over an alleged S$17 million loan to Indonesia during the Asian Financial Crisis. Chee was ordered to pay S$200,000 and S$300,000 in damages to Lee and Goh respectively. In 2006, he was declared a bankrupt when he failed to pay the damages. He was disqualified from contesting in both the 2006 and 2011 general elections in which the SDP garnered less than 5 per cent of the votes cast in both elections. Since 2001, Chee has advocated civil disobedience as a form of protest to effect a change in government policies and as a form of political action. In 2002, he was fined for speaking at the Speakers’ Corner without a permit and for attempting to hold a rally in front of the Istana without a licence. These convictions were followed by a number of other high-profile instances of civil disobedience, such as speeches in public places without a permit; and rallies and marches during the 61st annual meeting of the Boards of Governors of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank held in Singapore in 2006. In February 2006, Chee was convicted for contempt of court and jailed for a day and fined $6,000. He served an additional seven days in

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jail when he failed to pay the fine. In April that year, he was stopped at the airport and charged with attempting to leave Singapore without the approval of the official assignee, which was required of all bankrupts. In November 2006, Chee was jailed for five weeks for failing to pay the $5,000 fine imposed on him for speaking in public without a licence. He became ill in prison and alleged that his food had been spiked and that he suffered sleep deprivation while being incarcerated. Chee is married to Dr Huang Chih Mei and is a father of three children. He has authored several books: Dare to Change: An Alternative Vision for Singapore (1994) which he updated and published as Your Future, My Faith, Our Freedom: A Democratic Blueprint for Singapore (2001); Singapore My Home Too (1996); To Be Free: Stories from Asia’s Struggle Against Opposition (1999); The Power of Courage: Effecting Political Change in Singapore Through Nonviolence (2005). He was awarded the Defender of Democracy Award 2003 by the Washington-based Parliamentarians for Global Action. In 2004, local film maker Martyn See directed and produced a documentary on Chee entitled, Singapore Rebel, which was slated to be screened at the Singapore International Film Festival, but was forced to be withdrawn and subsequently banned as a “party political film” under the Films Act. Kevin Y.L.Tan R E F E R E N C E S Asiaweek. “We’ve Got No Options”. 22 January 1999. Business Times. “NUS: Chee Soon Juan Sacked Because of Dishonesty”.1 April 1993. Chua Lee Hoong. “Is Dr Chee a Flawed Character or a Master Manipulator?”. Straits Times, 9 November 1996. Low, Eugene, Vince Chong and Chuang Peck Ming. “SM Tells Chee to Withdraw Indon Loan Allegations”. Business Times, 30 October 2001.

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Tan Hsueh Yun. “Chee Goes Ahead with Second Public Talk”. The Straits Times, 6 January 1999. Today. “Chee Wins Global Democracy Award”. 6 May 2003.

Chee Swee Lee ( , Xu Ruili, 1955– ) Sportswoman, Singapore

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hee Swee Lee shone as the brightest star during the golden period of Singapore’s track successes in the 1970s. She was the first Singaporean woman to win a gold medal on the athletics track at the Asian Games. Chee ran in the 400-metre and the 800-metre events and was renowned not only for her self-belief, determination, commitment, and humility during competition, but also for her loyalty and devotion to her family. Her successes led to her representing Singapore at the Olympic Games in 1976. Chee was born on 10 January 1955, the third child in a family of eight children. She started her athletics career as a ten-year-old at Telok Kurau West Primary School, where she trained diligently six days a week. In 1966 she became the school’s athletics champion. Subsequently, she became a member of the Flash Athletics Club, working under the watchful gaze of her coach, Patrick Zehnder. In May 1969, as a relatively unknown secondary two student,she was a surprise winner over Maimoon Bakar, then the national 400-m champion. She gradually brought her personal best time for the 400-m to close to 60 seconds and, with it, achieved a qualifying time for the Southeast Asian Peninsular (SEAP) Games. As a fourteen-year-old she represented the national team in Rangoon (Burma/Myanmar), winning a silver medal in the 400-metre event. In 1970, she became Singapore’s “golden girl”

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of athletics at a time when the nation was just striving to forge a strong sporting identity. Still only fifteen years of age, Chee beat the existing combined schools’ record and set her sights on the national record held at the time by Maimoon Bakar. Her performances were heralded by Tan Eng Yoon, the national coach who successfully predicted that she would break 60 seconds before the end of the year. Initially Chee was selected as a reserve for the 400-m relay team representing Singapore at the 1970 Asian Games to be held in Bangkok. However she also gained her first taste of Asian glory by recording a time of 59.8 in the final of the 400-m event. The following year, she won a bronze medal in the 400-m at the SEAP Games held in Kuala Lumpur. She also collected a silver medal in the 4×400m relay. The sporting fraternity had great expectations of Chee when Singapore hosted the SEAP Games in 1973. Having recorded 58.0 seconds in the South Korean championships, she was expected to clinch a gold medal, but had to settle for silver behind Than Than, the Burmese runner in a battling time of 56.0 seconds. In the 800-metre event, she again took silver, this time behind Mar Mar Min, also from Burma (Myanmar). In 1974 Chee won a gold medal in the 400-m competition at the Philippines Track and Field Championships. This was to be the prelude to her finest achievement. At nineteen she recorded her greatest triumph at the 7th Asian Games in Tehran, becoming the first woman from Singapore to win a gold medal at this level in any sport. She set a new Asian Games record and a Singapore national record with 55.08 seconds on 15 September 1974. She also won two other medals in the 4×100-m (bronze — 47.1 seconds) and the 4×400-m (silver — 3:43.9 minutes). At the Commonwealth Games later in the year she recorded times of 55.1 seconds in the

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400-m and 2.08.1 in the 800-m events, thus consolidating a career year. Chee was crowned Sportswoman of the Year (1974) in recognition of these feats and later entered the Hall of Fame. She said she owed it all to her coach, Patrick Zehnder — “I would not be where I am today had it not been for him — his patience, his guidance and his coaching.” Despite her heavy training schedule, she was able to find time to help her mother make cakes for Chinese New Year. Her two main assignments in 1975 were the Asian Track and Field Championships in Seoul and the SEAP Games. Also considered was a tour of Japan, but the plans for this fell through when it was discovered that Zehnder was unable to accompany her. The withdrawal, which made front page news, brought threats of disciplinary action from the Athletics Association. Zehnder was committed to coaching other athletes for the Asian Track and Field Championships and felt that they were his priority. Chee stated that she did not desire preferential treatment. In Seoul, she was just pipped by South Korean Kim Kyung Sook. Two months later in Singapore, she would exact some revenge on Kim at the Amateur Open Championships at the National Stadium. In late 1975, Chee continued her Southeast Asian dominance by taking both gold medals at the SEAP Games in Bangkok. Her 56.5 seconds in the 400-m and 2:02.27 minutes in the 800-m events were some consolation for the defeat in Seoul. The following year Chee took up a track scholarship at the University of Redlands in California, training with the renowned coach, Vince Reel. He was the husband and coach of the famous Taiwanese athlete, Chi Cheng. This signalled a temporary suspension of an eleven-year partnership with Patrick Zehnder. Her aim was to train and then attempt the

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qualifying time for her Olympic events, with the added incentive of higher-class rivalry in the United States. It appeared that an earlier invitation from Reel, eighteen months before, had proved irresistible. The new environment clearly suited Chee. She focused on the 800-m race and achieved the Olympic qualifying time with 2:07.4 minutes — still the national record today. However, there was bad news for home support in July, just a couple of weeks before the Olympic Games were due to start. An injury to the Achilles tendon of Chee’s right leg occurred during the National Amateur Athletic Union meet and the injury was to prove heartbreaking for Chee and Singapore in the Olympic Games. In her 800-m heat in Montreal, Chee broke down less than half way round the first lap. She was forced to pull out because the injury had not fully healed. Sadly, Swee Lee was never to regain her full form, but she did continue to compete. Pain in the Achilles tendon, even after short training periods, hampered her process of recovery. Chee sought relief from a number of different treatments, and ultimately surgery was required. Unwilling to retire and showing the utmost determination, Chee Swee Lee fought to make a comeback. She reappeared after two years. A spell in West Germany raised hopes of a full recovery, and the courageous runner vowed to race within the region for Singapore. She ran in the SEA Games in Manila in 1981, but unfortunately without success. Surprising many, she returned to competitive running and continued her career for a further fourteen years. By 1985 she was posting times for 400-m and 800-m events that were comparable with those of her American rivals — even though she had reached the age of thirty. She set a Mount San Antonio College record in the 800-m race and came second in the conference championship with a time of 2:11.0 minutes.

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Her successes at Mount San Antonio led to an extension of an athletic scholarship to California State University, Pomona. Chee continued to run competitively against younger NCAA Division II rivals, until she graduated with a degree in business administration in 1989. She was a member of the Southern California Cheetahs, a local track club, and continued to compete well into 1990. Chee Swee Lee, the resilient “golden girl” finally retired from the track at the age of thirty-five. She now has a successful career as a marketing manager and lives with her husband, Bob Cedillos, in Diamond Bar, California, in a suburb of Los Angeles County. In May 2011 she was awarded a medallion to commemorate her appearance at the Montreal Olympic Games. As one of Singapore’s 167 acknowledged Olympians since 1936, she has been assigned the number 97 in the chronology created by the association known as Olympians Singapore. Nick Aplin R E F E R E N C E Aplin, N.G., D.J. Waters, & M.L. Leong. Singapore Olympians: The Complete Who’s Who 1936–2004. Singapore: Singapore National Olympic Council, 2005, p. 487.

Chen Chong Swee ( , Chen Zongrui, 1910–86) Artist, Singapore

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hen Chong Swee was an artist, teacher, and writer who made a significant impact on the development of the visual arts in Singapore. This renowned specialist in watercolour painting was a member of the pioneer generation of artists who developed the “Nanyang School of Painting” style that

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synthesized distinctive aesthetic traditions of the east and west. This style was unique to Singapore at the turn of the twentieth century. He was also one of the first artists in Singapore to use Chinese ink painting techniques to portray scenery and figurative paintings with local and Southeast Asian themes. With a keen eye for colour and detail, he drew upon his observations of his surrounding environment to bring to life renditions of daily life activities. His painting subjects were often composed from his surrounding environment and daily life activities as he believed that a painting must be understood and be a recollection of one’s thoughts. Many of his masterpieces were inspired by observations and insights from his numerous tours to Bali and the east coast of West Malaysia. Chen was born in Swatow, China, in 1910. He received his education at the Union High School, and graduated in 1929. From there, he moved on to the Xinhua Academy of Fine Arts. After arriving in Singapore in 1931, he taught art at various secondary schools, before joining the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts as a lecturer in the Chinese ink painting department. Chen’s training at the Xinhua Academy oriented him towards the traditional principles of Chinese painting. He is firmly grounded in the Chinese tradition of painting as “idea writing”, where inscriptions are used purposefully to fortify the meanings of the paintings. However, he also believed that such long-held traditions of Chinese painting should not be cast in stone. This meant he was open to exploration of new ideas and techniques. During this period, the art scene in Shanghai and China was also seeing the emergence of his peers, who were synthesizing modernism with conventional principles in Chinese ink painting.

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Eventually, and in part due to the influence of life in Southeast Asia, he developed his signature painting style, which is defined by his belief that communicating art to his audience is a top priority in the creation process. This goes against the classic modernist approach that dictates that the innate subjectivism, sensibilities, and concerns of the individual artist should always take priority over viewer accessibility. He describes his philosophy towards art as such: “Art is a part of life and cannot exist independently from real life. Art must be objective. If a work of art fails to embody truth, goodness and beauty, it cannot be regarded as a true work of art.” In 1935, Chen co-founded the Salon Art Society (Singapore Society of Chinese Artists). In the same year, he was given a cash award at the King George V Silver Jubilee Art Exhibition. Chen taught art in various schools in Singapore between 1936 and 1970, and also served on various advisory and management committees of art societies in Singapore. Thirty years later, in 1965, in recognition of his contributions, he was awarded the Meritorious Public Service Star of the Republic of Singapore. Then in 1969, he cofounded the Singapore Watercolour Society with artists such as Lim Cheng Hoe, and Loy Chye Chuan. He also served as the society’s treasurer for many years. A landmark experience in Chen’s career was a visit to Bali in 1953, together with fellow artists Cheong Soo Pieng, Chen Wen Hsi, Liu Kang, and Lim Hak Tai. Inspired by their visit, the group members collaborated to produce the Pictures Of Bali painting exhibition in the same year. The exhibition featured the paintings completed by the artists during their Indonesian sojourn and set the stage for the development of the “Nanyang School of Painting”.

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For more than fifty years after his arrival in Singapore in 1931, Chen participated actively in various local art exhibitions. His works could be seen in the annual National Day Art Exhibition and many local events organized by the art societies in Singapore. His reach extended beyond the nation’s shores as well, for he was frequently selected to represent Singapore in overseas exhibitions. Chen was also a prolific writer and frequent contributor to newspapers,exhibition catalogues, and magazines published by art associations. Through the written word, he actively engaged his peers and the local art community in discussions on issues such as the fundamental differences in Chinese and Western art, the functions of art education, and the need to develop a style of ink painting that was relevant to a multicultural environment. These writings offered a peek into Chen’s thinking and provided an insider’s view of art discourse in Singapore from the 1940s to the 1970s. In the first published monograph on the history of art in Singapore and Malaysia, A Concise History of Malayan Art, published in 1963, Ma Ge wrote that Chen Chong Swee had received so much recognition for his art that it overshadowed his significant contribution to art education. In an article the same year, Cao Shuming quoted Ma Ge in order to draw attention to Chen’s important contributions to art education and publication. Paying tribute to his talent and contributions to the Singapore visual arts scene, the Ministry of Culture and the National Museum jointly presented a “Chen Chong Swee Retrospective” in 1984. Two years later, in 1986, Chen passed away. Two more exhibitions dedicated to Chen were held in the ensuing two decades: “Chen Chong Swee, His Thoughts, His Art”, presented by

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the National Museum in 1993; and “Passages, selected works of Chen Chong Swee”, by the Singapore Art Museum in 1998. On 15 January 1994, 151 works of art by Chen, mainly Chinese ink paintings, were donated by the Chen family estate to the “Chen Chong Swee Charity auction” conducted by Singapore Sotheby’s Auction House at the Empress Place Building. The auction garnered a total of $676,200 from the sale of 138 paintings, with the highest priced pieces, Returning From The Sea and Trengganu Beach, fetching S$66,000 and S$16,000 respectively. In addition, more than 70 per cent of the collection was sold above the minimum reserve price. The funds raised through the auction went into the reserves for the NAC-Chen Chong Swee Art Scholarship, which awards aspiring artists with up to S$25,000 funding to pursue full-time postgraduate studies or research programmes overseas. In March 1994, the Singapore Mint produced gold and silver ingots commemorating the late artist. The 75ggold and 43g-silver ingots were printed with the artist’s Drying Fish painting on one side, while the other side featured a portrait of the artist with his personalized signature and seal. These ingots were launched officially at the Reminiscence of Singapore Pioneer Art Masters art exhibition at the Takashimaya Art Gallery on 11 March 1994. G. Uma Devi R E F E R E N C E S “Chen Chong Swee”. (accessed March 2011). National Museum of Singapore. Chen Chong Swee Retrospective. Singapore: Ministry of Culture, 1984. National Museum. Chen Chong Swee: His Thoughts, His Art. Singapore: National Museum, 1993.

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Singapore Heritage Society website. (accessed March 2011). Singapore Mint. Reminiscence of Singapore’s Pioneer Art Masters: Liu Kang, Cheong Soo Pieng, Chen Chong Swee, Chen Wen Hsi: 11–22 March 1994. Singapore, 1994. Sotheby & Co. (Singapore) Chen Chong Swee charity auction. Singapore: Sotheby’s Singapore, 1994. . Chen, Chong Swee. “The paintings of Chen Chong Swee” ( ), 1983.

Chen, David ( , Chen Chong’en, 1900–52) Educationist, Malaysia

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avid Chen Chong En was well known in Malaysia and Singapore as an outstanding educationist who was well versed in both Chinese and English languages. He was principal of Chung Ling High School ) in Penang before the Second World ( War (July 1931 to December 1941) and after the war (September 1945 to February 1952). Under his charge, Chung Ling High School became a reputable school in the northern states of Malaya because of the effective reforms he had introduced. In particular, his bilingual policy was most talked about and was regarded by many other schools as a model to be emulated. He was also actively involved in the Chinese education movement and was the first chairman of the United Chinese School Teachers Association of Malaysia (UCSTAM). Unfortunately, at the height of his career in education, he was shot dead by the Communist Party of Malaya. David Chen hailed from Jiangning ( ) in Jiangsu ( ) province. Born in 1900, he attended Cui Ying High School ( ) in Suzhou ( ) in 1909 and studied at the Faculty of Arts Education in Jinling

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University ( ) in Nanjing from 1924 to 1926. After his graduation, he taught geography and English at the secondary school section of the university, as well as Zhengyi ). He had also Secondary School ( served as head of English Department at ) in Chung Hua Secondary School ( Dutch-occupied Tanjung Pandan on Belitung Island in Indonesia. From 1926 to 1927, he took charge of the Academic Department and Sports Department at CuiYing High School in Suzhou.He served as president of the Federation of Sports Clubs of twelve private secondary ) from 1929 to 1930. schools in Zhejiang ( In 1931, the Board of Directors of Chung Ling High School, through the recommendation of China’s consul in Penang, Yang Nianzu ( ), employed him as principal of the school. During his tenure of office, he introduced major reforms to strengthen the academic performance of the school. He was pragmatic in his school administration and before long Chung Ling High School rose to become a renowned institution, attracting students from near and far. The school board then decided to construct new school buildings at a new location. A fund raising campaign was held and an 11-acre piece of land at Lot 133 in Kampung Baru was later purchased. Construction works for the new school buildings began in October 1934 and were completed in September 1935. The new school buildings comprised a school hall, an administration office, classrooms, hostels, washrooms, basketball courts, badminton courts, etc. During the Japanese Occupation, David Chen lived a secluded life in Cameron Highlands, but his wish to revive Chung Ling High School had never wavered. The British army regained control of Malaya on 3 September 1945 and by 15 September, David Chen had returned to Penang to meet his former colleagues to discuss plans for the reopening of

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Chung Ling High School. After two months of preparation, the school was officially reopened on 8 December 1945. Soon after the revival, the number of students increased sharply and there was an urgent need to have new school buildings. In 1948, David Chen and the school board started a campaign to raise funds for the school extension works. In May 1950, a new hall and sixteen classrooms were completed. The new hall, which was named “Huai Ze ), could accommodate 2,000 Hall” ( people at any one time and was then the largest hall among all schools in Malaysia. In managing Chung Ling High School, David Chen had adopted the American missionary educational system of his alma mater, Jinling University. This system had a heavy emphasis on the English language and all final-year students in the senior middle classes were required to take the English examination. Apart from admitting selected good students, the school also tried to recruit the best teachers. With these measures, the school was able to score the best results in Penang for the Cambridge School Certificate Examination and the London Commerce Examination every year — unmatched even by the English-medium schools. David Chen was determined to produce students who were able to achieve high standards of academic performance and secure better job prospects. At the time of colonial rule then, this was only possible by using the English language as the medium of teaching in the schools. His ultimate objective was to ensure that students from Chung Ling High School were on par with those from the English-medium schools, if not better. Apart from stressing the academic performance of the school, he was also concerned with better welfare for the teachers. In particular, he had allowed an old Chinese language teacher, Guan Zhenmin ), to stay on to teach in the school (

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after retirement on a half-salary pension and such a move won him praises from the public. He had once said: “If we do not improve the lives of our teachers, it is just like planting vegetables without applying fertilizer.” While focusing on his educational work, David Chen had also played an active role in leading the Chinese education movement. When the USCTAM was established in December 1952, he was elected the first chairman. In trying to secure better welfare for the teachers, he had set up two committees to work on the establishment of the Teachers Welfare Fund and the standardization of criteria for teachers’ salary scale. However, before such efforts could produce any result, he was shot dead by a gunman from the Communist Party of Malaya at 3pm on 4 February 1952 while he was on his way to attend a meeting of the Penang Chinese School Teachers Association. His assassination was a great loss not only to Chung Ling High School, but also to the Chinese education movement in Malaysia. Lew Bon Hoi R E F E R E N C E （

《 ）

》。

：

，2007。

Chen, Georgette ( , Zhang Liying, 1906–93) Artist, Singapore

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orn Chang Li Ying, Georgette Chen was a forerunner of the visual arts movement in Singapore in the postWorld War II period, contributing to the birth of the Nanyang art style. While much has been recorded on her artistic achievements and contributions to the Southeast Asian, and

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more specifically Singapore, arts scene, little is known of her early life. Contradictory accounts exist as to her date of birth, as well as her birthplace. Some sources claim she was born in 1906, others say 1907. A few sources claim she was born in Zhejiang Province, China, but the majority of sources claim she was born in Paris. What we do know, however, is that she was the fourth of twelve children in her family, and her father, Chang Sen Chek was an antique dealer who travelled extensively to New York, Paris, and London for business. As the Chang family followed Chang everywhere, all their children, including Chen, were exposed to art from a young age. Despite the fact that the Changs were predominantly based in the West, the wife educated their children in Mandarin at home, and the husband imbued them with Chinese nationalistic fervour for Dr Sun Yatsen’s revolution. Thus, all the Chang children grew up with a strong sense of their cultural identity. In turn, this Chinese cultural identity heavily influenced the themes in Chen’s art. In her formative years, Chen shuttled between Paris and America, soaking up the artistic atmosphere of both countries. As she preferred Parisian life and its abundance of museums to America, she left the Art Students League of New York after a year in 1926.When she returned to Paris in 1927, she studied at the Académie Colarossi and Académie Biloul with the support of her parents. Although her parents were supportive of her decision to be an artist, they were apprehensive about her career choice as they felt artists had to be dead before they were appreciated. However, her parents’ fears were unfounded and Chen became a notable artist in her own right when the artwork she submitted for selection for the Salon d’Automne exhibition was selected in 1930. Her early work was lauded for being reminiscent of the late French Impressionist

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movement, with emphasis on heavy brush strokes as well as volume and texture. At about the same period, she met and married her first husband, Eugene Youren Chen, a Chinese foreign minister and friend of Sun Yat-sen. A keen lover of the arts and music himself, her husband encouraged her to become a professional artist and helped advance her artistic career. For the duration of their marriage, Chen lived predominantly in Shanghai and travelled between Paris and China. This was an artistically productive period for her as she held two major exhibitions in Paris in 1937 — at the Palace of Painting as part of the Paris World Fair, and at the Women Painters Exhibition. During this time, she also held many exhibitions in Shanghai showcasing her still life paintings, and executed numerous portraits of Eugene Chen in the style of van Gogh. Unfortunately the outbreak of the SinoJapanese war curtailed her artistic production. She was placed under house arrest along with her husband for much of the war. Following her husband’s death in 1944 as a prisoner-ofwar and the end of the Second World War, Georgette Chen retook the art world by storm with a seminal show in New York at the Asia Institute. In this endeavour, she was sponsored by the Nobel Prize laureate, Pearl S. Buck. Some time during this period, she met and married her second husband, Dr Ho Yung Chi, with whom she moved to Paris in 1949. Once again, she exhibited her latest works at the Salon d’Automne and the Galerie La Licorne. In 1951, she and Dr Ho moved to Penang. Following her divorce from Dr Ho, she relocated to Singapore in 1953 where she exhibited her work at the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and the Singapore Art Society. In 1954, Chen took a part-time teaching position at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Art which she held until 1980.

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The 1950s marked Georgette Chen’s mature period in art where she melded her Western-style post-Impressionist techniques with local subject matters thereby contributing to the evolvement of the “Nanyang Style”. The most notable feature of the “Nanyang Style” is its hybridization of Asian themes with Western ideas and techniques. She was an expert proponent of the “Nanyang Style” and consequently became known as “Chendana” (Malay for sandalwood) and “Basket Chen” due to the recurring use of a basket motif in her later works. Given her training, extensive experience in painting, and unique artistic vision, she became the first female recipient of Singapore’s Cultural Medallion for Art in 1982. Ill health however prevented Chen from continuing her art after 1980. Subsequently, after an eleven-year battle with rheumatoid arthritis, she passed away on 15 March 1993 in Mount Alvernia Hospital. Her death did not mark the end of her contributions to the Singapore art scene. Far from it. Her shadow and “Nanyang Style” continue to loom over young artists in modern-day Singapore, for immediately upon her death, Lee Seng Gee, chairman of the Lee Foundation and executor of her estate, found a sizeable collection of paintings in two rooms of her house. These fifty-three paintings were accordingly donated to the Singapore Art Museum in June 1994, bringing the museum’s collection of Chen’s artwork to 104. Likewise, her house in Siglap Plain was auctioned for S$2.8 million, and the sum was used by the National Arts Council to create the Georgette Chen Arts Scholarship for art students. Funds from the sales of Chen’s personal investment in stocks and shares, as well as donations sale proceeds of her house, were used for a new building for the Singapore Council of Women’s Organizations, numerous community welfare projects for the local

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Malay community, and the Practice Theatre Ensemble in support of Chinese theatrical art in Singapore. Sharon Loo R E F E R E N C E S Chia, J. Georgette Chen. Singapore: Singapore Art Museum, 1997. Kwok, K. C. Channels and Confluences: A History of Singapore Art. Singapore: Singapore Art Museum, 1996, pp. 64–68. Ministry of Community Development and the National Museum, Singapore. Georgette Chen Retrospective. Singapore: National Museum, 1985. National Heritage Board. “Chen, Georgette”. In Singapore: The Encyclopedia, edited by Tommy T. B. Koh, et al, p. 96. Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2006. Singapore artist directory. Singapore: Empress Place Museum, 1993, p. 40.

Chen Huiming ( , 1927– ) Educator, Cambodia

C

hen Huiming is the school principal ), the of Duanhua Xuexiao ( largest Chinese school in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, which claims to have 11,000 students. Chen was born into a poor family in ), Guangdong in 1927. When he Puning ( was four years old, he and his father left his ), and from birthplace to go to Guangxi ( there travelled to Vietnam (then under French colonial rule) where the family settled down. In 1953 the local Chinese school which the young Chen went to was caught up in the political unrest leading to it being banned by the colonial authorities. Chen’s family was also affected and took refuge in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where he continued his Chinese

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education at the Duanhua School between 1954 and 1956. In 1957 he finished his studies at Duanhua and was employed as a teacher by the school for more than ten years. In 1970, General Lon Nol led a coup d’etat in Cambodia which brought the rightwing military group to power. Consequently almost all the Chinese schools in Cambodia, totalling more than 200, were closed down. Chen then moved to the province of Kratie on the Cambodian-Vietnamese border, a province controlled by the Khmer Rouge, which was supported by Vietnam. Chinese schools were still allowed to operate in this province so Chen taught at a Chinese school here as a relief teacher and a student of his, Aing Khun, later establish a Chinese school in Phnom Penh. In March 1974, however, the Khmer Rouge changed its policy and closed down all the Chinese schools in Kratie. Chen was then deported by the Khmer Rouge to the countryside to work as a farmer in the northern province of Stung Treng, also came under the control of Khmer Rouge. In 1975, Khmer Rouge “liberated” Cambodia and began to establish a “socialist state” in which all those considered “enemies of socialism” were to be eradicated.They included the capitalists, intellectuals, professionals, schoolteachers, merchants, officials, soldiers, bureaucrats of the former government, and ethnic Vietnamese, etc. The ethnic Chinese, being urban dwellers and belonging to an undesirable class, became the target of the purge. In theory the policy had no ethnic overtones, but it was soon revealed that the Khmer Rouge not only prohibited the ethnic Chinese from using their language, but also induced them to abandon their traditions. Later both the Chinese language and Chinese culture were banned. Whoever spoke the Chinese language or dialects were considered to have committed a crime. In consequence

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many Cambodian Chinese hid their ethnic identity for fear of being persecuted. It is interesting to note that the Chinese language and culture were suppressed not only by the pro-American Lon Nol government, but also under the communist rule of Pol Pot. The Pol Pot policy was the more extreme as it aimed at eradicating both the Chinese language and the culture. In December 1978 Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia and installed a proHanoi regime. That did not bring about an improvement in the position of the Chinese language and culture, however. As there had been no Chinese schools in Cambodia for more than twenty years, the ethnic Chinese community in Cambodia gradually lost their “mother tongue”. The younger generation could only use the Cambodian language for communication purposes. Chinese schools were re-established only after the end of the Cold War and the withdrawal of the Vietnamese troops from Cambodia. In September 1992, the Duanhua School was officially reopened and Chen was re-invited to serve the school, this time as principal. During the Pol Pot years and the Vietnamese Occupation, Chen had had no opportunity to teach; at one time he was even forced to become a farmer. It was only after Cambodia regained its freedom that he was able to resume his career as a schoolteacher and school principal. He has served as principal since the reopening of the Duanhua School. According to Chen, Chinese schools have been sponsored by the local Chinese community as in the past, and Chinese leaders are eager to revive the Chinese language and culture. By 2006, there were about seventy Chinese schools in Cambodia, of which eleven were located in Phnom Penh. Chen also points out that Duanhua School, which was sponsored by the Teochew

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Association, has about 11,000 daytime students in the main and branch campuses. Apart from them, there are 2,000 students who attend Duanhua evening school. There are approximately 300 teaching and administrative staff members in the school. Most subjects such as general knowledge, mathematics, geography, and history are taught in Mandarin, while the Cambodian language is taught four or five periods a week.The school uses primary school textbooks which are jointly written by the Cambodian General Chinese Association and the Jinan University (in Guangdong Province of PRC). However, at one time, it used high school textbooks that were written by Dong Jiao Zong, the Malaysian Chinese Schools and Teachers Association. As there are not enough Chinese schoolteachers in Cambodia, the Cambodian Chinese community has asked the PRC Government to send Chinese language teachers especially to teach more advanced courses. Chen notes that the Chinese standard of the Chinese Cambodian students is low as they generally do not speak Chinese at home and the Cambodian language has become their first language. Because of this, Cambodian, rather than Mandarin, has increasingly been used to teach subjects to the students. It should also be noted that Cambodia used to have a half-day school system in which many students attended two schools: a Cambodian school and a Chinese school. However in 2006, before the Cambodia Government changed it to a whole-day system, the Chinese community in Cambodia began to change the Chinese schools into bilingual or even trilingual schools in order to retain the students.They therefore had to strengthen their courses in Cambodian and English in order to survive. In 2007 the Cambodian Government changed the Cambodian school system to a whole-day system, but this did not really

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affect the number of Duanhua school students. The transformation has apparently been quite successful as Duanhua School has managed to maintain its high student enrolments. Lim Boon Hock and Leo Suryadinata R E F E R E N C E S Suryadinata, Leo. China and the ASEAN States: The Ethnic Chinese Dimension, pp. 38–43. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1985. 〈 〉，《 》，2006 4 。 (accessed 3 February 2012). 〈 》。 161–64。

〉，《 ：

）e-mail to Leo C.H.Tay’s（ (19 January 2012) on Chen Huiming.

： ，2009， Suryadinata

Chen Lieh Fu ( , Chen Liefu, 1908– ) Educator, scholar, Philippines

C

hen Lieh Fu is an all-rounder who played many roles in life — educator, writer-author, scholar, columnist, political commentator, fund-raiser, builder, and administrator. He would like to be remembered, however, by the successes of the countless students who graduated from his school and made a name for themselves. Chen was born in 1908, in Tong’an ( ) in Fujian, China. He finished high school in 1934 in Xiamen in Fujian, China, but his family was too poor to send him to university. Instead he served as an elementary school teacher for three years right after high school graduation.This experience started him off on the path of education. In 1929, Chen passed the competitive exam for a scholarship from

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Nanjing Central Political University ( ), from which he graduated with a degree in political science. In 1932, Chen headed the fourth ministry in charge of development and economics in Jiangning ) in Jiangsu Province ( ). He took ( the National Civil Service Examination, and having passed with excellent results, was promoted to head the Gaoheng Municipality ) in Jiangsu, where he strengthened the ( treasury, increased agricultural taxes twofold, repaired dikes, controlled water sources to improve farm irrigation, and started its rural newspaper. He was well loved and respected by his constituents. In 1936, Chen received a grant from the Ministry of Education for a scholarship in the United States, where he obtained his masters degree in political science in 1938 from the Illinois State University. He also took up studies in modern history and public administration at this university and these studies later served him well in his research on, and subsequent work in, school administration. With the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, Chen’s scholarship grant was terminated. Due to the lack of funds to continue his studies, he transferred to the University of California for a year doing special research. In 1939, he returned home and took up various teaching jobs in Yunnan, Guizhou, and Chongqing, where he served as a trainer for young college graduates. From there, he was accepted at the Sichuan University ( ) as a professor, and also served as chairman of the Political Science Department for four years. Chen then became a professor at the ) in 1944, Xiamen University ( where he was also chairman of the Political Science Department. At the time, Xiamen University was chosen as one of the top sixteen most important schools in China. In

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1945, after the Japanese surrendered, Xiamen University was moved back from Changting ) to Xiamen City and Chen moved ( with it. His townmates were elated with his homecoming and elected him to the City Council of Xiamen City where he served for two terms, or four years while continuing to teach at Xiamen University. ) In 1947, he went to Lushan ( ) to attend the 2nd Youth in Jiangxi ( Congress, and was elected a representative ( ) of the National Delegation. This Congress was merged with the Kuomintang ( ) later, and Chen became a member of the National Party. Towards the end of 1948, when the conflict between the Kuomintang Party and the Communist Party escalated and civil war intensified, soldiers and refugees poured into Xiamen. At any time, fifty to sixty thousand soldiers were stationed on the small island. The city was chaotic and citizens were scared. Councilor Chen headed the civilianmilitary cooperation station to pacify them, restored peace and order, catered to the needs of the military, maintained good relations between the civilian and military, and kept the City generally safe until its liberation. Because of the chaotic situation and continuing political instability, Chen decided to move to the Philippines through Hong Kong. He arrived in the late 1950s and settled first in Cotabato City in Mindanao, a southern island of the Philippines. He served as the principal of Cotabato Zhonghua High Shool ( ) for four years and only in 1954 did he go to Manila and teach for four years at the biggest Chinese high school there, Chiang ), which later Kai Shek High School ( ). became Chiang Kai Shek College ( In 1957, he went to the southern Visayan island of Cebu where he became the administrator of the Chinese school, Zhongguo Zhongxue

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) and mobilized the Cebu Chinese ( community to help put up a school building. He also worked to improve teacher training, raise the standard of education, and expand the school with six new buildings. Student numbers rapidly increased to 4,000. In 1963, in response to the changing political and legal environment, with the government adopting Filipinization measures to integrate the local Chinese, Chen convinced his Board of Trustees of the need to change the school’s name to ). He also “Far Eastern College” ( expanded the college to include courses in secretarial studies, commerce, education, and obtained the permit from the Department of Education to expand the high school into a full-fledged college. He continuously served as president of the College in Cebu City for thirty-two years. Chen is a scholar and writer as well, having published several hundreds of columns, articles, and academic papers in Chineselanguage dailies, journals, and magazines in the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Many of his works touch on the Chinese problem, including concerns about Chinese language education in the Philippines. He has also authored nearly thirty books, all of them in Chinese. Among the important ones notably are: the Filipino People and Culture ( ); Philippine History and Philippine-China ); Philippine Relations ( System of Civilian Rule; The Huk Rebellion and ， Social Reforms ( ); Southeast Asia Huaqiao, Huaren ); and Huayi ( Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew ( ); The Philippines under Marcos ( ); Corazon Cojuangco Aquino — first female President in Southeast Asia ( ); Modern Chinese History ( ); Western Modern History (

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); Philippine Huaqiao Education ( ); and Collection of Chen Liefu commentaries ). ( His wife was Co Bit Dian and they have four children, two sons and two daughters, who are all professionals and live in the United States at present. Teresita Ang-See R E F E R E N C E S 《

· ，1998， 34。 〈

》。

《

： 》 60 ，1997， 14–16。

〈 》

。

〉， ：

： 〉，

《 ，1988。

Chen Su Lan ( , Chen Shunan, 1885–1972) Physician, anti-opium activist, Singapore

C

hen Su Lan was a physician, anti-opium activist, founder of the Chinese YMCA, and philanthropist. Chen was born in 1885 in Fuzhou, the younger of two sons of Chen Hui Mei and Dang Li Meng. At birth, he was named Nen Ya. His father died when he was very young and his mother, who was a nurse trained by Methodist missionaries, fled to the countryside when a foreign gunboat approached Fuzhou. The young Chen studied Chinese classics and ) examinations at the sat for the Xiu Cai ( age of sixteen and thereafter enrolled in the Anglo-Chinese College in Fuzhou headed then by John Gowdy (1869–1963). In 1905, at the age of twenty, Chen left for Singapore to study medicine at the newly-established King Edward VII College of Medicine.

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He was a brilliant student and a keen sportsman who excelled in tennis. When he graduated in 1910, he not only emerged as the top student of the first batch of students, but also topped his class in every subject except pathology, winning the Lim Boon Keng gold medal materia medica in the process. Instead of returning to Fuzhou, Chen decided to remain in Singapore, and established a medical practice in South Bridge Road. He offered his expertise and time to various local medical organizations, such as the Tan Tock Seng Hospital Management Committee (1935), the Central Midwives Board (1923), and the King Edward VII College of Medicine Council (1926–40). He also founded the Alumni Association of the King Edward VII College of Medicine in 1923 and was made president emeritus in 1952. Chen also served as president of the Malayan Branch of the British Medical Association (1949–50). Immediately after graduation, he plunged headlong into local affairs and joined the Singapore Anti-Opium Society that had been established in 1906 by Drs Lim Boon Keng and Yin Suat Chuan (S.C.Yin). In 1911 Chen also became president of the United Chinese Library, which had been established by SunYatsen in 1910. Despite his young age, he was held in the highest esteem. When S.C. Yin could not preside over the annual general meeting of the Anti-Opium Society in 1912, it was Chen who stood in. By campaigning so ferociously against opium, Chen risked being deported by the British colonial government which had legalized opium use and had a monopoly on the supply of opium. It was only after World War II that opium was finally outlawed. In 1929 Chen became president of the Anti-Opium Society and, in that capacity, established the Anti-Opium Clinic in 1933. He served as its voluntary director and was successful

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in treating some 7,000 opium addicts, many of whom claim to have been cured within a few weeks of their admission.This clinic shut down in 1937 when the Japanese invaded China, and donations to the clinic were diverted to the China Relief Fund. In his continuing efforts to understand opium addiction and find its cure better, Chen became one of the world’s leading authorities on opium addiction. From 1931–34, he served on the Standing Advisory Committee on Opium of Malaya. Chen also campaigned against the widespread prostitution of the period 1928– 31, and succeeded in getting the government to close down public brothels. He was also concerned about the scourge of tuberculosis, and his agitation and advocacy led to the establishment of the Rotary Anti-tuberculosis Clinic and the Singapore Anti-tuberculosis Association. He was a tireless social reformer and was a well known and respected public figure. When the Japanese invaded Singapore in 1942, Chen tried fleeing the island. On 13 February 1942, just two days before the British surrendered, Chen left Singapore on one of the last ships leaving the island. The ship was attacked and Chen found himself and others floating in the sea, clinging onto a raft. They managed to make their way to a mangrove forest and were rescued the following day by a passing boatman who heard their cries for help.When they returned to Singapore, Chen was detained by the Japanese military police or Kempeitai. He was later released when the Japanese could not bring any charges against him. These wartime experiences were described in his book, Remember Pompong and Oxley Rise, which he published in 1969. These experiences also led to his establishing the Chen Su Lan Trust to undertake charitable work.

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After the war, Chen was appointed to Governor Sir Franklin Gimson’s Advisory Council. Using this as a platform, he raised social issues and problems resulting from the Japanese Occupation, but soon tired of the “speech-making”, preferring action on the ground instead. Chen was a third-generation Methodist and a staunchly religious man. He was active in the Fuzhou Methodist Church and represented it as a delegate at the Quadrennial Conference of Methodists in the United States in 1928. After he graduated from medical school, he joined the fledgling Chinese Young Men’s Christian Association (CYMCA), established in 1907, and became its president in 1911. However this organization did not survive long and nothing was heard of it after 1913. After the war, and seeing the problems of displaced and demoralized youths in Singapore, Chen tried to revive the Chinese YMCA.Together with a group of leaders from the Methodist, Presbyterian, and Anglican churches, he established the Chinese YMCA (later called the Metropolitan YMCA) anew in 1945 and served as its founding chairman. Responding to charges that he was being racist in having only Chinese in his organization, Chen argued that the YMCA did not sufficiently concern itself with youth whose main lingua franca was Chinese and, as such, did not attract these youths into its excellent programmes. He remained chairman till 1948 and then handed over his responsibilities to a board of directors. However, he was recalled in 1954 to help save the organization from bankruptcy. It had incurred a debt of M$370,000 in building its new headquarters in Palmer Road. Chen raised a loan and completed the building and continued serving as president for a decade till his retirement from the post in 1964. When

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he stepped down, he left the Chinese YMCA with a healthy surplus of M$81,000. In 1947, Chen started the Chen Su Lan Trust to provide Christian organizations with funding for charitable and philanthropic work. He established this fund with $500,000 from his own pocket and its beneficiaries included the Scripture Union, as well as a children’s home — the Chen Su Lan Methodist Children’s Home (1968). Chen’s public service extended to the Rotary Club (of which he was a director for many years and vice-president three times), as well as the Courts of the University of Malaya and then the University of Singapore. For his public service, he was conferred an honorary doctor of laws degree by the University of Singapore in 1952, and granted honorary membership of the Singapore Medical Association in 1968. Chen died on 5 May 1972 after a long illness. He was survived by his seven children. In 2005, during the centennial celebrations of the National University of Singapore, the Chen Su Lan Trust donated S$2.5 million to the university to establish the Chen Su Lan Centennial Professorship of Medical Ethics. Kevin Y.L.Tan R E F E R E N C E S Cheah, J.S., T.M. Ho, and B.Y. Ng. “The First Graduates in 1910”. In Annals of the Academy of Medicine, Singapore, 34(6) (2005): 19C–24C. Chen, Chi Nan. “Dr Chen Su Lan: President Emeritus” (1998) 35 The Alumnus 18. Chen, Su Lan. The Opium Problem in British Malaya. Singapore: Singapore Anti-Opium Society, 1935. National University of Singapore. “Chen Su Lan Centennial Professorship in Medical Ethics”. (accessed February 2012). Sunquist, Scott W. A Dictionary of Asian Christianity. Michigan: Wm B Eerdmans, 2001.

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The Alumnus. “The Chen Su Lan Centennial Professorship — Serendipity at work!”. January 2006.

Chen Wen Hsi ( , Chen Wenxi, 1906–91) Artist, art educationist, Singapore

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r Chen Wen Hsi, renowned for his avant-garde Chinese paintings and for influencing the early Chinese artists in Singapore, is an outstanding art educationist and pioneer in the development of the Singapore art scene. He was proficient in both traditional Chinese ink and Western oil painting, and experimented with a variety of styles ranging from Fauvism to Cubism. Chen was also one of the pioneers of the “Nanyang Style” which is unique in world art history. His works are locally and internationally acclaimed. In fact, it is not possible to talk about art in Singapore without first mentioning Chen Wen Hsi. Chen was born in Jieyang, Guangdong province in China on 9 September 1906. Born in a family of scholars, Chen was interested in art at a young age and aspired to become an artist after graduation from secondary school. He attended the Shanghai College of Fine Arts in 1928 and subsequently enrolled in the Xinhua Art Academy in Shanghai. He learned art from famous artists such as Wang Geyi and Pan Tianshou, and was trained in both eastern and western art. It was also at Xinhua that he became acquainted with Chen Jen Hao, Chen Chong Swee, and Liu Kang, all of whom were to become Singapore’s pioneer artists. The prosperity of Shanghai did not derail Chen from his love in art. Conversely, he worked very hard in his art education and established a firm foundation in eastern and western art.

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From the start Chen was an artist with a wide repertoire. In his book, Fifty Years in Art, Chen recalled his artistic training in Shanghai. In addition to learning the styles and brush strokes of his teachers, he continued to research on the characteristics of other art forms, which included eastern and western art, aboriginal art in Southeast Asia, and folk art. He focused his research on lines in eastern art, and the parabola and trigonometry in western art; his hard work resulted in breakthroughs in content and style. As he put it, “My Chinese paintings are especially influenced by Western art. I am no longer restricted to the rules in setting the tableau by ancient artists. I focused on the theories in composition in Western art, for example principles in harmony, contrast, symmetry, rhythm, balance. In composition of modern art, ‘top-heavy’ and ‘light-bottom’ is considered aesthetically pleasing as the impact of the ‘pressure’ created allows livelier displays. I often applied this composition technique to Chinese paintings and the effects are very good.” By taking nutrients from various genres of art, challenging tradition and integrating and complementing eastern and western art, Chen is able to invent his own unique artistic style. Chen’s paintings clearly demonstrate his personal style: merging of the east and the west; absorbing the essence from tradition; using the strength of some techniques to make up for the shortcomings of others; paying attention to the use of plastic arts, and the intermittent line. Chen’s oil works are fundamentally realistic in style, injected with elements in the Impressionistic, Fauvist, and Cubist styles, and leading towards abstraction which displays a strong sense of simplicity. In his works, we can see that he uses the “nature” in everyday life and gradually injects a richer sense of subjective feelings. From complexity and the figural to simplicity and subtlety, he brings nature to a higher level. In terms of colour, his paintings

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demonstrate the unity of a variety of colours with a strong rhythm that leaves a strong visual impression. Chen is a master in the explicit and bold use of colours through observation of the surface structure of objects, which results in producing hues that are clear, transparent, and with a strong contrast. His works display the harmony of nature, and allow the reader to expand his/her artistic imagination beyond limits. His attentiveness in the modelling of the imagery and the holistic composition of the dot, the line and the plane is characteristic of the traditional style as well as the modern style. Chen’s paintings are the products of traditional Chinese freehand brushwork and the Western modernist school. After graduation in Shanghai in 1932, he taught fine arts in various secondary schools and colleges in Shantou. He also founded the Chun Yang Painting Society there. Leaving China in 1947, he travelled to Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia before arriving and settling in Singapore in 1948. For the many years that he lived in Singapore Chen taught art most of the time. He was an art teacher in Singapore Chinese High and a lecturer in the Nanyang Fine Arts College (currently the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts). He was also a permanent member of many professional art bodies such as The Society of Chinese Artists and The Art Society. Over the years, Chen held more than thirty personal exhibitions in more than a dozen European and Asian countries and was very well known locally and internationally. In 1937, he received the recognition and praise of Chinese painter Xu Beihong at the second Chinese National Art Exhibition in Nanjing. The same year, an English arts magazine elected him one of contemporary China’s ten greatest artists. Chen is also best remembered for his works on the theme of gibbons. In the late 1940s he bought a white-faced gibbon from

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a local pet shop shortly after he arrived in Singapore. Rearing this in his home garden gave him immense opportunities to study the creature’s postures and its characteristics day and night. Some of his favourite works on gibbons have been printed on stamps by the Singapore Government. In 1952, Chen Wen Hsi and three other Singaporean artists — Liu Kang, Chen Chong Swee, and Cheong Soo Pieng — looked for inspiration in still life painting on the popular tourist island of Bali in Indonesia.The journey to Bali was catalytic in the development of their artistic ideologies and artistic practices. A year after their return, they organized a joint exhibition entitled, “Works from Bali”, that shook the local art fraternity, and so began the “Nanyang Style” in painting. As one of the inventors of the “Nanyang Style”, many of Chen’s oil paintings focus on the lives of the people in various areas in “Nanyang” (Regions south of China, especially Southeast Asia). His animal and bird paintings are also filled with activities of life in a southern world that is tropical and sunny. In 1964, Chen was awarded the Public Service Star by Tun Yusof Bin Ishak, the first president of Singapore. In 1975, he became the first local artist to be conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters by the University of Singapore. He was also awarded the Gold Medal by the National Museum of History in Taiwan in 1980 and the 1st ASEAN Cultural and Communication Award in 1987. One year after his death, on 17 September 1991, Chen was awarded a posthumous Meritorious Public Service Medal. There are many areas that fellow artists can learn from Chen. There are other artists like him who work very hard and have a career in art that spanned half a century. However, there are not many who would always demand a breakthrough in expression, unlike Chen. In

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his years of creating art, Chen never stopped the search for new forms of creation and expression. Equally valuable to the art community at large is Chen’s contribution as an art educator. While he is internationally known for being one of the pioneers of “Nanyang Style”, he committed more energy, time, and passion in training younger generations of artists and helped Singapore in nurturing many talents in art. As a pioneer in the Singapore art scene, his contributions and influence in art education are not to be forgotten. Lee Chee Hiang R E F E R E N C E S Barnhart, Richard M., et al. 3000 Years of Chinese Painting. New Haven, Conn.: London: Yale University Press, 2002. p. plate 128. Chang Tsong-Zung. “The art of Chen Wen-Hsi”; Chong Weng Yong, “Chen Wen Hsi: The Artist and his Art”. In Painting by Chen Wen-Hsi. Kaohsiung: Grand Art, 1991. Chen, Wen Hsi. Chen Wen Hsi Retrospective 1982. Singapore: Ministry of Culture and National Museum, 1982. Chen, Wen Xi. Convergences: Chen Wen Hsi Centennial Exhibition. Singapore: Singapore Art Museum, 2006, 2007. Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. Master of Tradition & Revolution: The Artist and Teacher Chen Wen Hsi. Singapore: Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, 2006.

Cheng Ching Chuan, Johnny ( , Zhuang Qingquan, 1926–89) Business leader, banker, philanthropist, Philippines

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ohnny Cheng Ching Chuan was a prominent Chinese community leader in the Philippines, who was also an entrepreneur, banker, and industrialist, actively involved in different aspects of the

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Chinese-Filipino community, especially in the education of youth and community service. He served as president of the biggest community organizations, and also offered his service to the government as a representative of the Philippine Department of Trade and Industry to Hong Kong. Cheng was born on 12 November 1926 in ) in Jinjiang Municipal, Fujian Qingyang ( Province, China, and followed his father to the Philippines at the age of thirteen. His father, ), was a renowned Cheng Chai Lun ( business trailblazer in the Chinese-Filipino community who pioneered the cigarette manufacturing business before the Pacific War and became financially successful at an early age. His grandfather was Cheng Wang Ming ), a village leader in Qingyang. Cheng ( pursued his secondary school education in the Philippines while helping out in the family business at the same time. His schooling was disrupted by the Japanese Occupation and he then participated actively in anti-Japanese activities of youth organizations. In 1945, after liberation, the Cheng family rebuilt its businesses, especially the cigar and cigarette manufacturing business. In 1951, when former President Elpidio Quirino issued a decree banning the import of cigarettes, the Chengs brought in new machines from the United States and built one of the biggest cigarette factories in the nation, La Perla Cigar and Cigarette Factory, which started manufacturing cigarettes on a big scale and was renowned for the “Fighter” brand of cigarettes. This created employment for a vast number of jobless people after the war. In the 1950s, a third of the population of twenty million was believed to have used the tobacco products of the La Perla Factory. Cheng’s father, Cheng Chai Lun, was already a prominent and influential leader of

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the Chinese community at the time. He was the manager of the Hua Nan Cigarette Factory and vice-chairman of a Chinese owned private bank, the Equitable Banking Corporation. He also started to expand their businesses overseas while being more involved in philanthropic activities as a leader of various Chinese organizations, such as being president of the Tobacco Manufacturers Association of the Philippines, vice-president of the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, vice-chairman of the Pasay Chung Hua School, chairman of the Qingyang Xiao Guang Elementary School, etc. The senior Cheng was prepared to hand the management of the family business over to his son since the early 50s, and when he died in 1957, the Cheng family had already gained great prominence within the community, as well as in the country. Cheng took over at the helm and started to expand the business, extending it to even Hong Kong and Taiwan. He spearheaded the setting up of the Cheng Chai Lun Memorial Trust Fund as a vehicle to give something back to society. Cheng himself took charge of, and managed the trust fund to support scholarships for indigent, but deserving students, as well as long-term charity projects in support of Chinese organizations and schools, and especially Chinese-language education. The most notable project was the building of the Cheng Chai Lun Memorial Hospital in 1961, which housed a charity wing for indigent patients. Most Chinese organizations gave Cheng honorary positions out of respect for his accomplishments, and in gratitude for his generosity and continued support. The profitable business of the La Perla Factory boosted Cheng’s confidence to venture into many other lines of business. Together with his cousins, Chung Tiong

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Tai and Chung Kiat Hua, he expanded their businesses and consolidated them into the Ching Ban Yak Group of Companies. The Group later invested in the Philippine Bank of Communications, the Far East Investment Co., Central Apollo Steel Factory, Philippine Nanhua Cigarette Co., and other lines of business such as textile, lumber, real estate, hotel and tourism, insurance, and import and export. In Hong Kong, the Group invested in real estate and owned several big commercial and residential buildings. They were also investors in Hong Kong’s International Steel Corp., and in banking and finance. In the 1960s, Cheng responded to Taiwan’s call for foreign investments. He first established the President Hotel, one of the earliest modern hotels in Taipei, built while Taiwan was just developing its economy. The hotel was a pioneer in the tourism business and preceded many of the other modern Taiwan hotels by as much as twenty years. Cheng likewise invested in the Huaqiao Trust and Investment Corporation, and the United Overseas Chinese Bank, along with other Chinese businessmen from the Philippines. He owned 14 per cent out of the total 27 per cent equity held by the Philippine Chinese in the said bank. In the late 1970s, Cheng took over the management of Huaqiao Trust and Investment Corporation. In 1982, the Philippine Government, in recognition of his business, banking, and management connections, experience, and expertise, appointed Cheng as a special assistant and representative of the Philippine Department of Trade and Industry to Hong Kong. He was then vice-president of the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce, and was tasked with the responsibility of enticing investors to the Philippines, especially for the manufacturing

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industry and infrastructure development. He succeeded in this responsibility and helped the Philippine consular office in Hong Kong to process investors’ applications. His integrity was so established that these investors sometimes even trusted the remittance of foreign capital to him for the purpose of their investments in the Philippines. The energy crisis in the mid-1980s, which caused a world economic slowdown, hit Cheng badly. The Huaqiao Corporation failed and was closed down in 1985. The Taiwan Government sued him for the failure, but he was acquitted two years after the case was filed against him. His Hong Kong banks and investments were likewise badly affected because of the domino effect of the energy crisis on the finance sector. The Taiwan Government even had to come up with an emergency rescue package.Throughout these financial difficulties, Cheng persevered, using his own real estate properties and shares in the United Overseas Chinese Bank to bail him out. As a Chinese community leader, Cheng was looked up to with respect by the local Chinese. He became president of the Cheng Family Association, and was always ready to render his help. Thus in 1985, despite suffering business setbacks, Cheng was elected the sixteenth president of the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce. He worked to entice foreign investments into the country, encouraged investments in agricultural pursuits and in modernized farming facilities to improve food production and agricultural exports. Cheng also pushed forward the idea of the integration of Chinese Filipinos into the mainstream society as the only viable solution to the Chinese problem in the Philippines. It was the tenth year after President Marcos allowed easy access to citizenship through

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administrative means. Cheng exhorted the new citizens to be loyal to the country and to serve the Philippines as citizens, not just in name, but in deed. Cheng was elected chairman of the Chinese Charitable Association in 1988, a position he would hold for three terms. He united the Board of Trustees and administrators and had them cooperate as one in the financial and administrative management of the Chinese General Hospital, which was celebrating its centennial at that time. He exhorted the community to support this 100year-old community project. With the help of other community leaders, he worked to expand, professionalize, and modernize the hospital, while supporting the move to build a new Chinese cemetery, as the existing one was already too congested. He also addressed the welfare of Chinese-language school teachers and supported many youth activities. Cheng died on 15 June 1989. In his lifetime, he had the occasion to meet and deal with all past presidents of the Philippines, from Elpidio Quirino (1948–53), Ramon Magsaysay (1953–57), Carlos P. Garcia (1957– 61), and Diosdado Macapagal (1961–65) to Ferdinand Marcos (1965–86) and Corazon C. Aquino (1986–92). He also had dealings with the EDSA People Power Revolution leaders, Chief of Staff General Fidel V. Ramos, and Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile. Teresita Ang-See R E F E R E N C E S 《 》 ，1988， 12–15。 《

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· ，1997， 35–43。 《 · ，1998， 738。

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Cheng Heng Jem, William ( , Zhong Tingsen, 1943– ) Entrepreneur, philanthropist, Malaysia

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an Sri William Cheng Heng Jem is a Malaysian entrepreneur who once held the posts of chairman of National Economic Development Committee (Malaysia) and president of the Associated Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Malaysia (ACCCIM). He is best known for being the “Steel King” of Malaysia. However, steel only forms one of the interests of his stable of companies known collectively as the Lion Group. Cheng’s Lion Group also has interests in retail, agriculture, mining, computer, as well as property development and services. Lion Group owns the Parkson Retail Group, which has departmental stores in Malaysia, China, Indonesia, and Vietnam. However, despite his current wealth and social position, Cheng remains a humble man, mindful of the way he started out in business. He is also a simple man in private. He has three children with his wife, Chelsia Chan, a former actress cum singer in Hong Kong, whom he married in 1981. Cheng was born in Singapore on 19 March 1943, the second son in the family. His father, Cheng Chwee Huat, hailed from Chaoyang (Guangdong, China). He spent his formative years in Singapore where he attended primary school. He went to Malaysia to attend the Catholic High School in Kuala Lumpur. Cheng’s business acumen was apparent from a young age for his first business experience came at the age of ten when he assisted at the Teck Chiang Foundry Company, an iron foundry founded by his father in 1939 in Singapore. He joined his father at the foundry when he completed his formal education.

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By the time his father sought to diversify Teck Chiang Foundry in the 1960s, Cheng proved to be a valuable asset to the company. Under the joint efforts of Cheng and his father, the foundry expanded operations to include the production of rubber compounds for retreading tyres, and the manufacture of furniture through Tuck Heng Manufacturing Ltd. and Teck Chiang Manufacturing Ltd. Through these ventures in the production of rubber compounds and furniture, the family business grew and soon expanded to Malaysia in 1956. The expansion was largely due to Cheng’s far-sighted business thinking. As he was the second eldest in the family, and could therefore not call the shots, he took the initiative to push himself and the family business forward so as to test both his own limits as well as the company’s. By his own admission in later years, he acknowledged that the family was reluctant to expand the business as rapidly as it did, and Cheng lamented the stresses he and his family members had to endure to reach a consensus on any matter touching on the family business. As a result, he came to the conclusion that if he wanted to flex his entrepreneurial muscle and realize his visionary plans for the company, he would have to do so himself. Being an innovative person with driving ambition, he pushed the family business to expand in other rapidly developing fields of the time. Due to Cheng’s vision for the company, his courage to venture into other fields of manufacturing, and his perseverance, he obtained his big break in 1976 when he acquired an associate stake in Kinta Steel Sdn. Bhd. This granted him a licence and pioneer status from the government to produce steel wire rods. Undeterred by the fact that he had limited financial resources at the time, he

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decided to take over Kinta Steel. Once he took over, he began to stock up on steel scraps as his business intuition sensed that the price of steel would increase in the near future. His foresight proved to be right when he made a big fortune from steel scraps and soon had more than sufficient funds to expand the company. This eventually led to the establishment of Lion Metal Manufacturing Sdn. Bhd. in Malaysia, through which Cheng helmed the company’s business in manufacturing steel building materials. Not satisfied with this, Cheng foresaw other opportunities for the family business to expand and soon merged Tuck Heng Manufacturing Ltd., Teck Chiang Manufacturing Ltd., Teck Chiang Foundry, and Lion Metal Manufacturing under the Lion (Teck Chiang) Sdn. Bhd. banner. With the demise of his father in the late 1970s, Cheng grasped the opportunity to take the family business further by expanding operations in Malaysia. This effectively left his elder brother, Cheng Theng Kee, in charge of the Singapore-based operations of company. Cheng’s reason for choosing Malaysia as his base of operations was simple — he believed that Malaysia had more opportunity for business developments owing to its larger geographical size. As a result, he began building his business empire in Malaysia in the 1980s and never once has he regretted this decision. Indeed, it proved propitious as he eventually became one of the top entrepreneurs of Malaysia with his Lion Group controlling six other publicly listed companies. Indeed, Lion (Teck Chiang) Sdn. Bhd. proved to be so successful that it was renamed Lion Corporation Bhd. in 1981 and listed on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange in 1982. A year later, Kinta Steel was listed as Amalgamated Steel Mills Bhd. and later renamed Amsteel Corporation Bhd. in 1994.

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This then was how Cheng earned his moniker, “Steel King of Malaysia”. He was passionate about the steel business and enjoyed working alongside his workers at the steel factory. Cheng never put on airs, despite gaining immense wealth. Although he knew there was more money to be made if he went into property development, he continued to pay more attention to the production of steel. This was because he held steel to be strategic to the country’s development. Cheng’s courage and determination to stay in the steel manufacturing business paid off and Lion soon became the number one steel producer in Malaysia. Under his leadership, it grew to include Amsteel, Antara Steel and later Megasteel Sdn. Bhd., which was granted a pioneer status from the government and was exempted from corporate tax for ten years. Cheng fitted out Megasteel, Amsteel, and Antara Steel Mills with state-ofthe-art machinery and technology. The success of Lion Group’s forays into steel led Cheng to pursue other opportunities in retail, as evinced by the opening of the Parkson departmental store chain throughout Malaysia. Parkson’s success in Malaysia compelled Cheng to take the leap and expand the business further afield. As a result, Lion Group ventured into China in 1992 by opening the first Parkson departmental store in Beijing.This was a highly successful venture and the Lion Group has fifty-two Parkson stores in China to date. This makes Parkson the largest foreign-owned departmental store chain in China. However, Cheng did suffer setbacks as well, especially during the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997. In its glory days, the Lion Group was among Malaysia’s top ten diversified groups, with a hand in nearly every sector of the economy, from property development to financial services. Following the financial crisis of 1997, the group succumbed to huge foreign

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exchange losses when banks withdrew their lines of credit. At the lowest point of Lion Group’s RM10 billion debt woes, several of Cheng’s friends advised him to leave his business empire. Instead of doing so, Cheng bravely pressed on and came up with a restructuring plan to save his empire by committing millions of his personal assets to the Lion Group. He succeeded in winning back investors’ and bankers’ confidence. Due to his dedication, humility, and hard work, Cheng has achieved much through the Lion Group and has shaped the corporate landscape of Malaysia. In its seventy-five years of business, the Group has always been mindful of its responsibility as a caring corporate citizen, channelling back to society whatever benefits it could. In the last ten years, the Group and its companies have contributed over RM50 million to charity through its two foundations, the Lion Parkson Foundation and the Lion Group Medical Assistance Fund, both initiated by group chairman and CEO, Tan Sri William Cheng, as well as through other charitable programmes. Cheng was named “Property Man of the Year” by the International Real Estate Federation (FIABCI) Malaysia at its 14th Malaysia Property Award gala dinner on 4 September 2006. He was appointed president of the Associated Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Malaysia (ACCCIM), as well as president of the Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in 2003. Cheng was conferred the title of Tan Sri by the Government of Malaysia in 1991 for his contributions towards the economy of the country. Lim Mooi Lang R E F E R E N C E S Gomez, Edmund Terence. Chinese Business in Malaysia:

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Accumulation, Accommodation and Ascendance. Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 1999. Jesudason, James V. Ethnicity and the Economy: The State, Chinese Business, and Multinationals in Malaysia. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989. Sin Chew Daily (Malaysia). “The Lion Group 75 Anniversary Special Edition”, 12 December 2005. The Lion Group (Malaysia). “Chairman’s Message”. (accessed 11 July 2011). Yen, Ching-Hwang. The Chinese In Southeast Asia And Beyond: Socioeconomic and Political Dimensions. USA: World Scientific Publishing Company, 2008.

Cheong Soo Pieng ( , Zhong Sibin, 1917–83) Artist, art educator, Singapore

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heong Soo Pieng was born in 1917, Xiamen, China. With support from his family, Cheong began his art education at the Xiamen Academy of Fine Arts from 1933 to 1935 under teachers such as Lim Hak Tai, who was to play an instrumental role in Cheong’s life later. The Xiamen Academy of Fine Arts was a private art academy and a product of the 1919 May Fourth movement, an intellectual, cultural and political movement that rejected traditional Chinese values for a selective adoption of Western science and democracy. The teaching of Western painting, sculpture, design and Chinese ink painting by the Xiamen Academy of Fine Arts manifested the spirit of the May Fourth Movement in adopting Western ideas and art forms, particularly the scientific study of the human anatomy through nude studies, perspective, light and proportions in art. After graduating in 1935, he furthered his studies at the Xin Hua Academy of Fine Arts, a more prestigious art academy in Shanghai offering a similar art curriculum that offered

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both an education in both Western and Chinese art forms. His formative years in both these academies would prove critical in Cheong’s later artistic development when he arrived in Singapore in 1946 that was influenced by sources from three traditions: Western easel painting conventions, Chinese ink painting pictorial formats and techniques, with local subject matter and materials. The Sino-Japanese War (1937 to 1945) disrupted Cheong’s art education in Shanghai as the Xin Hua Academy of Fine Arts was destroyed by the Japanese air raids. He returned to Xiamen around 1938 and began to teach at Yi Zhong School from 1939 to 1943. The social and political turbulence did not end with the surrender of the Japanese in 1945.The civil war between the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang continued, prompting many intellectuals and artists to leave Xiamen for another place to continue their artistic practice. Cheong was one of them. It was never an easy decision to leave his family to strike out a new life abroad, especially so for Cheong as his wife was then pregnant with his second son. His decision to settle in Singapore after leaving Xiamen in late 1945 to Hong Kong and then to Singapore in 1946 was in no small part due to Lim Hak Tai, the principal of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) founded in 1938. NAFA was first situated at St Thomas Walk, a modest place with only 30 to 40 students. Hak Tai provided Cheong with lodgings and a studio at NAFA before he moved to River Valley Road in the middle of the 1950s to accommodate his wife and two sons who came from Xiamen to join him. The 1952 Four Artists to Bali exhibition organized by the SAS of the four artists, Chen Chong Swee, Cheong Soo Pieng, Chen Wen Hsi and Liu Kang in 1952 was a watershed in the history of Singapore art. As art historian,

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T.K. Sabapathy described, “In 1953, these four artists organised an exhibition titled Four Artists to Bali which was significant, particularly in relation to the depiction of the human figure. It resulted in the creation of figure types which are indelibly linked with the Nanyang Artists and which proved to be influential on other artists.” The success of the Four Artists to Bali exhibition gave Cheong impetus to travel in his search for new visual sources and motifs. Travelling became a mode of practice and sketching an important way in which to capture the immediacy of capturing the atmosphere of a subject through quick drawings aided by the portability and accessibility of a sketch book, pencil and pen when he travelled to Borneo in 1959, and Europe from 1961 to 1963. It was in Europe where he held solo exhibitions in London at the Fost and Reed Gallery, and later in group exhibitions in Glasgow, Dublin, Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin and Munich. Cheong was one of the first Singapore artists to hold solo exhibition abroad in Europe. His sojourn to Europe marked the start of new experimentations in abstraction and his brief abandonment of figuration. His sojourn to Europe brought confidence and prestige to his status as one of the most sought after artist in Singapore. He made one of his most risky decisions in 1961 to leave his lecturing position at NAFA to turn professional as an artist. His ability to focus all his time on his artistic practice was rewarded by public and corporate commissions for his works in the 1960s, a period of public commissions by both private and government bodies. Experimentations in sculpture explored by Cheong continued with renewed vigour in the late 1960s and 1970s. His experimentations in sculpture started from his student days at the Xiamen Academy

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of Fine Arts in China in the 1930s where sculpture was taught. His experimentations in distorting the human figure are evident in his sculptures, revealing influences by Piccaso and Henry Moore.The distortions of faces are reminiscent of Picasso while the fluid curves of the body pay homage to Henry Moore. Sculpting was also a way in which Cheong conceived and studied space. The concave depressions and convex elevations make volume and shadows that he would further explore in his pictorial works that attempt to resolve the artistic problem of creating the sense of space on a flat surface. First publically shown at the First and Second Sculpture Exhibition in 1967 and 1969 respectively, his metal reliefs were abstract compositions using everyday materials such as rivets, bottle caps, metal wires and even bicycle bells, breaking new ground in the use of found objects that contemporary artists such as Tang Mun Kit, Tang Da Wu and Lim Poh Teck continued to employ in their art making in the late 1980s. The 1970s for Cheong was also a period of consolidation and reflection as he looked back at his earlier works and re-configured them. He returned to Bali in 1977 in search of new ways to represent Balinese figures with fresh eyes. His lines became thinner and his depiction of figures more lyrical and stylized compared to his earlier depictions of his figures in the 1950s. Beyond his concerted efforts in creating a new pictorial style, his other equally important contribution to Singapore’s art history was his role in nurturing the future well-known Singapore artists. Now established artists like Ng Eng Teng, Seah Kim Joo, Khoo Sui Hoe, Quek Wee Choo, Lin Hsin Hsin, Tay Bak Koi and Thomas Yeo developed under his guidance. Amongst the Nanyang artists that were teaching at NAFA, Cheong had the most

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influence with students from both sides of the causeway imitating his style.This phenomenon is not surprising as he espoused a bridging of worlds: Between that of the modern and contemporary; Western pictorial conventions, traditional Chinese ink painting and Southeast Asian subject matter; and that of his own outer and inner worlds. Cheong Soo Pieng died in 1983 just months before his retrospective exhibition at the National Museum Art Gallery was due to open, leaving behind two sons and a daughter. He was planning to hold a major solo exhibition in China, the place of his birth, which never materalized due to his sudden death. Short as his life may be, he was a towering figure in the history of art beyond Singapore. As noted art historian T.K. Sabapathy said, “When the story of art in Singapore is finally told, Cheong Soo Pieng will assume a pre-eminent stature. For that matter, he will emerge as a formative presence in accounts of modern art in Southeast Asia as a whole.” Seng Yu Jin R E F E R E N C E S Chia Wai Hon. Bits and Pieces: Writings on Art. 2002. Review of Art Exhibition for 1972, Broadcast 1 January 1973, p. 32. Choy Weng Yang. “The Art of Cheong Soo Pieng”, in the 1983 Cheong Soo Pieng: Retrospective exhibition catalogue, unpaginated. Kwok Kian Chow. Channels and Confluences: A History of Singapore Art. Singapore: Singapore Art Museum, 1996, p. 43. Sabapathy, T.K. and Piyadasa, Redza, eds. Pameran Retrospektif Pelukis-Pelukis Nanyang. Kuala Lumpur: Muzium Seni Negara, 1979. Sabapathy, T.K., Cheong Soo Pieng: An Introduction. Singapore: National Museum of Singapore, 1991. 《 2000， 3922。

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Chia Boon Leong ( , Xie Wenlong, 1925– ) Football player, Singapore

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hia Boon Leong is widely considered to be one of the most talented and highly regarded football players ever to represent Singapore. An Olympian in 1948, when he was talent scouted by coaches and officials from China, Chia Boon Leong was a household name in the Asian football world in the immediate post-war years. His active playing career also coincided with the period of Singapore’s dominance of the Malaya Cup during the 1950s. Chia competed at every available level and later became a manager and member of the Football Association of Singapore Council. Born on 1 January 1925 in Singapore, Chia learned his soccer skills in Pasir Panjang, the area where he grew up and first went to school.Although slight in physical build, he was able to capitalize on his speed, exceptional ball skills, and quick tactical brain. He was a young player who was inspired by the exploits of individuals in the Singapore Malaya Cup team in the late 1930s, and encouraged personally by Chua Boon Lay, himself an Olympian in 1936. However his days of schoolboy representation were cut short in 1942, when he was attending Raffles Institution and a representative of the Morrison House team. During the Japanese Occupation,he became a member of the Rovers team that participated in an eight-game league tournament for the Alsagoff Shield.There were charity matches too, with the Rovers defeating the fancied Cosmopolitans while raising funds for the various farming schemes initiated by the Japanese. In almost bizarre circumstances in 1943, together with manager Chua Boon

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Lay and goalkeeper Chu Chee Seng, Chia was included in a tour party that travelled by rail up to Malaya. Footballers and hockey players combined to participate in what was called the Syonan Goodwill Tour. Fortunately for Chia he was able to continue playing during the Japanese Occupation and his emergence after the war as one of the most skilful players in Singapore can be attributed to his undoubted natural ability on the ball, his fitness, and agility. He became known as “Twinkletoes” and certainly dazzled and destroyed many defences, not just with his skill on the ball, but with his ability to deliver penetrative passes, particularly to the centre forward at the time, Awang Bakar. He also learned how to deal with aggressive defenders who tried to take advantage of his smaller frame. By guile and speed he made many opponents appear sluggish. In the period immediately after the war, the Rovers and the Base Ordnance Depot teams benefited from his footballing skills. Chia was recognized as a top class player and earned the opportunity to play a series of tour matches in East Asia and Southeast Asia. He represented Lien Hwa (United Chinese) in 1947 during an exhausting forty-two-day tour of Bangkok, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Manila. It was during this tour that he played his most memorable match. Lien Hwa defeated local champions Tung Hwa in Shanghai, and Chia won the respect of the fans and players alike on account of his enduring stamina, determination, and selfless industry at both ends of the pitch.The capacity crowd of 12,000 clearly appreciated his accurate passing, his high work-rate and his aggressiveness against bigger opponents.The crowd mobbed the diminutive Chia as he left the pitch. A potentially threatening experience was transformed into a heart-warming burst of delight that was both natural and spontaneous.

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Partly as a result of this particular performance, he was selected to represent China at the Olympic Games in 1948. The process of selection, involving trials in Hong Kong, caused friction amongst officials of the Malayan Chinese Amateur Football Association and the Singapore Chinese Football Association (SCFA). Chia and goalkeeper Chu Chee Seng had contravened a rule stating that no player should participate abroad without prior approval. However, when it was recognized that their selection was indeed an honour, no action was taken against them. The China team met in Singapore before its departure to London. Lee Wai Tong and C.C. Yung were the team officials who kept a paternal eye over the twenty-three-year-old Chia. Yung considered his squad a stronger combination than the China team that had played in the Berlin Olympics in 1936. The players apparently enjoyed their visit to London, which included a tea reception in the presence of the royal family. The China National Football team lined up against Turkey in Walthamstow for its Olympic debut. Unlike Chua Boon Lay twelve years before, Chia won a place among the eleven players. The game itself was a physical challenge for the Chinese, who lacked experience against the bigger European players. Nevertheless, Chia was praised for his speed and methodical play. It was reported that China played attractively, but found it difficult to match the Turks in terms of their physical approach to the game. China held their opponents to a single goal, but then lost their striker, Chu Wing Keung, through injury. No substitutions were allowed at that time, so China had to fight on with only ten men. The final score line of 4-0 was no disgrace. Chia continued an illustrious career when he returned to Singapore.The Malaya Cup was resumed in 1948 with a combination of pre-

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war veterans and new blood. The Singapore team failed to reach the final as it was eclipsed by Negeri Sembilan, but Chia showed his usual industry. In 1949 he suffered from a brief loss of confidence, but bounced back to claim a place in the All-Singapore team — a squad that included British Services players and local players. Chia played a pivotal role in Singapore’s successful bid to recapture and then retain the Malaya Cup in 1950, 1951, and 1952. He was also a member of the side that represented Singapore at the second Asian Games in Manila in 1954 where he impressed his hosts. Later in the year he was voted the best player in Malaya and won a return trip to England as part of a training scheme to gain more exposure to the physical game at Highbury, the home of the Arsenal club. At the end of the 1955 season Chia decided to retire from representative football. He did not wish to continue unless he could maintain the highest standards of play. Instead he devoted time to his family and career as a financial executive with Rediffusion. However he was not lost to football totally. In 1978 he became manager of the Singapore national team, and later participated in a goodwill tour that took him to the Soviet Union and back again via England, including the Bisham Abbey training establishment near London. In the party was the young Fandi Ahmad. Chia’s term as a member of the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) Council coincided with Singapore winning the Malaysia Cup in 1980. During this time, Chia was also chairman of the FAS Welfare Committee. Chia Boon Leong still cuts a dashing figure today. It is almost impossible to believe that this trim, vital, and good-natured individual, who is invariably modest about his past, remains an important link with a particularly rich period of Singapore’s football

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legacy. In May 2011 he was presented with a medallion to commemorate his appearance at the London Olympic Games. As one of Singapore’s 167 acknowledged Olympians since 1936, he has been assigned the number 7 in the chronology created by the association known as Olympians Singapore. Nick Aplin R E F E R E N C E S Aplin, N.G., D.J. Waters, and M.L. Leong. Singapore Olympians: The Complete Who’s Who 1936–2004. Singapore: Singapore National Olympic Council, 2005, p. 487. Tan, Guan Heng. One Hundred Inspiring Rafflesians: 1823–2003. New Jersey; Singapore: World Scientific, c2008, p. 273. Straits Times. “Boon Leong Leads in Football Contest”. 21 March 1954, p. 20.

Chiam See Tong ( , Zhan Shizhong, 1935– ) Politician, teacher, advocate, solicitor, Singapore

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hiam See Tong is well known in Singapore as an opposition party leader and the long-time representative of the Potong Pasir single-member constituency from 1984 to 2011. As leader of the Singapore People’s Party (SPP) and the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA), as well as the elected representative of his constituency, he was one of only two opposition leaders in the country represented in the Singapore Parliament (1997–2011). The other was the Member of Parliament for Hougang, Low Thia Khiang, the secretary-general of the Workers’ Party (WP). Despite Chiam’s ability to retain his seat in parliament and constituency for over twenty years, his political career has been anything

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but smooth sailing. Prior to entering politics, he had been a secondary school teacher and then a lawyer. Following the completion of his education at the Anglo-Chinese School, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree at Canterbury and Victoria Universities in New Zealand in 1961.After he returned to Southeast Asia at the age twenty-seven, he taught at Mahmud Secondary School in Pahang, Malaysia (1962–63) and then at Cedar Girls’ Secondary School in Singapore (1964–72). After teaching for few years he left for Britain to study law between 1972 and 1974. On returning from his legal studies in Britain in the early 1970s, he embarked on a political career while simultaneously serving as an advocate and solicitor. His foray into politics was unsuccessful at the time. It was not until he changed his tactic of standing in elections as an independent candidate and formed the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) in 1980 that he managed to attract attention as a contender vis-à-vis the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) candidates. As an SDP MP, he came into contact with other prominent, more politically experienced opposition figures such as J. B. Jeyaretnam of the Workers’ Party (WP). This brought about the discussion of electoral strategy amongst the opposition groups and enabled Chiam to build up a support base with like-minded individuals in the electorate. In forming the SDP and cooperating with the other opposition parties of the time, he not only contributed to the fostering of solidarity amongst the opposition parties, but also managed to carry out firsthand the kind of strategy that would likely yield an electoral victory. Therefore, he abided by the united opposition strategy of not standing in the Anson constituency byelection in 1981, thereby allowing the more experienced Jeyaretnam to win the seat and

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become Singapore’s first opposition Member of Parliament since 1965. Chiam reaped the benefits of his collaboration with the other opposition leaders in the 1984 elections when he contested and won the seat in Potong Pasir against the PAP’s Mah Bow Tan. It was not until the 1988 election that Chiam came into his own in politics. Following Jeyaretnam’s dismissal from parliament in 1986 over a financial misdeed, Chiam succeeded in holding on to his constituency and he became the only opposition party Member of Parliament. The opposition, it would seem, took courage from Chiam’s re-election to the Potong Pasir constituency for a consecutive term, and renewed its efforts in deploying the by-election strategy in which the opposition parties agreed to contest fewer than half of the seats in parliament. This allowed the PAP to be returned to power on nomination day, thus reassuring Singaporeans of a PAP government. The SDP, under Chiam’s leadership, won three seats in the single-member constituencies of Potong Pasir, Bukit Gombak, and Nee Soon Central in the 1991 election. In the same election, Low Thia Khiang of the Workers’ Party also won a seat in parliament, bringing the number of opposition seats in parliament to four. The fact that the opposition managed to gain four seats which was its best performance since the 1963 election (when the opposition Barisan Sosialis Party managed to win thirteen out of fifty-one seats) came as a shock to the ruling PAP. Inspired by its victories in the 1991 election, the SDP recruited Chee Soon Juan and contested against the then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong in the 1992 Marine Parade group representation constituency. The failure to defeat Goh Chok Tong affected the SDP badly as it led to a rift within the party as tensions grew between Chiam See

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Tong and Chee Soon Juan. Despite Chiam’s attempt to censure Chee’s loud claim that he was the target of a political plot by the PAP government when he was sacked by the National University of Singapore for allegedly using his research funds to send his wife’s Ph.D. dissertation to the United States, the SDP’s central executive committee ignored Chiam’s criticism, ousted him as general secretary, and replaced him with Chee. Chiam then took the matter to the Singapore Press Club, for which the SDP tried legal means to strip him of his membership. Outraged by the central executive committee’s decision, Chiam and his supporters then left the SDP and formed the Singapore People’s Party (SPP) in 1994. The courts refused to countenance Chiam’s dismissal from the party and he remained a member of the SDP until the 1997 election in which he contested from his incumbent Potong Pasir seat under the SPP banner after taking over the position of secretary-general from Sin Kek Tong. The 1997 election saw Chiam returning to his Potong Pasir seat for yet another term. Prior to the general election in 2001, Chiam put together the SPP, National Solidarity Party, Singapore Malay National Organization, and Singapore Justice Party to form the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA), of which he is the de facto leader. Once again, Chiam retained his seat in Potong Pasir but only narrowly vis-à-vis the PAP’s tactics of “punishing” the constituency by not allowing its public housing blocks to be upgraded which allegedly hindered Chiam from implementing improvement works in his district by delaying official approval for his plans. In the 2006 general election, Chiam’s victory in the constituency of Potong Pasir was still a narrow one, albeit better than the one in 2001. This time the PAP had changed tactics in its attempt

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to woo the voters. Instead of “penalizing” the voters for voting for Chiam, the PAP offered a S$80-million upgrading package for the residents of Potong Pasir if its candidates were to be elected. However, even this offer did not sway the voters of Potong Pasir as Chiam clinched 55.8 per cent of the votes, which was an improvement from the 52.4 per cent he received in the 2001 election. Given Chiam See Tong’s endurance as a Member of Parliament for Potong Pasir in the face of various PAP tactics to woo his supporters, it may be safe to assume he is politically astute. He had been elected by the voters of Potong Pasir for many terms, and he seemed adept at playing the precarious political game in Singapore. In contrast to other notable opposition party leaders in Singapore, Chiam has never been sued by the government for slander or defamation. Unlike Jeyaretnam and Chee Soon Juan, Chiam has not faced politically motivated charges, fines, or efforts to prevent him from taking part in elections. Compared to Jeyaretnam, he was less outspoken against the PAP government and did not seek to confront the leaders of the PAP government. He was also unlike Chee in that he did not vociferously claim that the government was running a smear campaign against him. In fact, one of the hallmarks of Chiam’s many years in parliament has been his moderate principles. He did not speak or behave in a way that the PAP government might be deemed antagonistic. It is likely that Chiam was able to hold onto his parliamentary seat because he was moderate and did not seek to oppose the ruling PAP government at every turn. In the 2011 general election, Chiam’s wife, Lina Loh, represented him as the SPP candidate in defending the Potong Pasir seat but lost to the PAP candidate, Sitoh Yih Pin, by a very narrow margin of 114 votes (0.72

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per cent). However, she was offered a NonConstituency MP (NCMP) seat in parliament for the high votes that she garnered. In the same election, Chiam himself led a fivemember team to contest in the Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC against the PAP five-member team led by then deputy prime minister Wong Kan Seng but was also defeated. The Chiam team (SPP) won 43.07 per cent of the votes against the PAP’s 56.93 per cent. Ho Khai Leong R E F E R E N C E S Mutalib, Hussin. Parties and Politics: A Study of Opposition Parties and the PAP in Singapore. (2nd ed.) Singapore: Marshall Cavendish Academic, 2004. National Heritage Board. “Chiam See Tong”. In Singapore: The Encyclopedia, edited by Tommy T. B. Koh et al., pp. 100–01. Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2006. Siew, Sara. “Chiam See Tong”. Singapore Infopedia, National Library Board, Singapore, 25 June 2009. (accessed 28 November 2010).

Chiang See Ngoh, Claire ( , Zhang Qi’e, 1951– ) Social activist, entrepreneur, author, Singapore

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nderneath her feistiness and tenacity, former Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP), Claire Chiang is very much a beautiful woman with a wide understanding of social issues. Her fierce determination in forwarding not just the causes of the less fortunate in society, but that of women as well, has led to her becoming one of the foremost role models for Singaporean women. It has often been written that Claire Chiang is a woman with a strong passion for

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life, full of intelligence, inner strength, passion for people, and causes. Her support for women’s rights, family life, and the disadvantaged in society stems from her childhood experiences whilst growing up in relative poverty in a shophouse along Race Course Road in Little India. Born on 4 October 1951, her family was so poor that she did not have a bed to herself until she reached adulthood and used to share her room with two brothers and her paternal grandmother. Through this, however, she grew closer to her paternal grandmother who, along with her mother, influenced her early ideas on feminism and womanhood. Also, she effectively enjoyed an upbringing in a multiracial background.While growing up in shared housing with eleven other Hainanese family members, Chiang learnt the importance of living in harmony with everyone, as well as the importance of listening to the views of others. Despite the fact that her father worked as an accountant and her mother did various odd jobs to make ends meet, she was given every available opportunity by her family to develop herself. As evinced from the conditions of her youth, Chiang came into contact with diversity and adversity and learnt to deal with them. She learnt the importance of being frugal and living sparingly. She also benefited from her parents’ wide circle of friends from various backgrounds and walks of life. Despite their poverty, her parents were always giving food to the less well-off and her father offered free professional accounting services when needed. A key source of inspiration to Chiang was her mother, who was determined to provide her only daughter with every opportunity possible to better herself. Thus, she worked at odd jobs to support her family and saw to it that

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her daughter had ballet lessons, piano lessons, Chinese dance lessons, and was enrolled in two primary schools simultaneously — Nanhua Chinese and Raffles Girls School — so as to reap the benefits of a bilingual education. Though she was initially resentful of the pressure placed on her, Chiang grew up to be grateful to her mother’s vision for her when she achieved her Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from the University of Singapore in 1974, a diploma in French from Sorbonne University in France in 1975 and a second class Honours degree in Sociology, with a thesis on the Hainanese in 1977. Given her childhood experiences of living and interacting with people of different backgrounds and walks of life, Chiang was more mature and more socially aware than most when she graduated from university. As early as 1975, she served society through her position as personal assistant to the cultural counsellor at the French Embassy. By subsequently entering academia in 1978, she sought to promote her ideas of feminism, the roles of women, and how society could be bettered. Between 1978 and 1987, she moved from being a Sociology tutor at the University of Hong Kong to being a tutor at the National University of Singapore. In 1985, she obtained her Master’s degree in Philosophy degree (with special focus on Sociology) from the University of Hong Kong, with a thesis on factory women and their work. This interest in women and their lot took another turn when she joined the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) in 1988. In 1994, she became the human resource director of husband Ho Kwon Ping’s Wah Chang/Thai Wah Group of companies. However, it was as the founder and executive director of the Banyan Tree Gallery which retails crafted gifts that she showed her mettle

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as a business-savvy woman. Her foray into this business, her contacts with regional indigenous local artisans, and the company’s successful management of the various Museum shops in Singapore, made the business elite in Singapore pay attention to her, so much so that she became one of the only two women to be given places on the council of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry. By October 1997, her business ethics and dedication to women’s issue in society earned her the position as one of Singapore’s first female NMPs. Over the years, her career has spanned the fields of academia and business, but never once had she lost sight of bettering society as well as the lot of women in Singapore. She developed and implemented workshops to help police officers treat victims of domestic violence in a more sensitive manner. In addition to heading AWARE, she has also headed the Society Against Family Violence and has been a board member in a number of welfare agencies. Most recently, she deployed her research skills in the publication of an award-winning book, Stepping Out:The Making of Chinese Entrepreneurs (1993), which was subsequently made into a Chinese drama serial in 1999. She was so successful in forwarding women’s causes and her career that Her World magazine nominated her Woman of the Year in 1999. It is hoped that Singaporean women would follow Chiang’s example and be undeterred by the glass ceiling existent in most careers. If anything, she has demonstrated that women can pursue both a meaning life for themselves, as well as a meaningful career. Sharon Loo R E F E R E N C E S Ahmad, Nureza. “Claire Chiang”. Singapore Infopedia,

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National Library Board, Singapore, 8 June 2004. (accessed 14 December 2010). “Biography of Claire Chiang”, 2009. Laguna Phuket website. (accessed 10 February 2012). Ibrahim Zuraidah. “Activist of Silk and Substance”. Straits Times, Sunday Review, 5 September 1993, p. 3. “My NMP Stint Taxing but Rewarding”. Straits Times. 25 September 2001.

Chien Ho (Tan Chien Ho, , Chen Qinghe, 1906–85) Forest conservator, timber industry leader, Myanmar

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Chien Ho was reportedly a rare talent who had made his mark and contributed to the Government of British Burma by conserving one of the most important resources of his country — forests. He was chief forestry conservator of Burma, the first locally born Myanmar-Chinese to be so appointed, being the adviser as well as the designer of national plans for the timber industry in Burma. He had also shared forestry knowledge through publications and translations. U Chien Ho was born on 25 January 1906 in a town called Yamethin, in the Mandalay district, in Central Burma. His maternal great grandfather, U Ah Chu, wore a pigtail, as did subjects of the Qing Dynasty. U Ah Chu left his hometown in Guangdong in 1808 at the age of thirteen, and first landed on the then newly discovered Singapore, called the “Lion City”. From Singapore, U Ah Chu went to Burma. He grew up in the Royal Palace of Burma in Ava as a playmate to Prince Mindon.When the prince ascended the throne as King Mindon, U Ah Chu was appointed the royal florist. King Mindon

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became King Thibaw at the end of the colonial period in 1885. U Chien Ho’s father, Tan Sit Yon (U Sit Yong), came from a village near Amoy (Xiamen) in Fujian Province of China. Chien Ho’s mother was Daw Kyin Lwan. Tan Sit Yon made his livelihood as a shopkeeper in Yamethin, where the young Chien Ho spent his early school days. A fire reportedly destroyed their shop and home, but that did not stop the youth from graduating with distinction in 1925 from Sein-Lu School in Tounggu town, a city lying midway between Rangoon and Mandalay. In 1928, at the age of twenty-two, he won the U Shwelay scholarship at the Mandalay National School. He then applied for a government scholarship to attend a chemistry course at Oxford University, but was instead selected for a scholarship by the then chief forest conservator of the British administrator to attend a forestry course at Edinburgh University in the United Kingdom. In 1930, he completed his forestry course with a First Class Merit Certificate & Certificate of Due Performance and, in addition, won the first prize in the forest engineering subject at the university. He returned to serve the country as a first-class government officer, a rare feat during the early days of British Burma. In 1945, he was appointed in the senior civil affairs service (Forests) and held the rank of a major reporting to the chief forest conservator, who was based in Simla, the summer capital of the British Colonial administrator in northern India. He was responsible for overseeing the conservation of teak forests. Teak has been a vital export of Burma. He was director of the Timber Project Board, and concurrently general manager and chief conservator of Burma Forest from 1948 until his retirement in 1962, a position that was rewarded with a pension that had never before been offered to non-white British subjects.

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He worked with many renowned European forest conservators in Burma, such as A.H.M. Barrington, H.R. Blanford, D.P. Hewett, C.W. Scott, D. J. Atkinson, E.S. Hartnoll, R. Unwin, A.R. Villar, R.W.V. Palmer and M.N. Gallant. Gallant was famous for the invention of the M.E.D. Index, the system of calculating revenue for teak wood. As the leader of Burma’sTeak Committee, U Chien Ho was the authority to verify and classify Burmese teak, which was then, and even until today, a highly priced and sought after commodity. U Chien Ho was also involved in other areas. He visited Rome six times to attend the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) conferences as a delegate from Burma. Between 1951 and 1962, he represented his country in international conferences in the Asian Pacific region, such as in Bangkok and Singapore, in Europe, and in the United States. According to his memoirs, his most memorable moment was in 1951, when Rome hosted the 1st FAO Conference. U Chien Ho and 300 participants were officially invited to meet the Pope at Castle Gandolfo, where he was accorded the privilege of shaking hands with the Pope. In the years following his retirement, he wrote many books with his friends, and did translations. Most of his works focused on the management and protection of Burma’s forests, including the award-winning book, Burma Teak, which clinched the National Literature Award in 1965. In 1976, after the Burmese Government nationalized teak and hard wood exports, he became the adviser and designed national plans for the timber industry. When he was seventy years old, he completed his autobiography, My Life, after having gone on a world tour with the FAO as a Burmese representative. This autobiography, written in Burmese, comprises 332 pages and was completed on 5 September 1977. Among

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his more than twenty articles and manuscripts are Burmese-translated-into English works, including popular ones such as Our Golden Teak, Forest Management, and Myanmar Teak. He also translated several English articles into Burmese for the Rangoon Arts and Science University, namely “Forest Protection” (R. Unwin), “Forest management” (N.V. Brasnett), “Economics Plantations” (H.E. Hiley), “Silvicultural System” (R.S. Troup), “Some aspects of Silviculture in Burma” and “Local Supply Working Circle” (both by C.W.D. Kermode), and “Local Supply Working Circle” (Tourney & Kermode). As a Burmese of Chinese descent,U Chien Ho recalled in his autobiography:“We, overseas Chinese, born and brought up in Burma, will surely die in Burma. I myself have Chinese blood but I wear Burmese longyi and Burmese traditional long hair style with yaungtong (turban covered on head). I wear Chinese costume and Chinese pig-tail on my head only once during Chinese Year. As for religion, I am a devout Burmese Buddhist following Burmese traditional worship. I give out ‘ang pau’ money for children on the auspicious Chinese New Year days and celebrate the auspicious time by inviting Burmese friends to my house for Chinese dinners.” U Chien Ho died on 13 July 1985. He was the son-in-law of Li Boon Tin, the former director (1946–64) of the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Ltd.(Singapore).His wife, Daw Ohn Kyi, was a Hokkien Chinese. They left behind four sons and four daughters. Daw Win R E F E R E N C E S Myanmar Encyclopaedia, annual edition, pp. 149–50. Yangon, 1986. Tan, Chien Ho. “My Life”. Unpublished autobiography (in Myanmar language).

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Chiew Chee Phoong ( , Qiu Qifeng, 1940– ) Journalist, educator, Brunei

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hiew Chee Phoong, who was born in 1940 in Kuala Belait, Brunei, is a leading journalist and educator in Southeast

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Chiew owes his success in life to his father’s decision to send him to a Chinese school. In 1953 Chiew graduated from Chung Hua School in Kuala Belait, where he was born and raised. Unlike many of his seniors at school, he could not seek entry into famous Chinese schools overseas such as the Chung Ling High School in Penang, or Chung Cheng High School or Chinese High (Huaqiao Zhongxue) in Singapore because his father’s retail and sundry shop was not doing well and the family could not afford him that choice. Chiew did not then switch to local mission schools as most of his fellow students did even though this course of action promised better employment prospects in oil companies and with the government. He enrolled instead at Chung Hua School in Miri, Sarawak, and a year later, went to Chung ) in Seria, Ching Middle School ( an oil town about ten miles away from his home. He eventually became a leader in the Mandarin-speaking world.Towards the end of 1950s, he often contributed his essays to local Chinese dailies. After graduating from Chung Ching Middle School, he taught in Pai Yuek School in Bangar of Temburong, which was renowned for its rainforests, but was the most remote and underdeveloped district of Brunei. While in Temburong from January 1960 to August 1961, his dream of pursuing further studies in a university beckoned him from time to

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time. He, like his contemporaries, wanted very much to seek admission to the Nanyang University of Singapore, then the goal of many students from the Chinese-medium schools in Southeast Asia. Unfortunately for Chiew, his father’s shop had closed down with debts yet to be settled. The only way out and forward was to head to Taiwan where he enrolled in Taiwan Normal University, a teacher training institute providing free education for students who qualified as secondary school teachers. During his studies there, he was exposed to a completely Chinese environment, and his passion for Chinese culture, particularly the poems of Tang and Song dynasties, as well as classical literature in general, grew. His mastery of the Chinese language and his learning of Chinese history and literature attained new depth and breadth. In 1965, Chiew returned to Brunei after graduation. From 1966, he started teaching again and did so for eleven years, initially as a teacher in Chung Ching Middle School, Seria, and then rising to become dean of study and finally principal of Chung Hwa Middle School, Kuala Belait, for three years, ending in 1977. This was a critical period in the history of Chinese education in Brunei. The British Protectorate gained self-rule under the Constitution of 1959, which was promulgated on 29 September 1959. It then prepared for independence in 1984. A major change made in 1973 nationalized all private schools from 1974, giving them a common syllabus that used Malay as the only medium of instruction; English and Chinese could be taught as a subject. The Chinese community resisted the proposed change vigorously, fearing that the abrupt change would throw the eight Chinese schools into chaos. Thus, a series of meetings was held. Representatives from all the Chinese schools and associations were invited to

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attend the meetings chaired by the Chinese leader, Pehin Kapitan China Lim Teck Hoo, at Chung Hwa Middle School in Bandar Seri Begawan. The consensus reached in writing was presented to the government as an appeal for gradual changes to be introduced in stages, starting from the lower secondary and then from senior secondary. Of the three secondary school principals, Chiew was the only one who was local and qualified. While the other expatriate principals felt inhibited to express views on policy matters, Chiew was quite outspoken and made a significant contribution by calling for a compromised solution throughout the state. However at the height of his teaching career, Chiew’s asthmatic condition deteriorated to such an extent that he was advised to quit teaching on medical grounds. While thinking about his next step, he received an offer to work for the Taiwanese Government. At the time Chiew was a stateless person often embarrassed by Immigration officers in various countries asking him why his travelling document was not a passport, but a dubious paper called “Certificate of Identity” issued by a British Protectorate such as Brunei, or a British passport specially endorsed for travelling to a limited number of countries, but not to the United Kingdom for the purpose of residence. Such humiliating experiences drew him closer to Taiwan which he served dutifully for eight years, working in its Brunei Office for Trade and Culture for the first four years, and thereafter in Taipei as its Information Officer attached to the Executive Yuan (Cabinet). However he later realized that bureaucracy was actually incompatible with his inclination for freedom and independence of thought and began another search for new opportunities. In May 1985, at the age of forty-five, he 》, the only joined Lianhe Zaobao《 Chinese daily in Singapore. He was assigned as

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a Hong Kong correspondent in August 1990, transferred to Beijing as China correspondent two years later until February 1994, when he was named Taipei correspondent. He successfully established the first bureaus for the press in Beijing and Taipei respectively. Chiew was invited to join the Hong Kong edition of the widely circulated United 》in November Daily of Taiwan《 1994. When the daily stopped publication at the end of 1995, the Chinese weekly, Yazhou 》, quickly hired him Zhoukan《 as senior editor in February 1996. Four years later, Chiew was promoted to deputy editorin-chief. In July 2003, he retired to write a book he had long planned, but felt obliged to accept a post to teach journalism at the School of Journalism and Communication, Shantou ), in September 2004. University ( In February 2006, he resigned and returned to Brunei to be with his ageing mother who passed away peacefully in Brunei in 2007 at the age of ninety-four. She was survived by seven daughters and a son. In 2000, in a lengthy article carried by the then only English daily in Brunei, Borneo Bulletin, he was extolled by the writer as a “world-class journalist from Belait”. In his book, Bright Moon Over Thousands of Miles《 》, a selected collection of journalistic writings recently published,the group managing director-cum-editorial superintendent of the Sin Chew Media Group in the foreword compliments Chiew as a “historic chapter in the annals of Southeast Asian journalists”. He said that from Chiew, one gets Asian news and views that are closest to history. In another foreword, contributed by his former boss, the editor-in-chief of Yazhou Zhoukan, Chiew was alluded to as one of the many Southeast Asian Chinese who refuse to be psychologically marginalized, and who stay aloof from the Mainland-Taiwan politics, but who perseveres

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to preserve their identity through adherence to Chinese culture. Chiew married twice. His first marriage was amicably dissolved, and he took custody of his adopted son. His second wife, M.H. Chang, who is a Taiwanese and school principal, and their daughter now reside in Singapore where she is a citizen. Chiew has been residing in Brunei since 2006 to serve an English daily, The Brunei Times, as group assistant editor-in-chief, with the special task of launching its Chinese version in due course. Niew Shong Tong R E F E R E N C E S 《

》。

：

，

2008。 《

75

》，2006。

Author’s interview with Chiew Chee Phoong.

Chin Fung Kee ( , Chen Hongji, 1920–90) Engineer, educationist, Malaysia

T

an Sri Datuk Ir. Professor Dr Chin Fung Kee, JMN, PSM, DMPN, DSc (Belfast), FICE, FIStructE, FIE (Malaysia, Singapore, Ireland), MCIWEM, Hon FICE, Hon DSc (Belfast, Singapore and Glasgow), FWA, is Malaysia’s most respected and outstanding civil engineer, not only in the practice of engineering, but also in engineering research and education. He is known for his excellence in geotechnical, structural, and hydraulic engineering. He was a local pioneer engineer who played a key role in the development of engineering education, research and practice in the country. His knowledge and contributions benefited the

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engineering fraternity both nationally and internationally and his achievements were recognized worldwide. Chin was born into a goldsmith family, to parents Chin Siew Woon and Chang Nyuk Khim on 27 February 1920 in Nibong Tebal, Penang. He completed his secondary education at the Bukit Mertajam High School, and was awarded a Straits Settlements Scholarship to study at Raffles College in Singapore where he obtained a First Class Diploma in Arts. He then taught in his old school until he won a Queen’s Scholarship in 1949 to study Civil Engineering at the Queen’s University of Belfast. In Belfast he won the Foundation Scholarship in Civil Engineering and the Belfast Association of Engineers Prize. In 1952, Chin graduated with First Class Honours in Engineering and proceeded to complete his Master’s degree at the same university while working as an assistant lecturer. Chin returned to Malaya in 1954 and served as an engineer with the Drainage and Irrigation Department before joining the University of Malaya in 1956 as lecturer and went on to be senior lecturer and finally professor. He was acting vice-chancellor for seven years and, for a period, was simultaneously professor and dean of engineering, as well as deputy and acting vice-chancellor. He retired as professor emeritus in 1973 and joined Jurutera Konsultant (SEA) Sdn. Bhd., where he was responsible for the design and construction of many highway bridges, high-rise buildings, reclamation works, and structures on soft ground. Chin played a major role in the formation and development of the Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya. In 1957 after Malaysia’s independence, the government decided to set up the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur.

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With an allocation of RM1.5 million only for the project, the team under Chin went full swing to build the Faculty of Engineering at Pantai Valley.Within a period of four months the engineering buildings were completed and equipment was moved from Singapore to Pantai Valley to enable the first session in engineering to continue in May 1958 without a break. When he was acting vice-chancellor, Chin was the de facto project director in the planning, design, and construction of many buildings, including the international award winning Faculty of Medicine building. During his tenure with the Faculty of Engineering, Chin’s great achievement, attained through the collective effort of both staff and students, was to produce the first batch of five graduates in 1958 and to build up in a short period of a few years, a degree which attained international recognition. A pass in the engineering degree from the University of Malaya was readily accepted by British universities for postgraduate studies, which normally required a good honours degree. Chin is remembered for his leading role in the design and construction of the first Penang Bridge and the Komtar building foundation rectification work in Penang and many other projects such as the North-South Expressway. He was very deeply involved in the planning, design, and construction supervision of the Penang Bridge.The project was bestowed the Grand Award by the Council of Consulting Engineers of Washington in the 1986 U.S. Engineering Excellence Competition. He introduced some innovative design features thus achieving considerable savings in cost and time. In particular, special natural rubber bearings were designed for the project.This has given rise to a new industry and market for the use of natural rubber.The bridge bearings were later further developed into special foundation

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bearings (base isolators) and used in seismic designs of earthquake-resisting buildings and bridges worldwide. In 1970 Chin developed the concept of the inverse slope method for predicting pile ultimate bearing capacity, without testing the pile to failure. This method, which can save cost and time during construction, is now internationally known and acknowledged as the “Chin Method” in the piling industry. Arising out of his involvement as an independent consultant in the Komtar building foundation problem in 1977, Chin developed a method of diagnosing the pile condition in the ground.This method has been widely used by practising engineers. Chin published more than seventy technical and research papers and a book entitled, The Penang Bridge — Planning, Design And Construction. The book, which is the one and only kind giving a first-hand account of all the important aspects of the bridge, is a treasure to Malaysia’s national engineering heritage.The Institution of Engineers in Malaysia published a book entitled, Selected Papers of Professor Chin Fung Kee for the ease of reference and benefit of practising engineers. In 1984 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Science by his alma mater for his independent research on the hyperbolic behavior of soils and concrete. He was also made Honorary Doctor of Science by the University of Singapore in 1975, the University of Glasgow in 1986 and his alma mater in 1989. Throughout his professional career Chin was dedicated to public service. He served as an honorary consultant to the Malaysian Government on numerous engineering problems and projects. He was a member of several commissions and committees set up by the Malaysian Government to administer, study, and investigate various matters pertaining to engineering.

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Chin was chairman of the governing council of the National Institute for Scientific and Industrial Research of Malaysia; a member of three Royal Commissions; a member of the National UNESCO Commission, Malaysia, and a member of the Coordinating Advisory Committee, Malaysia Rubber Research and Development Board. In 1988, The National Council of Scientific Research and Development Malaysia presented him with the National Science Award. In recognition of his contributions he was conferred the honour of Johan Mangku Negara in 1967, the Panglima Setia Mahkota (which carries the title “Tan Sri”) in 1980, and Darjah Yang Mulia Pangkuan Negeri Pulau Pinang (which carries the title of “Datuk”) in 1985. His successes earned him widespread reputation and recognition. He was an Honorary Fellow of both the Institution of Civil Engineers, UK and The Institution of Engineers, Malaysia (IEM), of which he was a founder council member in 1959, and president from 1966 to 1968. He was also president of the Southeast Asian Geotechnical Society from 1973 to 1975 and the vice-president for Asia of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering from 1981 to 1985. He was chairman of the Commonwealth Engineer’s Council from 1973–77. Chin passed away on 29 August 1990 after a short illness. He is survived by his wife, Wong Swee Yong, a daughter, Kathleen Chin Kie Fong, and three sons, Dr Alan Chin Kie Loong, Dr Ian Chin Kie Cheng, and Peter Chin Kie Siew. In memory of Chin’s achievements and contributions, several lectures and awards have been named after him. The Southeast Asian Geotechnical Society established a Professor Chin Fung Kee Lecture to be

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delivered at every Society Conference held once every three years in Southeast Asia. The Engineering Alumni Association of the University of Malaya in Malaysia set up and funded the Professor Chin Fung Kee Memorial Lecture. His former students provided the fund for the “Tan Sri Professor Chin Fung Kee Prize” for the top student in the master’s programme in Geotechnical and Geo-environmental Engineering at the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok. The Tunku Abdul Rahman College established the “Professor Chin Fung Kee Memorial Prize” for the best student in the Final Year Advanced Diploma in Technology (Building) Examination. The University of Malaya set up the Professor Chin Fung Kee Gold Medal Award for the best engineering student in the final year examination. In honour of Chin’s achievements and contributions, the IEM named the auditorium in the new IEM Building after Chin in 2009 and in 2010 the Penang State Government decided that a new road would be named after him. Chin was a humble man, a role model, a teacher, and a friend to the many who have been fortunate to know him and work with him. He was a man of principles and integrity who dedicated his life to excellence, and his services to the engineering profession and society at large. He is remembered as one of the great engineers who had excelled in engineering practice, research, and education. Lee Yow Ching

R E F E R E N C E Lee Yow Ching. “Life and Work in Harmony — A Profile of Tan Sri Datuk Professor Chin Fung Kee”. Bulletin, The Institution of Engineers Malaysia, March 1986, pp. 16– 21.

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Chin Peng (

, Chen Ping; real name: Ong Boon Hua, , Wang Wenhua, 1924– ) Communist, guerrilla leader, Malaysia

O

ng Boon Hua, alias Chin Peng, was for forty-two years the secretary general of the clandestine Communist Party of Malaya (CPM), whose armed struggle against British rule hastened the achievement of Malaya’s national independence in 1957. Although much of his life and leadership of the party remained shrouded in secrecy for about three decades until his memoirs, My Side of History, were published in 2003, he is best known for his wartime (1942–45) exploits as a guerrilla leader. His role as a national liberation fighter, however, remains controversial within Malaysia today. At the end of World War II, Chin Peng’s heroic role as an anti-Japanese resistance leader was highlighted in Spencer Chapman’s account, The Jungle Is Neutral (1952), in which he is portrayed as the key link between the resistance movement in Malaya and the British armed forces based in Kandy, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Post-war newspapers called him “Britain’s most trusted man”. For his wartime services he was awarded two military medals and an Order of the British Empire (OBE), which was revoked when the CPM took up arms against British rule in June 1948. Born in Kampong Koh, in the southern township of Sitiawan, which lies in the state of Perak in peninsular Malaysia, on 21 October 1924, (which accordingly entitled him to Malayan and later Malaysian citizenship), he became a communist at the young age of fifteen after joining the underground CPM.

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In the interwar period it took great intellectual and moral courage to join the banned CPM as once its members’ identities became known, the British police hunted them down. He adopted the alias “Chin Peng” (a name by which he is best known in the country) because all secret cell members were required to conceal their true identities from the police. He found the communist ideology attractive as it stood for social justice, the elimination of poverty, a new classless world order, and the end of imperialism. Chin Peng rose to become the party’s secretary general, its highest-ranking post, at the age of twenty-three after ousting Lai Tek, his predecessor. His father was born in Fuchow, the capital of China’s Fujian province, and emigrated to Singapore where he met and married Chin Peng’s mother. They belonged to the Heng Hua clan associated with the hardware trade. They then moved to Sitiawan where they ran a bicycle business. The second of eleven children, Chin Peng studied at the Hua Chiao (Overseas Chinese) Primary School in Sitiawan, and later briefly attended a secondary school, the AngloChinese Continuation School.While there, the police discovered his communist activities and he disappeared underground to evade arrest. Within the movement he worked first in 1940 as a probationary member, in charge of members in the Sitiawan district, was then transferred to Ipoh, the capital of Perak state, to do propaganda work, and subsequently appointed the party’s state secretary in 1942, the year he married a party comrade, Lee Khoon Wah, who was from Penang state. They have three children. In 1941, at the outbreak of World War II, which saw the Japanese Army’s occupation

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of Malaya, the CPM had concluded a pact of cooperation with the British administration, which accepted the party’s offer of help in the form of volunteers to fight the Japanese. This led to official recognition of the CPM and to the formation of several detachments of the party’s guerrilla force, the Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army (Malaiya renmin kang ri jun), the first batch of which was sent out on January 10, 1942 to operate behind the Japanese enemy lines. In Perak Chin Peng was responsible for establishing communication and supplies lines between the urban areas and the guerrilla forces in the jungle camps. He was the liaison officer who arranged meetings between the British special operations group, Force 136 led by John Davis, and top party officials in the Blantan highlands in 1943 and 1945, to discuss the airdrop of money and arms to the guerrilla groups. At the end of the war, in recognition of his wartime services, Chin Peng was awarded a military medal at the steps of the City Hall in Singapore and later invited to attend a victory parade in London where he received a second medal. In 1947 the party’s central committee purged its secretary general, Lai Tek, after Chin Peng and another committee member, Yeung Kuo, had exposed him as a British agent. Chin Peng was elected to replace him, and the party began to adopt a “militant” line against the British administration. After ousting Lai Tek, Chin Peng had all along suspected that it was British Police Special Branch officer Innes Tremlett who had planted Lai Tek in the party, but he recently discovered to his dismay from the published biography of John Davis, his close friend in Force 136, that it was Davis who was actually Lai Tek’s spy master. A source close to him revealed to me that he felt “very bitter and deeply betrayed”, having himself

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written a foreword to the biography written by Margaret Shennan. Despite British intelligence failing dismally to uncover the secret that the party was planning an insurrection, the British administration unknowingly seized a psychological advantage by declaring an emergency in Malaya in June 1948, in the wake of widespread labour unrest, including murders of white planters on rubber estates, which it blamed on unlawful elements of the CPM. The party, feeling that constitutional struggle was made impossible by the emergency restrictions, called on its disbanded former guerrillas to rise up and rearm for national independence and end British rule in Malaya. The British put up a reward of $250,000 (Straits dollars) on Chin Peng’s head. The Malayan Emergency lasted from 1948 to 1960, in the midst of which Malaya secured independence on 31 August 1957. In December 1955, Chin Peng and two CPM leaders, Rashid Maidin and ChenTien, attended “peace talks” in Baling (a town in Kedah state) with Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaya’s chief minister (better known as “The Tunku”), David Marshall, Singapore’s chief minister, and Tun Tan Cheng Lock, the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA) leader. The two chief ministers had been voted into office in recent general elections in their respective states as part of Britain’s decolonization programme to grant selfgovernment in an effort to combat communism and hasten the end of the Malayan Emergency. At the Baling talks, Chin Peng rejected the offer of amnesty when he failed to secure legal recognition for the CPM, and refused to accept the condition that the police screen his guerrillas when they laid down their arms. However, he made the surprising offer that the party would cease hostilities and lay

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down its arms, if the Tunku secured the powers of internal security and defence in his talks on Malaya’s independence with the British Government in London. This offer was given wide publicity in the local and foreign press. It strengthened the Tunku’s bargaining position in the London talks, which allowed him to win Malaya’s independence. “The Tunku capitalized on my pledge and gained considerably by this,” claims Chin Peng in his memoirs. “My Baling pledge had been given in good faith and on the understanding that there would be a second round of peace negotiations from where we could proceed further.” After independence, however, the Tunku refused to hold a second round of talks. In 1960 the Tunku’s Alliance government ended the Malayan Emergency, after Chin Peng and his guerrillas had retreated to the MalayanThai border. An ailing Chin Peng left for Beijing to recuperate and reorganize the party’s struggle. He remained in Beijing for twentynine years and did not return to the border again until 1989 to bring the CPM’s armed struggle to a close after negotiating an agreement with the Malaysian and the Thai Governments. Since 1989, public controversy has swirled over the party’s role and its real contribution to the achievement of Malaya’s independence in 1957. Some people have argued that while the party’s struggle for independence was valid up to 1957, its continuation thereafter against the popularly elected governments of Malaya and Singapore is difficult to justify. Nevertheless, the Tunku in his memoirs, Lest We Forget (1983), acknowledged the communists’ role in the struggle for independence: “Just as Indonesia was fighting a bloody battle, so were the communists of Malaya, who, too, fought for independence.”

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His application to return to Malaysia to launch his memoirs in September 2003 was rejected by the Malaysian Home Affairs Ministry. Chin Peng earnestly desired to return to Malaysia, as permitted in the peace treaty. He challenged the government’s ban in the High Court, but was unsuccessful and he was refused leave to appeal to the higher Federal Court. Singapore, however, allowed him to make a brief visit from 6–8 October 2004 to speak at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS). Shortly after the ISEAS visit, he was invited to visit Singapore a second time when he met Singapore’s former prime ministers, Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong. Chin Peng in his memoirs has described himself as a nationalist and freedom fighter. He has taken responsibility for the thousands of lives lost and sacrificed in the cause of the communist struggle. “This was inevitable,” he said, in an interview with me in Canberra in 1998, “it was a war for national independence. But if it had not been for our armed struggle, it is unlikely that Britain would have expedited the granting of Malayan independence.” Cheah Boon Kheng R E F E R E N C E S Chapman, Spencer. The Jungle Is Neutral. London: Chatto & Windus, 1952. Chin Peng (Alias). My Side of History. Singapore: Media Masters. Shennan, Margaret. Our Man in Malaya: John Davis CBE, DSO Force 136 SOE and Postwar Counter-Insurgency. London: The History Press Ltd., 2008. The Star (Malaysia). 5 March 2001, 21 September 2003. The Straits Times 31 December 1999.

(Singapore).

Millennium

issue,

Tunku Abdul Rahman. Lest We Forget. Kuala Lumpur: Heinemann Education Books, 1983.

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Chin Poy Wu, Henry ( , Chen Peiwu, 1937– ) Police commissioner, businessman, company director, Malaysia

A

lthough Henry Chin Poy Wu presently serves as an independent non-executive director, chairman of audit committee, member of nomination committee, and member of remuneration committee of Glenealy Plantations Malaya Berhad, and is associated with other corporate posts in many other industries in Malaysia, he is best remembered as the indefatigable commissioner of police in Kuala Lumpur who reduced crime in the Malaysian capital. Chin was born on 11 August 1937 in Kuching, Sarawak, which was then part of Borneo. He and his younger brother, Chin Poy Siong, were brought up in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, by their mother, Xie Xia Yu, a kindergarten headmistress who was widowed at the age of forty-four. Xie was conferred the title of “Datuk” in 1986 after her son, Henry Chin, had been given the title. Likewise, Chin’s young brother, Chin Poy Siong, was also granted the title of “Datuk” in 1987. Henry Chin Poy Wu has two children. His elder son married in August 1992. After completing his Senior Cambridge level at school, Chin joined the police force. Records state that he joined the Northern Borneo Police Force as a probationary inspector on 14 July 1955. In the course of his long career in the police force, he served in various key positions throughout Malaysia, specifically Kota Kinabalu, Sandakan,Tawau, and Keningau in Sabah, as well as other high ranking posts in Perak, Johor, and Kuala Lumpur. He rose steadily through the ranks.

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On 3 July 1961, he was made senior inspector of investigation at Sabah Police Headquarters. He was then promoted to head of the Kota Kinabalu District Police on 31 August 1965 and head of Perak State Criminal Investigation on 4 July 1979. Two and half years later (on 4 January 1982), he rose to the position of head of the Johor State Criminal Investigation. A crowning moment of his career in the police force came when he was promoted to deputy commissioner, and this was subsequently topped by his being made commissioner of police in Kuala Lumpur on 22 June 1990. It was a post he held until his retirement in August 1993. Chin’s appointment as commissioner of police in Kuala Lumpur was particularly significant as he was the first ethnic Chinese to hold that post in Malaysia. This fact was made more significant in light of Malaysia’s pro-Bumiputra policies which favour ethnic Malays. During his term of service as police commissioner of Kuala Lumpur, Chin significantly reduced the crime rate in the Malaysian capital. In turn, this earned him the respect and admiration of his colleagues and the public. The Malaysian press likewise lauded his achievements in reducing the crime rate in Kuala Lumpur. This may be attributed to Chin’s cultivation of a public image of being responsible, efficient, fair, enthusiastic, approachable, and friendly. Because of this, he was a highly popular police commissioner. His popularity meant that there was a widespread appeal for him to stay in his post when he was due to retire in August 1992. This was despite the official requirement that government staff had to retire at the age of fifty-five. The public, in particular, the Chinese community in Malaysia, urged him to stay on. In fact, numerous signed letters poured in to then

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inspector general of police, Tan Sri Hanif Omar, requesting that Chin remain as police commission of Kuala Lumpur. Due to this overwhelming request from the public, Chin was allowed to serve as police commissioner for another year.This is testament to his successful efforts in giving the Malaysian Police Force a trustworthy and friendly face. Chin has said that the most satisfying aspect of his career as police commissioner in Kuala Lumpur was the successful creation of a cordial and understanding relationship between the public and the police. He emphasized this opinion in an interview he gave to the Malaysian press, “We have to let the public know our role, limitations and capabilities as policemen. I would really love to see the day when the public has complete confidence in the police force.” Throughout his career in law enforcement, Chin urged police officers not to betray the people’s trust in them. He also repeatedly asked police officers to give fair attention to the public’s different complaints and concerns. He likewise appealed to the public to work closely with the police force and he encouraged the public to come forward and provide information on social vice proactively to enable the police to curb social problems and maintain order in society. During his tenure as police commissioner, he helped his fellow police officers by prioritizing the finding of accommodation for the city’s policemen and their families. He also ensured that police officers had proper offices in which they could work. After thirty-eight years of service, Henry Chin Poy Wu retired from the Royal Malaysian Police Force on 12 August 1993, an exemplary model for all policemen. Before his retirement, there was much speculation as to whether Chin would return to Sabah and become a politician. With his

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reputable career, affable personality, long years of service in the police force, the influence he exerted with his approachable manners, and the good rapport he had with both the public and the press, leaders of several political parties invited Chin to join them. However Chin elected not to enter politics when he retired. Instead, he chose to involve himself in the business sector. As a result, he is currently director of several publicly listed companies. Not long after his retirement from the police force, on 30 September 1993, Chin was appointed an independent non-executive director of Malaysian Mosaics Bhd. He later assumed the position of deputy chairman on 10 January 2002 and held that post until 31 January 2007. Chin was also appointed an independent non-executive director of Hap Seng Consolidated Bhd. on 5 February 2002 and was its chairman from 12 March 2002 to 31 March 2005. Hap Seng Consolidated Bhd. is a subsidiary of Malaysian Mosaics Bhd., which is listed on the Main Board of Bursa Securities. Chin is also a member of the audit, nomination, and remuneration committees, all of which are subcommittees of the board. Presently, Chin is also a director of JT International Bhd., Nanyang Press Holdings Bhd., Glenealy Plantations (Malaya) Bhd., Eastern & Oriental Bhd., Kilang Papan Seribu Daya Bhd. and Magnum Corporation Bhd. These companies are similarly listed on the Main Board of Bursa Securities. Although he is officially retired from the police force, he retains his interest in the areas of crime prevention and crime reduction through his positions as a member of the Sabah Pardon Board and vice-president of the National Crime Prevention Foundation. He also sits on the Board of Universiti Malaysia in Sabah. Wong Seet Leng

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R E F E R E N C E S BusinessWeek. “Chin Poy Wu, Henry: Executive Profile & Biography”. (accessed 12 July 2011). New Straits Times. “Don’t betray public trust, policeman told”, 1 August 1993, p. 8. Reuters.com. “Chin, Poy Wu”. (accessed 12 July 2011). The Star. 31 July 1993, p. 10. 9 〈 28 。

〉，《

》，2002

6

Chin Sophonphanich (Tan Piak Chin, , Chen Bichen, 1910–88) Banker, tycoon,Thailand

C

hin Sophonphanich was born on 10 November 1910 to a Chinese immigrant father of Teochew descent and a Thai mother near the Thonburi side of the Wat Sai floating market. At the age of five, he travelled back to China with his father. He completed elementary school there and helped his father with farming. When it rained, his father had to go to retrieve him from school so he could help mitigate the flooding at the farm. At the age of seventeen, Chin moved back to Thailand. During his twelve-year stay in China, he achieved linguistic proficiency in both Chinese and Thai. On returning to Thailand, Chin started his working life doing manual labour as a cargo transporter for an agricultural firm, working the route from Bangkok to Ayutthaya. After this, he worked at a timber manufacturing mill. Because of his diligence, thirst for knowledge, and intellect, the owner of the mill taught Chin

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accounting, while also giving him responsibility for customer relations and service. After Chin had worked for three years at the mill, the owner expanded his business by opening a new facility and handed control of the original mill to Chin, who was twenty years old at the time. His time as manager was short-lived, though, because the plant caught fire and was forced to shut down and cease all operations. With his business destroyed, Chin returned to China. There he entered into an investment with local businessmen, turning to the shipping industry and running the route between Shantou and Shanghai.This foray into the local business was unsuccessful though, and he once again returned to Thailand. On his return, Chin was approached by Tae Keng Hung, the owner of a company called Siem Heng Long that specialized in the selling and retailing of construction materials. At this point in time (1939), Chin decided to start working at Siem Heng Long. The company went on to become very successful commercially, becoming so prominent that construction of both public and private buildings had to go through Siem Heng Long for materials procurement. From then on, Chin decided to save all of his money to invest in a fully owned firm selling construction equipment near the Phatthanakan Theater in Charoen Krung Road. Most of the business that he conducted dealt with iron and steel goods. This venture experienced such rapid success that he registered the firm under the name Asia Trading Company Limited Partnership. When Chin was twenty-nine, the government enacted a trade policy to promote Thai goods. Asia Trading benefited so greatly from this that it was able to spawn two additional companies, one selling stationery and the other canned goods.

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When the Pacific War ended, construction repairs were necessary to restore Bangkok to its pre-war state. Chin approached fifteen merchants and they pooled their stocks to create an organization called Mahakit in 1945. The group managed to raise an additional one million baht, with Chin holding one third equity in the organization that soon held a large number of shares, making this project very successful. From this point on, he started several new businesses, such as gold and rice trading, and department stores. In 1944 Chin was approached by fifteen of his friends to raise shares/funds to form the Bangkok Bank. The decision to create a bank came at a time when local businesses were finding it very hard to apply for loans from the banks, and Chin and his friends saw an opportunity to help alleviate that problem. The first branch opened on 1 December 1944 at 2 pm, with the prime minister inaugurating the official opening ceremony. Chin started his career at the bank in mid-1945 as a comprador, searching for potential customers and guaranteeing their debts for a fee. He thrived so much in this role that the bank’s total assets increased between the moment he joined the bank to the end of the year, from 10.2 million baht to 18.5 million baht, a jump of 8.3 million baht. From that point on, the Bangkok Bank kept growing and became the first Thai commercial bank to have branches overseas, with a Hong Kong branch opening in 1954 and a Tokyo branch in 1955. Chin became president of the bank in 1952 and occupied the position for twenty-five years, the longest tenure ever held by a Bangkok Bank president. The coup in 1957 by Marshall Sarit Thanarat forced him to relocate to Hong Kong until 1963, as he feared that his closeness to the ousted regime would endanger his life. However, he succeeded in continuing to operate the bank, not least by

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making Field Marshal Praphat Charusathian its chairman. In 1972 he met Zhou Enlai and managed to help promote relations between China and Thailand by acting as an adviser to the visiting Thai sports team. In the social realm, Chin set up the Chin Sophonphanich Foundation, which helps and donates to various social organizations and enterprises. Included in this list is St John’s University, whose owner said that if Chin Sophonphanich were not around, there would be no St John’s. In 1977 Chin was bestowed the Knight Grand Cross First Class of the most important royal order of Thailand, the Order of the White Elephant. During his lifetime, Chin married twice. His first wife, Lau Kwei Ying, was of Chinese descent and bore him two sons, Rabin and Chatri Sophonphanich; Chatri would eventually replace his father as president of the Bangkok Bank when Chin retired in 1977. With his second wife, Boonsri, he had seven children, including Chote and Khunying Chodchoi Sophonphanich. On 4 January 1988, Chin passed away from heart and kidney failure at Bamrungrat Hospital. He received royal sponsorship from His Majesty King Rama IX for the eight-angle shaped coffin; other royal touches included the performance of the pi, a Thai instrument, and drumming during royal bathing rites. A threeday wake was held and the royally sponsored cremation was attended by the king himself on 9 April 1988. Chin is acknowledged and accepted by Thai society as a person who built his fortune from the ground up, and became an admired legend to local businessmen who desire to enjoy great accomplishments. Aekapol Chongvilaivan R E F E R E N C E S Hamilton-Hart, N. Asian States, Asian Bankers: Central

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Banking in Southeast Asia. Cornell University Press, 2002, p. 132. Hewison, K.J. “The Financial Bourgeoisie in Thailand”. Journal of Contemporary Asia 11, no. 4 (1981): 395– 412. Suehiro Akira. Capital Accumulation in Thailand, 1855– 1985. Tokyo: The Toyo Bunko, 1989. Studwell, J. How to be a Godfather (Part 2). Profile Books, London, 2007.

Ching Banlee ( , Zhuang Wanli, 1899–1965) Industrialist, community leader, art collector, Philippines

O

ver the course of half a century Ching Banlee established his business in the Philippines, the oldest of which, Cheng Ban Yek & Co. is already 90 years old. Yet, it is in his celebrated studio of Liangtuxuan ) that his highest aspirations and ( achievements live on. Ching was born on 9 May 1899 in Jinjiang, Fujian Province, China, in the village of Sanguangtian in the town of Qingyang. At 16, he graduated from the village school with exceptional marks and, having earned the high regard of the principal, himself became a teacher in the school. At 18, he followed his father to the Philippines to begin a new livelihood.There, in an arduous half-century of unspeakable hardships, he built his fortune with his bare hands. In the 1920s, Ching co-founded the Cheng Ban Yek Company with cousins ) and Ching Chay Ching Chay Guan ( ).They pioneered in buying and Chiu ( selling of food products and procurement and export of Philippine food and native products. Later, he established the Ban Lee remittance business. The businesses prospered and they ventured into industries such as rice milling,

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coal production and textile milling. He set up a branch of the Cheng Ban Yek Company in Singapore and foreign exchange in Xiamen. In 1932, the Company also ventured into cooking oil manufacturing, establishing the International Oil Factory, which competed against foreign brands. At the outbreak of the Pacific War and Japanese occupation of the Philippines, the Company was taken over by the Japanese and the International Oil Factory was completely destroyed. After the war, Ching and his cousins Chay ) worked together Chiu and Chay Lun ( to revive their businesses. They established La Perla Cigar and Cigarette Manufacturing Company. In 1947, the cousins reapportioned the stocks in Cheng Ban Yek and Company. La Perla Cigar and Cigarette Company went to Chay Lun and Ching Banlee became the Chairman and General Manager of Cheng Ban Yek Group of Companies as well as the International Oil Factory, which he revived. Baguio Oil, the main product of the Company, became a household name synonymous to edible oil. They also produced coconut oil, industrial lard and margarine as well as laundry ) soap. He and younger brother Chay Bi ( and other nephews started the Philippine Steel Mills where he was Chairman and General Manager.Together with brothers Chay Yun ( ) and Chay Bi, Ching founded the La Suerte ) Tobacco Corporation ( and they also reorganized the Central Knitting and Manufacturing Corporation where he was General Manager. In the management of business affairs, his principal tenet was that of persuasion by moral influence. On a wall of the company boardroom hung a horizontal wooden tablet bearing the handwritten characters for “health”, “sincerity”, “loyalty”, and “determination”, each with its own explanatory comment, and intended as guidelines to encourage colleagues

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to serve state and society in their commercial and entrepreneurial activities. When Ching was 37, he embarked on extensive tours of Europe, America, Russia and China, and it was in the course of these travels that he first conceived the notion of starting a collection of artworks and antiques. His bosom friend, an educator, historian, geographer and philosopher, Dr Zhang Qiyun, has written of the germination of this idea. In 1937, Ching went to Hainan Island with plans for establishing a sugar refinery. Later, he returned to his hometown in Fujian to plan investments there. It was the sudden obtrusion of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, the ensuing Sino-Japanese War and the events of World War II, that shattered his dreams as entrepreneur and art collector. Upon the outbreak of Sino-Japanese War, he and cousin Chay Chiu, through the Cheng Ban Yek Co., donated an airplane in support of China’s war efforts. For the duration of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, he not only contributed materially to the Kang Di Hui (the Organisation for Resistance) but was also active in its operations. Everywhere the Japanese army set a price on his head, and he was nearly captured and imprisoned. But, as he used to say, “the enemy may destroy my wealth and take my life. Never can they conquer my will”. Ching donated considerable amounts of money to support charitable projects as well as education and culture in the Philippines. In 1946, he donated a big sum of money to buy medicines to rescue his town mates in epidemic stricken Ching Yong. He continued giving of medicines to the poor, the widows and orphans for several decades. In 1947, he and his brothers donated a huge amount to help build three primary schools in China, and together with cousin Chay Chiu, they each shouldered half of the maintenance and

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administrative costs of these schools. He also invested in the building of the famous Chinese ) in Taipei. Cultural College ( With the revival of his businesses after the war, Ching became more active in Chinese community organizations. He was a trustee of the Manila Chinese Chamber of Commerce, the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Inc., and the Chiang Kai Shek High School. He also headed the Ching Family Association and the Chinese Charitable Association which managed the Chinese General Hospital and the Chinese cemetery. On 19 October 1965, after visiting the World Fair in New York, he flew to Boston to see a friend. There he suffered a sudden heart attack and passed away, aged barely sixty-six, his mind still bursting with ideas for ambitious undertakings and fresh cultural and educational projects. The numerous treasures of his studio Liangtuxuan make a stunning array, the scrolls ranging from the Song to the Ming and Qing periods. In his lifetime, Ching had already classified the works in his collection in a catalogue both systematic and easy of reference, and which included meticulous annotations concerning the provenance and authenticity of each. Besides his collection of works by famous painters and calligraphers, it contained rare editions of Chinese classics: The Complete Works of ), The Complete the Four Treasuries ( Library of Ancient and Modern Times ( ), A Comprehensive Historical Mirror in ), The Complete Aid of Government ( ) and Library of Philosophical Writing ( Supplement to the Complete Buddhist Scriptural ). Writings ( Ching esteemed the company of the wise and learned often receiving Chinese and foreign visitors of distinction at Liangtuxuan.

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Many were friends from cultural, artistic and educational circles, who not only enjoyed his art collection, but also admired the cultured temperament and classical Confucian virtues that won him a unique reputation as a man of both business and learning. Sharing Ching Banlee’s love for the arts are his children, Alfredo and Rita. Rita Ching Tan, who received an M.A from the School of Oriental andAfrican Studies (SOAS),University of London, is now a specialist in Chinese trade ceramics of the 10th–17th centuries, having mounted several exhibitions on different types of Chinese trade ceramics found in the Philippines and published the accompanying exhibition catalogues for the Oriental Ceramic Society of the Philippines.Tan is also curator of the Chinese trade ceramics in the collection of the Ching Ban Lee Ceramic Gallery of Bahay Tsinoy, museum of Chinese in Philippine life. She is the curator of the well-known Roberto T.Villanueva collection of Chinese and SouthEast Asian trade ceramics now on loan to the Ayala Museum. Her brother, Alfredo Ching, an MBA holder from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, is serving as Chairman and President, steered the Cheng BanYek to its present stature. Under his leadership, Cheng Ban Yek has been able to maintain its foremost position in the industry, its vegetable oils and by-products known by a brand that is a household name nationwide. He also founded the first private charity clinic in the Philippines, dispensing free medicine and medical treatment to the indigent, and served as a founder and board chairman of the Nutrition Center of the Philippines, an advisory body to the WHO and UNESCO. In the arts, Alfredo helped found and serves as trustee of the Manila Chamber Orchestra Foundation, which promotes classical music to raise the cultural consciousness of the average Filipino. Together with his sister Rita,

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Alfredo donated their father’s collection of classical Chinese paintings and calligraphy to the world famous Shanghai Museum, fulfilling their father’s lifelong dream of restoring these treasures to China, for which they each received the “Magnolia Award,” the highest award of the city of Shanghai. They also donated their father’s collection of rare editions of Chinese classics to the National Library in Beijing. Carmelea Ang See R E F E R E N C E S 《  ，1998， 739。

》。

：

〉， 。Retrieved June 2011 from 〈 . Interview with Alfredo Ching and Rita Ching Tan, 5 January 2011.

Ching, Jeffrey ( , Zhuang Zuxin, 1965– ) Composer, Philippines

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effrey Ching’s works in classical music “have expanded the scope and quality of Philippine musical literature, and no other Philippine composer has achieved such depth, dimension, and volume of work at so young an age”, according to ex-Philippine President Fidel Ramos. A recipient of two of the highest awards of distinction for academic excellence from Harvard University, Ching graduated with a double degree and double magna cum laude in sinology and music. In a world inundated by pop fads and poor imitations, Ching stands out as a bastion of culture and refinement through his passion for composing classical music that reflects his eastern heritage. Ching was born to Chinese parents in Manila on 4 November 1965. He began composing before he was ten and remained

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self-taught until the age of seventeen when his first opera, Rendezvous in Venice, was premiered. However it was not only to music that Ching was drawn in his boyhood, as he also had a fascination for Chinese culture, fostered by his close-knit family. “I grew up next door to my paternal grandfather’s private museum of ancient Chinese scrolls (a collection now on permanent display at the Shanghai Museum), and both my parents always emphasised to my sister and me the importance of never forgetting our ancestral roots”, he recalls. He therefore read sinology as well as music at Harvard University and received the John Harvard Scholarship for “academic achievements of the highest distinction” twice, as well as the Harvard Detur Prize, the university’s oldest prize for academic excellence. He earned a double magna cum laudewith a graduation thesis on the sumptuary laws of the Ming Dynasty, based on extensive research into primary sources. After graduation he went to England to read law, philosophy, and composition at Cambridge and London Universities. For several years, he taught music at the University of London, where he held the post of lecturer-in-music until 1991. In 1990, 1993, and 1997 Ching represented the Philippines in three major cultural delegations to China that toured Beijing, Shanghai, and Xiamen, where his compositions were presented. In 1998, he was commissioned by the Philippine Government to compose a work to commemorate the centennial of the Philippine declaration of independence from Spain. This resulted in Ching’s third symphony, Rituals, which fused Balinese gamelan, Chinese Ming Dynasty, and Spanish Renaissance elements into a continuous forty-five-minute collage for three orchestras and a male chanter. The same year, Ching was named one of five “Outstanding Young Citizens of 1998” by then President Fidel V. Ramos, who said that Ching’s works

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“have expanded the scope and quality of Philippine musical literature, and no other [Philippine composer] has achieved such depth, dimension, and volume of work at so young an age”. He was given an award for excellence in the field of Art, Literature and Culture in the 2003 Dr Jose P. Rizal Awards for Excellence organized by The Manila Times and Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran. In 2006, Ching’s fifth symphony, Kunstkammer, premiered at the Berlin Philharmonie under renowned Russian conductor Michail Jurowski; and later that year, his fourth symphony, Souvenir des Ming, premiered at the Shanghai International Arts Festival under Michail’s equally famous son, Dmitri Jurowski. Two Deutsche Oper Berlin commissions, Bombyx mandarina/Bombyx mori for string quartet, soprano, and percussion, and his chamber arrangement of the Chinese ), premiered in 2009 folksong, Molihua ( with members of the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Ching’s large scale composition, the opera, Das Waisenkind (The Orphan), premiered in 2009 in Theater Erfurt — the most progressive opera house in Germany — and won the Zuschauerpreis (Audience Prize) for Best Opera of 2009–10. This work, featuring a libretto in seven different languages, a diverse cast of protagonists and music from four epochs and six countries, and an orchestra combining western classical and electronic instruments with the timbres of a Chinese folk troupe, was hailed by critics as nothing short of brilliance. The opera was minutely analysed and warmly praised by several prominent European critics, one of whom called it “a stroke of genius”. Gerhard Rohde, of the Frankfurt newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, described it as: the attempt to filter from various sources of the cultures of the world,

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from their languages, stories, and music, a kind of world-music theatre, which — with a topic from darkest prehistory — brings us close to the timeless history of man. But the highest accolade came from the doyen of Berlin music critics, Klaus Geitel of the Berliner Morgenpost, who said in a private letter to Ching: I confess: In all my nearly 86 years I have never heard or seen a work or performance comparable to this one from Erfurt, and I will return to your opera soon, though without the hope of ever knowing it by heart or mastering its essence. In truth the opera seems to me unique, not least of all, through the crossing and criss-crossing of time and place, of old European and timeless Asian music. Ching cites two things that ignited and continues to fuel his passion for music: “admiration for the intellectual discipline and spiritual aspiration of the cultures of the past; and rejection of the mediocrity and superficiality of much of contemporary life. The first drew me to the investigation of classical music, the second resolved me to create a new musical language for the reinvigoration of contemporary culture”. What makes Ching’s work so intriguing and refreshing is that it combines western classical music with eastern references. For example, his Terra Kytaorum, premiered in 2001 in Berlin, creates an hour-long, pseudohistorical liturgical service for the last Mongol emperor out of French, Tibetan, Chinese,

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Korean, and Japanese medieval traditions. In this piece, Ching also first attempted to craft musical sculptures out of Chinese calligraphic samples by a precise tabular method that he created. After having spent most of his life in England, Ching now lives much of the year in Berlin with his family — his wife, the SpanishFilipino soprano, Andión Fernández, for whom the vocal parts in his principal works were created, and their son and daughter. “Unfortunately I am drawn to Manila less and less for the performance of my works,” he laments. Maan D’Asis Pamaran R E F E R E N C E S Department of Foreign Affairs. “Opera by FilipinoChinese Composer Premieres in Erfurt, Germany”. 8 December 2009. Retrieved 20 January 2011 from . Orosa, Rosalinda. “The amazing Jeffrey Ching”. In The Philippine STAR, 12 January 2011. Retrieved 20 January 2011 from . ———. “Ching’s opera described as ‘a stroke of genius’ (Last of two parts)”. In The Philippine STAR, 9 January 2010. Retrieved 20 January 2011 from . ———. “Jeffrey Ching opera gets critics’ unanimous praise”. In The Philippine STAR, 6 January 2010. Retrieved 20 January 2011 from . ———. “Jeffrey Ching’s opera to be staged in Germany”. In The Philippine STAR, 7 November 2009. Retrieved 20 January 2011 from . Tulay Fortnightly. “Jeffrey Ching: Creating Beautiful Music”. Vol. 16, nos. 1-2 (24 June 2003): 17.

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Chiongbian, William Lee (1914–2002) Entrepreneur, political leader, Philippines

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illiam Chiongbian left behind two outstanding legacies for posterity — a successful shipping empire he built from scratch, as well as a long and unsullied political career. He was a Cebu-based shipping magnate who later became an equally successful local, then national, political figure, representing Mindanao (Misamis Occidental) until his selfimposed retirement. He was an avid sportsman who even created a football team among his employees and provided them with housing, and a medical doctor as consultant. Born on 7 December 1914, Chiongbian’s roots, like most Chinese Filipinos, are from Fujian province in China. His original Chinese name is not available, but he was ) a descendant of the Chiong (Zhong family. His grandfather, Joaquin Chiong, settled in Jimenez, Misamis Occidental, in the southern island of Mindanao. Joaquin Chiong married Magna Taghap and had a son named Victoriano, who was the father of William Chiongbian. When Victoriano Chiong was of age, his father sent him to China to take a proper, arranged bride from Gulangyu Island, just off the coast of Xiamen.Victoriano Chiong and Lee Chay Hong (later known as Doña Rosario) lived in Oroquieta, then Plaridel, with their children William, Alex, George, James, Jenny, Peter, and Ellen. It was when Victoriano Chiong was at Silliman University that he started using “Chiongbian”.William and Alex, in time, were sent to Silliman. As both boys were close in age, they attended the same levels in primary

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school. Alex emerged as class valedictorian, while William came second. William then lost interest in his studies and missed classes, and at age thirteen, Victoriano sent the young William on a three-year “exile” to be with his grandmother on Gulangyu Island. This served as punishment for his wild ways, which included hanging out with groups dynamiting fish and indulging in cockfighting, with the latter becoming a lifelong passion. After returning home, William compensated for the lost time by finishing his studies through acceleration. In Cebu, Chiongbian eloped withVirginia “Inday” Sy, from the Sycip clan, and eventually married her on 29 January 1939, when the Sycips reluctantly agreed to the union. The couple went to live in Iligan, where Chiongbian engaged in copra trading. His father had long since transferred his business concerns to Cebu, operating cargo and passenger ships plying between Cebu and nearby islands. Not long after the wedding, Don Victoriano perished with his boat, M/V Dona Rosario, on his way to Masbate. Consequently, the family not only lost everything, but also inherited his debt to Don Ramon Aboitiz. The brothers William and Alex managed M/V Paulino for Aboitiz until their father’s loan was paid off. William Chiongbian then took on the role of family breadwinner, and developed a lifelong distaste for taking a loan. Second World War created great opportunities for those who were ingenious and daring, both of which Chiongbian had a lot. After evacuating his family to safety in Ormoc, Leyte, Chiongbian chartered a rickety sailboat called a “batel” to bring him to other islands where he bartered whatever saleable items he could source — dried fish, sugar, cigarettes. By 1943, he had saved P3,500 and could use that amount to buy

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cheap stolen Lawton bills proliferating in Mindanao. Taking a slow island-to-island trip by batel, then truck, he reached Manila where Chiongbian converted his 20,000 Lawton bills into genuine P10,000. He continued his barter activities until the end of the war, when he bought his first ship from the Lim family of Sweet Lines, an established name in interisland shipping. Protecting their turf, the Lims quoted the outrageous price of P45,000.00 to the upstart Chiongbian, who immediately paid it without batting an eyelid. William L. Chiongbian Shipping was established on 13 December 1945 with a ship named M/V Don Victoriano in honour of his father. He hired the industry’s best ship captain and engineer for its maiden voyage from Cebu to nearby Tagbilaran and Siquijor, then to Plaridel and Ozamis in Mindanao.Yet, even the best men could not prevent the ship from sinking as it hit a submerged junk while it headed for the channel, fortunately, causing no casualty. As would his gambler’s luck, the U.S. Army refloated his ship, repaired it, and gave it a new hull. The army was informed and the channel was cleared of all junks and impediments. Chiongbian soon purchased two boats from the U.S. Naval Base in Cavite with a Philippine National Bank loan of P150,000.00, the only loan Chiongbian ever made in twenty years. That same year, 1947, he bought five additional F/S ships from the Philippine Shipping Commission at P150,000 each on reasonable terms. In January 1945, Chongbian gave his sister-in-law, Felisa Yap-Chiongbian, wife of his seriously ill brother George, some shares in the company, and set her up as treasurer. Two of his father’s former trusted employees were positioned as cashier and dock operations manager. He also convinced a boyhood friend to join him as jefe de viaje, taking charge of all cash disbursements onboard. Younger brother

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Peter also joined the fledgling company. Brothers Alex and James got some money through the Reparation Law. Both invested well, and James set up the Eastern Paper Mills and the Eastern Shipping Lines. In May 1949, William Lines was incorporated with an initial three ships, and added three more a year later. That year, Chiongbian was honoured as “Shipping Man of theYear” by the Business Writers’Association of the Philippines. He was hit twice by economic recessions: 1951 when he grounded three ships to keep the company viable; then 1961 when he moored his fleet of fifteen ships for slow repairs and kept them in tiptop shape, while he sailed only five. In 1962, Chiongbian told sister-in-law Felisa that it was time for her and his brother Peter — both loyal William Lines employees — to venture out on their own as Chiongbian’s children were almost done with school and would soon take over the company’s reins. Chiongbian gave his two siblings their own ships and told them to name their future shipping company George & Peter Lines, Inc., which still exists to this day, plying the southern routes. The William Lines Group of companies spawned Fast Cargo Transport Corp., Fastpak International Corp., Fast Transit Systems Corp., Virginia Farms, Inc., Virginia Food, Inc.,Virginia Development Corp., Cebu Asian Motors Corp., Cebu Industrial Marine Corp., Asturias Aquaculture Corp., and Wander Lanes Travel Company, among others. Chiongbian’s other great achievement was being a public servant to his town mates in Misamis Occidental. In June 1953, he accepted President Elpidio Quirino’s challenge and won a congressional seat. He became assistant majority floor leader in the House of Representatives — the first from Mindanao. He was a member of the four-person Philippine

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

delegation to the 15th United Nations General Assembly. Chiongbian was elected and served for eight terms through many administrations. During the presidency of President Corazon C. Aquino, Chiongbian ran for governor in Misamis Occidental and won by a great majority in 1988. He served his constituents well for more than thirty years, until he retired in 1992. Chongbian died on 17 August 2002. With Inday, he had six children: Elizabeth, Victor, Albert, Elena, Henry, and Edward. In 1966,Victor S. Chiongbian took over the reins of William Lines, Inc. The company changed hands with a posted sales record of P10.9 million and assets totaling P28 million, and with no loan reflected in the company’s financial statement. By 1992, the Philippine Business Profiles ranked William Lines, Inc. number one in the shipping industry and 86th among the Philippines’ Top 1000 Corporations. Marlinda Angbetic Tan R E F E R E N C E S “Memoirs — Jose Miranda Angbetic”. Unpublished. Militante, Francis J. “William Chiongbian: The Dreamer. The Legend”, unpublished and undated. Personal interviews in January 2011 with Felisa Yap Chiongbian, Elena Chiongbian-Young, and Ellen Chiongbian-Pastrano.

Chiu Kim She, Santos ( , Zhang Jinshan, 1902–1979) Businessman, community leader, Philippines

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t was a bright Friday morning in 1967 when Filipinos from all walks of life in Iloilo gathered in the streets, participating in the parade, performing and speaking on stage, watching the programme. It was the celebration

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of the 65th birthday of their beloved Santos Chiu Kim She — an outpouring of gratitude for an admired and respected citizen, a true and trusted friend. Chiu has touched so many lives simply because he cares about people and did not hesitate to offer his time, resources, and zeal. In so many ways, he has reached out to the less fortunate, victims of difficult circumstances, institutions and organizations that needed his encouragement. He has awakened the spirit of volunteerism in the community. Whenever there was sad news of accidents and natural disasters, he was the first to respond and contribute to fund-raising activities.Whenever the community experienced hardships, he suggested means by which everyone can help one another. Whenever schools or public areas were damaged or deteriorating, he was most willing to help in their restoration. His life was a testament to his love of his country and countrymen. The celebration of his birthday was just a small token of appreciation for the man he was and the life he lived. Chiu was born on 24 February 1902 in the quiet community of Amoy, China. When he was twelve years old he expressed his intention to travel and pursue his studies. It was this motivation that brought him to the city of Iloilo. In 1914, he continued his studies at the Chinese Commercial School and the Iloilo Institute and displayed excellent leadership skills in school. He also began to be well versed in the English language and the native dialect. His pleasant experiences in Iloilo convinced him to stay in the Philippines and make it his home. After graduation, he established his business, Pane Supply, in Iznart Street, Iloilo City. His enterprise was involved in buying and selling palay (rice grain), cereals, and other native products. He became known to local dealers as an honest and upright businessman.

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He was likewise trusted and patronized by the community. Chiu lived a quiet and satisfying family life. He married Antonia Kim Suan with whom he had eight sons and daughters. His children, Elena, Juan, Jose, Alfonso, Ramon,Victor, Jorge, and Rosario, are his source of happiness and pride as they are all graduates and productive members of the community. Aside from taking care of his family, Santos was also concerned with the welfare of his employees. Even before the institution of security services, he was conscientious about opening bank accounts for each of his employees. He gave them funds to start their savings and encouraged them to be prudent. When the Second World War broke out, Santos and his family were forced to abandon their home and business. He brought his family to the mountains of Victorias in Negros Occidental and in an evacuation area in Barrio Tison, he began to cultivate a sugar plantation to sustain them. He also tried to carry on a small trading business in dry goods, clothing, and medical supplies. These activities proved to be very helpful because he was able to extend his help to others who were ravaged by the war. For those who were desperately in need of food, clothing, and medicine, he gave these away for free. For those who were strong enough to work, he employed them. He became well loved by those he helped, proving that he lived up to his name, “Santos,” meaning “God-sent”. Even as he helped the community tide over during the war, he also participated in waging a fight against the Japanese imperial forces. He used his business opportunities to travel to create linkages with guerilla forces. Even under threat of death by Japanese soldiers, he refused to divulge information about the whereabouts of his guerilla comrades. Instead, he cleverly convinced the soldiers that there

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were none in the area. In this instance, he not only saved his own life, but the lives of so many brave guerillas as well. The liberation from the Japanese Occupation allowed Chiu and his family to return to Iloilo. Deeply changed by his experiences during the war, Santos felt that he had a new lease on life and vowed to dedicate the rest of it in the service of his fellowmen. In 1960 the country experienced a serious rice shortage and Iloilo City was not exempt from this economic crisis. Due to Chiu’s influence and encouragement, he was able to convince Filipino and Chinese rice vendors to band together and provide cheaper rice to city residents. A system was also established giving every member of the community an equal opportunity to avail themselves of the affordable rice. Instead of taking advantage of the crisis for economic gain, Chiu took it upon himself to lead his fellow businessmen in alleviating the plight of their community. When the rice shortage recurred, his system of handling rice shortages was implemented. One of his primary advocacies was education. He believed that children deserve not only to have quality education, but also decent school facilities. He donated his money for the construction of school buildings, equipment for school facilities, and even markers and iron gates. Aside from these, he also sponsored poor Boy Scouts so they could participate in Boy Scouts activities, such as jamborees. His most ambitious project was the construction of a two-room school building in Barrio Obrero, La Paz in Iloilo City in 1961. For his generous act, students no longer had to have classes suspended or conduct their studies under trees because of the lack of adequate facilities. Whenever communities were struck by natural disasters, such as fires, typhoons, and even volcanic eruptions, Chiu was one of the

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first to respond. If the area of the fire or typhoon was accessible to Chiu, he would personally visit the place to comfort the victims. On his return there, he would already bring the results of his fund-raising efforts: rice, bread, sardines and other basic necessities. Iloilo City was not the only community that benefited from the generous assistance of Chiu. When Taal Volcano erupted in 1965, he mobilized one of his most creative strategies of raising funds. A float mounted on a roving truck depicted an artificial volcano, emitting smoke. On the vehicle was a banner, “Where are they going? They need your help”. The citizens who saw the float knew that although the roving volcano was man-made, the Taal Volcano it was depicting was real and the damage it had caused, undeniable. Even as the disasters were countless and seemingly never-ending, Chiu never grew tired of initiating fund-raising campaigns and spreading awareness to mobilize his community to help. More than the material and economic support that he gathered, he was able to foster volunteerism in his fellowmen.He made people realize that they were not just individuals, not merely a small city, but a significant part of a larger community. Whatever donation they gave was not measured by the amount or the cost, but by the sincerity and selflessness that it expressed. Public servants who were probably being ignored by the public they served had a special place in Chiu’s heart.When he saw that police stations were deteriorating, he donated resources for their repair.When a group of five policemen and firemen lost their lives trying to put out a fire, Chiu sponsored a fund-raising campaign in the community in recognition of the men who lost their lives in service. Instead of asking the government or other officials to provide for the families of those who died, Chiu generously gave from his own pocket.

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For him, public officers were an important part of the community. They also deserved the support and aid of the community in times of great need. Though a naturalized and not one born in the Philippines as a citizen, because of his philanthropic works, he was admired and respected by all, local and immigrants alike. He also paved the way for stronger ties between Filipinos and Chinese-Filipinos. His works in the community made Filipinos see beyond his Chinese ancestry and accept him as one of them. For other Chinese-Filipinos, he became an example of a productive and well loved Filipino. Chiu dedicated his life to being a “new Filipino”. He once claimed that his passion to help others was an expression of his gratitude to this country, his home. Anna Katarina Rodriguez R E F E R E N C E Samonte, Arturo. The Santos Chiu Kim She Story. Iloilo City: Diolosa Publishing House, 1968.

Chock, Angela ( , Zhuo Ruyan, 1955– ) Soprano, Malaysia

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ngela Chock is an accomplished lightlyric soprano and one of the few outstanding Chinese vocalists from Malaysia. She has won many awards at the national vocal competition and the MalaysiaSingapore vocal competition. Her powerful vocal cord has been heard at various stages of her career not only throughout the country, but also abroad in Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, and Italy. Her tuneful and seasoned voice exudes feelings and passion, making her the ideal interpreter

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of art and folk songs as well as operatic arias by Mozart, Scalatti, Bellini, Rossini, and Donizetti. Chock was born to Chock Mun Chong ) and Wong Fen Har ( ) on ( 12 December 1955 in Old Town, Petaling Jaya, Selangor. She was the eldest in the humble family of five children. Music had always run in the family for her mother, who liked to sing, was the biggest fan of bygone Chinese singers in the 1950s. Knowing this, her father who worked as a bus driver then, saved up to buy her mother a Rediffusion set which the family listened to all day long as they went about their household chores. Thus began Chock’s early exposure to the splendour of songs and music. Even at the age of sixteen, she began participating in many singing competitions. Her first attempt was the RTM (Radio Television Malaysia) Talent Time Classical Songs Competition in which she won first prize. This was followed by many more prizes from classical songs competitions across Malaysia and Singapore. It was in one of these that she met her first voice teacher, Madam ), who was a graduate Ong Pek Choo ( from the Hong Kong Conservatory of Music. Ong recognized the raw talent in Angela and nurtured her until her own unfortunate passing from lung cancer two years later. Saddened but still ever determined, Chock continued to learn the art from prominent local vocalist, Li ). KeYing ( Music and vocal training did not come easy for her. After leaving high school at the age of nineteen in 1974, she made the first of many trips to Taiwan in order to improve her vocal skills. Unfortunately, after a short stay she had to return to Malaysia on learning of her mother’s deteriorating health from a losing struggle with brain cancer. Due to the family’s poor financial situation, she had to help support

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it by working odd jobs, including helping out in her father’s eatery and as a sales assistant. At the age of twenty-three in 1979, she had saved enough money to make her second trip to Taiwan. There she took private lessons from an American vocal teacher at Dong Hai University. However, when her funds ran out six months later, she had to return again to Malaysia. She earned a living as a stall keeper and hairdresser and helped her siblings through school. At twenty-seven year of age, she went to Taiwan a third time. As she was not allowed to pick up where she left off in the vocal course she had enrolled for a long time ago, she had to enrol herself for the diploma of Home Economics at the Taiwan Cultural University instead. Her interest in music, however, had not disappeared. She spent more time brushing up her vocal skills with Taiwanese vocal teachers ) and Zeng Dao Xiong Zhai Hei Shan ( ). She also studied Theory of Music ( from the former and opera from the latter. Two years later, she returned to Malaysia and began teaching music at Hin Hua Secondary School, Klang, and Chong Hwa Secondary School, Kuala Lumpur. All the while, Chock also performed at many local events. With her hard work, she even managed to finance all her siblings through university. During this period of hardship, she kept her dream of one day becoming a renowned vocalist alive by continuing to take lessons from Lilian Li Shui ). Lian ( In 1988 when Chock was thirty-two years old, with limited funds of RM10,000 sponsored by relatives and friends, which was just enough for tuition fee, she went off to Italy to pursue her vocal course. For two years, she took her vocal quality to a high art in terms of musical shape and dramatic intent when she furthered her training with Mandalina

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Avegnoni, from whom she learned the piano, and Lorraine Nawa Jones Marenzi, from whom she learned vocals at T.L. Da Victoria Music College in Rome, Italy. During her stay, she was also invited to hold two concerts at the Tre Pini Songs and Arts Festival, where she met with great success and won adulation from the audience. Because of her tight budget, to finance all these extra efforts to build a stronger foundation in music, as well as to support herself, Chock worked as a housekeeper, restaurant waitress, and also did household chores for teachers and wealthier coursemates. Her teacher, maestra Marenzi did not charge her any fee at times. With Marenzi’s support, she overcame the language barrier and found her coloratura and lyrical voice qualities. She developed a wide repertoire of her favourites that included Italian arias, Schubert’s German lieder, and works by Bellini. After returning from Italy to Malaysia in 1990 at the age of thirty-four, Chock sought to pass on her knowledge and taught classical singing at the Malaysian Music Academy and also to students of Hin Hua Secondary School and Chong Hwa Secondary School in Kuala Lumpur, for two years. She also collaborated with many sponsors, musical groups, and orchestras, including the Yin Qi Choir, Sing Chew Jit Poh, Dama Orchestra, Taipei’s Cosmos Operatic Group, and the YTL Group. Chock also performed abroad, and recorded five CDs, mostly about Chinese artistic songs, namely Gui Qu Lai Xi ) (Coming Back) (1992); Zhongguo ( ) (A Compilation of Mingeji ( Chinese Folk Songs) (1994); Yue Guangguang ) (Moonlight Lullaby) (1996); ( Bailingniao Ni Zhe Meimiao de Geshou ( ) (The Sweet Singing Bird) (1998); Zai Na Yaoyuan de Difang ( ) (A Far Away Land); and others that are

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Christian hymns such as Wo Gesong Ni ( ) (I Praise Thee). Her noted career achievements include performing at the Sin Chew Jit Poh Literary Award Ceremonies for three years, at the Malaysian Chinese Association events, and also at former Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah bin Haji Ahmad Badawi’s 65th birthday celebrations in 2006. Her untiring commitment to vocal refinement has made her a mature singer. She performed in numerous concerts’ operatic highlights, including the roles of Mimi in La Boheme, Zerlina in Don Giovani, and Marenka in The Bartered Bride. She also performed in oratorios such as Handel’s Messiah, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and Haydn’s Creation. Being a devout Christian, Chock was also co-founder of the Christian Musician Fellowship of Malaysia. Her devotion to the faith has also seen her performing pieces such as Hymn of Praise and Mozart’s Requiem in many Christian concerts. Chock was happily married and actively involved in performing, essay writing, travelling, vocal music teaching, and the training of younger generations. Ang Lay Hoon R E F E R E N C E S MESSIAH Oratorio Concert Sacred Music Festival, 30 July 2006. New Straits Times. “Soprano Casts Her Spell”. 15 August 1997, p. 26. Shunmugam, Veronica. “Encore for Angela’s Grit”. The Star, 23 July 2000, pp. 1–3. 〈 2000 8 6 。

！〉，《

— 〈 》，1998 7 26 。 〈 12 16 。

》， 〉，《

〉，《

》，1999

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Chong Ah Fok ( , Zhang Yafu, 1956– ) Teacher, writer, Brunei

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hong Ah Fok is a rare kind of Chinese in Brunei Darussalam as he specializes in the Malay language and writes literature in Malay. He has won numerous awards for his short stories and novels and his other works have also been used as teaching, research, and seminar materials. Chong was born on 8 May 1956 in Limbang, Sarawak, and moved to Brunei Darussalam in 1959. After completing his “A” Level studies, he started working as a Malay teacher at Chung Ching Middle School in Seria in 1979, and later moved to Saint Andrew’s School in Bandar Seri Begawan where he still is presently. Over the years, apart from busy teaching, his interest in writing since Secondary Four has continued to grow. Besides raising the standard of Malay literature and culture of his students, he also enriches the local Malay literature scene, which is rare for a Chinese. Chong was educated in the Malay medium from primary school to univesity. His achievements in the Malay language was due to his love of the language and passion for writing. Also due to these achievements, he managed to continue his studies at the University of Brunei Darussalam in 1994. Chong had to start working after completing his G.C.E. “A” Level studies in order to support his poor family. After working for more than ten years, he had the chance to further his studies, and therefore really treasured the opportunity. He majored in the Malay language, minored in Malay literature, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Education with First Class Honours.

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During his years at university, his excellent results won him the Book Prize Award every year, and also the Excellent Graduate Award upon graduation. In 2005, he took a Master’s degree at the same university, and completed in a year his thesis titled, “Kajian Novel-Novel Terpilih Brunei Darussalam dari Perspektif Pengkaedahan Melayu” or “A Study of Selected Brunei Darussalam Novels from A Malay Methodology Perspective”. Chong’s father, Chong Ah Hwa, came from China, and Brunei was his first stop. He ran a small stall, and even used a small boat to travel up the Limbang River and moved around in Limbang town. When he finally settled down in Limbang, he opened a lumber and sawmill. Unfortunately, he did not enjoy the stable life for long as he died a few years later. At the time, Chong Ah Fok was only three years old. After his father’s death, his whole family moved from Kampung Ukong to live with an uncle in Kampung Pandak, Limbang. His mother Ludang binti Kitan, had to shoulder the burden of bringing up five children, and therefore could really not afford additional education fees, and so could only send her children to a government school, which did not charge school fees. Chong’s uncle later married a cousin of his mother. With the help of his father’s younger brother, his whole family moved to Bandar Brunei (old name of Brunei’s capital Bandar Seri Begawan) and lived with his uncle. His uncle was not a wealthy man either, and lived in Kampung Sultan Lama in the water village near The Royal and Custom Excise building in Brunei’s capital. Although Chong was still very young, he helped his cousins to take care of the family business during the day, and sold popsicles around town with his cousins in the afternoon. Two years later, his

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mother married a Dusun man, Yunan bin Ahmad, and settled down in Kampung Batang Mitus in Kiudang, Tutong District, where she is still living. Due to Chong’s strong foundation in the Malay language and his deep interest in Malay literature and culture, his family’s economic situation did not stop him from pursuing his interest in Malay writing. His studious efforts led him to many successes in the Malay literary world, and enabled him to compete with other Malay writers. His expertise in both long and short story writing, won him numerous awards, including first place for Radio Brunei’s Short Story Award (1978), for Ibu or Mother; first place for the Language and Literature Bureau’s Novel Writing Award (1988), for Angin Pagi or Morning Breeze; second place for the Literature Critique Award (1998), for Kesejajaran Motif dan Tema Dua Buah Cerpen Yang Sama Tajuk: Satu Kritikan Bandingan Intranegara or Parallel Motive And Theme of The 2 Short Stories With The Same Title: An Intracountry’s Comparison. In order to raise his skills and standard of writing, Chong actively takes part in writing workshops, including those organized by the Language and Literature Bureau and other departments. In pursuing his passion for writing, he appreciates all opportunities different departments offer him to express his thoughts and feelings in writing. His firm belief in literary writings, and his writing efforts in this field explain his success in the literary sector. He strongly believes that if a person cannot make a substantial contribution to the country, then he or she must work hard at the mental level — put in more effort into the country’s literature — in order to give something back to the country where he or she grew up. There is no doubt that it is this sincere heart that is the driving force behind his writings.

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Chong’s works published by the Language and Literature Bureau for the public and for use in schools in Brunei Darussalam, as well as in Malaysia, include five novels, seven short stories, one poem, one radio drama, and one television drama. His achievements in literature are directly related to his long-term exposure to local culture, especially the Chinese and Malay cultures. Professor Yusuf Hassan even praised Chong as a writer with a multiracial and multicultural background. Chong personally thinks that his writing expertise comes from reading different books, the themes which are usually based on country and its people. Hence, some of his writings are also being used as school textbooks. Chong’s literary works are simple and easy to read; the style is concise, but creative, and also writes in many different genres. His works are rich in romance, but at the same time, full of realism, and occasionally, modernism. Due to his status as a professional Malay language teacher, he was appointed a member of the Lower Secondary Textbook Evaluation Committee. He was also a member of the Upper Secondary Examiner Committee for a few years.With his rich experience in teaching, he has been publishing a Malay Language exercise book for secondary school students from 2007, including a Malay Language Grammar exercise book for Form One to Form Three, and also a Traditional Malay Language and Poetry exercise book, for Form Four and Form Five, in order to raise the standard of language of secondary school students. Apart from his Malay writings, Chong is also involved in various studies related to the Malay language. To date, he has published about ten research papers and some of them have been selected as special topics for research works.

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Chong’s achievements in the Malay language are well received by fellow writers in Tutong District where he lives. Under his leadership, they successfully published three anthology of creative literary works. In conjunction with His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam’s 60th birthday anniversary, the group published a poetry anthology, Ristaan Anak Merdeka. In conjunction with Brunei Darussalam’s Silver Jubilee National Day celebrations, they published two more works — an anthology of short stories, A Journey, and an anthology of poems. After that, he received strong support from fellow writers and was appointed head of Language and Literature under the Language, Art and Culture Association, Tutong District, since 2006. The group has organized several writing workshops, language and literature seminars and talks, both in Tutong District and nationwide. Chong Ah Fok is married to Yong Hock Man and they have three sons and three daughters. Hiew Swee Kwang R E F E R E N C E S Abdul Hakim Mohd Yassin. “Dua Buah Novel Brunei Mutakhir: Sebuah Pembicaraan Perbandingan”. In Bahana, November 1986. Brunei: DBP. Kamis Haji Tuah. Dinamika Persekitaran dan Karya Sastera: Kajian Novel-Novel Peraduan DBP Brunei. Brunei: DBP, 2002. Lutfi Abas. “Novel-Novel Pasca-klasisisme, Romantisisme, dan Realisme Brunei Darussalam”. In Pangsura, Bill. 1/vol. 1 (July–December 1995). Brunei: DBP. Mas Osman. Biografi Penulis Brunei. Brunei: DBP, 1987. Morshidi Haji Mohamad (Hj). “Chong Ah Fok: Penglibatan dan Sumbangannya Dalam Perkembangan Kesusasteraan Melayu Brunei”. In Pangsura, Bill 15/vol. 8 (July–December 2002). Brunei, DBP. Muslim Burmat. “Sebuah Percakapan dengan Chong Ah Fok”. In Bahana, October 1984. Brunei: DBP.

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Chong Kah Kiat ( , Zhang Jiajie, 1948– ) Former Chief Minister of Sabah, Malaysia

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hong Kah Kiat was a lawyer turned politician who came to occupy the state’s highest executive office under a complex rotation system. His rise was due more to his administrative ability and his loyalty to the federal government than political support in the state. Chong was born on 2 June 1948 in the town of Kudat in Sabah, which together with neighbouring Sarawak, formed the eastern wing of the Malaysian federation. Very little is known of his childhood except that he was a bright student who furthered his studies in law at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand (VUWNZ), obtaining a LLM in 1974. While a student in New Zealand, Chong was the secretary of the Malaysian Students Association of VUWNZ. Like most Malaysian students overseas, he kept abreast of Malaysian politics, particularly in Sabah, through discussions with fellow students and diplomats and also the Malaysian newspapers. Chong shared the resentment of many of his colleagues towards then Chief Minister of Sabah Tun Mustapha Harun, notorious for his en masse conversion of non-Muslims to Islam through bribery and intimidation. Chong returned to Sabah after completing his studies and inevitably joined politics shortly after a newly-formed party called Berjaya, backed by the federal government, managed to oust Mustapha’s party called the United Sabah National Organization (USNO). Despite his moves to placate the federal government by converting many non-Muslims to Islam, Mustapha actually harboured ambitions of seceding Sabah to join up with parts of the

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southern Philippines to form an Islamic state called Bornesia, with him as a sultan. Berjaya came to power in 1976 by defeating USNO in the state elections.Though Chong was following developments closely, it was only five years later — in 1981 — at the party’s second elections that he contested a state seat as a Berjaya candidate and won. He was appointed assistant minister to Chief Minister Harris Salleh in 1982. But under Harris Salleh, Berjaya, which started out as a multiracial party, soon became unpopular like USNO because it adopted a strong pro-Muslim line. As such it was much resented by the Christian Kadazan-Dusuns, the largest among Sabah’s thirty-two ethnic communities, which accused it of discrimination against their community in Sabah’s multi-ethnic mix. Joseph Pairin Kitingan then formed a new party called Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS), dominated by the Kadazan-Dusuns and Chinese, and in the state elections of 1985, PBS defeated Berjaya and came to power. Chong, who contested in the Sabah 1985 elections under a Berjaya ticket, lost to a Chinese candidate of PBS, Wong Phin Chung. For the next two years, Chong who had lost his assistant minister’s position, went back to private practice as a lawyer. In March 1987, he became a member of the supreme council of Berjaya, the party’s highest policymaking body. However he resigned from Berjaya when he sensed that it was growing weaker and incapable of making a comeback to Sabah politics. Chong and several Chinese leaders in Sabah then formed a new Chinese-based, but multi-racial oriented party, called the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 1989. He became its pro-tem secretary general then, but two years later in 1991, Chong rose to the party’s highest position, that is, president. The LDP, which was against the then ruling party of Sabah, PBS, allied itself with the federal United

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Malays National Organization (UMNO) which entered Sabah politics in 1991. UMNO replaced USNO, which had dissolved itself after its heavy defeat by the PBS, which became the ruling party of Sabah for the next nine (1985– 94) years. Although the LDP took part in the 1994 Sabah elections, its president, Chong, did not contest. He was thus not directly involved in the political drama which saw the collapse of the PBS which won the state elections narrowly, but lost the state government when many of its assemblymen defected to UMNO and its allies, which then formed the Sabah chapter of the ruling National Front (NF) coalition government. In 1995 Chong was appointed a senator in Malaysia’s upper governing chamber and became a minister in the Prime Minister’s Department. He was to remain there for the next four years during which he enjoyed a close and cordial working relationship with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. In 1999, with Mahathir’s blessings and a newly acquired profile as a federal minister, Chong returned to Sabah to contest the state elections under an LDP ticket in his home town of Kudat and won. He was then appointed that state’s minister of Tourism Development, Environment, Science & Technology. The NF coalition in Sabah comprised several parties representing Muslim indigenous peoples such as Bajaus, Suluks, and other fringe groups, the non-Muslim indigenous peoples such as the Christian KadazansDusuns and Muruts, as well as the Chinese. To prevent a squabble for the chief minister’s post, Mahathir decided to rotate the fiveyear position among the NF components. Mahathir’s arrangement was that a Muslim indigenous person would occupy the position first, followed by a Chinese, and then the nonMuslim indigenous person.

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Chong became Sabah’s thirteenth chief minister under the rotation system in 2001, as a representative of the Chinese, even though his LDP had only two or three assemblymen in the then fifty-plus seat state assembly. He was able to govern well because he had the full backing of Mahathir behind him. Thus whatever he requested from the federal government was duly given to him. Mahathir was pleased with Chong as he had proven to be a very capable administrator. Chong held the position for two years under the rotation system and passed it over to his successor, UMNO’s Musa Aman, who was incidentally his classmate at the All Saints School in Kota Kinabalu in the 1960s. Chong, who retained his state ministership role which was revamped as the Tourism, Culture & Environment minister, under Chief Minister Musa, was also appointed a deputy chief minister in 2003. Over the next four years he enjoyed a close working relationship with Musa. In 2006, he resigned as president of LDP after serving fifteen years to give way to Liew Vui Keong.The next year in April, Chong resigned not only his deputy chief minister’s position, but also his state ministership, citing “matters of principle”. The media, which was closely following Chong’s movements, soon found out that Chong was unhappy and resigned from his positions because Musa had in November 2006 cancelled an earlier government approval given in February 2006 by the Kudat Town Board ) Temple Charitable to the Thean Hou ( foundation to erect a 108-foot high statue of Mazu, the Goddess of the Sea on the beach front in Kudat to attract tourists from Taiwan and Hong Kong. Chong, as Tourism Minister had been instrumental in getting the project off the ground. Thus he was very angry that several months of work-in-progress, resulting in the construction of a huge platform for the statue’s base, had come to naught. The reason

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given by Musa was that the proposed statue was near a mosque and would purportedly offend Muslim sensitivities. The Sabah media, which reported that Musa had offered Chong an alternative site some fifteen km away for the statue, but it had been turned down, also gave the impression that Chong was not cooperative. Chong was to clarify later that Musa’s offer would, in fact, benefit the Federation of Hainanese Clans & Associations in Sabah and Labuan, who had earlier successfully applied for the site, and, in a way, Chong would have been excluded. He also told reporters that the mosque mentioned by Musa was, in fact, some 600 metres from the proposed statue, so the question of Muslim sensitivities did not arise. Chong then disclosed that Musa was, in fact, unhappy with his move, as Tourism Minister, in stopping a $5-million project in Sipadan on 15 May 2006, when a huge barge carrying tons of construction materials breached the islands and destroyed the beautiful corals in the sea. Thus his cancellation of the Mazu statue project in Kudat was more an act of vengeance on the part of Musa, who allegedly had a vested interest in the cancelled Sipadan project. In July 2010, Chong lost his appeal in the Federal Court in Kuala Lumpur against the Sabah Government’s decision to reverse the earlier approval by the Kudat Town Council for the statue to be erected. But Chong is adamant to continue his fight as parts of the statue imported from China or Taiwan lie unopened in crates in Kota Kinabalu, while a few hundred kilometres away in Kudat, the erected concrete platform for the statue stands bare. David Chew H.H. R E F E R E N C E S Interceder.net. (accessed September 2011).

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‘Mazu Case: Datuk Chong Kah Kiat Loses’. North Borneo Herald. (accessed September 2011). Michael Kaung. “Chong a hero for fighting for Mazu statue”. (accessed September 2011). The Star. “Chong’s exit not really a loss, says Abdullah”. 14 April 2007.

Chong King Liong ( , Zhang Jingliang, 1933–2006) Community leader, Malaysia

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hong King Liong, the son of Kelantan gold merchant Zhang Ying Ju ( ), was a member of the group, Si Hui, ). Guangdong ( Chong graduated from the National University of Taiwan and worked as a mechanical engineering consultant. Famous as a man of action, Chong, however, kept a low profile. Since 1975, he has led the Association of Taiwan Graduates in the move to urge the Malaysian Government to give recognition to the engineering and chemistry degrees from Taiwan. It was during Chong’s time that the Federation Association of Taiwan Graduates was established and a permanent building was purchased to house it. He was the founder and president of the Association of Taiwan Graduates from 1974–75 and was re-elected for a second term from 1976–77. In 1980–81, he was again appointed to lead the association and later, held the post of adviser. Given his striking and outstanding leadership, Chong received due recognition and was elected into the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall. At this time, there was a

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growing apprehension among the Chinese about the future of their culture because of the implementation of the National Cultural Policy in 1971. In 1983, Chong headed a group of Chinese community leaders to meet the Cultural and Youth Minister, Anwar Ibrahim. The meeting’s objective was to express concern about the National Cultural Policy and to plead for the preservation of multicultural diversity in the formulation of the policy. Unfortunately, the meeting was in vain and the results were disappointing. The status quo on national cultural policy was maintained and declared during the Parliament on 29 July 1983. Unfazed by the failure, Chong teamed up with Khoo Siong Chi, president of the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall, to bring together fifteen major Chinese associations (15 Huantuan).This strategic alliance produced a comprehensive draft outlining demands for civil rights. The historical Joint Declaration (JD) was submitted in 1985. When Khoo completed his term in February 1986, Chong went on to fill the seat of the deputy president. In undertaking this role he assisted the new president, Zhang ), who was appointed in Zheng Xiu ( March 1986. While serving his term, Zhang was diagnosed with cancer and struggled with a long series of intensive treatments.The illness and ensuing treatment took a toll on him and left Chong to undertake most of the activities and responsibilities. Under Chong’s leadership, a Civil Rights Committee (CRC) was set up on 30 August 1986. He played a significant role as its spokesman, championing civil right movements in Malaysia during the 1980s. Chong was also instrumental in establishing the Huazi Resource & Research Centre that was intended to be the think-tank for the Chinese community.

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These were times coloured by political and multi-ethnicity tensions. As the community leader, Chong had to take on the challenges that emerged during this difficult period. The entire Chinese community was caught up in clashes of cultural, political, and economic issues. To make matters worse, twenty-four Chinese-capital-based cooperatives were ordered to shut down on 8 August 1986, days after the general elections. Taking immediate action, Chong called for an emergency meeting to negotiate a win-win solution. One of the remedial steps was to form a legal advisory team of thirteen veteran lawyers to assist the affected members of the cooperative. Selangor Assembly Hall president Zhang lost his battle with cancer and passed away during his term in 1986. Obviously the best candidate to succeed him, Chong became the president of the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall in February 1987. Even while the cooperative issue remained unsettled, talks began to circulate that amendments to the Education Act 1961 would further marginalize Chinese- and Tamilmedium schools. The rising concern over the future of Chinese education in general, and the shrinking opportunities for Chinese students to gain admission into local tertiary institutions in particular, led to the reactivation of the Chinese Education Movement (Dongjiaozong) from 1973–87 (Tan 1992). In September 1987, it was announced that non-Mandarin educated headmasters and teachers would be posted to National-Type Chinese primary schools to head them as the senior administrators. This sparked a huge outcry and set off boycotts and rallies from the Chinese community. Chong, together with the Dongjiaozong, called a protest meeting on 11 October 1987. Over 3,000 delegates, representing both ruling and opposition parties, joined the

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Chinese Associations in a meeting at Thean Hou Temple, Kuala Lumpur. In such highly charged and unpredictable circumstances, Chong chaired the meeting valiantly. Not long afterwards, the infamous Operation Lalang was launched and nearly 150 individuals were detained without trial under the Internal Security Act (ISA). Chong ended his services with the Selangor Assembly Hall in April 1990, having performed several laudable accomplishments before leaving his post. First, he had been able to put forward proposals from the Chinese community in a memorandum for the government’s consideration in formulating its post-New Economy Policy after the NEP ended at the end of 1990. Dr Kua Kia Soong, the director of the Resource & Research Centre, who had been working on the memorandum earlier, was held under the Internal Security Act (ISA) at Kamunting Camp. Chong continued the unfinished task to ensure that the memorandum was submitted in time. Second, to sustain and secure financial backing for the Huazi Resource & Research Centre, Chong conceived the idea of publishing a directory of commerce and industry. To carry out this ambitious plan, he took it upon himself to visit some thirty-three major towns personally, soliciting for support. Third, through the cultural committee, Chong had approached a multinational corporation, Tiger Beer, to sponsor a one-year cultural performance tour held in twenty-three towns all over Malaysia. This feat raised over RM800,000 in donations for the National Cultural Fund. Sadly, after Chong’s retirement, the fund was not managed to benefit the public as it was intended originally. Chong passed away peacefully on 8 September 2006 at the age of seventy-three. Yong Sun Yong and Tey Tai Sin

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R E F E R E N C E S Kua, Kia Soong. The Malaysian Civil Rights Movement. Petaling Jaya: SIRD, 2005. Lee, Hock Guan. “Ethnic Relations in Peninsular Malaysia: The Cultural and Economic Dimensions”. Social and Cultural Issues no. 1 (2000), August 2000. (accessed February 2012). Tan, Liok Ee. “Dongjiaozong and the Challenge to Cultural Hegemony 1951–1987”. In Fragmented Vision, edited by Loh Kok Wah and Joel Kahn. Sydney: ASAA Southeast Asia Publications Series, 1992. 《 》。 《 1984。

： 》。

： ，2002。 ：

，

Chong, Rosemary (née Chow Poh Kheng, , Zhou Baoqiong, 1929– ) Politician, social activist, Malaysia

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osemary Chong, who was born in Ipoh in 1929, is the first Wanita Malayan Chinese Association (MCA) president. She became the first non-Malay woman M.P. in 1975, and the first non-Malay woman deputy minister in 1982. As a social activist, she has over the years been involved in the Red Cross, the National Council of Senior Citizens Organization, and the Ampang Old Folks Home. Political representation of Chinese women in the first decade after Malaysia’s independence lagged behind that of their Malay counterparts. Chong’s accomplishments mark the slow progress charted by Chinese women in the political arena. In recognition of her services, she was conferred the second highest Malaysian honorific title of Tan Sri in 2007 — the first Wanita MCA member to be bestowed this honour.

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Her late spouse was Dr Chong Yew ), a medical practitioner. They Chong ( have five children. Her primary education and two years of secondary school was at Anglo Chinese Girls School in Ipoh. She continued her schooling at St Mary’s College, Hong Kong, after which she completed a B.A. in education at the Hong Kong University. Her grandparents and parents migrated from Guangdong so Chong is the first-generation Malaysian in her family. Her grandfather, ), a tin miner, has a road in Chow Kai ( Ipoh named after him. The path taken by Rosemary Chong, beginning with women’s traditional roles as housewife and mother in the private domain before involvement in the public realm, reflects the journey of many Malaysian women of similar social standing. However, only a minority embarks onto politics. Soon after her marriage, not one to stay idle, she entered the teaching profession and taught English for five years at the Chung Hwa School, Setapak.Thereafter, when her husband left the government service to start his own private practice, she stopped teaching to help out in her husband’s medical clinic in Pudu. Chong’s foray into the public sphere began when Dr Chong was working at the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital. With time to spare, she joined a group of women to help out in the spastic ward. She enjoyed her stint there as she found it rewarding, and continued for a few years until the government decided to close down the ward. Subsequently, she joined the Red Cross (Malaysian Red Crescent Society in 1975), following on the heels of her husband who was chairman of the Disaster Management section. She participated in fun fairs and related projects such as fund-raising, her organizational skills coming into play. Not surprisingly, mindful of her involvement in social activities, a family friend,

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Lum Kin Tuck, president of the National Council of Senior Citizens Organization Malaysia (NASCOM) roped her in to join this association and take on the post of deputy president. She resigned from this when she became more active in politics. The next non-governmental organization with which Chong has been associated from 1975 to the present is the Ampang Old Folks’ Home. The home is located in the Selayang constituency which she won. Finding it in poor condition, Chong got involved with a view to improving it. From the time she became a member of parliament (MP) in 1975 till 2000, she raised around RM900,000 for a RM1.8-million building which now houses fifty elderly inmates. Chong ventured into politics in 1971, joining the MCA after her domestic responsibilities were reduced when the last of her children went off to study abroad. MCA president Tan Siew Sin had been searching for someone like Chong, with ample experience in charity work and a proven ability in management, to set up a women’s section. Women members till then were individual members in branches and divisions without a separate organization of their own.At a seminar for women organized by MCA Selangor in May 1972, a protem committee was formed with Rosemary Chong elected as convenor of Wanita MCA Selangor. Two months later, Wanita MCA Selangor was officially launched, followed by the establishment of a Women’s Section in branches and divisions throughout Selangor State. After that, other states formed their own Wanita MCA — in Perak, Penang, Kedah, Negeri Sembilan, and Kelantan.Within one year, membership rose from 800 to 30,000. In August, a forum and conference for Chinese women on Women’s Day was organized, with a very encouraging turnout. As Chong expressed,“it was much higher than expected”,

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filling the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall. “It gave us confidence in fighting for the cause of Chinese women politics in Malaysia.” Chong gives us her take on why she accepted Tan Siew Sin’s call. “It is a waste for the nation if talented and educated Chinese women are to stay out of politics.” Initially reluctant to enter politics, she was persuaded to give it a shot as she recognized that “social work and politics are almost the same. Both vocations concern the welfare and well-being of the rakyat”. Without really knowing what politics entailed, she took the plunge and spent the next thirteen years building up the women’s wing before her exit in 1986. Chong took on the mantle of leadership thrust upon her, achieving many “firsts” on the way. From her position as the first Wanita MCA president in 1975, she went on to become the first non-Malay woman MP in 1975, the first non-Malay woman deputy minister in 1982 (Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, thereafter Ministry of Education in 1984 and back to Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports in 1985), and the first Wanita MCA member to be conferred the title “Tan Sri” in recognition of her services in 2007. Chong’s other achievement was to serve as Speaker of Parliament in 1987. It was not all plain sailing though, and the first hiccup came in 1973 when internal party politics impacted on the reformist movement seeking to topple the party leadership. As a supporter of the “Reformation Movement”, Chong was sidelined until a new president came into the picture. In 1974, Lee San Choon invited Rosemary Chong to assume leadership of the National Wanita MCA, thus enabling women political participation to take a few steps forward. The following year, 1975, was declared International Women’s Year by the United Nations. This coincided with a by-election in Selayang where Chong was

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selected as the candidate. She used the slogan ) to win with a “raising feminism” ( large majority of 11,904 votes.This was indeed a milestone for Chinese women as previous women candidates, such as Tan Ah Ngo and P.G. Lim in 1964, and Au Keng Wah in 1969, failed to win seats in earlier, national-level general elections. Chong won the Ulu Langat seat in 1978 and retained it in 1982 with an improved majority Initially,Wanita MCA was labelled as “tai), a party whose members are tai tuan” ( ladies of leisure. Chong recalls the hard work involved, of her efforts to go beyond merely complementing the men in their political struggles, to fight for women’s rights. In addition to projects targeted at women, such as cooking and handicraft classes, as well as fundraising for the Tunku Abdul Rahman College, Chong tried to raise awareness among Chinese women for their own betterment. A notable example of her contribution to assist Chinese women was to inform them of their rights under a new law (the Law Reform Act aimed at regulating customary marriage practices for non-Muslim women in Malaysia by abolishing polygamy and providing protection for the first wife when husbands contracted second or third marriages), passed in 1976, but which only came into force in 1982. Life after politics has not slowed down for Chong. Beginning with her involvement as one of the founders and patron of the Yin Ngai Musical Association ( ) in the 1990s, she went on to found the Yoke Yip Association of Dramatic Arts ( ), based at the Ampang Old Folks’ Home, to produce Chinese opera performances to raise funds for the home’s daily operations. Coming from a well-to-do background, she persists in carrying the tradition of being charitable and continues to accept responsibility as chairperson for the Home. She has turned

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her passion for opera singing into a means to sustain her social work. No wonder, she earns acclaim as a role model for women in the fields she has embraced with gusto. Loh Wei Leng and Tan Ai Boay R E F E R E N C E S Dancz, V.H. Women and Party Politics in Peninsular Malaysia. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1987. MCA Selangor website . Ngui, Clarence, Y.K. “A Pioneer in Every Way”. Malaysian Business, 1 February 2003. Siraj, Mehrun. “Women and the Law. Significant Developments in Malaysia”. Law and Society Review 28, no. 3 (1994): 561–72. 《 MCA 20th Memorial Magazine）。 ，1995。

》 （ Wa n i t a ：

Chong Wan Oon, Steven ( , Zhang Wan’an, 1957– ) Judge, Brunei

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ato Paduka Steven Chong Wan Oon is an important figure in the legal community in Brunei Darussalam, and his influence extends beyond this community, as he is well respected in the wider society of Brunei. Steven Chong received his initial education in St George’s School, Brunei Darussalam, and later furthered his studies in the United Kingdom where he attended Mid-Gloucestershire Technical College. He later completed his bachelor of arts degree (honours) in humanities in 1981 at the Dorset Institute of Higher Education. A year later, he was qualified as barrister of law of Lincoln’s Inn, by the Inns of Court School of Law (London). By 1983, he was professionally qualified as an

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advocate and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Brunei Darussalam. Chong has been a civil servant ever since he started work after the completion of his education in London. In 1987 he was assigned as the magistrate/registrar of the Magistrate Court of Brunei Darussalam, and then went through a series of consecutive promotions to posts such as senior magistrate/registrar of the Supreme Court of Brunei Darussalam (1989), chief magistrate/registrar of the Supreme Court of Brunei Darussalam (1991), judge of the Intermediate Court of Brunei Darussalam (1998), judicial commissioner of the Supreme Court of Brunei Darussalam (1999), high court judge of the Supreme Court of Brunei Darussalam (2001), Court of Appeal judge of the Supreme Court of Brunei Darussalam (ad hoc basis) and judge advocate of the Royal Brunei Armed Forces (2006). Having been in the field of law for many years and met all kinds of people during this time, he has a good understanding of human nature — good enough to give fair and objective judgments at work. As a judge, he is always impartial in his judgments, and sound in points of both criminal and civil law, as well as procedure, evidence, and logic. Three of his cases are adequate examples: Hjh Rosmahwati bte Hj Bakar v Doni Bin Akup, Civil Appeal No. 13 of 2007, Court of Appeal of Brunei Darussalam; Haji Ahmad bin Haji Malai Besar and Mohammad Qahruddin bin Ahmad vs The London & Lancashire Insurance Co. Ltd. (Originating Summons no. 17 of 1998),Appeal from Registrar; and PP vs Edgar Puzone. E, alias Ibrahim bin Abdullah Puzone (Criminal Trail no. 12 of 2003).The first two are civil cases: he was one of the judges for the former, sitting in the Court of Appeal, the highest court in Brunei; and the high court judge hearing an appeal for the latter. The last case involved an

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accused facing a murder charge for stabbing and killing a woman. The chief justice (C.J.) and Steven Chong were the trial judges. They demonstrated their sound knowledge of law, evidence, and logic, denying the defendant’s attempt to establish insanity as a defence and to escape any conviction. The judges were convinced that it was a premeditated and brutal murder and that the accused had a motive for killing the person — he had gone to the place carrying the knife with him to stab the victim and had the presence of mind to keep the knife out of sight until the attack. He knew what he was doing — and was convicted of the charge accordingly. Chong did not achieve his current success in the Brunei legal world overnight. It was his effort and enthusiasm in his legal job that slowly put him at the highest peak of his career. As a judge, Chong is not only respected by the legal community, but also the whole Brunei society. He also set an example to the younger generation by proving to them that education is the foundation that maps a person’s success. His life story emphasized that only with a strong education background and will can dreams be realized. He is one of the few Chinese in Brunei who have earned three prestigious awards granted by the sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam, namely the Meritorious Service Medal (PJK) in 1989, the Most Blessed Order of Setia Negara Brunei Darussalam 4th Class (PSB) in 1995, and the Most Honourable Order of Seri Paduka Mahkota Brunei 2nd Class (DPMB), which carries the title, “Dato Paduka” in 2002. Chong is married to Datin Paduka Magdalene Chong, a woman lawyer working in the same legal field as him. Magdalene Chong completed her bachelor of arts (Honours) in law at North East London

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Polytechnic, United Kingdom in 1979. She qualified as a barrister-at-law of Lincoln’s Inn in July 1980. By 1987, she was professionally qualified asan advocate and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Brunei Darussalam. Magdalene Chong has been counsel/ deputy public prosecutor for the Attorney General’s Chambers, Brunei Darussalam, since 1980. She became deputy senior counsel in 1986. Two years later, she was appointed registrar of marriages, assistant registrar of Companies, Business Names and Trade Marks. In 1989 she was promoted to the post of senior counsel. She received a further promotion in 1991 to become principal counsel. By 1996 she was head of Civil Division. Chong has been solicitor general since June 1998. In fact, she is also a member of several boards and committees, such as the Brunei Currency and Monetary Board, Board of Employees Trust Fund (TAP), Executive Board of the Retirement Fund, Executive Board of the Strategic Development Capital, and the Audit Committee. Magdalene Chong is also a director in several companies, including Brooketon Sdn. Bhd., Royal Brunei Airlines Sdn. Bhd., Royal Brunei Trading Sdn. Bhd., Golden Arches (B) Sdn. Bhd., Royal Brunei Engineering Sdn. Bhd., Golden Wings (B) Sdn. Bhd. and Royal Brunei Technical Services Sdn. Bhd. (as alternate director). For her contributions to the country, Datin Magdalene Chong has received several honours from the sultan and Yang DiPertuan of Brunei Darussalam, including the Meritorious Service Medal (PIKB) (1992), Most Honourable Order of Seri Paduka Mahkota Brunei 2nd Class (DPMB), which carries the title, “Dato Paduka” (1999), and Long Service Medal (2001). Yu Chin Chai

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R E F E R E N C E S Haji Ahmad bin Haji Malai Besar and Mohammad Qahruddin bin Ahmad vs The London & Lancashire Insurance Co. Ltd. (Originating Summons no. 17 of 1998), Appeal from Registrar. Hjh Rosmahwati bte Hj Bakar vs Doni bin Akup, Civil Appeal No. 13 of 2007, Court of Appeal of Brunei Darussalam. Judiciary Brunei Darussalam — History. (accessed February 2012). PP vs Edgar Puzone. E., alias Ibrahim Bin Abdullah Puzone (Criminal trial no. 12 of 2003).

Choo Hoey ( , Zhu Hui, 1934– ) Conductor, Singapore

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hoo Hoey has been associated with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra since its founding in 1979. He received his music training at the Royal Academy of Music and graduated in 1955 with the Manns Memorial and Ernest Read prizes for conducting. He then went on to further his studies at the Conservatoire Royale de Musique in Brussels. He established a career as a visiting conductor throughout Europe and South America before being appointed music director of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO). During his seventeen years tenure, he gradually built up the orchestra and developed an extensive repertoire ranging from the early baroque to contemporary masterpieces. He was appointed conductor emeritus from July 1996. Choo Hoey was born on 20 October 1934 in Palembang, Sumatra in Indonesia. His father, Choo Seng, a very keen music lover who played the violin and the flute, was an accounts clerk in government service and later became an English language teacher. Choo

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Hoey’s initial exposure to music came from listening to symphonic works in his father’s collection of old vinyl records. At a very young age, he was taught the rudiments of music and the violin by his father. In 1945, after completing his primary education in Palembang, Choo Hoey continued his secondary education at The Chinese High School in Singapore. In 1947, he took up private violin tuition under Goh Soon Tioe, one of Singapore’s most influential leading violin teachers who had trained in England. Choo Hoey passed Grade 8 of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music violin examination, with distinction within two years. Having completed his high school education in The Chinese High School in 1950, he decided to further his music studies in England, with much encouragement from his parents. He arrived in August 1951 and enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music in London with the firm intention of becoming a conductor. As the academy stipulates that a conducting student must be able to perform more than one instrument, he continued his violin studies under David Martin, and took up the horn as his second instrument, first under Aubrey Brain, and then under Charles Gregory. His conducting teacher was Maurice Miles. In 1954 he had the opportunity to attend the International Summer Academy in Salzburg, Austria. While there, he studied conducting under renowned conductor Igor Markevitch and violin under violinist André Gertler, former teacher of Goh Soon Tioe. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in violin and conducting in July 1955 and proceeded to win the Manns Memorial and Ernest Read prizes for conducting. During his Academy years, he was actively involved together with other students, in conducting and performing chamber works such as

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Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale, Octet for Winds, and Dumbarton Oaks Concerto. In 1957, to continue the violin lessons with Gertler, he went on to further his studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels, Belgium. The following year, he got his first opportunity to conduct a chamber group comprising principal players of the National Orchestra of Belgium, in Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale. Two weeks after this debut, he received a big break that all musicians dream of. He was offered the chance to stand in for the distinguished Spanish conductor, Ataulfo Argenta, who had been engaged to conduct the Belgium National Orchestra. It was unfortunate that he could not do this due to his untimely death, but this substitution at a moment’s notice turned out to be a resounding success for everyone involved as the concert was performed to critical acclaim. As a result, Choo Hoey received an offer to lead the orchestra for a year starting in March 1959. During that year, as a young twenty-sevenyear old conductor, Choo Hoey toured the Scandinavian countries. The concert reviews in the press were unanimous in their acclaim, a measure of their regard for his musical art and ability. Choo Hoey’s greatest triumph, perhaps, was his debut in London where he conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall in 1960. Fully aware of and extremely nervous about the ruthless and unscrupulous London critics, he managed to more than fulfil his conducting task and to surpass all expectations with impressive vitality and talent, demonstrating a deep understanding and affection for the music he was conducting. On 9 October 1961 he made his second appearance with the London Philharmonic Orchestra with Chinese pianist Fou T’song, performing Chopin’s Piano Concerto, No. 2.

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After a string of initial successes, Choo Hoey enjoyed a career as visiting conductor throughout Europe and South America from 1963 to 1968. In 1969, he settled in Athens, Greece, where he became the principal conductor of the Greek National Opera and was kept busy as a guest conductor of the Athens State Orchestra, Hellenic Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, and Solanica State Orchestra. With these major symphony orchestras of Greece, he held the distinction of conducting numerous world premieres of contemporary Greek works. Many of these he recorded with the Hellenic Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra. In 1979 he was invited to become the founding music director and resident conductor of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. From the orchestra’s modest beginnings, he gradually built it up and developed an extensive repertoire for it, ranging from the early baroque to contemporary masterpieces. In 1980, he also gave the then year-old Singapore Symphony Orchestra an added dimension to performing symphonic choral works by initiating the formation of the Singapore Symphony Chorus. On 13 June the chorus gave its inaugural concert, performing Brahms’ A German Requiem in English. Upon stepping down as music director in July 1996, he was appointed conductor emeritus. By then, the orchestra had become a full-time professional orchestra with ninety-six members and is now regarded as a premier Asian orchestra, gaining recognition around the world. Under his direction, the orchestra went on four successful European tours, the debut being in 1985 to Scandinavia; the second in 1988 to Italy, Spain, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia; the third in 1991 to the United Kingdom, Greece, and Turkey; and the fourth in 1994 to France, Belgium, and Romania. For his contribution to music in Singapore, he was awarded the Singapore

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Cultural Medallion in 1979, the Singapore Government Public Service Star in 1982, and was made an Honorary Doctor of Letters of the National University of Singapore in 1989. In 1997 he was appointed a “Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres” by the Government of France. His career has taken him to most of the great music capitals of Europe, America, Latin America, Asia, and the former USSR. He has been a guest conductor with over sixty orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, The London Philharmonic, the Orchestre de la Societe du Conservatoire de Paris, the Orchestra de la Suisse Romande, the Zurich Tonhalle, the Danish State Radio Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic, the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, the Orquesta Nacionale de Buenos Aires, Argentina, the Orquesta de Instituto Extension Musical in Santiago, Chile, the Central Philharmonic in Beijing, the Tokyo City Philharmonic, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and has collaborated with numerous renowned soloists. Choo Hoey is married with two children and now resides in Greece. Chia Wei Khuan R E F E R E N C E S Ho, S. (ed.). “Biography on Choo Hoey”. In Internationally Renowned Conductor Choo Hoey, edited by S. Ho, pp. 87–106. Singapore: Hwa Chong Old Boys’ Association, 1978. Leotsakos, G. and Choo, H. Internationally Renowned Conductor Choo Hoey, edited by S. Ho, pp. 31–63. Singapore: Hwa Chong Old Boys’ Association, 1978. Li , M. The Interviews of Singapore Musicians. Singapore: SNP Publishing, 1998. Oon, V. “Courage to Take Over the Baton”. New Nation, 27 May 1977. Purushothaman, V. (ed.). Narratives on a Cultural Journey: Cultural Medallion Recipients 1979–2001. Singapore: National Arts Council, 2002.

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Singapore Symphony Orchestra. “The SSO FamilyConductor Emeritus”, 2006.

(accessed 10 February 2008).

Choo Seng Quee ( , Zhu Chenggui, 1914–83) Football player and coach, Singapore

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hoo Seng Quee was one of the most respected, successful, yet controversial, football coaches in Singapore. He led the national side to successes in two Malaya Cup competitions (1964 and 1965) and one Malaysia Cup competition (1977). In an age of amateur football, he was never linked for long periods with a single team. He was constantly on the move — a peripatetic, yet iconic, figure. He was a rover and wanderer through troubled times, sometimes being deliberately provocative and rarely being an establishment conservative. Born in Singapore on 1 December 1914, Choo enjoyed a forty-five-year relationship with football. In 1932, as a seventeen-yearold from Raffles Institution, he played in charity matches at the Jalan Besar stadium. Two years later he was selected to represent the Straits Chinese Football Association (SCFA) in second division league matches. His promotion to the first division team was rapid. In 1936 he became the football convenor for the Junior Civil Service Association. He also made his entry into the Malaya Cup games for Singapore. In 1937 Choo represented Singapore in the Malayan Chinese Olympiad in Singapore. His finest competitive achievement, however, was a winner’s medal in the 1937 Malaya Cup final victory when Singapore defeated Selangor, 2-1. More than just a player he became involved in administration and coaching. In 1939 he

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became a founder member of the Chinese Athletics club also known as Chung Wah. The team played charity matches to raise funds for the China Relief Fund. Chinese Athletics played friendly games against both community and military sides, often at Jalan Besar stadium. Choo was a catalyst for change, pushing for club affiliation rules to be made more inclusive. Before 1940, small community teams were affiliated to senior associations, which in turn followed the lead of the parent body, the Singapore Amateur Football Association (SAFA).The Chinese Athletics club was created with the idea of avoiding the intermediate step of affiliating to the Singapore Chinese Football Association (SCFA). Choo’s application to join SAFA was rejected in early 1941. This was the first of Choo’s battles with the establishment. After the Japanese Occupation, Choo, as secretary of Chinese Athletics, was urging officers from the British MilitaryAdministration to revive football in Singapore for local players by granting them access to the limited facilities available. This was a battle won because in October 1946, the Jalan Besar ground was derequisitioned and local sides could use the pitch on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Choo even published advertisements in the press seeking opponents for his team. Charity matches were organized from time to time. Choo devoted less time to playing and more to refereeing, coaching, and prompting changes in regulations governing participation and club affiliation. In 1946 the SCFA blocked the application of Choo’s team to affiliate with the SAFA. The following year, Choo was at the forefront of efforts to introduce an “opendoor” policy whereby players could join any club, regardless of pre-existing communal arrangements. The controversial proposal was based on the assumption that the quality of football would improve if clubs could attract better players. However weaker players were

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also introduced and the standard of play in Singapore declined. In 1948 Chinese Athletics withdrew from the SCFA and successfully established itself as one of ten teams in a newly created SAFA league. Four of the teams were European, reflecting the ongoing presence of the military. The other six teams were communally based clubs. Once the “open-door” policy had been introduced, Choo retired from serious play to focus on the demands of administrative work and coaching. He was even elected an honorary coach of the SCFA and an adviser to SAFA in 1949. Within a month he had outlined a rigorous schedule for the national team’s progress towards potential Malaya Cup success. Shifting his focus to the national side, Choo resigned from the SCFA. In November 1949, he sought to create a Players’ Association to look into the personal welfare of squad members. He was particularly concerned with the fitness and physical well-being of his charges. Ensuring an adequate diet had been a constant problem after the Japanese Occupation. The 1950s proved to be a period of turmoil, change, and uncertainty. Choo stayed with Chinese Athletics until the end of year, but then made the first of a number moves in an attempt to secure a more enduring career as a coach — he joined the All-Indonesia Football Federation as a coach, a post that he retained until 1953. Choo became renowned as a writer of newspaper articles, and a coach eager to learn from the experiences of others, particularly those who had studied in the United Kingdom. He became a strong advocate of increasing the intensity of training — an approach that was not universally appealing to the players. In January 1958 he became a coach for the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM), enjoying employment on a monthto-month basis. His main task was to prepare the federation team for the Asian Games in

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Tokyo. He also helped individual states. Choo proclaimed that a revolution was needed to raise standards and suggested the establishment of a national soccer school in Malaya, and the introduction of centralized coaching. Again he was jousting with the authorities. Plans were then made to send Choo to England to learn more from the professional teams there. These plans came to fruition only in 1961, when Choo departed for a six-month stint, courtesy of Burnley, Everton, and Sheffield United clubs. Choo made a good impression in England and became well qualified to introduce change into both the Malaysian and Singapore systems. His association with the FAM was redefined in 1963 when he was assigned the task of overseeing the national schools teams — in effect, a demotion. In 1964 Tengku Abdul Rahman, the Malaysian prime minister and president of the Football Association of Malaysia gave SAFA permission to use Choo as a coach for Singapore’s Malaya Cup challenge. This was a major turning point for the man who was to become the first truly professional coach of the Singapore team. Singapore won the Malaya Cup in 1964 and 1965, the first year of independence, under Choo Seng Quee. However his appointment as coach lasted less than a year. Sports such as football came under close government scrutiny and charges of mismanagement were levelled against SAFA.These proved difficult to resolve, so a new council was created. The Football Association of Singapore (FAS) was established in September 1965 with Choo as one of the coaches and a member of the selection panel. Very soon there were problems. At the 1965 SEAP Games there were allegations of gross behaviour and insubordination made against Choo and six of his players, resulting in suspensions. Choo only returned to the scene with the Reserves team a year later. Disputes continued into 1967, with the players

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demanding new uniforms and allowances. Then Singapore decided not to participate in the 1968 Malaysia Cup. So for Choo the local scene became the focal point. By then, Choo Seng Quee was commonly known as “Uncle Choo”. Always passionate about the game, unafraid of being confrontational, and extremely abrasive at times in his dealings with the players, he kept active in coaching. In 1969 he won the President’s Cup with the Police team. A year later he was given the opportunity to coach four government units: the Police, the Military, the Vigilante Corps and the Special Constabulary. Absenteeism amongst players and internal wrangles involving administrators appeared to blight the progress of football. From 1973 Choo’s name was linked with coaching attachments in Hong Kong, which he declined, West Irian, and then Tampines Rovers. The year 1977 proved to be dramatic and climactic for Choo. Returning as the national coach, and with the help of the fabled “Kallang Roar”, he led Singapore to an emotional victory in the final of the Malaysia Cup. The journey had been a painful one, then made worse by a player boycott, diabetes, and a serious foot infection. In September 1977 after gangrene had set in, his leg was amputated. Choo Seng Quee was honoured with the Coach of the Year award in 1977. The following year he was awarded the Public Service Medal. Despite his physical condition, Uncle Choo remained committed to football. He coached the Johor team until January 1981. Choo passed away on 30 June 1983. Nick Aplin R E F E R E N C E S Desmond Oon. “Government Involvement in Sport 1959–1982”. Unpublished PhD dissertation, 1982.

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Jeffrey Low. “A Beautiful Dreamer”. Straits Times, 1 July 1983, p. 47. The Singapore Free Press. “32 Teams for SAFA League”. 23 January 1948, p. 7. ———. “SAFA Revise Affiliation Rules”. 1 December 1947, p. 7. Straits Times. “SAFA axe six national team men and coach”. 28 December 1965, p. 15. ———. “Singapore honours Ganesan, Choo”. 9 August 1978, p. 25.

Choo Yeang Keat, Jimmy ( , Zhou Yangjie, 1952– ) Designer, business figure, Malaysia

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immy Choo, the world famous shoe designer also known as the “World King of Shoes”, is one of the most prominent representative of the shoemaking industry. Choo a Malaysian of Hakka Chinese descent, was born in Penang in 1952 into a family of shoemakers. In his early years, he learned to make shoes under the guidance of his father. After many years of hard work, he is now one of the world’s most well known professional shoe designers. Even the former prime minister of Malaysia, Tun Mahathir Mohamad, always quoted him and considers him an example for all other Malaysians to follow. His father, Choo Kee Yin, was a traditional shoemaker. Jimmy Choo is married to Rebecca Lee from Hong Kong and they have a son and a daughter. The Choos presently reside in London. Choo only managed to complete his studies up to Primary Year 6 in Shih Chung Primary School due to financial constraints and then followed in his father’s footsteps and started making shoes. He made his first shoe when he was eleven years old. Subsequently

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he became apprentice under the then “Penang ) and Shoe King”, Huang San Cai ( ). The another shoemaker Master Jin ( skills he managed to acquire made him fall in love with the shoemaking business and in 1979 he enrolled in the Cordwainers’s Technical College in London from which he graduated in 1983.The college is now part of the London College of Fashion. Choo has acknowledged that he worked part-time in restaurants and as a toilet cleaner at a shoe factory to help fund his college education. Choo’s humble beginnings can be traced back to his workshop in Hackney, East London, which he opened in 1986 by renting an old hospital building. He restricted himself to only handmade shoes. But he was not known then and life was difficult. He had no capital and did not have enough money even to buy materials. There were no banks that would give this struggling shoemaker any loans. He only managed to continue to struggle in the shoe business with help from some friends. However in these difficult years he managed to gain valuable experience. His craftsmanship and designs soon became famous and he came to the limelight of international fame when his creations were featured in a record eight pages in Vogue magazine in 1988. Patronage from the late Princess Diana, Princess of Wales, from 1990 onward further boosted Choo’s image. His shoes were favoured by the Princess of Wales, who would buy one style in several colours for evening wear and to blend with her day suits. Jimmy Choo has lost count of the number of shoes he made for Princess Diana. This made him well known among the rich and famous and his shoes became synonymous with the footwear of Oscar’s winners and famous actresses. Choo’s clients include royalty, film stars, pop stars, and many other celebrities.

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Choo is no longer directly associated with the Jimmy Choo ready-to-wear design house which he founded in 1996. He now concentrates his efforts on Jimmy Choo couture, which produces limited edition of high-class handmade shoes. He is also the adviser of London famous restaurant, Awana, which promotes Malaysian cuisine. With such a stellar career, he has been the recipient of many Malaysian and International awards. In 2000, he was bestowed a state award carrying the title Dato by the Sultan of Pahang for his achievements.The following year he was conferred an Order of British Empire (OBE) by the queen of England, Queen Elizabeth II, in recognition of his services to the shoe and fashion industry in the United Kingdom. In addition, in 2004 he was also awarded the Darjah Setia Pangkuan Negeri honour by the Yang di-Pertua Negeri of his home state of Penang, which also carries the title of “Dato”. In 2007, the Ministry of Culture, Art and Heritage, Malaysia, awarded him a special certificate for his contribution in promoting Malaysia internationally. In recognition of his contributions he was awarded a fellowship by the University of the Arts London, which conferred him the use of the title “professor”. Today, Choo is a spokesman for the British Council, the ambassador for footwear education, and a visiting professor at the London College of Fashion. He is also the third person after Tunku Abdul Rahman and Selangor Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Syah, to be awarded the title of “Freedom of the City of London” by Queen Elizabeth II in 2006. In life his mottos were:“Hard work”,“Be meticulous”, “Patience”, “Dare to dream”, “Never easily to be defeated”, “Don’t be calculative”, and “Anger control”. He always follows the philosophy “Ask if you do not

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know”. According to him, his success is due to his willingness to accept other people’s criticisms. He believes that there are others better than him and stresses that one should not stop learning even up to old age. He is passionate in his work. “If you dare to dream and [are] willing to put in efforts, then success is on the way. Love your job passionately and don’t be calculative.” He is not afraid of being taken advantage of by others because to him, it is a learning process. “If you don’t give, you are not able to receive. Whatever you do, don’t let fears control you. [You] Must be farsighted and adventurous”. These are some of his famous quotes. His shoemaking secret has always been that a pair of good shoes must fit the owner’s feet. His perfectionist craftsmanship is displayed in every simple detail, which is never overtly fashionable, yet elegant. Jimmy Choo has managed to grasp the importance of comfort in footwear and, with his numerous strengths, he has made his mark in the international shoe designing industry, on par with the Versaces and Armanis of the fashion world. Lee Yok Fee R E F E R E N C E S 〈Jimmy Choo 12 6 。

〉，《

Jimmy Choo 〈 2007 12 6 。 〈 《

〉

〉，《 〉，《

〈 7 。

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〉，《

》，

6 ── Jimmy Choo 》，2002 10 31 。

〈 〈 11 1–3 。

〈（ 23 。

》，2006

）

〉，《

〉， 》，2004

》，2007

6

》，2007 8

Choong Ewe Beng, Eddy ( , Zhuang Youming, 1931– ) World badminton player, businessman, Malaysia

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ddy Choong Ewe Beng won over 300 national and international badminton titles between 1950 and 1966. He also partnered his brother, David Choong, to win several badminton men’s doubles titles, including the prestigious All-England Badminton Tournament. Eddy was captain of the Malayan team that retained the Thomas Cup in 1955. But in 1958 Malaya lost the cup to Indonesia. He was born on 29 May 1931 in Penang. He comes from the family of Datuk Choong Lye Hock who owned oil and rice mills in Alor Star. As one of the pioneering and most prominent millers in the country, the family has extensive business in Kedah’s rice trade that goes back to the late 19th century. Among its businesses are the Ban Hock Bee Rice Mill and the Ban Heng Bee Rice Mill. Choong Lye Hock’s son, Datuk Choong Eng Hye, who succeeded him, bought properties in the Jesselton area on Penang island. Eddy Choong is the third son of Choong Eng Hye. It was this background of family wealth that allowed Choong the time and resources to train as a world class badminton player and later to support the development of the game in Penang and Malaysia. Choong completed his secondary education at the Penang Free School. He picked up badminton at the age of seven in 1937, and won his first title at fifteen. He followed that up with the Penang state title two years later. At nineteen, Choong won the national mixed

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doubles title. In 1950 he left to study law at the Middle Temple. He played in the All-England championships between 1951 and 1957, and in all qualified for twelve All-England finals. The All-England tournament was considered a world championship event then. Choong won the singles title in 1953, 1954, 1957 and the doubles with his brother David in 1951, 1952, and 1953. He won titles in the Denmark Open, the French Open, the US Open, the Dutch Open, the Scottish Open, the Irish International, and the Malayan Open.Together he and elder brother David, a fine tactician with whom he won three All-England doubles titles, were described as enlivening a rather moribund post-war London badminton scene. Choong was in the 1955 Malayan Thomas Cup team which retained the world championship. He captained the Malayan team which lost the Thomas Cup to Indonesia in 1958. Choong lost both his singles matches and was blamed by the president of the Badminton Association of Malaya, Heah Joo Seang, for the defeat. At the official dinner after the tie, BAM president Heah Joo Seang launched a bitter attack on the Malayan team, accusing the members of not training hard enough. Choong claimed that he was suffering from indigestion before his matches and had played on an empty stomach. Standing at 1.62 metre (5 ft 4 ins), Choong compensated for his lack of height by his speed, power, and accuracy. He had fluent strokes, high lobs, and accurate placement of the shuttle. He could lift himself to remarkable heights and unleash powerful smashes. His footwork allowed him to retrieve brilliantly and return difficult shots. He continued in competitive badminton, winning the Malayan Open singles in 1960 and in 1966, at the age of thirty-six, captured the

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doubles title with Tan Aik Huang as partner. He remains active in developing local and international interest in badminton, and he sits on various badminton committees. Choong also masterminded compatriot Tan Aik Huang’s success over Erland Kops in 1966 and became the coach to the successful Malaysian national team that regained the Thomas Cup from Indonesia. He was also invited to be the team manager and coach for the national All-England team and the national All-Danish team. Frank with his opinions, Choong was a respected critic of the way badminton affairs were organized in Penang. In the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM), he served as technical and tactical adviser, and was also on its Planning and Development Committee and its Coaching and Training Committee. He was vice-president of BAM, Penang, and was in the state’s coaching and training committee. In 1986 Choong was honoured by the International Badminton Federation with the meritorious service award, in recognition for his service to the development of the game in Malaysia. In 1997 Eddy Choong was inducted into the Badminton Hall of Fame. He was further honoured by the Badminton World Federation, which named the “Best Player of the Year” award after him. Choong has written three books including, The Phoenix Book on Badminton, Badminton — For Beginners, and Badminton, published by W.G. Foyle, London, in 1955. Badminton recounts his own experiences when competing against world-class players. In 1987 he contributed regularly to a column on badminton in the Star newspaper. He regards Wong Peng Soon as one of the greatest players in badminton, “If ever there was, or will be, a player who at the age

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of 37 could still win the world’s most coveted title [the All-England], I will take my hat off to him.” He added that Peng Soon taught him deception in the game.Wong defeated Choong at the 1955 All-England final to prevent the latter from winning the title thrice in a row. Choong took to go-kart racing in the late 1960s and the 1970s when he ended his badminton playing days. In the 1960s, he was Malaysia’s go-kart, hill climb, and grass-track champion. Quite amazingly he only started his motor-racing hobby when he was thirtythree years old. “One is never too old to start anything,” says Choong who gave up motorracing at the age of forty-seven after collecting more than 1,000 trophies. Although he has shelves of trophies to showcase his success in go-karting, these do not bring him the same satisfaction as those he won in badminton. In September 1994 he became the first Asian to receive the Herbert Scheele Trophy for his contribution to the development of badminton. He was listed among the “1,000 makers of sport in the millennium” in the Sunday Times, London, in 1996 and was the only Malaysian to make the list. “Labelled as ‘mighty midget’ and ‘pocket rocket’ ”, Eddy Choong helped transform the badminton world in the 1950s as part of a new Asian wave in a previously European dominated sport. The Olympic Council of Malaysia nominated Eddy Choong as one of the Famous Five Athletes of the twentieth century. Choong lists himself as a property developer. He is chairman of Choongs Sdn. Bhd., Hock Hin Brothers Sdn. Bhd., Belle Isle and Co. Sdn. Bhd., Choong Lim Lim Sdn. Bhd., and Ho Kuat Sdn. Bhd. He also served as chairman of the Penang Rate-payers Association, the Penang Housing Developers’ Association between 1993 and

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1995, and was the vice-chairman of the Malaysian Kennel Association. Choong holds strong views on heritage conservation and development. He was quoted in 1995 as being critical of the Penang Municipal Council for “designating private properties as heritage buildings at its whims and fancies”. Eddy Choong claimed that many such buildings were underutilized and sitting on large tracts of prime land. “We cannot just look at beauty which is subjective but also the economic viability and social needs. If developed the land will house many more families and resolve the housing shortage in the state.” A wealthy man through his family business, Choong maintained his own badminton hall in Green Lane where facilities for training young players are offered. A number of overseas players spent time training in Penang with him. In 1992 together with the Choong family, he built a nine-court badminton hall at Bukit Dunbar costing RM1.5 million. Named Badminton International Penang, the hall is open to the public. His family comprises wife Maggie Thean Sun Lin and children Finn Choong, Lionel Choong, Jorgen Choong and Antonio Choong. Lee Kam Hing R E F E R E N C E S Ooi Lay Beng, Way of the Champions. Subang Jaya, Selangor: Sports Junction, 2001. Sunday Mail. “The Might Midget”. 8 January 2006. The Star. “Choong: Living heritage must be preserved first”. 5 March 2001. ———. “Eddy on hand to present books on sports greats”. 10 April 2002. ———. “Eddy challenges Hafiz to beat his seven AllEngland titles”. 18 February 2003. ———. “Stately home of the Choongs”. 12 April 2005.

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Choy Su-Mei, Elizabeth (née Elizabeth Yong, Sumei, 1910–2006) War heroine, teacher, Singapore

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, Cai Yang

elebrated Second World War heroine, Elizabeth Choy was the first woman in Singapore’s Legislative Council and the only female member there in 1951. She was also the first principal as well as teacher at the Singapore School for the Blind. She is best remembered as a multifaceted woman of spirit who was imprisoned for 200 days by the conquering Japanese forces in Singapore in 1943 for allegedly helping British internees. Her fortitude, courage, and indomitable spirit that caught the imagination of the world when she was declared a war heroine had their roots in her formative years and becoming a war heroine never went to her head. Born to progressive thinking parents in Kudat, British North Borneo (modern day Sabah) on 29 November 1910, Elizabeth was influenced by the missionary work conducted by her great-grandparents, and strove to be of use to others throughout her life. After completing her education with her paternal grandfather at the Kudat village school, she furthered her education in 1921–29 at St Monica’s School in Sandakan. She was a very adept pupil, and by 1927, was teaching the lower classes whilst studying. In December 1929, she came to Singapore to further her studies at the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus in Victoria Street. Once again, she performed well academically and obtained the Prize of Honour in her first year of school in December 1930. However, her academic life was not to last, for the death of her mother in 1931 and the onset of the Great Depression meant that

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she had to leave school to raise her six younger siblings. Thus, she gave up the possibility of a college education (and a scholarship) so she could work to see her younger siblings through school.This selfless act was indicative of Choy’s giving and kind nature, as well as her tenacious attitude towards life. These were the same traits that would result in her capture by the Japanese forces, but also in her recovery upon her release. She came to the notice of the Japanese forces during the Occupation when she worked as a canteen operator with her husband at the Mental Hospital, then known as Miyako Hospital and the precursor to Woodbridge Hospital. As most of the patients there were British soldiers, Elizabeth and her husband secretly brought food, medicine, money, messages, and even radios for them. Her husband was caught on 29 October 1943 by the Japanese, and she was arrested on 15 November. Despite severe torture, electric shocks, starvation, and interrogation by the Japanese Secret Police (the Kempeitai), she never admitted to being a British sympathiser and would not reveal anything. It was not until 200 days had passed that she was released. Her fortitude and courage ensured that she did not emerge from the torture and confinement a broken woman. She successfully rallied and was invited to England as a war heroine for being the only local woman to have been incarcerated for such an extended period. In her four years there, she took the opportunity to meet Queen Elizabeth, study domestic science at Northern Polytechnic, take up teaching at a London Council school, as well as pose for art students and artists including the sculptress, Dora Gordine. She also conducted a lecture tour on Malaya in the United States and Canada at the request of the Foreign Office in London for which

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she disregarded fear of the Emergency in the Malay Peninsula and first went on a tour of the country so as to understand it better. When she finally returned to Singapore in December 1949, her past as a war heroine and her natural gentility led several people to persuade her to stand for elections in December 1950 for the West Ward or Cairnhill constituency. She did so under the Labour Party, founded in 1948 by V. J. Mendis. Despite her electoral loss in the 1951 City Council elections to the Progressive Party representative, Soh Ghee Soon, she was nominated into the Legislative Council in 1951. This move made her the only female member to sit in the Legislative Council, and she remained in that position for five years. During this time, she represented Singapore at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in June 1953. After her failure at the Queenstown constituency in an election in the mid-1950s, she resigned from politics and dedicated herself to teaching. Her rationale was that she could touch more lives and contribute much more to society as a teacher rather than a politician. Indeed, her unflagging spirit, fortitude, and constance continually shone through when she joined the women’s auxiliary of the Singapore Volunteers Corps, and expanded the organization by recruiting many of her friends and colleagues. As a teacher, she tried to imbue her students at the Singapore School for the Blind (1956–60) with her verve for life and unshakeable fortitude. Following her tenure at the School for the Blind, she moved to Saint Andrew’s Junior School in 1960 and was promoted to deputy principal in 1964. Sadly, she succumbed to pancreatic cancer and died on 14 September 2006 soon after she was diagnosed. Despite her illness, she never lost her spirit and refused treatment, preferring instead to let nature take its course.

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Elizabeth Choy’s courage and fortitude in adversity make her an ideal role model in today’s world in which we are constantly besieged with threats from within and without our societies. She should provide us with the inspiration to remain true to ourselves and loyal to worthy causes to improve society in an every changing world. Sharon Loo R E F E R E N C E S Bonny Tan. “Elizabeth Choy”. Singapore Infopedia, National Library Board, Singapore, 17 April 1999. (accessed 28 November 2010). National Heritage Board. “Choy, Elizabeth”. In Singapore: The Encyclopedia, Tommy T. B. Koh, et al, ed. Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2006, p. 120. Zhou, M. Elizabeth Choy: More Than a War Heroine: A Biography. Singapore: Landmark Books, 1995.

Chua, Antonio Roxas ( , Cai Wenhua, 1913–78) Sugar king, banker, community leader, Philippines

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ntonio Roxas Chua is recognized as the Philippine Sugar King an ethnic Chinese leader who pushed for the jus soli principle for citizenship, business leader, and the promoter of building Operation Barrio Schools in remote areas for the indigenous population. Born on 13 November 1913 in Jinjiang, Fujian, China, Chua was only eight years old when he migrated to the Philippines with his uncle, Chua Yu (founder of the renowned Kim Kee Chua Yu Company). The senior Chua owned a small business buying and selling sugar and rice and the young Roxas worked as a labourer for him carrying sacks of

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sugar on his back, and gradually learning the ropes of the business until he was appointed general manager of the company. Later in his life, Roxas Chua would recall those days with great fondness and boast how he could carry a 100-lb sack of sugar effortlessly. Chua’s uncle enrolled him at the AngloChinese School (now the Philippine Tiong Se Academy) in Manila, and later, sensing his strong potential in business, encouraged him to pursue a degree in commerce at the Jose Rizal College. Dubbed the sugar king of the Philippines, Chua was the leader in sugar manufacturing and trading in the country with his ARCA sugar. He was also elected president of the Philippine Sugar Industry Association and helped stabilize the price of sugar by seeing to it that the Philippines continued to get preferential treatment in the export of sugar even after the expiration of the Laurel-Langley Agreement, which gave preferential tariffs for Philippine sugar exports to the United States, in 1974. Aside from sugar, he also continued the rice trading business started by his uncle and was elected to head the Rice Traders Association as well. Chua was also known for his venture into commercial banking, a relatively unknown and challenging field to get into in the 1950s. In 1955, together with his partner, Chester Babst, he established the Pacific Banking Corporation.The first day the bank opened its business, it received close to 3 million pesos in unsolicited deposits, a testimony of the trust of the business community towards Roxas Chua. Ranking 16th when it first started its operations, the bank had, by 1972, become seventh among commercial banks in the country.The investment arm of the bank was a pioneer and a leader at the time and the bank played a crucial role in supporting the growth of business and industry in the country.

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Besides being recognized as a sharp businessman, Chua was also well respected in the Chinese-Filipino community for his leadership of the Federation of FilipinoChinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc. from the 1970–74, especially in 1972 when President Ferdinand E. Marcos declared martial law.As president of the federation, Chua advocated two highly important programmes. One was the further integration of the Chinese in mainstream society — which he considered as the most important work, and highest ideal of the federation.The second was the continued growth and development of the next generation of Chinese Filipinos. To push forward the concept of integration during his term, the federation would invite Filipino guests from other chambers of commerce and civic organizations to take part in discussions and dialogues.And, to break down barriers further all meetings were conducted in English, a practice considered a breakthrough in gatherings among members of the ethnic Chinese community. Also, to strengthen friendship with Filipinos, Chua strongly pushed for the expansion of Operation Barrio Schools, a project started in 1960 involving the donation of two-classroom buildings in areas where classrooms are most needed. During his term, a then record-breaking seventy-eight schools were built. As the federation’s flagship project, Operation Barrio Schools is the longest running and biggest private sectorled development programme focused on educational infrastructure in the country. It has built about 3,000 classrooms all over the Philippines as of 2010. During his term Chua also established ), the Youth Integration Committee ( reasoning, “If the next generation is apathetic to the Chinese-Filipino community, what hope is there?”. It was patterned after the

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Jaycees (Junior Chamber of Commerce) and set up to prepare the young generation to take over the helm from the first-generation leaders of the federation. Less known to the public was Chua’s role in the establishment of the federation itself back in 1954. It was a tribute to Chua’s youthful dynamism and dedication that he was chosen (he was just forty years old then) to head the organizational committee ( ) in 1953 that steered the different chambers of commerce and key personalities in the Chinese community through the turbulent and difficult months of settling differences to come up with a common agenda and purpose to organize the federation. As president of the Rice Traders Association, Chua did his best to stabilize the price of rice, the basic staple of Filipino families. When the Philippines was faced with a severe rice shortage in April 1971, he assisted the government in securing a loan from Taiwan of 900,000 cavans of rice (50 kg per cavan), payable in rice at 7.5 per cent, over a period of ten years. Not only did the shipment avert a severe rice crisis, but it also helped cement the long-standing relationship between the Philippines and Taiwan (at the time still recognized as the Republic of China by the Philippine Government). On 2 August 1968, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake hit the Philippines and caused the collapse of the sixstorey Ruby Tower in Binondo, where more than 500, mostly Chinese, were either killed or injured. Chua, as executive vice-president of the federation, headed the rescue and relief committee for the victims. In June 1971, the Constitutional Convention was convened to revise, amend, and basically redraft the Philippine Constitution that was drawn up back in 1935. The government realized the urgent need to have a new constitution that would respond

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to the challenges of the times because the conditions of the country before the war and under the colonial administration had drastically changed. One of the urgent constitutional provisions that needed to be revised was Article III on citizenship. The old constitution provided for the jus sanguinis principle in acquiring Filipino citizenship where children, even if they were born and grew up in the Philippines, could only have the citizenship of their fathers. The Federation of the Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce, under Chua’s leadership, set up a major constitutional ) to convention committee ( lobby staunchly for the jus soli principle of citizenship to enable those born, bred, and educated in the country to become Filipino citizens automatically. Chua was invited to be a resource person in the convention hearings and, in his speech titled, “Assimilation for Posterity”, given before the committee on citizenship of the Constitutional Convention on 24 November 1971, stressed that integrating the local Chinese into mainstream society was the best way to tap their full potential in nation building, and that the best way to make the Chinese feel they belong is through the principle of jus soli where Chinese born on Philippine soil are considered Filipino citizens. Although the new 1971 Constitution failed to adopt the jus soli principle of citizenship, the debates and arguments for easy access to citizenship set the stage for those who were born, raised and educated in, and knew no other country except the Philippines. In 1975, to prepare for diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, then President Marcos, through a presidential decree, allowed for easy access to citizenship by administrative means (in contrast to the long, tedious, and expensive judicial process).

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Chua passed away on 31 October 1978. He was survived by his wife and seven children. In 2008, a hall of dedication was named in honor of Antonio Roxas Chua at the Kaisa Heritage Center. His life may best be summed up in his own words — “There are just too many wealthy people in this society, yet knowing how to make money does not make you a success and does not make you capable. It is only the person who knows how to use his wealth wisely, how to use his money meaningfully [that] can be considered as capable and as successful.” Linette Chua and Teresita Ang-See R E F E R E N C E S Cai Wenhua Foundation. “In Memory of Mr. Cai Wenhua”. Manila. The Philippine Herald. “The Achievers: The Herald Magazine Supplement on Antonio Roxas Chua”. 31 May 1972. 〈 》。

〉，《 ，1974， 87–100。

：

》。

《 ：

，2004， 33。 〈 ：

〉，《 》。 ，1971， 199–202。

Chua Ek Kay ( , Cai Yixi, 1947–2008) Artist, art educator, Singapore

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hua Ek Kay was one of the most respected and sought after Singapore artists who successfully bridged the gap between Chinese tradition and Western art. He was the first Chinese ink painter to win the United Overseas Bank Painting of the Year Award in 1991. He began his art education under leading master ink painter Fang Chang Tien

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of the Shanghai School, but later developed a keen interest in Western art. The ability to blend traditional Chinese art forms with Western theories and techniques eventually resulted in Chua’s paintings being recognized as uniquely individualistic and he acquired a prominent place in the arts scene. He received the Cultural Medallion Award in 1999. Chua Ek Kay was born on 21 November 1947 in Chenghai, a Chaozhou county east of Shantou in Guangzhou Province, China. He was the eldest of seven children and grew up in China, later joining his family in Singapore at the age of seven in 1953. His father was a bookkeeper in the import and export business, and they lived in Liang Seah Street off Beach Road. His childhood memories of the area had a deep influence in his work and he made the district’s street scenes and old shophouses a regular subject of his paintings.The year he won the United Overseas Bank (UOB) Painting of the Year Award, the annual competition was in its tenth year and it was Chua’s brush painting of old buildings in Liang Seah Street, entitled, My Haunt, that won him the prize. Chua’s fascination with old shophouses lies in their architectural beauty, which he claims does not fade with time. His Singapore Street Scenes series of paintings has not only become a trademark of his paintings, but is also a major body of works that evokes nostalgia and captures part of Singapore’s history. Chua was exposed to Chinese cultural influences and art from early childhood. Soon after he arrived in Singapore, he began calligraphy lessons under his father Chua Ming Tiang, as a form of basic literacy building and character development. Later he was placed under the tutelage of Chua Tim Huang, a calligrapher well known in the Chua clan. By then, he was attending Kong Yong Primary School. His interest in calligraphy continued to grow during his Catholic High School

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days. Under the influence of sculptor Shui Tit Sing, calligrapher, poet, and classical scholar Li Huai Qiong, and classical scholar and poet Ma Zhong Siang, he cultivated an interest in classical Chinese poetry writing, Chinese literature, and the aesthetics of calligraphy. Often, he would transform his own poems into calligraphic script and paintings, adhering to the Chinese literati tradition of showcasing a combination of poetry, calligraphy, and painting, which has prevailed since the Sung Dynasty (960–1279 A.D). After graduating from Catholic High School in 1967, Chua continued to pursue his interest in calligraphy and was active in poetry circles. In 1975 he began traditional Chinese ink painting and seal-carving under the tutelage of Fan Chang Tien, a master who could trace his artistic heritage to the Shanghai School. For a period of almost eleven years, until Chua left for Hong Kong for business opportunities, Fan’s influence on him was marked. He not only imparted to Chua strong fundamentals of ink and brush, but also an aesthetic principle that emphasized the personal cultivation of the mind and the spirit. During the same period, Chua was an active member of the Hwa Hun Art Society which was founded in 1973 by Fan’s students. Members of the group met regularly at Chua’s residence between 1977 and 1985 to hone their techniques in ink painting and share their experiences. Through Fan, he was also introduced to other pioneer artists such as poet and calligrapher Pan Shou. By the early 1980s, Chua began showing his work in group exhibitions and participated regularly in the annual National Day Art Exhibitions. In 1985 at the age of thirty-eight, after taking on a variety of jobs for seventeen years that included running a restaurant, he quit his last position as a manager of a

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garment factory to become a full-time artist. He supplemented his income by teaching private students at the National University of Singapore’s Extra-Mural Studies Department. In 1988 he held his first solo exhibition in Chinese ink painting and calligraphy at the Chinese Chamber of Commerce.This humble success inspired him to further his art though formal art education. In 1989, he decided to enrol in the Advanced Diploma course in LaSalle College of the Arts. The time he spent in LaSalle was significant because Chua was able to incorporate new compositional strategies and creative impulses to his already proficient traditional Chinese ink painting skills. In 1991, one year after he graduated, Chua won the grand prize in the UOB Painting of the Year Competition. The winning entry, My Haunt, was an ink composition of shophouses and an alley in Seah Street, signifying a switch from mountains and lakes to his own local environment in his paintings while retaining the vivid expressiveness of the bold ink and brush free style of the Shanghai School. In the solo exhibition, Duality and Tension, in 1992, Chua continued to forge his own artistic identity by reinventing in the ink medium and embracing Singapore street scenes as the core subject, together with a small selection of works inspired by visits to Central Java and Spain. Feeling that he had not reached the end of his learning process, Chua proceeded to pursue a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the University of Tasmania on a study grant from the National Arts Council in 1993. Though he only took one year to complete the programme, the short one-year period not only allowed him to deepen his understanding of contemporary art forms and theories, but also provided him with the space to reassess his ink practice. By then, he was ready to pursue

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a Master degree in Fine Arts at the University of Western Sydney. For the next eighteen months, with encouragement from a Sydneybased, Singapore-born faculty member, Cheo Chai Hiang, he continued to focus on the medium of ink-and-brush and explored strategies of making ink more contemporary. For the final assessment, he produced fifteen works, including two landmark works, Lotus Pond-Becoming and Being and Song of Cicada. After completing his studies in Australia in 1996, he returned to Singapore and held his third solo exhibition the following year, sharing the new artistic directions taken in his studies and revisiting the familiar Singapore street scenes he had put aside for three years. Interestingly, the old shophouses and Singapore street scenes constantly occupied a main part of his body of creative work. The first series was produced in 1985 and he revisited the theme time and again with renewed insights and fresh approaches. As seen in his solo exhibitions Street Scenes Revisited (2001) and Chua Ek Kay Singapore Street Scenes-Evoking Memories (2007), the subject matter of his paintings do not appear to vary much from those before, but each revisit was a re-examination of his artistic growth, in terms of his thinking on art, his grasp of technique, or his evolving new approach. In fact, these artistic characteristics are equally evident in his other chosen subject matters or elements which inspired him. The Archipelago series (1999), the Reflections series (1998–2006) and the Chao series (2007), are, perhaps, examples of how he transformed his imagination to new conceptual dimensions, reducing the details with increasing levels of simplification and symbolization. Despite this, he never lost the fundamentals of Chinese ink and brush painting he had studied in his early days, even as his artistic style continued to evolve.

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In addition to the 1991 UOB 10th Painting of the Year Award Grand Prize, Chua was the Juror’s Choice of the Philip Morris Group of Companies ASEAN Art Awards in 1998. The following year, he was conferred the prestigious Cultural Medallion award by the Singapore Government in recognition of his artistic refinement as an artist and his contribution to Singapore Art. Chua was married with one child. He died in Singapore in 2008. Chia Wei Khuan R E F E R E N C E S Chu, M. Understanding Contemporary Southeast Asian Art. Singapore: Art Forum Pte Ltd, 2003. Gunalan, G. et al. (ed.). Contemporary Art in Singapore. Singapore: Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, 2007. Lee, J. (ed.). Chua Ek Kay Singapore Street ScenesEvoking Memories. Singapore: Singapore Management University, 2007. Ng, I. “Local Art Rules these Corridors of Power”. Straits Times, 9 January 2000. Purushothaman, V. (ed.). Narratives on a Cultural Journey: Cultural Medallion Recipients 1979–2001. Singapore: National Arts Council, 2002. Straits Times. “Profile — Chua Ek Kay”. 25 September 1999.

Chua, Gerry ( , Cai Ziqiang, 1962– ) Entrepreneur, pastry king, Philippines

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he success of the simple pastry snack, hopia, is largely due to the innovativeness of Gerry Chua, now known as the “hopia king”. Made with a local ingredient, the hopia was propelled to snack stardom and

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is now sought after by Filipinos all over the world. ), a Chinese term that Hopia ( literally means “good pastry”, has been a part of Filipino children’s growing up years before the advent of the hamburger and cake shops. Comprising a flaky crust with a traditional mung bean filling, this lowly snack food has now evolved into a household word and a favourite gift for Filipinos abroad hankering after Philippine food. Chua, who was born on 1 March 1962, recalls that when he first took over the family business, Eng Bee Tin, in 1987, its hopia was a little too tough to eat and there was not much filling inside. Because of this, customers and suppliers were put off. Everyday, Eng Bee Tin’s cheques would bounce and they had many debts. “However, I was filled with hope and determination that one day our business would grow,” Chua recounts. That day came at a time of sweltering heat in the metropolis. Needing some fresh coolers, he opted for the most common way — ice cream. He made his way to the local supermarket and talked to one of the sales ladies. Asked for her favorite flavour, she replied, “Ube (purple yam).” That very short conversation sparked Chua’s innovation — the ube-flavoured hopia. From baking to packaging it and then selling it in the provinces, Chua never once thought of giving up. Having no money to buy the sugar or flour and no helper to assist him did not see him crumble from the frustration he sometimes felt. Even his friends were telling him that his hopia ube would not click with customers, but all Chua said was, “Let’s see.” After buying six jars of ube, Chua travelled to Pampanga (approximately 70 km from Manila City) to get a better grasp of ube making under the tutelage of the best ube makers in the industry. He then attempted to market his ube-hopia abroad, but the response

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was not enthusiastic. Eng Bee Tin still did not flourish. The hopia has been around since 1912 and has always been known as a tough cookie to eat — hard from the crust to the centre — and that was why it did not gain popularity with customers. Chua would recount in numerous interviews that throwing the pastry against the wall would not make a dent in the rock hard hopia. Chua experimented with different ways of grinding the root crop and incorporating it into the hopia pastry. Then, he experimented on various ways of making the hopia’s texture more creamy. The end product is a flaky crust with a very sweet and creamy centre. Eng Bee Tin’s sales figures are currently a staggering 4,000–5,000 packs of hopia a day just in two flavours — hopia mongo (with mung bean) and hopia ube. The rest of the ten flavours’ combined sales also average 3,000 packs a day. Added to those numbers is the figure from year-round sale of tikoy ( a sweet rice cake normally eaten only during the lunar new year) and Chua’s innovation — sugar-free flavoured tikoy (corn, strawberry, and ube flavoured). Today, hopia ube is a star. It is a regular snack food, and for a nation that values morning and afternoon snacks, this is an exalted position indeed. Eng Bee Tin’s tikoy is also fast becoming popular. Though it is traditionally made and eaten only during the lunar new year, Chua decided to make the Chinese rice cake available all year round, and in a variety of flavours. As with the hopia, tikoy has gone beyond the confines of Chinatown and is now accepted and looked for within the mainstream community all year round. Even overseas Filipino workers can be seen with boxes of hopia and tikoy as they head for work abroad.

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With several Eng Bee Tin outlets all over the metropolis, with their tikoy, bread and cakes, Filipino treats that have evolved in different scrumptious flavours, plus his processed seafood and frozen products, Chua can count on his business continuing to soar. His influence in Philippine gastronomic delights through his business has made Eng Bee Tin a household name directly associated with hopia. Chua feels extremely proud for using a traditional Filipino ingredient to make something Filipinos have liked for years. No other nation has come out with a delicacy such as this. Only the Filipinos have hopia ube to be proud of. The product is truly a blend of the best of the worlds of the Chinese and the Filipino. Chua has been a volunteer firefighter since he was sixteen. (The Chinese-Filipino community established a network of volunteer fire fighters in the 1960s to respond to fire alarms because government fire fighters were not enough.) He was president of the Association of Philippine Volunteer Fire Brigades (APVFB) from 2005 to 2007. He also set up Café Mezzanine, with its proceeds donated to fire fighters. “It’s all for public service and besides, we can’t bring our money with us when we die,” he says. His godfather encouraged him to become a fire fighter when he turned sixteen. Just like his hopia business with its ups and downs, his experience as a volunteer fireman is no different. One of his fingers was ripped off on his second day in this role! He had rushed into a fire without any formal preparation. All he had with him was his suit. After the incident, he decided to be more careful with his actions and made sure that other fire volunteers attend workshops, seminars, or briefings on being properly equipped.

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After he stepped down from his presidency of the APVFB, he continued working for the welfare of fire volunteers. With the APVFB, Chua conceptualized and popularized the first nationwide fire alert communication system. Known as “Text Fire”, the system allows members to give an alert immediately when a fire occurs, and after verification, this information is again disseminated to all members — and everything is done through “texting” or SMS. The system enables firemen to respond immediately and help put out fires more promptly. It also enables Text Fire members to avoid passing through places where a fire is currently raging. Membership to Text Fire is free for anyone and membership recruitment is done simply by registering a mobile phone number with Text Fire. All these successes stem from his upbringing. He and his siblings all grew up without nannies or house helpers, as is common in Chinese-Filipino households. They have to be responsible enough for themselves to face life’s adversities. It was his mother who taught him the rudiments of cooking — things that he can still apply now in his own hopia kitchen. Eng Bee Tin hopia is now a legend in the Philippine food scene. Excel Dyquianco

R E F E R E N C E S Ang See, Carmelea. “Acculturation, Localization and Chinese Foodways in the Philippines”. In Tan Chee-Beng, ed. Chinese Food and Foodways in Southeast Asia and beyond. Singapore, NUS Press, 2011. Go Bon Juan. “The store that hopia built”. In Tulay Fortnightly, 5 February 1996, vol. 8, no. 16, pp. 15–16. Tulay Fortnightly. “Outstanding Tsinoys honored June 19”. Vol. 23, nos. 1-2, 20 June 2006, p. 19. Personal interview, May 2009.

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Chua Kaw Bing ( , Cai Qiuming, 1953– ) Paediatrician, virologist, Malaysia

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hua is the fourth in a family of six children. He was born on 13 August 1953 to a rubber-tapper family in Bertam Ulu, a small remote village in Malacca. His mother imparted to him and all his siblings the values of Christian faith — hard work and integrity. As the family was poor, Chua spent most of his childhood supplementing the family income by helping out on the farm, carrying water from the communal well, and collecting branches of dried rubber trees for cooking. Despite these hardships, he regards his childhood as interesting and carefree. He attributes his love of science to the Christian value of serving humanity, and to the fact that he grew up in an environment surrounded by nature. Chua received his primary school education in the Bertam Ulu village school. As the village was small and remote, the school was run by three teachers and a headmaster. Due to the poverty of the villagers, many children did not pursue education beyond primary school, so as to assist their parents on the farms or in tapping rubber trees. Chua would have had the same fate as these children had not the headmaster of the village school convinced Chua’s mother to allow him to continue secondary school education in Malacca town, a considerable distance from Bertam Ulu. The young Chua had to wake up at 5:00 am during school days to walk or cycle 2.5 miles of laterite road before catching a bus. Chua has fond memories of the Malacca Chinese High School, especially the fishing experience during breaks at one of the many

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paddy fields surrounding the school. He attended Form Six (pre-university) classes in Melaka High School, where he was oblivious to the lessons in class and frequently indulged in sports and outdoor games. This did not hinder him from obtaining excellent results in the Cambridge Higher School Certificate examination though, and he was given the school’s highest award, the Dr Thambipillay All-Rounder Award, and a recommendation to read Medicine at the University of Malaya. Chua graduated with bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery (MBBS) degrees from the University of Malaya in 1979, after which he worked as a house officer and medical officer at the University of Malaya teaching-hospital. He obtained his Paediatric Specialist Certification from the Royal College of Medicine in the United Kingdom in 1983. The following year, he obtained his master of medicine degree from the National University of Singapore, and worked as a paediatrician at the Chinese Maternity Hospital. The University of Malaya awarded him the doctor of medicine degree in 1998. Consequently he became a member of the Royal College of Pathologists in 1999, and earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree with distinction from the University of Malaya in 2002. Chua also served at the Lady Templer Specialist Centre and the Pertama Specialist Centre from 1986 to 1994, but his zeal for learning and research meant that he was not content with private practice, lucrative though it was. Instead, he returned to the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Malaya where he served as a lecturer in the Department of Medical Microbiology. His numerous discoveries brought him and his work much attention and he was subsequently appointed clinical virologist in 1996 and associate professor in 1999. In 2001 he was

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appointed professor of Paediatrics and Medical Microbiology at the International Medical University. In 2003 he accepted an invitation from the Malaysian Ministry of Health to serve as a consultant clinical virologist at the National Public Health Laboratory (NPHL). His primary role was to set up a world-class diagnostic virology laboratory and a diagnostic Biosafety Level 3 laboratory complex, where he established a high-capacity national cellline bank and instituted molecular virology to support infectious disease surveillance and outbreak investigation, and was involved in the innovative Jui Meng (JM) cell culture tube project for diagnostic virology, which reduced the cost and enhanced the biosafety of virus isolation. Fuelled by his interest in the zoonotic transmission of infectious agents to humans, Chua systematically studied the microbial flora in bat urine. This led to his discovery of the Tioman virus, which is closely related to the Menangle virus that is the culprit causing abortion and stillbirths in pigs and influenzalike illnesses in humans. Chua also sequenced the Tioman virus genome, enhancing the knowledge of paramyxovirus molecular genetics. He also isolated the Pulau virus and shed new light on the reservoir host of the Nelson Bay virus, a closely related reovirus isolated in Australia in the 1960s. The outbreak of Nipah virus encephalitis in 1999 was a tragic event for Malaysia and Singapore as there were nearly 300 victims and more than a hundred deaths. Equally disastrous were the economic repercussions from the near collapse of the pig farming and export industry. Chua’s discovery of the Nipah virus was pivotal as it led to the adoption of effective control strategies to end the outbreak. The isolation of the virus from patients’ excretions led to health care and public health workers

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taking strict precautions when they looked after patients. In turn, this averted a potential secondary outbreak among the health care workers and the workers responsible for cleaning the environment. As Pteropid fruit bats were suspected of carrying the Nipah virus, Chua personally collected urine samples and partially eaten fruits from the bats so that he could isolate the virus. These studies, performed at great personal risk, proved that the virus was carried by the bats. They also helped scientists to understand the way in which the virus was transmitted from bats to pigs and then to farmers. This knowledge was applied in the investigation to help Bangladesh when it experienced recurrent Nipah virus encephalitis outbreaks in 2001. Chua’s novel way of collecting urine from the bats has been adopted by many researchers elsewhere, including scientists in Cambodia, China, Bangladesh, and Thailand. Not only did this lead to the isolation of the Nipah virus, but it also indirectly contributed to Chinese and Australian scientists discovering that bats were the natural reservoir hosts of the SARSCo virus as well. His method of collecting bat urine is good for wildlife conservation as it does not kill the bats. Chua was the first to work out the complex interplay of events resulting in the transmission of the Nipah virus from bats to pigs and then to humans. The United States’ National Institutes of Health (NIH) heeded his postulation that ecological destruction had led to the emergence of the new pathogen. As a result, the NIH provided him with a grant of US$1.4 million to study the ecology and natural reservoirs of the Nipah virus. In addition to isolating the Nipah virus, Chua in 1996, was also the first Malaysian person to isolate the Human Herpesvirus 6 and 7 (HHV-6, HHV-7) from children who had exanthema subitum or sudden rash, and

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his discovery enabled clinicians to diagnose the infection early to administer treatment. In 1997 Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease (HFMD) broke out among children in Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia and resulted in many deaths. Chua overturned previous belief and positively identified the EV71 virus as the cause of acute encephalomyelitis. In the 2000 outbreak, new causes were found in the following two years, which dissipated the public pressure to shut down a petroleum refinery plant, believed to be causing conjunctivitis by air pollution. In 1999 Chua identified the Chikungunya virus as the cause of an outbreak of febrile arthritis in Port Klang, and identified it to be responsible for the 2006 outbreak in Bagan Panchur, Perak, while proving the genetical link between the two. Chua also isolated the Melaka virus and the Kampar virus from patients with influenzalike illnesses in 2007, and discovered that they were orthoreoviruses. In the course of the viral studies, Chua observed an intracellular microbe in tissue culture cells.This led to his discovery of a novel bacterium, Waddlia malaysiensis. This finding helped to shed light on the transmission of Waddlia chondrophila, a bacterium causing abortion in cattle. Chua is the main driving force of the ASEAN+3 Emerging Infectious Disease Programme’s laboratory component, in which Malaysia is the coordinating country. He is a regular speaker on emerging viral infection at regional scientific conferences, and frequently serves as adviser for the World Health Organization (WHO) on emerging infectious disease outbreaks in the region. He has four children with his wife, Loh Kwee Fong, a schoolteacher. Tan Chong Tin

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R E F E R E N C E S Chua, Kaw Bing, Beng Hooi Chua, and Chee Woon Wang. “Deforestation and the Nipah virus in Malaysia”. In Poverty, Health, and Ecosystems: Experience from Asia, edited by P. Steele, G. Oviedo, and D. McCauley, pp. 109–13. Cambridge: IUCN, 2006. Chua Kaw Bing. “Personal Account of Nipah Virus Outbreak”. No date. (accessed 12 July 2011). Malaysia’s Who’s Who 2007, vol. 1, 4th edition. Malaysia: Kasuya Management Sdn. Bhd., 2007.

Chua Mia Tee ( , Cai Mingzhi, 1931– ) Artist, Singapore

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hua Mia Tee is one of Singapore’s most famous and skilled realistic artists and is known for his vivid renditions of significant events in Singapore history. He is best known for his oil paintings, which depict the traditional urban landscapes of Singapore. Two of his widely discussed works among local practitioners and students of visual arts are “National Language Class” (1959) and “Workers in the Canteen” (1974). Chua is also renowned for his mastery of portrait painting. Over the decades, he has captured on canvas a large number of prominent faces in the Singapore scene, including businessmen, politicians, past and present presidents, and prime ministers. He has also had a hand in the design of the local currency. His portrait of the late PresidentYusof bin Ishak can be found on Singapore currency notes, and his creativity and artistic talent can also be seen on the fifty-dollar commemorative banknote that celebrates Singapore’s 25th year of independence. He was also commissioned to design a limited edition one-million-dollar commemorative note that marks the historic handover of Hong Kong to China.

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Chua was born in Shantou, Guangdong Province, China, in 1931. When he was six years old, his family relocated to Singapore to escape the turmoil of the Sino-Japanese War. In later years, his childhood experiences, such as playing along the banks of the Singapore River, influenced him in his choice of themes and subjects. From an early age, Chua was interested in art, painting, and sketching, an inclination that was strongly supported by his father, an artist. Chua’s early education took place at Shuqun School, followed by Tuan Mong School. In 1947, he enrolled in Chung Cheng High School, but was not there for long — moving on instead to embark on a formal arts education at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA). At NAFA, Chua honed his fundamental skills under the guidance of NAFA director Lim Hak Tai and artists Cheong Soo Pieng, Koh Tong Leong, and See Hiang To. He received formal training in drawing, sketching with watercolours and painting, both with oils on canvas and with Chinese ink and colours on paper. He also dabbled in modelling with plasticine and plaster of Paris. Chua’s talent as an artist was evident even during these early days. While still a NAFA student, he was asked to teach parttime, and continued to teach at NAFA as a full-time staff member after he graduated in 1952. Two years later, Chua resumed his secondary school studies at Chung Cheng High before returning to NAFA to teach from 1956 to 1957. In the 1953 Chinese High School Arts Association catalogue, one will find oils, woodcuts, and drawings by Chua Mia Tee, and other artists including LimYew Kuan, Lee Boon Wang, and Lai Kui Fang. In later years, these artists, as members of the Equator Art Society, would come together to oppose actively the formalist and newer “western” trends in art

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that were regarded as detrimental to the development of a national identity in art. After leaving NAFA, Chua worked in the commercial art industry for a number of years. He joined the Shanghai Book Company in 1957, where he worked as a book illustrator. In 1960, he moved on to Grant Advertising International as a designer and illustrator, creating figure drawings for advertisements and comic strips. In 1965, he worked with Federal Publications (part of the Times Publishing Group) as an illustrator and designer of books and remained there for close to a decade. It was not until 1974 that Chua began to make more waves among local artists.That year, he staged his first solo exhibition at the Rising Art Gallery, which was met with widespread acclaim. This set the stage for his subsequent decision to become a full-time artist, drawing inspiration and subjects from the sights and scenes that surround him. Many of Chua’s early works depict traditional scenes of life in Singapore that were under threat from the onslaught of urban redevelopment. Chua paints in a realistic style that not only captured the essence of places, but also the spirit of the people associated with these places. Chua once said that as an artist, he saw the urgency to capture these scenes before they were lost from Singapore’s cityscape forever. Such scenes include “Road Construction Worker” (1955) and “Singapore River” (1983). Chua also captured the political and social climate during Singapore’s road to independence in the 1950s and 1960s, as seen in paintings such as “Epic of Life in Malaya” (1955) and “National Language Class” (1959). Since the late 1970s, Chua has travelled all over the world, with sojourns in Hong Kong, Bali, Java, Spain, and Italy to draw inspiration for his work. Some of the artists Chua admires are Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, Velazquez, Goya, and Yefimovich Repin. He works

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largely with oil on canvas and usually begins by painting on location before proceeding to refine and complete the process. To Chua, the purpose of realistic art is to help the audience to understand and identify with the work, and to interpret the essence of a subject in a manner that others will be able to appreciate. Chua also paints depictions of Singaporean places and people based on his visual recollections. Occasionally, he relies on photographic aids to recall details or to serve as a substitute for clients who are unable to turn up for portrait sittings. He also works with other media such as acrylic, mixed media, watercolours, bronze, and relief. One of his best known sculptures is a portrait bust of Zubir Said or “Mr Majulah Singapura”, who composed Singapore’s national anthem. Over the decades, Chua has had a hand in capturing some of Singapore’s most historic moments for posterity. He painted former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s return from London after the Merdeka Talks; the swearingin ceremony of then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, cabinet ministers and Members of Parliament. In 2004, he painted the portrait of President S. R. Nathan for his 80th birthday. Chua is well known for his works not just locally, but in the international art scene as well. He has staged exhibitions in various countries including Australia, Belgium, Germany, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Thailand. His solo shows include a 1988 exhibition at the National Museum of Singapore, a 1985 exhibition at the Lone Pine Gallery, and the British Council Art Gallery, Singapore, in 1974 and 1982. He has also taken part in group exhibitions at the Chinese Chamber of Commerce (1980) and the National Museum Art Gallery, Brunei (1989). His works are also in high demand among discerning private collectors and the corporate

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world. Organizations that have acquired his works include the American Embassy, IBM Corporation, DBS Bank, Credit Suisse, Hong Leong Organization, and the Singapore Island Country Club. In August 2005, the Singapore Art Museum received a donation of 95 artworks from Times Publishing Limited which included Chua’s works and those of other notable Singapore artists such as Cheong Soo Pieng, Choo Keng Kwang, Shi Xiangtuo, Ng Eng Teng, Seah Kim Joo and Lee Boon Wang. His works are also displayed in public collections at the National Museum, Ministry of Community Development,Youth and Sports, and the Urban Redevelopment Authority. Chua has also contributed to the arts community in Singapore, sharing his vast experience with the next generation of visual artists and arts management professionals. The portfolios he has held include that of professional consultant to the NAFA Alumni Association, chairman of the editorial board of Nanyang Arts, chairman of the selection board for creative artists contributed by the Association, and life member of the Singapore Arts Society and the NAFA Alumni Association. G. Uma Devi R E F E R E N C E S Cai, M. Z. “Chua Mia Tee, 1988”. Singapore: National Museum, 1988. Chia, W. H. Singapore Artists, p. 9. Singapore: Singapore Cultural Foundation [and] Federal Publications, 1982. Lim, R. (ed.). Singapore Artists Speak, pp. 32–35. Singapore: Raffles Editions, 1998. Linda Gallery website. (accessed March 2011). Low, K.T. (ed.). Who’s who in Singapore 2006, p. 117. Singapore: Who’s Who Pub, 2006. Yap, F. “A Definitive S’pore Artist”. The Straits Times, 2 September 2000.

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Chua Soo Bin ( , Cai Simin, 1932– ) Photographer, artist, art dealer, gallerist, Singapore

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hua Soo Bin is a renowned Singapore photographer and gallerist. In 1988 he received Singapore’s highest artistic accolades, the Cultural Medallion, for his much-lauded photography series, “Liuzhen: ) in which he Portraits of Excellence” ( shot portraits of some of the leading Chinese ink artists of the twentieth century. He is also widely regarded today as having been one of the most important art dealers in the Chinese contemporary art market; a pioneer in surfacing and bringing onto the market works of some of the current crop of important Chinese contemporary artists such as Yue Minjun, Mao Tongqiang, and Liu Wei. His profile as a photographer, and then later as a gallerist, has earned him a place of considerable and continued importance in the visual and photographic circles in Singapore, Southeast Asia, and China. Chua was born in Singapore in 1932 to humble beginnings. Living with his extended family in Aliwal Street, he attended Chong Zhen Primary School. His earliest exposure to art came when he studied under Singapore pioneer modern artist Cheong Soo Pieng in night art classes at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. After completing his primary school education, he became an apprentice at Papineau, a small advertising firm in Singapore, working as an illustrator before moving on to a number of other advertising firms in Singapore. His interest in photography developed in the early 1950s when he acquired his first camera, a Rolliflex, and built his own darkroom at home.

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During the 1950s, he deepened his understanding of photography by shooting and exhibiting in salon photography exhibitions. Throughout that decade, he was an active member of the Singapore Camera Club — later known as the Photographic Society of Singapore — organizing exhibitions and judging at various open-call competitions. In 1955, he made his first mark as a photographer by obtaining a silver medal for a work submitted to the Singapore Camera Club’s 3rd Pan-Malayan Photographic Exhibition. The same year, he became the youngest person in Singapore to be awarded the Associate of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain (A.R.P.S.). The following year, he participated further in competitions and was a gold and bronze medals winner at the 4th PanMalayan Photographic Exhibition. In this early part of his career, Chua thought of his own photographic practice as “chasing shadow and light”. In particular, he liked to shoot against the dominant source of light to achieve an atmospheric effect in his works. In the 1960s, as he continued salon photography alongside work as an art director in various advertising firms, he also began to take on commercial photography projects. Photographers who have come to the fore today, such as Wee Khim and John Clang, have been apprentices under Chua Soo Bin. By the 1970s, he had set up his own photographic studio, taking on freelance assignments from leading advertising companies and art directors in and outside of Singapore. His studio was situated out of his home at 16E Fort Road. Corporate clients included Singapore Airlines and other airlines, tourism bodies, and companies both local and international, such as Isetan and Female. Some of his most significant works from the period were in portraiture photography, where his strength

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of being able to draw out the essence of his subject matter’s soul and personality stood out the clearest. Some of the most enduring images of the world famous Singapore Airlines’ Singapore Girl were shot by him in the 1980s. In 1985, the images he shot for Singapore Airlines won a top prize at the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Award and this was quickly followed by a Singapore Creativity Award in 1986. As with many works of art of significance, the origin of Chua Soo Bin’s “Liuzhen” ( ) series of portraits was most fortituous. He was on a Singapore Airlines photographic assignment in China in 1984 when he noticed a dearth of pictorial documentation on senior Chinese artists. Personally appreciative of their works, Chua lamented the lack of interest and coverage of their works and lives and decided to embark on a photography project with the artists as subject matters, essentially to record a part of their artistic personas and legacies. With assistance from his friends and fellow artists, Li Xingjian and Huang Miaozi, he made a shortlist of artists to photograph and was introduced to some of them. Over the next five years, he set off on a self-funded project that took him five years to complete and involved his flying to China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, New York, and Europe many times to interview and photograph the selected artists and to negotiate the publication of the book of his photographs. These photographs were compiled with notes on the artists and culminated in “Liuzhen: Portraits of Excellence”, a critically acclaimed landmark photographic exhibition on fourteen modern Chinese ink painters, including Li Keran, Wu Zuoren, and Guan Shanyue, held at the Singapore National Museum. The prints revealed poignant moments in the artists’ personal lives, recording

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them both as individuals and as artists. The exhibition of the prints was opened by then Brigadier-General Lee Hsien Loong and presented by the Singapore Art Society, the Photographic Society of Singapore, and the San Yi Finger Painting Society. In conjunction with the publication of a photo book, the show later travelled to major Chinese cities such as Hong Kong, Taipei, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenyang, Hangzhou, Xi’an, and Guangzhou. Eighteen photographs from the series were subsequently donated to the Singapore Art Museum in 2006. After “Liuzhen”, Chua continued to photograph important figures in the Chinese and Singapore artworld, including the likes of Wu Guanzhong, Pan Shou, Zhou Sicong, Wu Tsai Yen, and Liu Kang. In particular, his portraits of Wu Guanzhong have been regarded as the best done of the artist by any photographer. In August 2011, he exhibited the latest installation of “Liuzhen” at the Zhejiang Art Museum in Hangzhou, China, adding yet another venue to the widelytravelled photographic exhibition. In conjunction with the exhibition, he also published the revised second edition of the “Liuzhen” catalogue. In 1990, he founded Soo Bin Art ), known today as Soo Bin Gallery ( Art International. The gallery initially focused on the works of Chinese ink painters Wu Guanzhong, Chu Teh-Chun, and Chen Wen Hsi, and Singapore artists, although the latter did not sell as well as the former. In 1997, the noted Chinese art curator, Li Xianting, curated the exhibition “Red/Grey” in Chua’s gallery. It was with that exhibition that he began exhibiting emerging avant-garde Chinese artists of the 1980s, such as Wang Guangyi, Yue Minjun, Liu Wei, and Zhou Chunya. Over the years, he mounted solo

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exhibitions of many of these artists, playing a key role in introducing them to Singaporeans and regional art collectors alike. Indeed, Chua can be regarded as the key figure in generating the earliest interest in Chinese contemporary art in the Southeast Asian region from the late 1990s onwards. From its beginning until today, Chua Soo Bin’s gallery has mounted about 150 exhibitions. Over the years, he has built a good reputation championing local artists and cultivating the interests of collectors and other gallerists alike. Oftentimes, his taste and discernment are cited as key reasons for his success as a dealer. He is also known for his regard for the views of artists he works with, supporting them with his friendship and generosity. As a leading gallerist in Asia, Chua has been the chairperson of the Singapore Gallery Association and also guided the first instalments of the Singapore-based art fair, ART Singapore, from 2000 to 2004 as its chairperson. Chua is married to Liew Choo Hsien and they have three sons — Chua Cher Wei, Chua Cher Tzien, and Chua Cher Him. He is presently based out of Singapore and shuttles between Singapore and China regularly. Wang Zineng R E F E R E N C E S Chua, S. B. Legends: Soo Bin’s Portraits of Chinese Ink Masters. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2006. Chua, S. B. Portraits of Fourteen Great Contemporary Chinese Artists, 1989. “Power of ten — Chua Soo Bin: An Artist’s Artist”. ZbBZ · 》，(1), 15. October 2009. 《 Soo Bin Art Int’l [Gallery]. (accessed 21 January 2010). Teo, H. W. Introduction in Legends: Soo Bin’s Portraits of Chinese Ink Masters. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2006.

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Chua, William T. ( , Ding Keming, 1955–2004) Human rights lawyer, Philippines

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hroughout his life, William Chua made a difference by consistently and wholeheartedly striving for the restoration of democracy, the protection and vindication of human rights, and the protection of human dignity. His tireless pursuit of justice has not only resulted in court victories, but also opened the nation’s eyes to the plight of victims, and the imperfections in the Philippine justice system. Chua’s baptism of fire as an activist began during his years in university, when martial law was declared by President Ferdinand Marcos. He often recounted his “adventure” in the trunk of his professor’s car as his teacher spirited him away from the university’s campus as the military police went in. “He got more and more involved in the anti-Marcos movement in our latter years in La Salle,” his university friend, Jeff Yao, recalls. “Looking back, [one realizes] it would be the turning point in his life as he would decide to take law after college and then start off his law career helping those less fortunate than us.” Chua’s parents, Martin and Songo, arrived in the Philippines from Jinjiang in Fujian, China, during the late 1940s when war was ravaging the mainland, causing much poverty and misery. Years earlier, Songo was sold by her mother to a wealthy family, where the head of the household was a gambler and an opium addict. She was barely sixteen when she and her husband decided to make a new life for themselves and left China.This new life was tough though, as they were very poor and

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had to do odd jobs to make ends meet. They had four sons and when the kids got sick, she would wait for hours in a rich relative’s house just to borrow money for their medical fees. Too poor to give birth in hospital, Songo gave birth to Chua on 6 October 1955 in a small rented house in Manila. Life was not easy, but Songo never became bitter. Instead, she worked hard to give her children the best education possible. Despite the hardships, she borrowed money to send all the boys to Xavier, an exclusive Chinese-Filipino school in San Juan. Chua always said that it was difficult being a poor boy in a rich man’s school, but he and his siblings valued their mother’s efforts and sacrifices. Eventually, things got better and Songo was able to send the boys either to the De La Salle or Ateneo de Manila universities. The boys were successful in their mother’s eyes. Robert, the eldest, is a businessman; George is a corporate executive;William became a lawyer, and Peter, a businessman. Chua was greatly inspired by his mother, who always helped others in need despite her own financial difficulties. As Chua’s wife, Betty, revealed: “From her, he learned the value of hard work, perseverance, drive to succeed and generosity despite hardship.” During the Marcos era, Chua satirized the excesses of the dictatorship by publishing and editing an occasional opposition publication called Sick of the Times. Later, as a member of the Movement of Attorneys for Brotherhood, Integrity, Nationalism Inc., he became active in human rights work and advocacy, especially during the martial law years, which extended beyond the end of the dictatorship, when many problems still remained. In the early 1990s, the country was beset with a spate of kidnappings of mostly Chinese-Filipinos. At the height of the crime

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spree, there would be a kidnapping incident every other day. Chua became a lawyer for the Citizens Action Against Crime and Movement for Restoration of Peace and Order (MRPO). He prosecuted more than twenty kidnapping cases, mostly pro bono. His efforts resulted in a 100-per cent conviction rate. Teresita Ang-See, spokesperson of the MRPO, related how Chua helped convince victims not to be cowards like their abductors, but to start fighting back rather than taking flight. “He stood as our counsel during the long, dreary, tedious and difficult fight for justice,” she says. He mobilized his staff at the Arroyo Chua Caedo and Coronel Law Office (formerly the Azcuna Yorac Sarmiento Arroyo and Chua) to do research and help in painstaking preparations to convict the kidnappers. “There are lawyers and lawyers and lawyers, but there was only one Chua who fought the kidnap-for-ransom groups as if he himself were the victim.” In 1992, Chua acted as counsel for then Makati Congressman Joker P. Arroyo, and exposed a syndicate existing inside the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET) that manipulated and corrupted results of electoral protests. His complaint led to the dismissal of several officials of the HRET, including the tribunal’s clerk. The same year, he assisted the government’s peace efforts by acting as the personal and confidential liaison between then National Unification Commission chairperson Haydee Yorac and leftist insurgents. Chua’s tireless pursuit of justice earned him court victories, and also revealed the plight of victims and the imperfections in the Philippine justice system. In the process, he dared powerful forces to silence his defiance. As Chua’s friend, Maris I. Diokno, explained, “What impressed me was that he kept on going despite the setbacks. Each defeat he took with righteous anger, not grief; and every

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victory, no matter how small, he relished with gusto.” A friend, Robin Tong, added that Chua not only was a man for others, but he also chose to do very difficult things, sacrificed a lot personally, and often put himself in harm’s way — so that others would gain courage, and the real cowards would be unmasked for who and what they were. Chua also provided legal services to the Foundation for Worldwide People Power Inc. and the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ). Sheila S. Coronel from the latter affirmed that although they never paid him any fees, they could call on him on weekends or late at night without having to feel like they were imposing on him. Chua took his law practice seriously. To him, it was more than just a job. It was a calling. And through all the twists and turns of his quite successful professional career, he never lost sight of the ideals that made him pursue law in the first place: right the wrong — the fundamental belief was about justice and compassion. The PCIJ’s exposés on presidential excesses helped open investigations and, later on, the impeachment against President Joseph Estrada. Chua was instrumental in making sure that the exposés stuck to the truth, that journalistic integrity was not compromised, and that all claims were backed by evidence. Chua passed away on 13 December 2004, at the age of forty-nine, after a six-month battle with pancreatic cancer. A year before his death, he was awarded 2003 Dr Jose P. Rizal Awards for Excellence, organized by the Manila Times and Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran. President Gloria M. Arroyo, Chinese Ambassador Wang ), and officers of the Filipino Chungui ( Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industries were on hand to present the award to celebrate Filipino-Chinese Friendship Day. The awards

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are given to Outstanding Chinese Filipinos who have made significant contributions to different fields in the Philippine society. His name has since been added to the Wall of Remembrance at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani (Monument of Heroes) in Quezon City. The structures at the Bantayog complex are dedicated to “the nation’s modern-day martyrs and heroes who fought against all odds to help regain freedom, peace, justice, truth and democracy in the country”. Chua’s son, Derek, asserted during his eulogy for his father that,“If in the past, people thought that his work was trivialised because of lack of recognition or because he did not receive much in return, now I can see that his work really meant something. His work was anything BUT trivial,” he expounded, thanking everyone who came to pay their last respects.“By being here, you have all given him the best reward and recognition, far greater than what he could have received when he was still alive – you are all giving him back love, respect and honor. I’m sure he could ask for nothing more.” Ruth Manimtim-Floresca R E F E R E N C E S Ang-See, Teresita. “A Void that Can’t Be Filled.” Tulay Fortnightly, 4 January 2005, pp. 10–11. Coronel, Shiela. “Lawyering, a Calling for William”. Tulay Fortnightly, 4 January 2005, pp. 12–13. Tong, Robin. “The William that I knew”. Tulay Fortnightly, 4 January 2005, pp. 9, 11. Yao, Jeff. “Batchmate, Kumpare and Friend”. Tulay Fortnightly, 4 January 2005, pp. 10–11. Yorac, Haydee. “Champion of causes”. Tulay Fortnightly, 4 January 2005, pp. 10–11. Personal interview with family members — Betty Chua (wife), Kassie Chua (daughter), Derek Chua (son), in July 2009.

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Chuan Likphai ( , Lü Jiwen, 1938– ) Leading politician,Thailand

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ormer Thai Prime Minister Chuan Likphai was born in Trang, a commercial centre on the west coast of southern Thailand. His roots lay in the predominantly Hokkien and Cantonese community that emerged in the final decades of the nineteenth century in the vicinity of Thap Thiang, to which Trang’s provincial administration moved at the time of the First World War. Until the take-off of the southern Thai rubber sector during the second and third decades of the twentieth century, the primary economic activity of this community was the cultivation of black pepper. It exported that commodity, along with a range of other goods, to Penang, to which Trang Chinese society was closely connected for many decades and to which it sent many of its sons for their educations. Chuan was born in Thai Phru Subdistrict on the outskirts of Trang town on 28 July 1938. He was the third of nine children of Siam-born Hokkien parents, the schoolteacher Eng Huat or Niyom, and the wholesale fish trader and clay shingle maker Kim Thuan (popularly known simply as “Mae Thuan” or “Mother Thuan”). Chuan’s father taught at the municipal school at Wat Khuan Wiset and also at the Chinese Sin Wa School. His mother traded in markets across Trang Province, including those serving the mines of the province’s interior. Having begun his education at the municipal primary and secondary schools at Wat Khuan Wiset and having studied Chinese after school, Chuan enrolled as a member of the first class of students to attend the Thai-medium Trang Witthaya School. This

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secondary school operated under the auspices of Trang’s most significant Chinese voluntary organization, the Association for the Promotion of Education, chaired by the renowned Trang Chinese leader, the Hakka Man Sinchai. As a young man, Chuan was known as “Ko Wun” in Trang Chinese circles, in which virtually all men go by a nickname preceded by “ko”. After Chuan completed Matthayom 6 at Trang Witthaya School in 1956, Niyom Likphai wanted him to continue his studies in Penang. The family’s means did not permit this, however. Following in his older brother’s footsteps, Chuan thus moved to Bangkok to pursue his education on a provincial teaching scholarship. He enrolled in the painting, drawing, and sculpture section of the preparatory school for Thailand’s fine arts university, Sinlapakorn University, and also arranged to live at Wat Amarintharam on the Thonburi side of the Chao Phraya River opposite Sinlapakorn and Thammasat Universities. He would lodge at the temple for eight years, through his graduation from the Faculty of Law at Thammasat University in 1962 and his admission as a full member of the Thai Bar after further study. Chuan practised law in Chonburi Province for two years before deciding to enter politics. He won his first campaign for parliament as a member for Trang in the watershed Thai elections of 1969. Representing his native province in parliament ever since that first victory, he gained a reputation as a tough and skilled debater, a man whom supporters credited with attachment to principle and whom critics accused of inordinate and selfrighteous legalism. Thailand’s 1969 elections saw an unprecedented number of candidates, including many provincial Chinese with commercial backgrounds, winning seats alongside

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candidates from bureaucratic backgrounds of the sort that had previously dominated the Thai parliament. Having run as a member of the Democrat Party, Chuan would emerge quickly as a leading young star of that party’s southern wing, which at the time counted as its informal leader the influential Nakhon Si Thammarat journalist and politician, Surin Matsadit. Entering the Thai cabinet for the first time in February 1975, less than two years after the events of 14 October 1973 had brought a temporary end to military government in Thailand, Chuan served as deputy minister of justice in the government of Democrat Party leader and Prime Minister Seni Pramot. He was named minister of justice in 1976. As the political tensions of that year escalated towards their violent climax on 6 October, Chuan and fellow “progressive” Democrat ministers Surin Matsadit and Damrong Latthaphiphat faced a thuggish campaign of criticism and intimidation in the print and broadcast media and on the streets. Elements in the military, right-wing politicians, and members of the Village Scouts accused them of leftist sympathies and even of communism. Chuan was named minister of justice again in 1980, as a member of General Prem Tinasulanon’s first government. In subsequent Prem cabinets he held the commerce, agriculture and cooperatives, and education portfolios. He served as speaker of the lower house of the Thai parliament during 1986–88 and in the latter year joined the first cabinet of Prime Minister Chatchai Chunhawan as minister of public health. By the end of the 1980s, Chuan had become a southern Thai Democrat Party heavyweight, even as he retained a reputation for probity in the often corrupt world of Thai

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politics. His personal popularity in the midSouth would work increasingly to solidify electoral support for his party there. In 1991 he succeeded the prominent Hong Kongeducated Bangkok Chinese business leader, Phichai Rattakun to become the first leader of the Democrat Party from a provincial background. He would lead the party until 2003. Chuan captained the Democrats in Thailand’s March 1992 elections in a campaign that saw him introduce to the electorate his young protégé, the future Democrat leader and prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva. Following those elections, Chuan and the Democrats played an active but cautious role in opposing the premiership of General Suchinda Kraprayun, the mastermind of the 1991 Thai coup. Ceding to Chamlong Srimuang and a group of political activists the leading role in organizing the demonstrations that drove Suchinda from power in the urban violence of May 1992, the Democrats nevertheless fought the September 1992 polls as one of the anti-military “Angel parties”. The Democrats won the largest number of seats in the September 1992 elections, and Chuan began his first premiership, which lasted until the general elections of July 1995. Democrat politicians’ involvement in a serious land reform scandal precipitated those latter polls. During both the 1992–95 period and the period of his second premiership, Chuan and his party very much depended on the political skills of Democrat secretary general Major General Sanan Khachonprasat, a master of Thailand’s money politics, for their success. Following two years as leader of the parliamentary opposition, Chuan again became premier in the immediate aftermath of a national crisis. He was returned to the Thai premiership by a vote of parliament rather than through fresh elections in November 1997,

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as the country sought to come to grips with its economic collapse in the Asian Financial Crisis. Though a lifelong civilian, he also took the defence portfolio. Thailand’s efforts to cope with the fallout of the crisis defined Chuan’s second premiership. With his minister of finance, Tharin Nimmanhaemin, Chuan faced criticism that the government caved in to the demands of the International Monetary Fund and catered to foreign at the expense of Thai interests. Such sentiments doomed the Democrats to defeat at the hands of Thaksin Shinawatra’s Thai Rak Thai Pary in 2001. In 2003 Chuan relinquished the leadership of his party. He remained chairman of its advisory board, an influential party strategist, and political patron of Abhisit. As an important behind-the-scenes player in his party’s approach to the deep and critical divide between “red” and “yellow” that characterized Thai politics after 2006, he adopted an uncompromisingly legalist stance that belied his earlier reputation for progressive politics. It was a stance that reinforced the image of Chuan as both a man with little sympathy for his country’s poor that he had acquired during his second premiership and as a southern regionalist with little interest in the North and the North-east of the country. In 1987 Chuan’s only child, a son named Surabot Likphai, was born to Phakdiphon Sucharitkun. Even as prime minister, Chuan maintained a famously modest lifestyle, residing deep down a soi in a rather poor part of Bangkok. Despite the money-driven and often scandal-plagued political arena in which he spent decades, he also maintained a reputation for incorruptibility. His long service as a member of parliament for Trang resulted in very little of the sort of lavish state spending on infrastructure there that former Prime Minister Banharn Silpa-archa directed towards his own

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native province of Suphanburi. Despite his attachment to principle and procedure, Chuan was rarely identified with any defining political vision for his country and society. Michael J. Montesano R E F E R E N C E S Montesano, Michael J. “Capital, State, and Society in the History of Chinese-Sponsored Education in Trang”. In Thai South and Malay North: Ethnic Interactions on a Plural Peninsula, edited by Michael Montesano and Patrick Jory, pp. 231–72. Singapore: NUS Press, 2008. Morell, David, and Chai-Anan Samudavanija. Political Conflict in Thailand: Reform, Reaction, Revolution. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Oelgeschlager, Gunn & Hain, 1981. Narong Phokkasem. Chuan Likphai: The Prime Minister who was a Temple Boy (Chuan Likphai nayok ratthamontri thi mak chak dek wat). Chiang Mai: The Knowledge Center, 2001. Roengsak Kamthon. Chuan Likphai: Son of a Fish-Belly Trader, from Common Man to Twentieth Prime Minister (Chuan Leekphai luk mae kha phung pla chak samanchon su nayok ratthamontri khon thi yisip). Bangkok: Bangluang, 1992. Witsanu Sapsuwan (compiler). Son of Mae Thuan: Chuan Likphai (Luk Mae Thuan Chuan Likphai). Nonthaburi: Chalong Bun, 2007. Yip Phanchan. The Life and Dreams of “Thuan Likphai” in House Number 183 (chiwit lae khwam faifan khong Thuan Likphai nai ban lekthi 183). Bangkok: Sinlapawannakam, n. d.

Chuan Tanthana (Tan Kenchuan, , Chen Jingchuan, 1900–47) Community leader,Thailand

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huan Tanthana was a Chinese community leader in Thailand during the 1930s and 1940s. He initiated the founding of the Teochew Association of Thailand in 1936 and was a member of the executive committee

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of the Thai Chinese Chamber of Commerce. He was highly regarded by the Nationalist government in China. After World War Two had ended, he was selected as the representative of the ethnic Chinese in Thailand and attended ), organized the National Assembly ( by the Nationalist government, where his suggestions were heeded, twice. Chuan’s ancestry can be traced to Xiyang Village (which is now affiliated to Chenghai City), Longdu Town, in Raoping County of Guangdong Province. He was born on 13 March 1901 in Bangkok, the second son of a rich Chinese merchant. From young, he received a good education and was able to understand the Chinese, English, and Thai ), languages. His father, Chen Ningsi ( first made his fortune in Thailand by trading, after which he entered the entertainment business. The famous “Tian Wai Tian Theater” ) in the downtown area of ( Bangkok was founded by him. Chuan, as the second child of Chen Ningsi, was known as ), meaning young master. “Er She” ( Chen Ningsi laid the business foundation for his family, which expanded out of Thailand to Hong Kong and Shantou. He was the major shareholder of Siam Remittance ) and took the position Bank ( of general manager of the bank in his twilight years. Chuan inherited the position after his father’s death, and, with his brothers, managed the family enterprises and properties, which then included the Tian Wai Tian Building, Tai Yu Alcohol Store, Thai Feng Yu, Thai Cheng Feng, Feng Tai Yu, Tai Jing Feng Pawnshop, Tian Wai Tian Remittance Organization, Tian Wai Tian Gold Store, Tai Yuan Feng Rice Mill, Thai He Feng Sugar Confectionery, Siam Chinese Businessman Insurance Co. Ltd., Siam Real Estate Co. Ltd., and others. The businesses continued to prosper. Hence, Chuan made a name for himself as a successful

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young businessman who was established and influential in business. When Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, Chuan joined the rest of the ethnic Chinese community in Thailand in various underground anti-Japanese activities. His contributions to anti-Japanese movements were focused in three major areas. Firstly, together with many other community leaders such as Hiaguang-iam Iamsuri, he worked as a vicechairperson in the Association for Promotion of the Sale of Municipal Bonds, Siam Branch ), while Seow ( Houtseng Sibunrueang was the chairman of the association. Donations from Thailand were as much as 600,000 yuan in October 1937, and 2.4 million yuan during the half-year from November 1938 to April 1939. Secondly, Chuan proposed the setting up of the Teochew Association of Thailand in 1936. He was joined by Hiaguang-iam Iamsuri, Luangsit Suropakon, and many other Chinese businessmen of Chaozhou origin in the founding of the association. The Teochew Association of Thailand was established on 14 February 1938, and Chuan was elected its first chairperson. Under his leadership, the association played several important roles, one of which was the setting up of a rice exporting company to prevent steep inflation in the price of rice in Chaoshan District. When the association was newly founded, inflation in the price of rice in Chaoshan District was very high. The first thing on the agenda of the Teochew Association of Thailand was to set up a company to lower the rice price in Chaoshan Disrict by selling cheap rice. Thirdly, he established two newspapers, 》) and namely the Chinese Daily (《 》) with his fellow China Daily (《 Thai-Chinese businessmen, and hired Li ) as the founding editor.These Qixiong ( newspapers contributed to the anti-Japanese

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effort by publishing many Chinese nationalist propaganda articles during the war and propagating anti-Japanese ideas to their readers. At the end of 1941, the southern advance of the Japanese army in Southeast Asia forced Chuan and his fellow anti-Japanese activists into hiding. They tried to escape to Yunnan via Chiangmai, but Japanese military forces controlled the route leading from Thailand to Yunnan. They thus attempted to escape back to Bangkok, but were unsuccessful. Chuan was arrested by Japanese forces on 8 February 1942.Thereafter, he was imprisoned at Bang Khwang Central Prison for more than three years with many other anti-Japanese activists, and was freed on 12 September 1945 after Japan surrendered. After he was freed, the Teochew Association of Thailand presented him a plaque with the words, “Integrity of the Nation” (民族气节), inscribed on it to praise his patriotism towards China. Chuan served the Thai-Chinese community by taking numerous posts in various associations. He was a member of the executive committee of the Thai Chinese Chamber of Commerce, the chairperson and a member of the executive committee of the Teochew Association of Thailand, a member of the board of directors of the newspapers Chinese Daily and China Daily, and chairperson of the Xinmin School board. He not only served the Thai-Chinese community, but also the Chinese Nationalist government. Chuan visited China twice after World War Two, representing the Chinese community in Thailand to attend the National Assembly, which was held by the Nationalist government. He appealed to the government to grant special amnesty for political criminals on New Year’s Day of 1947, and to increase the number of overseas election supervision officers prescribed in the constitution. Both suggestions were approved at the meeting.

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However his health deteriorated because of the torture he suffered from Japanese military forces during his imprisonment. Numerous duties in Chinese associations of Thailand and Nationalist government did not help his health, and he eventually died of hypertension in his residence on 22 October 1947, at the age of forty-seven. Goh Yu Mei R E F E R E N C E S Murashima, Eiji. Politics of the Overseas Chinese in Siam (Kanmueang chin sayam). Bangkok: Center for Chinese Studies, Chulalongkorn University, 1996. 〈

〉， 《 ，1965， A244–45。

》。

：

Chuang Chu Lin ( , Zhuang Zhulin, 1900–73) Educator, Singapore

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huang Chu Lin was a distinguished educator in Singapore. He was the founding principal of Chung Cheng ) and vice-chancellor of High School ( Nanyang University,both important institutions of Chinese education in Singapore. Chuang was a native of Huian county ) in the Fujian province ( ) of China. ( He received his basic education at missionary schools Yangyuan Primary School ( ) and Xunyuan High School ( ) ), and studied at the Fukien in Xiamen ( Christian University in Fuzhou ( ) where he graduated in 1925 with a bachelor of arts degree in social science. In 1926 Chuang travelled to Singapore and worked at a local Chinese press, Nanyang ) for a brief period Siang Pau ( before becoming a mathematic and science

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teacher at the Chinese High School ( ). Later in 1929, Chuang went for further studies at Michigan University where he would later receive a master of science degree and subsequently, in 1933, a doctorate degree in municipal administration. Chuang returned to Singapore in 1934 ) while working and married Xie Jinrui ( in a real estate company owned by the latter’s father.Although it appeared that Chuang would now be able to put the training he acquired at Michigan to good use, he decided to go back to China the following year to take up a professorship at the Sun Yat-Sen University ) in Guangzhou. However, not long ( after Chuang had started his academic career, the Sino-Japanese War intensified. By 1938, he was forced to seek refuge from the war elsewhere. Coincidentally, a group of Chinese community leaders in Singapore was then working on setting up a new Chinese high school. Chuang was recommended to them as a suitable candidate for the head master of the proposed school. This thus brought Chuang back to Singapore. The school which Chuang was entrusted to build from scratch, opened in January 1939 in a rented building in Kim Yam Road with an enrolment of about 400 students. It was originally named the “Chiang Kai-Shek High School”, but had its name changed to “Chung Cheng High School” in 1940. (“Chung Cheng” is in fact the zi ( ) or courtesy name .) The school made of Chiang Kai-shek good progress under Chuang’s leadership, but had to be closed down during the Japanese Occupation period. Moreover, because the students and teachers of Chung Cheng High School had been active participants in antiJapanese movements, Chuang was arrested and detained twice by the Japanese authorities. Believing that Chuang may have known the whereabouts of certain anti-Japanese elements,

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they interrogated him for information using severe torture before releasing him. Ironically, after the war the British also detained Chuang on suspicion that he had collaborated with the Japanese. However he was subsequently released after investigation. After the war, Chuang managed to rebuild Chung Cheng High School at tremendous speed. Because of his foresight, in 1947, when the colony had still not fully recovered from the devastation of war, the school bought a fourteen-acre piece of land in Goodman Road at the price of $120,000 to build a permanent campus with high capacity. This had enabled it to grow by leaps and bounds as it could now meet the high demand for places in schools generated by the post-war baby boom. During Chuang’s eighteen years of tenure as principal (1938–56), Chung Cheng grew from a humble beginning to having a total student body of more than 5,500 boys and girls, and became arguably the largest high school in Southeast Asia during the 1950s and 1960s. It established itself as a prestigious institution of Chinese education in the region, with a highly qualified teaching staff and distinguished alumni. Chuang had played a vital role in taking the school to these heights. However, when he was at the prime of his career, an unexpected chapter in his life unfolded. On 26 October 1956, he was arrested and detained by the Labour Front government under the Banishment Ordinance. Curiously, it was until a year later, on 12 October 1957, that the Council of Ministers issued an order to deport him. But it appears that there had been no government statement on the exact reason for his arrest and detention. The deportation, moreover, was never carried out as Chuang remained in custody until he was formally released on 6 August 1958, when he was no longer regarded by the authorities as a “threat” that was “detrimental to the security

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of Singapore”. Chuang had been detained for a total of 314 days. His misfortune was perhaps very much related to the political climate of the time. In the 1950s, a historical period marked by heightened anti-colonialism, student life on the campuses of Chinese schools was highly politically charged. Their response to the call of the time led to waves of student movements. The particular incident that caused Chuang’s adversity was the violent conflict between the government and Chinese schools’ students which took place in late September 1956 and lasted until the following month. On 24 September 1956, the Singapore Chinese Middle Schools Students’ Union, a registered student body, was given a “dissolution” order by the government because it was deemed by the authority as “nothing less than a Communist Front Organisation”. Later, on 10 October 1956, the education minister of the Labour Front government, Chew Swee Kee, issued an order to expel a total of 142 students from the various Chinese high schools in Singapore. More than half of these students, seventy-six of them, were from Chung Cheng. Although Chuang was not formally charged in court, the authorities must have held him responsible for not exercising enough control over the students to curb the spread of leftist or communist ideology. To what extent could Chuang be said to have given his students a free hand to propagate their beliefs on campus is hard to ascertain. Nevertheless, in view of the fact that Chung Cheng had always been a foremost centre for student activism during the 1950s, it is probable that Chuang Chu Lin was at least sympathetic, if not supportive, of the students in their quest for idealism. Although Chuang was released from detention, the education minister openly expressed his reservations for Chuang to resume his position at Chung Cheng. Nevertheless, on

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11 January 1960 the chairman of the Nanyang University Council, Tan Lark Sye, appointed Chuang Chu Lin to be the vice-chancellor of the university. Tan revealed that since he assumed the chairmanship of the executive council for the university on 5 August 1959 (while concurrently being the chairman of the university council), Chuang had been assisting him on matters relating to the hiring of deans and professors of the university. He even mentioned that “the achievement of the university in the last four years had been due, in the main, to the planning and efforts of Dr Chuang”. Chuang served as vice-chancellor of the Nanyang University (Nantah) until 2 July 1964 when he tendered his resignation on the grounds that “age has caught up” on him. And it was formally accepted by the University Council six days later. Although age could be a reason, the truth must be that Chuang was pressured to relinquish his position. That is because, about a month before this, the Central Government in Kuala Lumpur had issued a White Paper titled “Communism in the Nanyang University” and arrested fifty-one Nantah students accused of being involved in communist subversive activities. Later, the minister for education of the ruling People’s Action Party in Singapore, Ong Pang Boon, commented that he did not believe that Chuang was a university administrator capable of “restoring discipline amongst the students and removing Communist influence”, because he was a “former middle school vicechancellor or principal who had submitted to previous communist intimidation”. Chuang had to leave Nantah for the same reason that had forced him to leave Chung Cheng a decade earlier.The role he had played in the fermentation of radical idealism in Chung Cheng High School and the Nanyang University campuses, as his accusers would believe, is perhaps a topic warrants more indepth or careful study. Nevertheless, if what

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was said by Tan Lark Sye was indeed the truth, then Chuang must be remembered as a key figure who had made immense contributions to the Nanyang University at a time when it was most vulnerable. As one may aware, after the university started operating, it only had a ), formal chancellor Dr Lin Yu-Tang ( in office for barely six months (2 October 1954 to 3 April 1955). Lin’s abrupt and resentful departure from the university had almost devastated the institution. In this regard, the substantial period of eight years (before and after 1960) of informal and formal service Chuang Chu Lin had rendered to Nantah during this critical moment of her history should be duly recognized. Chuang retired after leaving the Nanyang University. He suffered from the Parkinson Disease and passed away on 4 January 1973. Neo Peng Fu R E F E R E N C E S Nanyang Siang Pau《 》，12 January 1960, p. 5; 4 July 1964, p. 5; and 8 July 1964, p. 5. The Straits Times. 12 October 1956, p. 1; 10 October 1957, p. 8; 13 October 1957, p. 1; 8 August 1958, p. 2; 12 January 1960, p. 1 and 8 July 1964, p. 1. 《 ：

—— ，1989。 《 ，1957。

》。 》。

：

Chuk Mor ( , Zhu Mo, 1913–2002) Religious master, educationist, artist, Malaysia

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huk Mor was an eminent Malaysian monk, educationist, and an artist specializing in Chinese painting and calligraphy. Most of the earlier migrant monks

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) and Kim to Malaya such as Paik Wan ( ) came from the Fujian Province, Beng ( but Chuk Mor hailed from Zhejiang Province ). Chuk Mor arrived on Penang island ( in 1954 and lived in the Singapore-Malaysia region for most of his life, performing his religious duties until he passed away in Penang in 2002. Between 1958 and 1959 though, he went to Honolulu (Hawaii) for a year or so, and had also lived in Hong Kong-Macau for more than a decade in his younger days. In 1959, Chuk Mor was elected to be the first president of the Malaysian Buddhist Association and remained as such until 1971. Under his leadership, the Malaysian Buddhist Association building in Penang was completed in 1970. Additionally, he took the post of principal of Malaysian Buddhist Institute.Other than this, he was also invited to Honolulu, San Francisco (California) in the U.S., Hong Kong, Australia, Vancouver in Canada and other countries to propagate Buddhism. Chuk Mor was one of the representative figures amongst the country’s learned Malaysian monks. His contribution was mainly in promoting the modernization of Buddhism and writing books on his religious thoughts. Not only was his style of Chinese painting and calligraphy unique, his achievements in promoting Buddhist education and authoring religious works were extraordinary too. More importantly, he helped groom many educated youths and monks and was respectfully dubbed “The Father of Development in Malaysian Mahayana Buddhism”. Chuk Mor was born in 1913 into the Chen ( ) family, in He Xin Qiao village beneath the eastern mountain of Yan Dang ) in Leqing County ( ), Zhejiang ( Province. His original name was De’an ). There were ten siblings in the family ( and he was the seventh child. Both his father, ), and mother, Madam Chen Hongmei (

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Wang, were staunch Buddhists. Because of this, he was exposed to Buddhism at a tender age. Chuk Mor went to a private school when he was ten and proved to be a bright student. His mother passed away while he was eleven and his father became his caregiver. At age twelve, he followed his father to ) at Huangtang Shou Chang Temple ( ) to listen to Reverend Qin Han ( ) explain the Buddhist scripture. ( The master, noticing that Chuk Mor had an extraordinary poise which was very different from the other children, advised Chuk Mor’s father to let him renounce the family and become an extraordinary monk. In 1924, Chuk Mor had his tonsure ceremony and became a monk with the religious name Mo ) — he was also called Shou Cheng ( ) — under the Venerable Bai Yun Zhi ( ), abbot of the Shou Chang Temple. ( Chuk Mor learned from famous masters when he was young. Master Tai Xu ( ) who proposed Humanistic Buddhism and revolutionized Buddhist ideologies and institutions, probably had the most significant influence on Chuk Mor. In 1930, Chuk Mor ) to followed Reverend Zhi Feng ( ) and studied at the Min Nan Xiamen ( ) at Nan Pu Buddhist Institute ( ). The principal at that Tuo Temple ( time was Master Tai Xu. During his years of studying there, Chuk Mor was regarded highly by Master Tai Xu because of his extraordinary intelligence. At age twenty-one, he graduated from the institute and when Master Tai Xu ) to give his lectures, went to Shantou ( Chuk Mor served as his personal assistant and note taker. Furthermore, in the autumn of 1936, Master Tai Xu wrote to Chuk Mor asking him to be his personal assistant and note taker when the master went to Hong

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Kong to propagate Buddhism. The name Chuk Mor or Zhu Mo was actually given by Master Tai Xu, after two famous monks, ) and Master She Master Zhu Fa Lan ( ). Mo Teng ( Other than the Mingnan Buddhist Institute, Chuk Mor had also studied at the School of Research at the Wuchang Buddhist ). At the same time, he Institute ( started taking part in editing the Buddhist ). In the spring magazine, Hai Chao Yin ( of 1939, Chuk Mor started teaching Buddhist ), Studies classes in Gong De Lin ( Macau, and became the chief editor of the ) which Jue Yin monthly magazine ( propagated Buddhist culture. This magazine, together with the Shi Zi Hou monthly magazine ), were two very significant and ( influential periodicals in Buddhist studies. In 1951 Chuk Mor also started the Wu Jin ) Buddhist magazine which was Deng ( popular in Hong Kong, Macau, and overseas. Other than running Buddhist periodicals, Chuk Mor was also involved in editing the complete works of Master Tai Xu, which were published in Hong Kong. In the spring of 1954, Chuk Mor officiated at the blessing ceremony of the pagoda containing Master Tai Xu’s relics at the Long Hua Buddhist Society ( ) in Bangkok, Thailand. After the ceremony, Chuk Mor stayed on to preach and to organize art exhibitions. Later, he was cordially invited to be the instructor at the ) in Penang Phor Tay Institution ( and, at the same time, to conduct Buddhist courses at Phor Tay High School. From then on, Chuk Mor maintained an irrevocable bond with the Buddhist circle in Malaya and eventually left Hong Kong-Macau where he had lived for over a decade.

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Chuk Mor became the abbot of The Buddhist Triple Wisdom Hall Temple ( ) in 1965 and the principal of the Malaysian Buddhist Institute in 1970. The Buddhist Triple Wisdom Hall Temple’s objective is to propagate the teaching of Buddha Dharma for the benefit of all sentient beings as well as cultivating talents. Under the leadership of Chuk Mor, the Dhamma Study Group, Dharma Sunday School, Triple Wisdom Hall Dharma Publications, Education Foundation were gradually established, forming a Buddhist organization that brings together religious practice, education and charity. Such a modernized concept among Singaporean and Malaysian Buddhist organizations in the 1960s was still uncommon. In 1970, Chuk Mor established the Malaysian Buddhist Institute (under the name of the Malaysian Buddhist Association) and was elected as Principal. The Malaysian Buddhist Institute hopes to inculcate the Dharma’s talent for teaching in monks and laypersons through a systematic Buddhist education to pass on Buddha’s wisdom. The Institute’s motto, rules and regulations, courses and graduation song are all written by him. He was the Principal until he passes away in 2002. His selfless contributions clearly reflect his emphasis on Buddhist education. These two designations prompted him to nurture many educated monks and proficient Buddhist speakers in the process. Currently monks doing Buddhism work in Malaysia with the religious name ji ( ) are all his disciples. He also had countless lay disciples. On 9 September 1973 when his disciples cerebrated his sixtieth birthday for him. Approximately 3,000 people came from all over Penang including distinguished personages, monks, and lay people. A feast lasting over three days catered to more than

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800 people bringing him gifts which exceeded RM40,000. After deducting the expenses of a few thousand ringgit, the remaining sum of RM37,000 was donated to the Malaysian Buddhist Institute. Chuk Mor was skilled in writing poetry and prose. His painting skills were splendid having been a disciple for three years of Gao ), a great art master of the Ling Jianfu ( ). Hence, Chuk Mor’s Nan school ( contemporaries knew him not only as a monk profoundly cultivated in Buddhism, but also as an artist with extraordinary attainment in literary works, poetry, and calligraphic art. As such Chuk Mor was also dubbed the “Triple Genius in Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting”. After he passed away, in 2003 the Buddhist Triple Wisdom Hall compiled a ten-volume Buddhist work titled, Zhuan Xiang Huashi Wenji , A Collection of Zhumo’s ( Works), in memory of him. From a bird’s eye view of the Malaysian Buddhist community or educational circle, Chuk Mor is not only an outstanding representative of the learned monks of Malaysia, but also a shining star in Chinese literary and educational circles. His contributions to Buddhist education, Malaysian Chinese thoughts, and the arts and culture of calligraphy and painting are rarely surpassed. Wong Wun Bin R E F E R E N C E S 《 ， 《

》。 ： ，2010。

《

》（

》。 ，

：

：

。

：

《 ，1984。

）。

：

，2003。 》。

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Chung Duï Quang ( , Zhong Yuguang, 1904–94) Business and community leader, promoter of education,Vietnam

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hung Duï Quang was a leader, administrator, and organizer. His knowledge of the world outside China and Vietnam, as well as his vast experience in managing diverse businesses, educational, political, and social organizations, made him a renowned versatile leader in his community. He was trained in hard science and the arts, excelling professionally as an engineer besides being an arts expert and educator. He often played the articulate spokesman for his community in the domestic and international arenas, and maintained his untiring charity efforts and assiduous leadership for key projects of the Chinese community of Saigon in the 1950s. With his pertinacious effort and uncompromising drive, he was remembered for his creative entrepreneurial talent and as a consequential figure in education. Quang was born in 1904 in either Shaoxing county in Zhejiang province ( ), China, or, according to another Chineselanguage source published in Vietnam, Duji ( ) county in the same province. He studied at ) and the Shanghai Law School ( ) where the Université de Paris ( he specialized in building and architectural studies. Before the war of resistance was waged against the Japanese in China, he was a professor at both the Arts College of the University of ), later renamed Peiping ( Peking University, and the National Academy ) founded by of Art in Hangzhou ( the eminent scholar and educator, Cai Yuanpei ), and led by Lin Fengmian ( ) (

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as its first principal in 1928. Simultaneously Quang was a committee member in charge of designs on the Committee of Development of the Republic of China, and chief engineer at the principal bureau of the Salt Inspectorate ) under the Ministry of Finance ( of the Chinese Nationalist Government. In 1937, Quang came to Vietnam where he became actively involved in commercial and cultural affairs. He was appointed Chairman of the board of Directors of Trung Chính Hospital (Beänh Vieän Trung Chính , or ; see entry on Thái Thaïch) for the fourth and fifth business terms of the hospital after its establishment in 1945. He also once served as the chief of the Sùng Chính ) Association (Hakka congregation in Saigon and that of the Alumni for Graduates of Schools in China, France, Belgium, and ). He also Switzerland ( sat on the committees of both the Kuomintang Main Branch in Vietnam ( ) and the Friendship Association of the ) in addition to Overseas Chinese ( helming the Association of National Salvation and Anti-Communism of the Overseas ). Chinese of Vietnam ( On top of all these posts, he was managing ), one of director of Da Xia Ribao ( the Chinese language newspapers circulating in Chôï Lón during that era. He held almost every key leadership post relating to the affairs of the Chinese including Vice-chairman of the Committee for Assisting Overseas Chinese from ), North Vietnam ( whose activities revolved around helping the Chinese who had left the northern region of Vietnam to settle in the south. He was also head of the Guild of Building and Construction and the Guild of Architecture and Decorations. The two guilds were among numerous ones established by and affiliated to the Chinese in

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Vietnam. In the international realm, Quang served as adviser to the Saigon Chapter of the International Rotary Club and was chairman of District Category 330 of the same club.The district included Indochinese states, Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia. He also represented districts covering the Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau. With his steady gait, confidence, grace and pleasant countenance, Quang exuded an inimitable air of ease and calm. He had considerable influence as his passionate leadership in economic, social and political initiatives was renowned. In 1952–54, while serving as chairman of Trung Chinh Hospital, he personally donated an undisclosed, substantial sum to cover its operational costs. Collaboration with other directors on the board further helped him to raise a million piastres and Vietnamese dong to construct a laboratory and to enable the hospital to offer its medical services free of charge. The buildings for the Sùng Chính congregation, Sùng ), and Sùng Chính Chính School ( ) were established under Hospital ( his auspices as he personally donated 40,000 to 50,000 dong, and the night classes for the Vietnamese language at Sùng Chính School also went smoothly thanks to his donation of 100,000 dong. The Vietnamese language became a mandatory subject in Chinesemedium schools in the Republic of Vietnam in 1957, and there was widespread demand among the Chinese for improvement in their competence in the Vietnamese language. As an energetic promoter of education, Quang also donated generously to other schools. For example, amenities in the room for instruments were built at Tröôøng Tö Do Thái Bình Döông ) located in Nguyeãn Trãi ( Street (formerly Quang Trung and Harteman Street), with his contribution of 50,000 dong.

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Furthermore Quang introduced schemes such as workers’ allowance, labour insurance, and scholarships while he was chairman of the Overseas Chinese Adjustment Fund ( ), which benefited approximately 100,000 people. While his interpersonal skills were notable, it was his managerial capability that was greatly admired. His entrepreneurial talent and acumen enabled him to attain a position of prominence in various businesses: he was chairman and managing director of Công ty ), chief executive officer Phúc Ninh ( of Công ty In nhuoäm Phúc Ninh ( ), a printing and dying company, director of a textile plant, Máy deät Vieät Nam ( ), and managing director of Công ty Xây ) which was döïng Phúc Naïp ( his main business dealing in furnishing and civil projects located in De Lattre de Tassigny Street. As an ardent supporter of the affairs of the Chinese in his community, Quang participated in activities concerning Overseas Chinese organized in the Republic of China. He participated in the Overseas Chinese Economic Forum in 1957 and presented at the First Dialogue in Yangmingshan ( ) in 1961 where he impressed his overseas audience as a fervid orator. Thereafter, he assisted in facilitating trade deals between the ) of republican Central Trust ( China and the Government of South Vietnam, as well as in promoting bilateral technological and trade cooperation. As a member of the Chinese National ), Salvation Association ( and while assuming the post of managing director at the strongly anti-Communist Chinese-language evening paper, Yuehua ), Quang Wanbao (Báo Vieät Hoa organized activities such as the anti-Communist demonstration of December 1955. The event

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drew the support of so many Chinese in Saigon that it was believed to have jolted the community and many others in Southeast Asia. Quang died of an illness in 1994. Grace Chew Chye Lay R E F E R E N C E S 《 1955， 46、53、74。 〈 ：

》。

〉，《 》 ，1964， 105–06。

〉， 《 947–48。

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， 。

，

〈

》。

：

，2000，

Chung Tiong Tay ( , Zhuang Changtai, 1919– ) Business leader, promoter of education, Philippines

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hung Tiong Tay is a leader of the tobacco industry in the Philippines. His La Suerte Cigar and Cigarette Manufacturing Company manufactures Philip Morris and Marlboro cigarettes for the Philip Morris Manufacturing Inc. It was the American company’s first venture outside the United States. He had also been a director of the Philippine Bank of Communications since 1974 and subsequently rose to be chairman of the Board. Despite his heavy responsibilities in his business establishments, Chung is renowned for the support he gives to education, and for being a pioneer in promoting reforms in, and improving the teaching of the Chinese language in the Philippines — an advocacy for which he has spent considerable finance, time, and effort. He was chairman of the Board of Trustees of his alma mater, Philippine Cultural High School (PCHS), for thirty years. PCHS was the

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first Chinese-Filipino secondary school in the country and was established by the Philippine Chinese Educational Association in 1923. Chung was born on 20 December 1919 into an educated family in Jinjiang, China. He studied first in his hometown in Jinjiang, then ) in went to Anglo Chinese School ( ), Xiamen. Subsequently, Gulangyu ( he joined his father in the Philippines and finished his secondary education there at the ), which is Chinese High School ( now known as Philippine Cultural College ). ( He helped with his father’s business after graduation, but at the outbreak of the SinoJapanese war, Chung secretly packed up some belongings and went back to China to support its war effort. Taking the route from Annam, Vietnam he found his way to Sichuan, and joined the battlefront there and in Chongqing. He also took the opportunity to pursue his college education, finishing a course in ) in banking at the Fudan University ( Sichuan in 1943. It was here that he became an outstanding student leader in 1945, a historical time in Chongqing, from which he returned to his own province where he taught at the Quanzhou Jianguo School of Commerce ). ( At his father’s behest, Chung came back to the Philippines to help carry on his father’s business. He built on the lucrative overseas remittances business to expand into finance. He also expanded the retail merchandising business into cigarette making. As the president of La Suerte Cigar and Cigarette Manufacturing Company, he expanded and modernized the factory. In 1955, American company Philip Morris Inc. (PMI) entered into an exclusive licensing agreement with La Suerte and introduced PMI products into the Philippine market for the first time.It was PMI’s first such agreement outside of the United

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States; its flagship brands, Marlboro and Philip Morris, started to be produced at La Suerte’s manufacturing plant. Chung was also Director of Continental Leaf Tobacco. Since 1974, when the Philippine Bank of Communications became fully Filipino-owned, Chung was a director. He rose to become vice-chairman, then chairman of the board from 1974 to 2005, and honorary chairman from 2005 to 2010. Although Chung is a successful businessman, he is equally (if not more) renowned for his wholehearted support of education, especially his efforts to promote the excellence and viability of Chinese-language education. He remembers how he had to walk quite a distance just to be able to attend school in Quanzhou; he also recalls how his mother had to sell off some jewellery items in order to raise money for his tuition. Thus, he supported the building of barrio schools in rural areas in the Philippines under the auspices of the flagship project of the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce. Chung established the La Suerte Foundation and used it as a base to support education, including the establishment of scholarships to support indigent college, high school, and elementary students. In 1989, together with Cheng Kiat Bun, the La Suerte Foundation took the lead in building a high school, Pingshan High School ), in his hometown in San Guang ( ), Jinjiang. This school started as Tian ( a junior high school, but in 1998, expanded to become a senior high school. The new school gave young students in his hometown easy access to a high school education, which many used to forego because of difficulties in commuting to or boarding in the high school in a nearby town. Chung refused to have his name engraved in the classrooms, requesting the school to honour his father and uncle instead.

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Chung was assiduous in his support of reforms in the teaching of the Chinese language. From 1963 to 2000, he was chairman of the Board of Trustees of PCHS, despite the demand on his time and for his attention from his own business. In 1990, having realized that the quality of Chinese education was deteriorating, and that instructional materials had become old and obsolete, Chung, as chairman of the board of PCHS, hired experts at his own expense to revise and prepare instructional materials that would suit the needs of the local-born young generation of the Chinese Filipinos, for whom the Chinese language was often a second or third language. It was a project that took seven years to complete, and Chung was the sole financial supporter. The textbooks and new instructional materials spearheaded the move to teach Chinese as more than a second language, but also to nonChinese speakers. In 1991, led again by Chung as chairman, and with the support of members of the board of trustees and directors of the Alumni Association, the Philippine Chinese Education Research Center was established. It was tasked to promote reforms in the teaching of the Chinese language within the country. Chung was also concerned about the physical expansion of the institutes and so initiated the construction of an extension of PCHS in Caloocan city, south of Manila, to decongest the Manila main campus. In June 1967, classes were held in the four-storey annex campus in Caloocan City with more than 300 students. In the 1980s, the reconstruction of the school building at the main campus started under the leadership of Chung and in June 1988, the new five-storey school building at the Manila campus was inaugurated at a cost of 40 million pesos — a staggering amount in 1988. Chung took his social responsibilities seriously, especially those involving the organizations of the Chinese community

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that he was elected into. He used to serve as chairman of the board of trustees of Anglo Chinese School, the oldest Chinese elementary school in the Philippines established in 1899. He also served as president of the Chinese Boys Scouts of the Philippines. As a member of the executive committee of the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce, he was concurrently the head of the welfare committee, where he headed the construction project for the federation’s seven-storey building in Binondo, Manila. Chung was subsequently elected vice-president of this body. Ang Chak Chi R E F E R E N C E S Materials provided by the Kim Siu Ching Foundation, the Philippines. 《 1988， 16–18。

》。

《 》 ，2010 ， 4–6。

：

， 。

：

Ciputra (Tjie Tjin Hoan, , Xu Zhenhuan, 1931– ) Business tycoon, Indonesia

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r. Ciputra is an architect and businessman who became famous for his innovations in the property sector, including the development of satellite cities in Indonesia. He is a serial entrepreneur who (co)founded three business groups: Pembangunan Jaya, the Metropolitan Group, and the Ciputra Group. Ir. Ciputra is known as a visionary and creative entrepreneur and a sponsor of education. Tjie Tjin Hoan, the former name of Ciputra, was born as the third child of

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Tjie Sim Poe and Lie Eng Nio, an ethnic Chinese merchant family, on 24 August 1931 in Parigi, a small town in Central Sulawesi. His father was interned by the Japanese on false charges of spying for the Dutch, and he passed away in prison in 1943, when Ciputra was only 12 years old. Ciputra, now a fatherless child, was raised in poverty, but he was able to continue his schooling after the war. He attended high school in Manado, the capital of North Sulawesi, and subsequently went to the famous Institute of Technology Bandung (ITB) in Java, where he studied architecture. During his university days in Bandung, at the age of 24, Ciputra married Dian Sumeler, whom he had known in Sulawesi. Because the allowance he received from his mother was not sufficient, he started his own consulting agency with two friends, Ir. Budi Brasali and Ir. Ismail Sofyan, aside from continuing his studies in architecture in Bandung. After graduating in 1960, Ciputra decided that, rather than working as a consultant, he wanted to implement his own ideas as a developer. He subsequently managed to convince the then governor of Jakarta, Soemarno, of his talents. He became the Chief Executive Officer of Pembangunan Jaya, a developer partially owned by the provincial government, where he stayed for 35 years and worked closely with several of Jakarta’s former governors. Notable projects included the development of Ancol Dreamland and the Senen Market. In exchange for his services, Ciputra received a minority shareholding in the company. Behind his property projects were original and visionary ideas for the future social conditions of Indonesia. He also established the Metropolitan Group, with his two university friends Ir. Brasali and Ir. Sofyan, where he became the

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president commissioner, a role in which he actively provided guidance and facilitated the development of this group. Other investors, such as the Salim Group, were also involved in a subsidiary of the Metropolitan Group, which developed projects such as Pondok Indah in Jakarta and also had investments abroad. Unlike other business tycoons of his generation, Ir. Ciputra has always remained focused on what he knew best: property. As an expert in this field, Ir. Ciputra also set up and became the Founding President of the Indonesian Real Estate Association (REI) and became the first Indonesian to head the World Real Estate Federation (FIABCI) from 1994–1996. In the 1980s, when his children graduated and returned from their university studies overseas, Ciputra started his own family group, the Ciputra Group, in which his wife, his brother, all his children and his two sons-in-law and one daughter-in law are involved.The new Ciputra Group was created for his children, whom he hoped would grow as professionals and continue to build the family tradition in property. The Ciputra Group developed rapidly and specialized in large property projects, such as Citra Raya in Surabaya, and another 30 projects in Indonesia and overseas. Because these required advanced project management, Ciputra hired professionals and modernized his company, which is often admired for its skills to take on complex projects involving multiple stakeholders. Despite his advanced age, Ir. Ciputra is still active in the company as a mentor and is now considered its “creative navigator”. During the Asian Crisis, the Ciputra group of companies almost collapsed under its debts, which were partly in US dollars, and which ballooned after the value of the rupiah declined rapidly. In addition, riots broke out

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in Jakarta, and rioters damaged properties and people of Chinese descent, but fortunately, Ciputra’s properties were not badly affected. However, sales dropped dramatically, and several projects were abandoned while angry customers and contractors demanded to be paid. The group spent many years settling and renegotiating its debts and paying off loans, and was able to restructure and become stable profitable again only in 2005, behind most of its competitors. After recovering from the economic crisis of the late 1990s, Ciputra intensified his strategy to internationalize his family business with projects inVietnam, Cambodia and China, with the intention to turn the Ciputra Group into a multinational company. The Ciputra Group became well known for its project to construct an international satellite city in Hanoi,Vietnam, in cooperation with the local Vietnamese government. He also responded to the decentralization of political power and responsibilities in Indonesia after the fall of Soeharto by investing more outside Java in the provinces. In addition, the large projects that were its trademark before the crisis have now made way for smaller projects, financed less with debt. Ciputra’s company is divided into three divisions, each run by a set of family members and consists of three separate companies that are listed on the stock exchange in Jakarta: Ciputra Development, Ciputra Surya and Ciputra Property, which was listed on the stock exchange in 2007. Ir. Ciputra has also invested in the media industry and owns stakes in various magazines and newspapers. Aside from business, Ciputra is also well known for promoting education, which has helped him to succeed in life as a self-made man, as well as entrepreneurship, which he believes holds

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the key for a more prosperous and modern Indonesia. Ciputra built ten schools, and is known in particular for setting up the Ciputra University of Entrepreneurship in Surabaya, through which he aims to pass on the spirit of entrepreneurship to new generations. In 2008, at the age of 77, he received an honorary doctorate from Tarumanegara University because of his extraordinary contribution to development, entrepreneurship and education in Indonesia. Ir. Ciputra and Dian Sumeler have four children: Rina, Junita, Cakra and Candra. He is also an avid collector of paintings by the late Hendra Gunawan, a well-known Indonesian painter, whose painted creatures have been transformed in to sculptures which are scattered all over the many Ciputra property projects. He is now preparing to build a private family museum that will be the largest Fine Arts museum in Jakarta, covering 10,000 m2. Ir. Ciputra is a religious man who often attributes his successes to God rather than his own considerable talent and creativity. Marleen Dieleman Editor’s note: In the past Tjie Tjin Hoan was misspelled as Tjie Tjin Hoa, and rendered . In fact his name is Tjie Tjin wrongly as . Hoan R E F E R E N C E S Harefa, A. & Ezer Siadari, E. The Ciputra’s way: The best practice to be a true entrepreneur. Jakarta: Ciputra, 2006. Soegiarto, Y. “The world according to Ciputra”. GlobeAsia, April (2008): 30–31. Thamrin, Y.H.M. “The creative navigator”. GlobeAsia, (interview with Ir. Ciputra). August (2007): 20–24 Winarno, B. Tantangan jadi peluang: Kegagalan dan sukses Pembangunan Jaya selama 25 tahun. Jakarta: Pustaka Grafiti Press, 1987.

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Co, Charlie ( , Wang Xianliang, 1960– ) Artist, Philippines

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harlie Co is one of the foremost artists in the Philippines, especially distinguished for mastering two mediums in visual arts — painting and sculpture. Known as a social realist, Co was among the pioneering artists in the Visayan region who expressed the starkness of poverty and injustice in their communities creatively. A testament to his accomplishments is seen in major cultural edifices in the Philippines such as the National Museum, and in other parts of the world, including Australia, Japan, Singapore, etc. Born on 5 November 1960, Charlie Co is the son of industrious and enterprising parents, Co Pao and Pacita Sia, of Bacolod City on the island of Negros in the southern Philippines. Co Pao was an immigrant who sailed to the Philippines alone at the age of nine from Amoy, China. He was the eldest among nine siblings and became the breadwinner when their father passed away. He was unable to finish even elementary school. Sia, on the other hand, was born in Passi, Iloilo, to a pure Chinese father (Alfonso Sia) and a Filipino mother (Josefina Parcon) in 1923. Their business back then in the 1950s was a tannery, making leather slippers. Like many immigrants, Co’s parents started with nothing. After getting married, they rented a tiny property in front of a university in Bacolod (now University of Negros Occidental Recolletos), where they lived and set up a small canteen that catered to college students. They had three children at the time — the eldest son, Nelson, and two daughters, Belen and Sonia. Then came Felicidad. Charlie Co is the youngest of five

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siblings. In 1957, Co’s parents started to buy and sell upholstery materials in a small rented shop. It expanded and they started accepting the repair of furniture as well, and were finally able to purchase land to build their house in 1968, where they also set up their furniture factory. Sia then convinced her husband to open a small furniture display room in 1970, which they named “Nelson’s Furniture”. In 1972, Co Pao bought a 1,600-sqm property and set up the biggest furniture showroom in Bacolod, becoming one of the town’s most well known furniture makers and catering mainly to rich and affluent families.The building, now named Pacita Arcade after Sia, is still where the family lives to this day. It is this environment of carpentry, furniture making, and art that has influenced Co since he was young. He even made his own toys from scrap wood. His father, being strict with the quality of the furniture they produced, was an artist in his own right. Co’s mother, Sia, now 88 years old, started to paint as a therapy after the elder Co died. Belen was Co’s first teacher in painting since she studied fine arts at La Consolacion College in Bacolod. Sonia Co is an interior designer. Co began studying fine arts at La Consolacion College in Bacolod, and then went to the capital of Manila to continue his education at the Philippine Women’s University. He later took up interior design at the Philippine School of Interior Design with the intention of helping in the family’s furniture business in Bacolod.This educational grounding in the visual arts and interior design gave Co a unique edge over some of his contemporaries, as he was able to straddle both the fields of visual art and design. On completing his studies, and after creating his first body of work, Co returned to Bacolod and mounted his first one-man

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show, Ekspresyon, in 1983. Since then, Co has put on more than thirty-five solo exhibitions and has joined more than forty-five group shows, not only in the Philippines, but also in Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Americas. His style — described in the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Encyclopedia of Philippine Art as “figurative expressionism bordering on surrealism” — had brought him honours and accolades, and established him as one of the respected contemporary artists of the Philippines. Co’s father never approved of his being an artist. He would always say that there was no prospect in art and would have wanted Co to help in the family’s furniture business. Whenever he saw Co drawing, he would tell his son to go with the driver to deliver furniture or collect payments from customers. He never attended any of Co’s exhibitions. It was a big struggle for Co during the first years of his profession, as his father thought the exhibitions were just an excuse for him to hang out and enjoy with friends. It was only when Co Pao was dying of colon cancer and Co received the 13th Artists Award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) in 1990 when he finally saw Co’s passion for art and accepted his son’s chosen profession. He told the rest of the family to do the same. That was the peace pact between father and son before Co Pao passed away. Because of his reactionary paintings, his being involved in propaganda, and his active role as an artist who creates works that speak of the plight of society, Co was originally known as a “social realist”. Along with the Black Artists of Asia, Co developed his aesthetic sensibilities and painted art pieces based on his immediate surroundings — the apparent disparity between the rich and the poor, the sufferings of the sugarcane workers, the blatant

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corruption in the government, and everything in between. It is this intense social experience that constitutes the background of Co’s art, be it the social realism of the Marcos years, or even the colourful imagery of the hometown fiesta in his later personal paintings that are tinged with loneliness and heartbreak. What makes Co stand out even more than his colourful masterpieces is his commitment to giving young contemporary artists a venue to display what they’re capable of. As a matter of fact, his gallery has now become the watering hole of brooding poets, burgeoning, independent filmmakers, and up-coming visual artists back in Bacolod. As a dominant figure in the art scene — having evolved from an exhibitor to a contestant in national, regional, and world competitions — Co has caught the attention of Asian art critics and art collectors revisiting the styles and expressions of contemporary Filipino artists. He has thereby earned himself a visible niche in the fast growing Asian art markets of Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing. Along with a young Chinese businessman, Benjamin Lopue III, they set up Gallery Orange, the largest art gallery in Bacolod City, to showcase the city’s local young and established artists. It has helped fuel and revitalize the local art scene and has paved the way for young artists in their chosen fields. Co has received various awards and recognitions from distinguished art and cultural organizations, including the abovementioned award from the CCP, and the 2008 Jose Rizal Award for Excellence (in Arts and Culture) from The Manila Times and the Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran. Co has also represented the Philippines in exhibitions abroad, such as the Negros-Japan Exhibition Program (1986, Tokyo, Japan); Images of Contemporary

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Struggle (1989, Art Space Visual Art Center, Sydney, Australia); the Naguri Open Air Art Exhibition (1992, Naguri, Japan); Asia and Modernism (1995, Japan Foundation Asean Cultural Center, Akasaka, Japan); the 2nd Asia Pacific Contemporary Art Trienniale (1996, Brisbane, Australia); the 23rd Sao Paolo Bienniale, (1996, Brazil); the 2nd International Clay Works Symposium and Exhibition (1997, Toki City, Japan); the Taegu Asia Art Exhibition (1997, Korea); the ASEAN Art Awards (1999, National Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia); The Big Picture (2007, Singapore Art Museum); Tenggara: Recent Paintings from Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines (2008, Contemporary Urban Centre, Liverpool, UK); and Thrice Upon a Time (2009, Singapore Art Museum). He has likewise been invited to sit as a judge of prestigious art competitions, the most recent being the 2010 Ateneo Art Awards. Perhaps as a fitting tribute to his artistic accomplishments, Co’s artwork is proudly installed at the new Bacolod-Silay Airport and in the collections of various museums around Asia, most importantly, at the National Museum of the Philippines, the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, the Cultural Center of the Philippines, the Lopez Museum, the Bencab Museum, Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane, Australia, the Fukuoka Museum in Japan, and the Singapore Art Museum. His works are also found in select Philippine and Asian corporate and personal art collections. Co is married to Ann Jalandoni Legaspi, the youngest daughter of sugarcane planters Manuel and Margarita of Silay City. They do not have children. While Co is a full-time painter, his wife is into pastry and wedding cake creations. Carmelea Ang See

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R E F E R E N C E S Charlie Co. 1999. Story Messengers. A catalogue for an art show. Guillermo, Alice. “An Iconography of Political Art”. In Asian Art News, July/ August 2004, p. 58. Information provided by Yuchengco Museum. Personal Interview with Charlie Co.

Coseteng, Anna Dominique M.L. ( , Xu Erqi, 1952– ) Senator, Philippines

A

nna Dominique Marquez Lim Coseteng, more popularly known as “Nikki”, is a former Philippine congresswoman and senator. She was first thrust into the political limelight as a street parliamentarian and human rights activist in the Marcos years (beginning in 1972 when Martial Law was declared) during her days at the University of the Philippines (U.P.). Coseteng stood firmly for sovereignty, justice, and women’s rights throughout the years. Looking back at that part of her life she states, “Lost causes were the only causes worth dying for.” While still at U.P., the student repression in the 1970s stoked the flames of rebellion in Coseteng, who joined street marches and protests against the dictatorship. Soon after the assassination of Benigno Aquino Jr, she held public forums to raise awareness of the situation besetting the country. During the snap elections of 1986, she was an active member of an organization called WOMB or Women for the Ouster of Marcos and Boycott. She said, “We (WOMB) were boycotting the elections because at that time we felt that no clean honest elections could be held under those circumstances.” A weekly

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forum engaged women to be more involved and to create awareness of what was going on for the general public. In 1987 she was elected a member of the House of Representatives under the all-women political party she co-founded, Kababaihan para sa Inang Bayan (Women for the Motherland), and eventually became a Philippine senator in 1992, under the National People’s Coalition Party. Coseteng ran and won a second term in the senate, which she served from 1995 to 2001. She headed various committees during her stint as a Philippine senator. She was the chairperson of the Committee on Women and Family Relations, Committee on Cultural Communities, Committee on Civil Service and Government Reorganization, Committee on Rural Development and Committee on Trade and Commerce. She was also vice-chairperson for the Committee on Cooperatives, Agriculture, Foreign Affairs, Public Works, Education, Labor and the powerful Appropriations Committee, and the Commission on Appointments. As a neophyte lawmaker, Coseteng filed the first bill seeking a debt cap with a provision on full disclosure, as well as other bills and resolutions that reflected her nationalism and dedication to pro-people causes. She made it her crusade to go against global institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and The World Bank. This culminated in her filing of Senate Bill 1412 that sought a one-year debt-service moratorium. At that time, the Philippines owed between $35–40 billion to foreign banks. In addition to filing Bill 1412, she also spearheaded the “Tao Muna Bago Utang” (“People First Before Debt”) movement. For this, she travelled all over the country to explain the debt issue and its implications on

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the country’s economy. She has visited almost all the municipalities, cities and provinces of the Philippines and is an adopted daughter of many of these: Iloilo, Antique, Nueva Ecija, Agusan del Sur, Zamboanga del Sur, Capiz, and many others. Coseteng also filed Senate Bill 1413, or the Women’s Anti-Rape Bill that sought to redefine and reclassify rape from a crime against chastity, to a crime against persons. Consulting with various women’s groups and holding extensive dialogues to find solutions to the growing problem of violence against women and reproductive rights, she succeeded in gaining congressional approval for House Bill 6265 having reclassified rape as crimes against persons. Gabriela, a Philippine women’s rights organization, hailed the passage as a turn in the right direction. During her second term as senator, she served as chair of the Senate Committee on Labor and filed bills that sought to promote and protect the rights of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). She also filed bills that prohibited discrimination against women workers, increased vacation and sickness benefits of workers, and developed the informal labour sector.There were also bills that allowed workers more access to state pension funds known as the Social Security System and Government Service Insurance System benefits. Many OFWs went to her for help with most of them seeking assistance because they had been victimized by recruitment agencies. Others went to the office seeking medical help. Coseteng would work with the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, as well as the National Kidney Institute, to alleviate the OFWs’ problems. As a public official, she was a convenor of many conferences all revolving around the theme of women, women’s rights, and family.

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Born on 18 December 1952, Coseteng is the eldest of two boys and three girls. Her parents were the late businessman/industrialist Emerson Coseteng and Ambassador Alice Guanco Marquez-Lim. She is fluent in English, Tagalog, Ilonggo, and the Chinese Hokkien dialect. Her paternal roots are traceable to Tan Na and Chim Ho in Fujian Province, and her grandfather on this side was Eduardo Coseteng also known as Co Yu Chao. The elder Coseteng operated a sawmill that was located in Balut, Tondo. He later co-founded one the country’s biggest banks — Equitable Banking Corporation — with fellow ChineseFilipino Go Kim Pah. Her grandmother, Tan So Kwan, was a well educated lady who lived a life of selfless simplicity and total dedication to family. Co Yu Chao was born in the village of Fulin in Jinjiang, Fujian, in 1900 and came to the Philippines with an uncle when he was twelve. After university, he joined his uncle in the lumber business and in 1925 became manager of Yi Fong Lumber. In 1930, Co travelled throughout Southeast Asia to find business prospects. He held various key positions in the Chinese community, such as president of the Lumber Merchants Association and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, and subsequently vice-president of the Fujian Salvation Movement. As president of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, he brought a delegation to Fujian and promised to mobilize the strength and resources of the Chinese community in the Philippines for the salvation of Fujian. The commander of the 19th route army, Cai Ting Kai, was truly touched and under the Fujian Secessionist Movement, Co was designated mayor of Xiamen. He authored two language tool books: Chinese-English Conversation and English-Chinese-Tagalog Conversation.

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Coseteng’s mother, Alice Guanco Marquez Lim, has an equally colourful ancestry, being descended from Philippine Senator Esperidion Guanco and feministactivist Nicetas Siguenza from Pototan, Iloilo and Hinigaran, Negros Occidental. Coseteng’s father, Emerson Coseteng, was a banker (president of Feati Bank in the 1960s), and industrialist (he founded the Mariwasa Group of Companies, the leading manufacturer of ceramic products in the Philippines). He was an avid sportsman and founded the Philippine Basketball Association. Coseteng is a recipient of numerous awards, such as being named one of the Top Human Advocates in the Senate (1992–95); one of the Twelve Outstanding Freshmen Solons in 1991, one of the Top Ten Outstanding Representatives in 1991, Outstanding Congresswoman in 1989, and one of the Top Ten Lawmakers and Achievers in 1988. She also received the Gawad Maria Clara Trophy — A Symbol of Filipina Womanhood in 1990. Coseteng now serves as president and CEO of Diliman Educational Corporation, which runs the Diliman Preparatory School and the Diliman Computer Technology Institute. The school was established by her mother and colleagues from U.P. Diliman, and celebrated its fortieth anniversary in 2009. Her family includes a son and a daughter who are both achievers in their own right. Coseteng’s daughter, Kimberly, is an accomplished and outstanding executive of Johnson & Johnson in Singapore, while her son, Julian, has followed in her footsteps in politics by becoming a three-term councillor of Quezon City. He has served as the president of the National Movement of Young Legislators. Sherwin Chan

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R E F E R E N C E S Flores, Wilson Lee. “Proud to be a Tondo Boy”. The Philippine Star, 22 February 2005. Francisco, Butch. “Another crack at movie acting for Nikki Coseteng”. Philippine Daily Inquirer, 18 April 1993. Espiritu, Christian. “Nikki Coseteng publishes a book on RP textiles”. Business World, 2 December 1991. 》。

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《 ，1996， 441。

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Personal Interview, July 2008.

Cu Unjieng, Guillermo A. ( , Qiu Yunheng, 1867–1953) Entrepreneur, business leader, Philippines

B

orn into a poor fishing family of six children on 1 January 1867, Guillermo A. Cu Unjieng was only eleven years old when his father passed away. The third of four brothers, Cu Unjieng was the first member of his immediate family to leave his village to go overseas and seek his fortune. He made the journey to the Philippines in his mid-teens, accompanied by an older male cousin. They arrived in Manila probably in 1882, during the high tide of Chinese immigration to the Philippines. At the beginning, Cu took on whatever work he could find. Eventually, thanks to the fact that he was literate, he managed to obtain a position as a clerk in a Chinese textile firm, the Hap Hin Dry Goods Store, which also engaged in direct importation. After a few weeks, he was promoted to bookkeeper, a position he held for five years. Although Cu had received only a few years of education in a small, traditional, clanrun Chinese school, he had beautiful calligraphy, which was unusual for someone of his social class and generation. While his job did not pay much, he managed to save a little money and,

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more importantly, gain practical knowledge of how the dry goods business was run. Sometime afterwards, he was promoted from salaried employee to manager of the firm in which he worked, with a ten per cent share of the profits. Over the next four years, he succeeded in turning the firm into one of the largest of its kind in Manila. In the process, he gained the reputation of being one of Manila’s youngest and most competent managers. Using money he had saved, plus capital contributions from some friends, he started ), Cu Unjieng and Company ( which began operations in Rosario Street. In another partnership, Cu partly owned and fully managed Siuliong and Company ). The business engaged in import ( and export, semi-banking operations for the Chinese community (mainly the handling of remittances from Chinese in the Philippines to their families in China), extending crop loans, and underwriting the trips of merchant ships travelling to and from China. He spent most of his time and effort in managing Siuliong and Company, which prospered, eventually achieving the distinction of being the only Chinese firm to be included in the shortlist of “most valued customers” of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation in Manila. Cu’s association with Siuliong and Company would last until 1926, nearly the entire lifetime of the firm. By the time of the outbreak of the Spanish-American War (1898–99), Cu, at thirty-one years of age, was a wealthy and prominent man. During the period of the Philippine Revolution (1896–98) and the Spanish-American War, the Huaqiao Shanju ), known in Spanish Gongsuo ( as the “Comunidad de Chinos”, encountered difficulties keeping its operations going as many of the shop owners and businessmen

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on whom the organization relied for donations, temporarily suspended their activities. Founded in 1870, it was one of two institutions of the time that spoke for the Chinese community in the Philippines as a whole. For a few years immediately following the American takeover of the Philippines from Spain, it was renamed the Philippine Chinese Charitable Association, the sole institution that championed the ChineseFilipino community. It was at this juncture that Cu, director of the Shanju Gongsuo in 1898–99, made a timely donation to the organization and engaged in fund-raising efforts on its behalf. This resulted in the collection of tens of thousands of pesos for the organization, which allowed it to continue its operations. This action, coming at a time of crisis in a period of transition for the Chinese community and for the Philippines as a whole, helped propel Cu from being a rising member of the Chinese elite in the Philippines, to the very top ranks of that community. It was during the first three decades of the American occupation of the Philippines that he reached the peak of his influence and career. The Shanju Gongsuo, as a charitable organization, could not credibly continue to act as the voice of the various Chinese businessmen in the Philippines on issues affecting their commercial interests. Therefore in 1900 Cu proposed the founding of a merchants’ council that became the Manila Chinese Commercial Council, and set about contacting various businessmen to organize such a body. The chamber, which came to be known as the Philippine Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, was recognized by both Chinese and non-Chinese alike as the organization that represented the Chinese community in the Philippines as a whole.

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Cu served as the first president of the body from 1904–06, and again in 1917–18. During his time in office, Cu led the Chinese community in protesting against the American Government’s extension of the Chinese Exclusion Act to the Philippines. Under this law, all Chinese, with the exception of officials, teachers, students, merchants, or tourists, were barred from entering the Philippines. The policy remained in force until 1940. After the outbreak of the 1911 Revolution that was soon to result in the establishment of the Republic of China, Cu, in his position as a leader of the Chinese community and a Chinese citizen, immediately donated 5,000 pesos personally to aid the uprising, which encouraged other Chinese in the Philippines to follow suit. The result was that, from the middle of October to about the first ten days of November, the Chinese in the Philippines donated a total of 77,000 pesos to the revolutionary government. In 1906, Cu embarked on a new venture, the founding of Yek Tong Lin (YTL) Fire and Marine Insurance Co., Ltd. ( ), the country’s first domestically organized insurance company. Cu was the moving force in a group of fourteen investors, all of them Chinese living in the Philippines. At the time, American, British, and other western companies dominated the areas of fire and marine insurance. In the 1930s, the company began to offer personal accident insurance.YTL would remain the sole domestically organized insurance company in the Philippines for the next twenty five years. It still exists today as the Philippines First Insurance Co., Inc., a name that reflects its role as a pioneering Philippine institution. Another highlight of Cu’s career was his involvement in the founding of the China Banking Corporation (Chinabank),

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the first locally owned Chinese bank in the Philippines. Cu is credited as being the one to suggest the idea of such a bank and to have made the initial push for its realization. The need for such a bank had become pressing. The Chinese had become major players in the economy of the Philippines. Yet they found it difficult to obtain credit from the banks in the Philippines and, for the most part, had to resort to borrowing money from friends and relatives, or from private Chinese moneylenders and remittance firms. The Chinabank was incorporated under Philippine law on 20 July 1920, and began operations formally on 16 August 1920 in Binondo, Manila. As one of the founders and incorporators of the bank, Cu held post as one of its eleven founding directors until 1937.The bank prospered and is still one of the most trusted banks of today. Cu was at the height of his career in the late 1920s when Who’s Who in the Philippines called him the “Richest Chinese in the Philippines”. At one time, Cu had his personal fortune estimated at 10 million pesos. He retired from active involvement in business in the late 1930s and passed away on 17 October 1953, at his home in San Pedro, Laguna, at the age of eighty-seven. On his death, a donation of 100,000 pesos was made to the Philippine Chinese Charitable Association in the name of the Cu Unjieng family, for the construction of a building at the Chinese General Hospital. This building, used as a tuberculosis ward, was named the “Guillermo A. Cu Unjieng ). Memorial Building” ( Cu had a full family life. He had a total of seventeen children (ten sons and seven daughters) who survived to adulthood. His descendants from the male line use the following surnames: Khu, Cu Unjieng, and Cu. Of all

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of his children, it was his daughter Esperanza who came to be considered something of an institution in Manila. As a Catholic nun with the Assumption order, she was the moving force in the post-war rebuilding of the heavily damaged Assumption College. She is also credited with having founded Assumption’s College Department in 1946. She became its dean, recruited a top-notch faculty, and mentored many students. In recognition of her services, she received two honorary doctorates:

a doctor of education from De La Salle University in 1965, and a doctor of humanities from Araneta University in 1977. Carmelea Ang See R E F E R E N C E S Wong, Kwok Chu. The Chinese in the Philippine economy, 1898–1941. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1999. Interview with Josephine Khu, daughter, September 2009.

D Dai Xiao Hua ( , 1949– ) Writer, Chinese association leader, Malaysia

D

ai Xiao Hua, who was born in Taiwan in 1949, is a famous Chinese writer in Malaysia. She was the president of The Writers’ Association of Chinese Medium of Malaysia for two terms and is also the president of the Malaysian Chinese Cultural Society since 2003. As a writer, she is recognized and respected by writers especially woman writers from overseas. As a result she was elected as third president of the World Overseas Woman Writers’ Association. During her term as the president of the Malaysian Chinese Cultural Society, she was invited to be chairman of a famous debate between two political parties, viz. the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) and the Democratic Action Party (DAP). As a

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cultural figure, she was awarded the Honourable Contribution Award by the king of Malaysia. From 1968 to 1971, when she was at a university campus as an undergraduate, she was a keen writer of articles. During this period too, she founded The New World Press with her friends and was its deputy president. The publication was a monthly, which provided her with a training ground for her writing. However, her writing career did not continue after she graduated from the university. Instead she stopped writing for ten years. In 1973, she married a Malaysian businessman and has stayed in Malaysia since then. Dai started writing again in 1986 and wrote not only prose, but also discussive essays and television drama. Her literary works were ) published in Nanyang Siang Pau ( and her television dramas were well received by Malaysian. In 1986, her television drama, Frightening Experience during The Honeymoon ) was made into a television series (

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and released on local television channel RTM2.The following year, she started writing another television drama, City Built in the Sand ) and had it published in April 1988 by ( ). The drama Shi Fang Publisher ( was made into a nine-chapter television series and this made her well known among Malaysians. That drama has a realistic moral theme, and its intense cultural content and vivid portrayal of characters make them readily come to life. The tortuous plot, but simple and active language employed, contributed to the success of the drama, the extremely good response to which established her a place in the Malaysian Chinese writing arena. As a writer, she is versatile in many aspects such as drama, prose, novels and commentaries. Her works are popular in Mainland China and other parts of the world with overseas Chinese. In 1990, just before the Malaysian Government imposed the ban on Malaysians visiting China, Dai Xiao Hua became the first Malaysian writer to be invited to lecture in China. She then wrote a number of articles on her visit to China, which she claimed to be a special and memorable journey in her life. The articles were then collected in a book entitled Dai Xiao Hua’s Journey to China ). In 1996, she was offered ( the visiting professor post at the Ni Nan University of China. Dai’s works have won some literary awards. As early as in 1986, her prose, Auntie Ah Chun ) won the literary award organized ( by the Nanyang Siang Pau. In 1992, her book on her journey to China won the first “Xu ), in Xia Ke Literary Award” ( a competition which drew writer contestants from Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and other overseas Chinese writers. Dai Xiao Hua published a few important works between 1988 and 1996. As mentioned earlier, her television drama, City Built in the

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) was published in 1988. Four years Sand ( later, she published Dai Xiao Hua’s Journey to China. The same year, she published Surging ), The Golden Touch Forward ( ), The Great Pen ( ), which ( comprised her interviews and dialogues with famous figures in Malaysia, including political figures, successful entrepreneurs, and renowned cultural figures. In the books, there are not only interesting dialogues, but also interesting narrations as well as her comments on the figures overall. In short, these three books are not merely a compilation of interviews and dialogues, they are literary pieces and this pushed them high in the bestseller book list not only in Malaysia, but also in China. The following year, she published another collection of prose entitled Whereabouts in the Remotest Corner of ). In 1994, her first novel, the Earth ( ) was No Regret in This Life ( published. The book reflected her concern on woman issues. In 1999, she published three books ), Who namely Dai Xiaohua’s Eyes ( ), and Says I Do Not Mind ( ). All of them Heartless Journey ( were published in Malaysia. Dai Xiao Hua’s importance as an internationally recognized writer can be seen from the number of her books published in Taiwan and China. In Taiwan, three of her books were published, viz. a collection of prose, Looking at the World ), a collection with Deep Feelings ( of satirical essays entitled Not Feeling Regret ) and a collection of in This Life ( reportive literature entitled The Most Attractive Woman is Woman with Ideas ( ). Dai Xiao Hua also involved herself actively in editing works. From 1991 to 2004, she edited ten volumes of books, four of which were published in Malaysia, and three each in Taiwan and China. In 1996, she was invited

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to be the editor of a books series entitled the ) by China Golden Spider Series ( He Bei Educational Publisher. The series, with twenty-three books in all, won good response from readers abroad. In 2002, she acted as the chief editor of a very important series of the Malaysian Chinese Society — Mahua ). The ten books in the Wencun ( series denote the important issues of Malaysian Chinese community from 1980 to 2000, such as education, economics, and others. In 2004, as the president of Writers’ Association of Chinese Medium of Malaysia, she succeeded in publishing of the Comprehensive Anthology of Malaysian Chinese Literature ( ). The anthology consists of ten books covering different genres such as poetry, prose, novels, drama, literary criticisms, and historical materials. She was its chief editor. These two series, which comprise twenty books in total, can be regarded as the twin towers in the history of Malaysian Chinese culture. She was also the editor of the Collection of Seminar Papers of the Second International Conference on Malaysian Chinese Literature, which was published by Shan Dong Literary Publisher in 2004. Dai Xiao Hua is internationally well known as a writer, as well as a distinguished and influential woman. The organizer of the Fourth World Woman Conference published a book entitled Hua Xia Famous Women ( ), which included 140 famous Chinese woman around the world and Dai Xiao Hua was the only woman from Malaysia who was included in the book. Due to her great contribution to Malaysia and also the good relations between Malaysia and China, and particularly the provinces of Shan Dong and Jiang Xi, she was named “The National Warrior” (KMN) ( ) by the king of Malaysia in 1999, and given the Malaysia-China Good Relations Award

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( ) in 2004, the “Honourable Citizen” title by the Shan Dong local government in 2004, and the Jiang Xi local government in 2005. From 1986 to the present, Dai Xiao Hua has published twenty-two books, and edited ten books. Some of her books have been translated into English, French, Russian, and other languages and distributed worldwide. Chiah Seng R E F E R E N C E S ，

《

》。

：

，2006。 《 1991。

》。

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Dakay, Benson ( ,You Jinlong, 1955–2012) Entrepreneur, community leader, Philippines

C

onsidered the father of the local carrageenan industry, Benson Dakay steered his Cebu-grown Shemberg Group to become largest producer of refined and semi-refined carrageenan in the world. Dakay was very concerned with the overall development of the seaweed industry, especially the growth of his company, which affected the livelihood of tens of thousands of farmers and around 2,000 employees. Born on 26 March 1955, Dakay had the family’s entrepreneurial spirit in his blood. His father, Ernesto, was also a businessman who made mosquito coils for a living. Under the tutelage of an uncle, Dakay earned his first million at age nineteen. He started by exporting raw seaweeds and then changed to manufacturing carrageenan, a raw material

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extracted from seaweeds. Dakay could become a millionaire at such a tender age because his entrepreneurial and pioneering enterprise had succeeded in turning the farming of the lowly regarded Philippine seaweed into a multimillion peso industry.This bold venture enabled farmers and fisherfolks, especially in the impoverished coastal towns of Visayas and Mindanao, to find a new source of livelihood and a much needed source of extra income. But like most businessmen, Dakay was caught in the Asian financial crisis of 1997, which brought the peso down to half its worth, causing his dollar-denominated loans to be doubled almost overnight. Creditors were demanding outright payment of his multibillion peso loans. He almost gave up his business ventures, and regarded that as one of the hardest times of his life, which in turn also strengthened his resilience. He managed to negotiate with the creditors for the restructuring of his loans. Having learned his lesson the hard way, Dakay made it a point to keep his bank payments up-to-date, as well as use all excess funds to upgrade technology and expand the carrageenan market. While Dakay could have closed shop and lived off his savings from years of being ahead of the game, he could not, in good conscience, simply leave the farmers empty-handed. Business was definitely difficult, but helping poor farmers earn a living by providing them with an alternative means of livelihood — seaweed farming — gave Dakay a sense of fulfilment and inspired him to push forward. The Shemberg Group, a company Dakay started from scratch, is now the largest producer of refined and semi-refined carrageenan in the world, producing 9,000 metric tons per year. The Group has eight carrageenan refineries located in various parts of the Philippines, with major product lines that include raw seaweed,

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as well as traditionally refined and naturalgrade carrageenan, which supply raw materials for food, dairy, air freshener, oral and personal care products, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, biotechnological, and other industrial and consumer products. Shemberg is unrivalled as the only carrageenan manufacturer to utilize a variety of processes providing different levels of carrageenan refining. This enables them to provide customers with the most cost-effective carrageenan for their specific applications. Instrumental in introducing commercial seaweed farming in the region, Shemberg secured a preferred position in marketing the Philippine seaweed, both for its own use, and for use by other carrageenan producers. As a result of these activities, Shemberg now provides a livelihood for more than 40,000 coastal families while helping to save the Philippine coastal reefs from destructive fishing practices. To expand the carrageenan market, Dakay opened the markets in Europe and other parts of the world by putting up its marketing, know-how, and technology network. “Other countries now copy Philippine technology,” Dakay proudly said, adding that carrageenan is imported everywhere except in Africa. Dakay was also responsible for three major feats that benefited the local seaweed and carrageenan industry. The first was to achieve the recognition of the United States Food and Drug Administration of the Philippine natural-grade carrageenan as a non-toxic food additive in 1990.The second was the country’s successful campaign for the classification of Philippine natural-grade carrageenan as a food additive in the Food Codex Alimentarius and the Codex Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants. The third was the country’s successful campaign to have the Processed Eucheuma Seaweed (PNG) included in the European Union food additives’ list. These

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achievements, spearheaded by Dakay, provided the key break for the PNG’s stable stand in the world market of carrageenan. One of the Ten Outstanding Young Men awardees in 1988, Dakay did not rest on his laurels. His main concern stretched beyond the growth of his company and included looking into the livelihood of the farmers and his employees. Dakay was fully aware that taking care of the farmers was the only sure way to safeguard his own business enterprise. Realizing that its revenues were propelled by seaweed production at the farmers’ level, Dakay headed the Seaweed Industry Association of the Philippines (SIAP) to implement a social programme for seaweed farmers. The programme involved providing the farmers with social and medical insurance, and connected them with government financing institutions for the production of loans. Seaweed, being a high-value aquacultural product, could change the lives of marginalized farmers, turning them from poor peasants into entrepreneurs. To help seaweed farmers recoup their losses in the past, Shemberg and SIAP joined hands to tap available public funds. Giving a voice to farmers, these two institutions used their clout to have government funding allocated as the Agricultural Competitiveness Enhancement Fund, the safety net established by the government to shield the farming and fishery sectors from the effects of trade liberalization. Furthermore, the association also talks to banks and credit guarantee institutions to provide loans payable within twelve months to seaweed farmers and traders. Dakay said Shemberg was committed to lift the quality of life of both the seaweed farmers and consumers. The company, he added, would ensure the quality of its products for the customers’ ultimate satisfaction and honour its commitment to protecting the marine environment which, according to him,

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was the source of the company’s existence in the first place. The number of families who had directly or indirectly benefited from the industry went up from 108,265 in 2001 to 116,084 in 2003. Apart from Shemberg, Dakay also owned a California-based food company, marketing and research centres in Canada and Denmark, and the original family business making mosquito-repellent products. Dakay died of kidney cancer on 5 January 2012. Deanie Lyn Ocampo Go R E F E R E N C E S Dela Cruz, Roderick. “Keeping the Seaweed Industry afloat”. In The Manila Times, 10 July 2004. Go, Grace Glory. “Achievers: Benson Dakay, Maverick Entrepreneur”. In The Philippines yearbook 1998, p. 74. Manila: The Fookien Times, 1998. List of TOYM Awardees 1959–2008. Retrieved September 2009 from . Shemberg Corporation website .

Dananjaya, James (James Tan; Tan Soe Lin, , Chen Shilin, 1934– ) Anthropologist, folklore specialist, Indonesia

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ames Dananjaya is an emeritus professor of Anthropology at the University of Indonesia (UI). He is known as the first Indonesian folklore specialist, and is the author Indonesian Folklore (1984), Japanese Folklore (1997), and Chinese Folklore (2007). For his publication, Indonesian Folklore, he received The Best Book Award of 1987 from Yayasan Buku Utama. He also received Satyalencana

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Kebudayaan from the Indonesian Government for his contributions in writing and his development of cultural anthropology and folklore in 2002. Dananjaya was born the second of three sons of the Tan family on 13 April 1934 in Jakarta. His father was a cashier in a private company and his mother had a beauty salon in Malang (East Java).According to Dananjaya, his mother was the one responsible for his pursuit of a higher education. Even though he was born in Jakarta, he spent his childhood in Surabaya and Malang. He went to Holland Chinese School (HCS) Chiao Thung in Malang and then continued at Holland Chinese School Ming Kuang in Surabaya for his primary education. It was around that time that the young boy learnt ballet, together with Javanese and Balinese dances, from Nyi Tjondrolukito. But because he was unable to play the gamelan (Javanese musical instrument), he could not teach Javanese dance. He finished his primary education in 1947 and continued at SMP Ming Kuang, also in Surabaya. However, before finishing his junior school education, he moved to SMP Tiong Hoa Hwe Koan (THHK) in Jakarta, also known as Pa Hua, until he graduated in 1951. He continued his senior high school at SMA Budhaya — also in Jakarta — and graduated in 1955. Afterwards, rather than going straight to university, he worked as an instructor at the Namarina Ballet School and taught ballet at a Chinese school — Chiauw Chung — in Mangga Besar (Jakarta). One of his ballet students was Kamil Setyadi, the secretary of Paguyuban Sosial Marga Tionghoa Indonesia (PSMTI), an Indonesian Chinese Social Clan Association, who after the fall of Soeharto, asked him to help the organization. Dananjaya went to the University of Indonesia in 1963 to study anthropology. His

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professor at the university, Koentjaraningrat, was a leading Indonesian anthropologist. The young man became his assistant and Koentjaraningrat later helped him obtain an M.A. scholarship to the United States in 1969. It was in UC Berkeley that Dananjaya became interested in studying folklore under Aland Dundes. He received his Masters degree in 1971 after submitting a thesis that was later published as An Annotated Bibliography of Javanese Folklore. He did not forget his interest in ballet though, so even while studying at UC Berkeley, he registered for the Martha Graham Style Contemporary Dance. After receiving his Masters of Art degree, Dananjaya returned to the University of Indonesia and enrolled in a Ph.D. programme under the supervision of Professor Koentjaraningrat. This time he ventured into a new field studying an ethnic group in Bali, which gained him a Ph.D. in 1977. His dissertation, “Petani Desa Trunyan di Bali: Lukisan Analitis yang Menghubungkan Praktik Pengasuhan Anak Orang Trunyan dengan Latar Belakang Etnografisnya” was published by Pustaka Jaya in 1980 under the title, Kebudayaan Petani Desa Trunyan di Bali (The Culture of Trunyan Farmers in Bali). That year, Dananjaya also published Beberapa Masalah Folklor (Several Folklore Problems) through the Anthropology Department of the University of Indonesia. Another Trunyan related book, Upacara Lingkaran Hidup di Trunyan Bali (Life Cycle Rituals at Trunyan Bali), written several years later, was published by Balai Pustaka in 1985. Dananjaya was appointed guru besar, or professor of Anthropology, at the University of Indonesia in 1980. A.B. Susanto and Murti Bunanta are among those who have been taught and supervised by him. He returned to the United States for his two-year non-degree programme on Anthropology of Psychiatry at

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the University of California, San Francisco, in 1980. At the same time he was also a one-year Fulbright guest professor at the University of California Berkeley. It was also in 1980 that he stopped dancing because, as he said, he wanted to become a good lecturer. During his twenty years of professorship at the University of Indonesia, Dananjaya published several book serials for children, namely, Folk Stories from Bali, Folk Story from Central Java, Folk Stories from Kalimantan, and Folk Stories from Sumatera. All were published in 1992. He also published Japanese Folklore (1997) and two books on practical jokes, namely, Humor Mahasiswa Jakarta (1988) and Humor & Rumor Politik Masa Reformasi (1999). He became emeritus professor since 1999, but continued to teach at the Universitas Kristen Krida Wacana (Ukrida) and supervise doctoral students at UI. He continued to study folklore, and in 2003, published American Folklore. His activities became very limited after he had a stroke in November 2007 and had to move around in a wheelchair. Since the Jakarta riots of May 1998, Dananjaya has actively voiced his disapproval of the discrimination of Chinese Indonesians. According to him, Chinese folklore in Indonesia had been suppressed for almost thirty-five years during the authoritarian regime of former President Soeharto. But he claims that folklores are very important to maintain identities, especially for ethnic Chinese-Indonesians, amid pressure from the New Order regime. He said: For more than three decades, Chinese descendants were forced to forget their roots. Some of them suffered a type of ‘amnesia’ … folklores could be used to cure this amnesia (Junaidi 2008).

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Friends and former students of Dananjaya know him as a man who is proud of his ethnicity and also loves his country. He always jokes about his alias being “Kasnawi Karna Dipanegara”, which is an acronym for bekas Cina-Betawi tukar nama karena dipaksa negara, meaning, a former Chinese-Jakartan who changed his name because he was forced to do so by the state. He is now involved in the PSMTI, the Indonesian Chinese Social Clan Association, as an expert consultant, particularly in relation to Chinese culture. Thung Ju Lan R E F E R E N C E S Junaidi, A. “Bringing Back Chinese Folklore”. The Jakarta Post, 23 April 2008. (accessed March 2008). Sihar Ramses Simatupang. “Peringatan HUT Ke-70 James Danandjaja: Cerita Rakyat Berguna buat Identitas Bangsa!”. Sinar Harapan, Tuesday, 20 April 2004. (accessed March 2008). Utomo Lukman & Dr Irawan. “Peranan Tionghoa Dalam Perkembangan Kebudayaan Indonesia”. Seminar by professor of Universitas Indonesia, James Dananjaya. Indonesia Media Online. (accessed March 2008).

Ðaëng Vaên Thành ( , Deng Wencheng, 1960– ) Banker,Vietnam

D

aëng Vaên Thành is chairman of Saigon

Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Ngân hàng Sài Gòn Thöông Tín), popularly called Sacombank. After eighteen years in operation, his bank has scored many “firsts” in market performance and transaction network. In December 2006, Sacombank became

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the first bank to be listed on Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HOSE). The following year, it was named Vietnam’s Bank of the Year by Euromoney, an international financial magazine. In January 2008, Sacombank established its representative office in Guangxi’s Beibu (meaning, “northern”) Golf Economic Zone and was reportedly the first foreign bank to make its presence felt in this developing province of China. On 12 December the same year, it opened another branch in Vientiane, Laos. The bank is the largest joint-stock commercial bank with 190 branches across the country and has a total asset of 98,474 billion dong and a staff force of more than 7,000 in September 2010. On 15 January 2011, the bank’s securities arm officially inaugurated its first branch in Cambodia, called Sacombank Securities Cambodia Public Ltd. (abbreviated as “SBS-Cambodia”). Thành is someone who understands the advantages of expanding his banking empire via strategic partnerships with globetrotting banks and investment houses. He started his career as a supervisor at the credit cooperative called Thành Công (meaning “success” in Vietnamese), when private enterprises were forbidden in the socialist state. When reforms were ratified in the late 1980s, Thành established Sacombank in 1991 as a private commercial bank. Over the years, the bank grew into a multinational enterprise and was the first to be listed in the stock exchange of Vietnam. The Sacombank has ventured into four main business areas: brokerage, corporate finance advisory, investment banking, private equity, and research. It owns four companies, Sacombank Leasing Co. Ltd. (SacombankSBL), Sacombank Remittance Express Co. Ltd. (Sacombank-SBR), Sacombank Asset Management Co. Ltd. (Sacombank-

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SBA), and Sacombank Jewelry Co. Ltd. (Sacombank-SBJ). In addition, it has six partner companies, Sacombank Securities Joint Stock Company (Sacombank-SBS), Saigon Thuong Tin Investment Joint Stock Company (Sacombank-STI), Saigon Thuong Tin Real Estate Joint Stock Company, and Vietfund Management (VFM). The bank has managed to convince two multinational financial organizations, the International Financial Corporation (IFC) and Dragon Capital (DC) to be its partners. It also entered into strategic partnership with the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ) in 2005, but the latter withdrew its 10 per cent stake in 2010. Sacombank was quick to apply the strategies of customer segmentation and product differentiation. It noticed the active participation of women in the economy and responded to it by arranging special financial services for women entrepreneurs in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. Its branches for lady customers are named after International Women’s Day on 8 March, which is commemorated in Vietnam, and therefore called, “8th March Branches”. The bank was the first to issue international credit cards to its women customers; it is also unique in that it has filled the niche and gap which was created about a decade ago with the closure of the first bank for Hoa (ethnic Chinese) called the Viet-Hoa Bank. On 10 August 2007, Sacombank inaugurated its first branch for the Hoa, residents of Ho Chi Minh City called Hoa-Viet Branch. Chinese language can be used at Hoa-Viet Branch as its staff are able to speak Mandarin and forms for transactions are also printed in Mandarin. This specialized branch is located in the “Chinatown” district of Ho Chi Minh City — District 5. Districts 5, 6, 10, and 11 in the

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city are areas with concentrations of the Hoa population. Thành is a second-generation Hoa born in Saigon on 11 August 1960. His father is a Hainanese and his mother,an ethnicVietnamese. Thành’s ancestral roots can be traced to Jiaotang ) in Puqian town ( ), in village ( ) on Hainan Island, China. His Wenchang ( father served as adviser at the Hainan NativePlace Association, Ho Chi Minh City — a role which is continued by Thành at the association. He prays annually at the commemorative ritual for Tianhou, the goddess of heaven, at the shrine of the association. Thành attended Vietnamese schools when he was young, but has retained his comprehension ability of the Hainanese dialect. He has visited Wenchang, accompanied by his ethnic Vietnamese wife, HuyΩnh Bích Ngoïc, and their eldest son, Ðaëng ). The couple also has a Hoàng Anh ( daughter, ÖÙc My, a year younger than Hoàng Anh, who pursued financial studies in New Zealand, and two other younger sons,Anh Tuaán and Thái Sôn, who attended an international school in Vietnam. Thành’s eldest son, Hoàng Anh, aged thirty-one in 2011, helms Sacomreal, Sacombank’s real estate company which employs 400 managerial and non-managerial staff. Measured by his individual achievements, the young man seems poised to keep up with his father in business. He has been named an “outstanding young entrepreneur” twice and “model entrepreneur of Ho Chi Minh City” four years in a row. Among his awards is “The Red Star” (Giaûi thöôûng Sao Ðoû) — an award given to successful young businessmen who have also made outstanding contributions to their communities. He seems to have followed in his father’s footsteps in expanding his real estate business through joint ventures with overseas business

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partners. In 2010 Sacomreal, partnered a Malaysian property development company, Gamuda Land, to build a township of 82 hectares named Celadon City, in Ho Chi Minh City. Women in the Ðaëng family are just as actively engaged in business as its men. All five women in the Ðaëng family, including the extended family, are listed among the richest women in Vietnam’s stock market in 2007. The five women of the Ðaëng family who are shareholders of Tan Tao Industrial Zone Development Company (ITA) include the mother, two daughters, a daughter-in-law and a maternal grandchild who have a total asset value of 2,178 billion dong ($136.12 million). Nguyeãn Phöông Anh, the maternal grandchild of the Ðaëng family, who is not involved in managing the business, is the third richest woman of the top fifty richest women in Vietnam, with a net worth of 743 billion dong in 2007. The Ðaëng family’s wealth is said to have significantly grown especially after it registered Tan Tao Industrial Zone Development Company (Công ty Coå phaàn Khu Công nghieäp Tân Taïo — ITA) in the bourse in November 2006. Ðaëng Thò Hoàng Yeán, the mother of Phöông Anh, who is chairman of ITA, ranks ninth on the top fifty richest women list and was valued at 372 billion dong ($23.25 million). The chairman of Sacombank,Thành, has no qualms about being featured on the list of the rich and famous in Vietnam, saying that such announcements of the rich are recognitions of the success and contributions of individuals. Thành tries to balance his family life and business health and has reportedly been successful at this. At home, he believes in abandoning his chief executive officer image, and lending a listening ear as a father and husband to everyone. His oldest married son,

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Hoàng Anh, regards his father as his model, and still frequently dines with his parents. Grace Chew Chye Lay R E F E R E N C E S Công ty chöùng khoán ngân hàng Sài Gòn Thöông Tín (Sacombank-SBS), Sacombank-SBS . (accessed 2 March 2011). ] 、 HOTNAM! News. [ (Source: Thoi Bao Kinh Te Viet Nam), 27 August 2007. (accessed 13 March 2008). Phi Loan. Ông Ðaëng Hoàng Anh — Chuû tòch HÐQT Sacomreal: Hoài bão 8X. Ho Chi Minh City: Doanh Nhan Saigon, 4 Nov 2010. (accessed 23 February 2011). VNExpress. “Vietnam’s millionaires speak out about media list”. 24 Jan 2008. (accessed 12 May 2009). VNExpress. “50 phuï nöõ giàu nhaát VN trên sàn chöùng khoán”. 26 Jan 2007. (accessed 2 May 2009). 〈 〉，《 》，2008 1 9 。 (accessed 23 February 2011).

Darmaputera, Eka (The Oen Hien, 1942–2005) Church leader, liberal theologian, Indonesia

E

ka Darmaputera was born as The ( ) Oen Hien on 16 November 1942 in Mertoyudan in Magelang, Central Java. He was raised in a very simple family where his father ran a small shop to make a living and raise his two sons. The economy of the country during his childhood was very difficult, so much so that his family often had

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to make do with very little food, eating only cassava for weeks. The young Darmaputera had his primary and secondary education in Magelang. He graduated from SD Masehi (Christian Elementary School) in 1953, junior high school at Christian Junior High School (SMP BOPKRI) in 1957 a public senior high school in 1960. He then wanted to go on to the National Military Academic in Magelang. However, because of his family’s economic situation, he finally decided to join his friend who had applied to study at Jakarta Theological Seminary simply because the seminary provided its students with a scholarship. The scholarship provided by his seminary was not huge so he often had to make money elsewhere. For example, he once taught religion for very little pay at SMA BPSK, a Christian high school in Jakarta. Darmaputera was ordained at GKI Bekasi Timur, Jakarta, on 15 September 1967, and served this congregation until his retirement in 2000. From 1969–1973 Darmaputera was elected for two periods to be the moderator of the Indonesian Christian Church (GKI) of West Java Synod. To date he is the youngest moderator ever elected at this synod. From 1975–1977 he served as the moderator of the General Synod of the Indonesian Christian Church, consisting of the three synods of West, Central, and East Java. In 1977 he received a scholarship to do a Ph.D. programme at Andover Newton Theological School and Boston College in Boston, Massachussetts, USA under the guidance of Professor Max Stackhouse and Professor Theodore M. Steeman, OFM. He completed his Ph.D. in Christian Ethics in 1982, with a dissertation entitled, “Pancasila and the Search for Identity and Modernity in Indonesian Society: An Ethical and Cultural

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Analysis” (the dissertation was published in 1988 by Brill). Darmaputera is known as a very productive writer. Ever since junior high school, he has been writing poems. In 1973, together with friends such as Arswendo Atmowiloto and Julius Syaranamual, he published a humour magazine, Astaga, in the style of MAD Magazine, although the publication did not survive for long. He also wrote a lot of articles in the mass media. He was the regular editorial writer for Sinar Harapan daily until the newspaper was banned in 1980 by Soeharto’s regime. When Suara Pembaruan was published to replace Sinar Harapan, he often wrote his reflections in the new paper. Darmaputera was very active in several organizations. He once served as a member of the executive council of the Indonesian Student Christian Movement (1962–66). In this position, he became one of the proponents of a Christian union of junior and senior high school students (GSKI). He was elected as the general secretary of this student organization (1962–66), as well as a member of the executive council of the Young Christians Movement of Indonesia. He was also elected chairperson of the National Front of Students (1965–66). His rich experience in organizational life shaped his leadership in church circles as well as the wider society. From 1984–89 Darmaputera became a member of the executive committee of the Communion of Churches in Indonesia (CCI, formerly the National Council of Churches in Indonesia). During the general assembly of the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) in Seoul, South Korea, in 1985, he delivered a defence of the Indonesian churches accused of keeping quiet and supporting the policy of the Indonesian Government in East Timor, and its human rights violation there. This was immediately

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followed by the decision of the Indonesian churches and the CCI to freeze their membership of CCA. Darmaputera’s books, lectures, writings, and sermons showed his sensitivitiy and sharp analysis of the faith and the responsibility of Christians in their social life. His thoughts have often been used to develop policies of the churches in Indonesia. Among others is his concept to train young members of the church congregation to become motivators to serve rural communities. This became one of the best programmes initiated by the CCI and was held in Cikembar, Sukabumi. Together with General T.B. Simatupang, another important thinker among Indonesian church leaders, he formulated in the 1980s what is called the PNSPP or the “Implementation of Pancasila in National Development”. This concept was later adopted as the core of the Basic Outlines of National Policies of Soeharto’s government. PNSPP is the outcome of the thinking of BP7, the government body for the study of Pancasila as a national ideology, and the work of the National Development Planning Board. Darmaputera’s concern for social and humanitarian issues is clearly seen when in 1973 he was delegated by the CCI to become the expert witness at the State Court of Central Jakarta for Iwan Rubianto who submitted his petition for gender reassignment and had his name changed to Vivian Rubianti after undergoing a sex change operation in Singapore. In his argument, Eka said that according to the Christian faith, God wants human being to be happy in their life. Thus, if the sex reassignment would make Iwan Rubianto happy, the Christian church would be fully supportive of his decision. Darmaputera was also heavily involved in interfaith dialogues. Together with his friends, such as Th. Sumartana, Abdurrahman

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Wahid, and Gedong Bagus Oka, he was involved in founding “Dian/Interfidei”, an interfaith organization in Kaliurang, Sleman. He also translated a book by an interfaith theologian, Stanley Samartha, Dialogue between Men of Living Faiths. This book and other involvements of Darmaputera in interfaith dialogues have brought condemnation of him by some conservative churches and theologians in Indonesia. However, he remained a humble thinker and continued to strive to build bridges and cooperation with those who held different theological views. For example, he had a close relationship with Rev. Stephen Tong, a famous conservative evangelical pastor in Indonesia. Darmaputera later also accepted an invitation to teach at the Southeast Asia Theological Seminary, a conservative seminary in Malang. Other than being a graduate school lecturer at Jakarta Theological Seminary, he also served as a lecturer of the Southeast Asia Graduate School of Theology in Singapore (which was later moved to Manila in the Philippines). In 1999 he decided to get involved in politics by becoming a legislative candidate for the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle to represent Tangerang. He was not elected because his position was later transferred to a lower rank, making it impossible to win unless the party won heavily. In October 2000, he took early retirement as pastor of his church because of his deteriorating health and his intention to contribute more at the national and international levels. His thinking and contributions were recognized by Princeton Theological Seminary who awarded him The Abraham Kuyper Prize for Excellence in Reformed Theology and Public Life, in December 1999. Eka Darmaputera passed away on 29 June 2005 after more than twenty years of battling

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with cyrosis and liver cancer. He is survived by his wife, Evang Meyati Kristiani; and a son,Arya Wicaksana who is now working in a financial company in Australia; his daughter-in-law,Vera Iskandar; and one granddaughter. Stephen Suleeman R E F E R E N C E S Herlianto. “Eka Darmaputera”, 2000. (accessed March 2012). Pasaribu, Truly Almendo. “Pemikir Hebat, Eka Darmaputera”, 2011. (accessed March 2012). Sinaga, Martin L. et al. Pergulatan Kehadiran Kristen di Indonesia: Teks-teks Terpilih Eka Darmaputera. Jakarta: BPK GM, 1999. Tokoh Indonesia. “Sang Pendeta Pejuang Toleransi”.

(accessed March 2012).

Dee Ching Chuan ( , Li Qingquan, 1888–1940) Business and community leader, Philippines

D

ee Ching Chuan is most respected and remembered within the Chinese community for his leadership and contribution to the welfare of the overseas Chinese in the Philippines. He was called “the Lumber King” as he was the major force that expanded his family business into a world-renowned enterprise. As an ethnic Chinese, Dee had never forgotten his motherland and had contributed extensively to the improvement of his hometown. He was also a leader of the Nanyang Fund-raising ) to support Committee ( China in the Sino-Japanese War.

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Dee was born on 24 August 1888 in Shizhen Village of the Fujian Province, China. During the end of the Qing Dynasty, the government was very corrupt and life was miserable in China. Like many other Chinese, Dee’s father, Calixto Dyyco, left Fujian in search for a better life in the Philippines. He then set up a small-scale lumber business in the Philippines. When Dee was thirteen, his father brought him to the Philippines to learn the family business. He worked during the day and studied Chinese and English at night. A few years later, his father sent him for further studies in Xiamen and then Hong Kong, where he mastered English and learnt how Westerners conduct business. When Dee was seventeen, he returned to the Philippines to manage their small company, and his father retired to China. Dee began improving facilities in the company by utilizing electrical machineries, such as electric chain saws, which was a major breakthrough in the lumber industry. Around this time, Dee also established Dee C. Chuan and Company. A watershed for this fledgling company was the acquisition of the Negros Philippine Lumber Company (NPLC) in 1920. With NPLC he also acquired a twenty-year concession from the Bureau of Forestry to log at Cadiz in Negros Occidental. At the time of acquisition NPLC was already exporting to the U.S. West Coast and had a total of 12.4 million board feet of production. This was a case of being at the right place at the right time with the right goods. The Americans had an open economic policy and lumber was very much in demand. As Dee was able to provide the needed lumber for the Americans, he earned the name, “Lumber King”. Dee expanded into shipping with his Singbe Transportation Company which was tasked with serving the inter-island shipment

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of lumber between Cadiz, Negros Occidental and Manila. In 1928 he incorporated the Philippine Lumber Manufacturing Company to oversee its new franchise of logging and sawmilling at Catabangan, Camarines Sur in Southern Luzon.Tragedy struck in 1931 when fire burned down the sawmill in Cadiz. After the war, Dee and some other ethnic Chinese wanted to provide better financial assistance to small- and medium-scale businesses owned by the overseas Chinese as the Americans imposed very strict banking policies on Chinese businessmen. The China Banking Corporation was then established by Dee and his partners and it offered tremendous relief to the community. The bank earned a very good reputation by providing very low, even zero, interest rates to the overseas Chinese, thereby gaining their trust and support. Dee served as president of the bank for twenty years until his death in 1940. He was also a very well known leader among the Chinese community in the Philippines and was secretary and councillor of the Philippine Chinese Charitable Association — the biggest Chinese non-profit organization, for many years. He was Trustee (1917) and vicepresident (1919–24) of the Philippine Chinese Chamber of Commerce (PCCC), its president for six consecutive terms and its youngest and most prestigious president ever. And from 1925 to 1935, he held the position of either trustee or supervisor. It was during his term as president of the PCCC that the Philippine authorities, with the support of the American colonizers, implemented the Bookkeeping Law, which required books of accounts to be written only in English, Spanish, or Filipino. Dee then led the Chinese community to protest against the implementation of such a law. He and other Chinese community leaders resorted to legal

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means to appeal to the local court, higher court, and the United States Supreme Court, and even sought the help of the Qing Government from China. Dee also sent a lawyer, Albino Sycip, to Washington D.C. to plead the Philippine case at the Supreme Court there. After five years of struggle and protest, the U. S. Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional. Dee had a great love for his motherland, China, even though he was residing in the Philippines. He was very concerned about the development of his hometown in Fujian and organized the Save Fujian Province Association, as well as coordinated with fellow Hokkiens from Southeast Asian countries to join efforts in developing their home province. He established the Fujian Newspaper in the 1920s through which he propagated the idea of love of one’s country and hometown. In 1929, in order to promote trade between China and the Philippines, and to promote the products of China in the international market, Dee organized a committee to promote China products in the Philippines and assumed the position as its chairman. In 1930 China established the Bank of China, with a supervisory committee of which Dee was a member. He was also elected a director of the board of this bank. Dee indeed expended a lot of effort for the improvement of the economy of China. In 1933, he also invested more than two million silver yuan to reclaim land, build dykes, improve docks and built several commercial buildings in Xiamen. He even invested more than 100,000 silver yuan for the survey of land and aviation routes in Zhangzhou, Fujian. The same year, the 19th Army established a revolutionary government in Fujian. As Dee was very supportive of the development of the province, he was given the position of provincial government committee member. He also donated several

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school buildings to help solve the province’s education problem. During the Sino-Japanese War, Dee led the overseas Chinese in raising funds to support the revolutionary army. After the 18 September Incident in 1931, he led the PCCC and other overseas Chinese associations to call for the termination of the civil war, urging the Communist and Kuomintang parties to join forces in the resistance against the Japanese. The same year, they were able to raise US$2 million for the 19th Army. The overseas Chinese in the Philippines organized the China Aviation Development Federation Manila Chapter, with Dee as the chairman.With the funds raised, they were able to purchase fifteen airplanes for China’s air force, including one Dee donated personally. After the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on 7 July 1937, Dee also organized the National Salvation Movement ) and even collaborated ( ) with business tycoon Tan Kah Kee ( to organize Nanyang Fund-raising Committee that rendered relief operations for war victims. However Dee did not get to see his homeland and adopted country free themselves from their invaders. He passed away in California on 27 October 1940, leaving behind US$100,000 in his will for the benefit of the war-stricken children of China. His death was honoured by the Philippine Government with flags raised half-mast. Maybelle Tan R E F E R E N C E S Official website of the China Banking Corporation . ，1904–

《 1974》。 《

》。

：

《  ，2001， 284。

，2000。 》。

：

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Dhanin Chiarawanon ( , Xie Guomin, 1939– ) Entrepreneur, tycoon,Thailand

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hanin Chiarawanon is a leading entrepreneur and head of Charoen Pokphand (CP), one of the largest Thai multinational companies. He was born on 19 April 1939 in the Yaowarat area of Bangkok, the youngest of five siblings. His ), was a Teochew father Chia Ek Chor ( who migrated from Guangdong Province to Bangkok in 1921. His mother’s name was Kimkee. Dhanin attended Sarasit Witthayalai Primary School in Ban Pong, Ratburi, where he completed his studies in 1956. He finished his secondary education in Shantou, China, in 1958 and went on to study commerce in Hong Kong at the age of seventeen. He began his first job at the Charoen Pokphand Store in Bangkok but soon left to take up employment with the Federation of Poultry Egg Cooperatives of Thailand. This was followed by a stint at Samakkhi Kha Sut Company. When he turned twenty-five, Dhanin moved back to CP and has been working in the corporation ever since. In the early 1990s, CP ranked as the largest foreign investor in China. During the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, Dhanin was forced to make significant changes to CP to ensure that the corporation would survive, such as selling a motorcycle factory and a brewery in China. Eventually, the corporation recovered and managed to penetrate the Chinese market. In 2004, avian flu affected CP badly, as the conglomerate was the largest chicken producer in Asia. There was a rumour that CP had tried to cover up the outbreak, but a senior officer

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of the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization in Bangkok confirmed Dhanin’s statement that the enclosed factory farms that CP used to raise its chickens are sequestered from birds believed to be carrying the virus. Although he did not attend university, Dhanin has obtained honorary degrees from various institutes of higher learning. In 1986, he received an honorary doctorate from the Mae Cho Institute of Agricultural Technology in Chiang Mai. He received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy of Thammasat University in 1988. Dhanin attended the National Defence College of Thailand in 1989 as a member of the first joint public/ private class. The following year, he received an honorary doctorate in economics from Ramkhamhaeng University. In 1991, he was awarded an honorary doctorate in agricultural science from Chiang Mai University and an honorary doctorate in marketing from the China Agricultural University. Four years later, he received an honorary doctorate in business management from Thailand’s National Institute of Development Administration and an honorary doctorate in agriculture from Khon Kaen University. In 2000, Dhanin was awarded an honorary doctorate by Kasetsat University and, in 2004, an honorary doctorate in agricultural technology from Chankasem Rajaphat University. Most recently, he was given an honorary doctorate by the Business Administration Faculty of the Christian University of Thailand. He also received an honorary doctorate from King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology, Lat Krabang, in 2008. Currently, Dhanin is among the top executives of the Charoen Pokphand Group, serving as chairman and chief executive officer of a number of the group’s firms. CP

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is well known as the largest producer and trader of animal feed in the world. The group has also been acknowledged as a leading conglomerate in Thailand, with ten different industrial groups handling the production and trade of industrial and agricultural goods and foods; international trading, marketing, and distribution; plastics, land development and real estate; telecommunications, automotive and general industry, as well as integrated agri-business. According to Forbes, Dhanin was ranked the 390th wealthiest man in the world in 2006. In 2010, he was ranked the wealthiest man in Thailand, with net assets valued at roughly US$7 billion (216 trillion baht). Dhanin is married to Khunying Thewi (Watthanlikhit) Chiarawanon. They have three sons — Suphakit, Narong, and Suphachai, and two daughters, Wanni and Thiphaphon. Dhanin has received several royal decorations, such as the Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant, the Most Noble Order of the Crown of Thailand, and the Most Admirable Order of the Direkkhunaphon. In late March and early April of 2008, he expounded a theory of “two highs”: that consumer prices should be allowed to increase, but that wages and salaries must also be adjusted simultaneously. Dhanin spends his leisure time in his country estate Chonburi Province, where he raises free-range chickens and water buffaloes in an attempt to conserve native breeds of livestock and to revive traditional values. He conducts research on the development of traditional chicken breeds. His focus expanded to include water buffaloes when one of his sons, Narong, saw a good-looking specimen on its way to the slaughterhouse. Feeling sorry for the animal, Dhanin bought it on the spot. He has since come to realize that water

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buffaloes can play a significant role in the farming cycle, leading to enrichment of the fertility of the soil. Dhanin is also a devotee of cockfighting. He has attempted to modernize the sport to make it as humane to the animal as boxing is to humans. He has invested in the Native Chicken Research and Demonstration Center, which not only preserves and advances the sport of cockfighting, but also promotes the export of Thai chicken meat. Aekapol Chongvilaivan R E F E R E N C E S Horn, Robert. “Chearavanont”. TIME Magazine, 19 April 2004. (accessed March 2012). Lee, Josephine. “Fowl Play”. Forbes Magazine, 17 March 2003. (accessed March 2012). Paetkau, Maureen. “Eating the Right Stuff”. The Bangkok Post, 1 April 2003. (accessed March 2012).

Dieäp Bá Hành ( ,Ye Boxing, 1869–1950) Banker, community leader,Vietnam

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ieäp Bá Hành was known for his community leadership and his professional achievements as a banker. He carved his career in a significant state bank during the colonial period of Vietnam and finally helmed it. His clever arbitration between the Chinese community and the French authorities in sensitive commercial and legal disputes won him recognition and respect as the leader of the most important economic organization of the Chinese — the Saigon Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

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His efforts in the establishment of economic, educational, and social institutions for the ethnic Chinese community of the Republic of Vietnam were noteworthy. Hành was born in 1869 in Da Ji village in Zhongshan county of Guangdong Province, ). His family China ( was not wealthy, but he had great interest in learning and was a popular child with the village elders. At the age of fourteen, his maternal uncle, ), sponsored his trip to Wu Gengtang ( Hong Kong and enrolled him at St Joseph’s Institution where he studied English. He made good progress in the language after six years of study, and on the recommendations of Wu, who worked at France Steamship Company, secured a job in the same company. At the age of twenty-two, he assisted ) in the operations Huang Meixi ( of the branch office of China Merchants Steamship Company in Jiujiang City of Jiangxi ). During his Province, China ( three years of employment there, he proved to be an excellent worker. When news of Wu’s deteriorating health reached him, he returned to Hong Kong and was again employed at his former workplace, the steamship company. After several years, he applied for the post of assistant manager at an American mercantile ) which had just bank ( established a branch in Hong Kong. He rapidly rose to become its manager. A few years later, his bank merged with the International Banking Corporation (IBC), which was a company chartered to conduct the banking business of the National Bank of the City of New York ) outside the United States ( International Banking Corporation opened its branches in East Asia in 1901–02, and later developed into the Citibank Corp. Hành landed the manager’s position at the Guangzhou branch. A difference in opinion

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between him and the chief of the branch after half a year led to his resignation. An opportunity awaited him, however, in Saigon, where the post of vice-manager at Banque de ), the l’Indochine ( forerunner of Banque Indosuez, was vacant. He responded to the opportunity and performed well. Within a decade, he rose through the ranks and was promoted to managing director in 1916, thanks to economic development and the increasing participation of the Chinese in the French colonial economy, which favoured a Chinese-speaking professional like him. In the 1940s, the Banque de l’Indochine was acting as a financial agent for the French Government in the territories of France in Asia and was also handling the transfer of Boxer indemnity payments from China to France in addition to transacting international trade between France and China. Hành’s professional reputation boosted his social stature and created more opportunities in the socio-political and economic arenas for his skills. When he first took office at the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, he initiated the construction of a new building for the South Vietnam Overseas Chinese Association for Commercial Affairs when physical space became limited. The project which took place from July 1922 to October 1923 required sterling commitment in raising funds and cost 130,000 piastres to build. It was located in Rue de Paris (renamed Phùng Hang Street in the 1950s), and at its launch, the organization was renamed the Saigon Chinese Chamber ). After this of Commerce ( first major achievement, Hành mediated and resolved commercial conflicts in the Chinese community Saigon, also managing requests from the Chinese community for the colonial government,as well as the Chinese Government. He intervened in the legislation which had made it mandatory for all Chinese businessmen

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to keep their accounts in the French language. As the enforcement of the legislation would create obstacles for Chinese businesses, he negotiated successfully for its abolishment. He wielded great social influence, serving as the chairman of the organization for four terms (six years) from 1920 to 1925, and again from 1930 to 1931. Each term lasted two full years, from January of the first year to December of the following year. He further mooted the idea of building a sports and martial arts school for Chôï Lôùn (Cholon), and was one of the main drivers behind the fund-raising efforts of the Guangzhao Native-Place Association in its construction of the building of Tröôøng Quaûng ), a school managed by Trieäu ( the association. Matters related to construction came under his charge, but he also became one of the two top donors for the project. The other donor was businessman, Lý Troïng Trác ). The school finally opened in 1928 ( in Rue d’ Alsace Lorraine, later renamed Phó Ðöùc Chính Street. Hành came up with the idea of enabling the Guangzhao Charity Association (Hoäi TöΩ Thieän Quaûng Trieäu ) to achieve financial independence instead of relying solely on donors. The association offered refuge to poor migrants who were in great need of medical aid, but could not afford it. In 1909, he gathered the Cantonese in the community and proposed organizing a charity bazaar. The three-day bazaar was successful and realized a profit of 80,000 piastres. The sum was deposited in Banque de l’Indochine where it earned interest and finally increased in value to 90,000 piastres. This sum was then used to acquire real estate with the hope that it could fetch rent from its lease to cover the operational costs of the association. However, trouble surfaced when the person under whose name the property was purchased became deeply mired in debt. The property

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then had to be used as collateral for his debt obligations, causing the association to lose its ownership rights. When the case was brought to court, the property was frozen and put up for auction. Hành fought the case with wit and perseverance for a few years, determined to prevent the creditors from laying their hands on the property. He finally managed to change the minds of the creditors, and retrieved the asset for the association. Although Hành repeatedly used the excuse of business to remain inVietnam instead of returning to Guangdong, he continued his financial support of schools in his native Da Ji village. His active contributions in both international and community relations in Vietnam were much more significant, and for these, he was conferred several medals and decorations of honour from the Government of the Republic of Vietnam. In 1919, he was awarded the second-class silver medal, for example.This was retroactively followed by the Star of Order award in 1925, and a chivalric order in the Legion of Honour (Légion d’honneur) from the French president in 1929. In 1936, he resigned from his profession and began to lead a tranquil life of retirement. He passed away in 1950 at the age of eighty-one. Grace Chew Chye Lay R E F E R E N C E S Citigroup. “History of Citibank”. Undated. (accessed June 2011). Ji, Zhaojin. A History of Modern Shanghai Banking: The Rise and Decline of China’s Finance Capitalism. New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 2003, p. 76. Kartini, Saparudin. “Banque Indosuez”. Singapore: National Library Board, 2007. (accessed June 2011). ， ：

《 ，1958， 230–32。

》。

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《 ，1956， 89。 《 73–74。

》。 》。

：

： ，1961，

Dieäp Truyeàn Anh ( ,Ye Chuanying, 1914–43) Community leader, martyr,Vietnam

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ieäp Truyeàn Anh was a picture of stylishness and robustness. He was a twenty-something when he helmed ), or Hakka clan of Hoi’an as the Jiaying ( well as the Zhonghua (Chinese) Association of Hoi’an in the days when headmen were mostly grey-haired. The Zhonghua Association was an organization whose activities cut across the four predominant dialect-based clans of Hoi’an which were and still are: the Cantonese, Hokkien, Teochew, and Hainanese. Anh was appointed secretary of the KMT (Guomindang) Branch of Hoi’an when the KMT influence was prevalent in Chinese institutions in the central and southern regions of Vietnam. Having supported the cause of the national salvation of China and engaging in anti-Japanese resistance, Anh became a target of the Japanese military police, kempeitai. He was one of the thirteen ethnic Chinese martyrs of the central part of Vietnam. Anh was born on 19 November 1914 in Hoi’an, the eldest son of Dieäp Khaûi Minh ( ), a third-generation in the family. Dieäp Khaûi Minh’s grandfather, Dieäp Ngoä Xuân ), originally hailed from Fengshun ( ), Guangdong province, but went to ( trade in Hoi’an in 1856. Dieäp Khaûi Minh inherited the family business and in 1900 named the family enterprise, Dieäp Ðoàng ). He expanded his business Nguyên ( by importing and exporting ceramics as well

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as other Chinese goods, steering it to greater heights in the process. Dieäp Khaûi Minh also led the Gia ÖÙng clan (Jiaying/Hakka), which put Jiaying migrants and residents in Hoi’an under his charge. As leader of the Zhonghua Association, he executed socio-political duties, such as supporting charitable causes. His social philanthropy earned him accolades from the last emperor of the Nguyeãn dynasty, Baûo Ðaïi, and his name also became synonymous with his flourishing business. At the entrance to his home at No. 80, Nguyeãn Thái Hoïc Street ( ), the ex-Canton Street, a suspended ” tablet inscribed with the characters, “ (Dieäp Ðoàng Nguyên), can still be sighted. The old albums and correspondence of the Dieäp family furnish evidence of Dieäp Khaûi Minh’s involvement in Chinese education and spoke of the influential leader who was well connected to both Chinese and Vietnamese political and business elites. In 1937, Anh was invited to tour schools in six provinces which included Shanghai, Nanjing, and Hangzhou. In Nanjing, Anh attended a conference on education for overseas Chinese ( ). A letter penned by KMT member, ), and a picture given to Shen Honglie ( ) are among the Anh by Lin Zechen ( items found in Anh’s old mailbox. Lin Zechen took part in the Huanghuagang Rebellion and once also sat on the committee of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in South Vietnam. He was Secretary-General of the KMT Main Branch in Annam — the name of the French protectorate in the central region of Vietnam where Hoi’an is located. An autographed photograph of Sun Ke , or Sun Fo), the son of Sun Yat-sen, was ( also found among Dieäp Khaûi Minh’s mail. Sun Ke’s first role in government was as mayor of Guangzhou (1920–22; 1923–25) and his last, as president of the Examination Yuan of the Republic of China.

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Dieäp Khaûi Minh’s leadership qualities as leader of the Gia ÖÙng clan (Jiaying) seemed to have rubbed off onto his son, Anh. Being the eldest son of Dieäp Khaûi Minh, Anh was a natural candidate to be groomed to take over his father’s business. Politically he was affiliated to KMT like his father. The confident young Anh had the overall Chinese community under his charge when he helmed the Zhonghua (Chinese) Association, an association that cut across all the dialect-group boundaries. As an avid reader of Chinese classical novels, he was enthralled by characters in The Classic of the Three Kingdoms and revered Guan Yu, the historical paragon of justice in the story. In real life, the seventy-two martyrs of Huanghuagang were his heroes. It was not surprising then that he was a leader who saw red when he perceived injustice. Therein lay his enthusiasm in undertaking such roles as president of the National Salvation Association ( ) of Hoi’an. Besides this association, two other organizations with a similar mission to save China existed in Hoi’an in the late 1930s: the Overseas Chinese Youth Resistance ) — led by Anh’s brother, Dieäp ( Truyeàn Hoa, and the Overseas Chinese Women Association. Like his father, Anh was fluent in Mandarin. As a teenager, he had studied ) in at Zhiyong Middle School ( Guangzhou and taught Mandarin for personal development to promote Chiang Kai-shek’s “New Life Campaign” in Hoi’an. He was not the solemn thinker like his brother, Dieäp Truyeàn Hoa, however,he excelled in vigorous outdoor sports such as basketball, tennis, and soccer. Thus when Chinese nationalism was intensifying in Chinese communities overseas and the call came for him to lead the National Salvation Movement of Hoi’an, he channelled his energy into fund-raising endeavours. As the war unfolded, his efforts to salvage China

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slowly developed into building resistance against the Japanese. When Japanese soldiers arrived in Haiphong, the country’s northern port, in 1941, the activities of the National Salvation Movement in Hoi’an were immediately halted, and KMT members diverted underground. There were reports of Chinese youth who fled to Kunming, Chongqing, and Guangxi for insurgent training, or even to further their studies. Around 1942, struggles between the French sûreté and the Japanese kempeitai became apparent. On 5 April 1943, Japanese troops arrived in Hoi’an and began their arrest of those suspected of resisting them.Twenty-three ethnic Chinese men were arrested in Hanoi and Hoi’an that April morning. Among them were prominent KMT members of Hoi’an such as, ), the in addition to Anh, Xu Wenmao ( elderly headman of Chaozhou Native-Place Association (Hoi’an), who was also a prime figure in the National Salvation Movement; ), administrator of the Li Zhongxun ( KMT Branch of Hoi’an and an intelligence strategist; and two other KMT members who were headmen of both Guangzhao and Hainan native-place associations. Some of the captives were later released, but Anh and two others suffered a different fate. Anh was taken to Hanoi where the kempeitai was headquartered. He sustained heavy injuries after gruelling interrogations and was admitted to hospital where he subsequently passed away. His wife of Teochew ancestral origin, Wang Miao Xiang ), saw him on his hospital bed before ( he was reportedly given the lethal injection by the kempeitai on 11 September 1943. Li, the KMT branch administrator from Hoi’an, contracted infections because of repeated torture by the kempeitei in Danang and passed away. Xu, the Chaozhou clan headman, was arrested in Hanoi and sent to Danang before

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he died. These three men were buried in their family cemeteries. In the later part of 1944, the kempeitai based in Danang took away ten young Chinese men from the central part of Vietnam. The ), young men were La Doãn Chánh ( ), Xie Fukang ( ), Lin Jianzhong ( ), Liang Xingbiao ( ), Cai Wenli ( ), Zheng Yanchang ( Cheng Daixun ( ), Lin Bingheng ( ), Gan Bingpei ), and Wang Qingsong ( ). Cai ( Wenli was known to be the most dedicated to the National Salvation Movement; Liang Xingbiao was mayor and translator at the Guangxi Liuzhou Daqiao Academy; Cheng Daixun was an employee at a trading company and an officer from KMT Branch, Danang; Zheng Yanchang, an employee of Tianyue Railway Company which transported freight from Haiphong to China, contributed valuable intelligence; Lin Bingheng was a trader who became an intelligence agent in Danang; Gan Bingpei was a Chinese educator who received training as a special intelligence police in Guizhou at the outset of the war; and Wang Qingsong was an employee of a trading firm and a KMT member since 1939 who gathered intelligence for the Central Overseas Department of KMT. These men underwent excruciating interrogations before being led to ) the foot of Phöôùc Töôïng Mountain ( in Danang. Unnamed witnesses reported that they were massacred on 1 April 1945. Dieäp Truyeàn Anh and his compatriots all paid with their lives in resisting the Japanese in 1943–45. They were memorialized as “The Thirteen Martyrs of Hoi’an”, but only ten were buried in the compound where the memorial now stands in Hoi’an. While controversies relating to political allegiance and Chinese nationalism may beleaguer the story of the martyrs, the commemoration of their martyrdom

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legitimizes the moral existence of the current Hoa (Chinese) community by highlighting its participation in history, and deepens the sense of identity of the Hoa residents with their town. The officially sanctioned memorialization of the martyrs also adheres to the Vietnamese cultural practice of worshipping local tutelary gods in a nation where many of its heroic stories have contributed to engendering the type of nationalism built around throwing off the yoke of foreign invaders. Anh was the sixth youngest among the thirteen heroes of Hoi’an. He was only thirtyone when he departed from his wife and two ) and Dieäp children, Dieäp Gia Miên ( ). His daughter, Miên, left for Gia Tân ( Guangzhou while Tân migrated to France a few decades later after his death. Perhaps Anh’s youthful passion and righteous anger had influenced his fate, but they also garnered him a reputation that has lasted through the times. Grace Chew Chye Lay R E F E R E N C E S 〈 《

〉， 》，2002 8 10 ， 14。

〈 8 ， 12。

〉，《

》，2002

3

Interviews with Dieäp Gia Tùng (close kin of the Diep family), August 2004, February 2005, and October 2010, at No. 80, Nguyeãn Thái Hoïc Street, Hoi’an.

Dieäp Truyeàn Hoa ( ,Ye Chuanhua, 1918–70) Educator, scholar,Vietnam

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ieäp Truyeàn Hoa was one of the two wealthy Jiaying (Hakka) brothers of Hoi’an, with ancestry in Tangkeng

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village ( ), Fengshun district ( ), Guangdong province (China). His brother was Ye Chuanying), Dieäp Truyeàn Anh ( ) head of the Gia ÖÙng clan (Jiaying bang and president of the Zhonghua Association ( ) — a Chinese native-place association that operated across dialect boundaries — in Hoi’an. Dieäp Truyeàn Hoa founded the Hoi’an Chapter of the Overseas Chinese Youth Resistance (Huaqiao Qingnian Tuan ) on 8 August 1938. Being committed to working for social causes, he led the National Salvation Association from the late 1930s to the early 1940s in supplying financial and material relief to China. His brother was then serving as president of the association. Hoa was a thinker, scholar, and educator. His interests were composing prose and poems in the Chinese language, translation, and researching Chinese philosophy.Through his prose, readers are treated to glimpses of Hoi’an in the past, as well as to his rich emotions such as his fondness of his brother. The gentle and warm scholar also inspired his students by the high standard he achieved in literary Chinese. In early twentieth-century Vietnam, the sons of wealthy Chinese families who attended Chinese schools were likely to be sent to China for further studies due to the lack of suitable institutions in the country where they could pursue higher Chinese education. Hoa went to Guangzhou (Canton), China, to study at Peizheng Secondary School ( ) in Guangzhou in 1933. He returned to Hoi’an in 1937, and a year later, founded the Youth Salvation Team of Hoi’an ( ), the year when the National Salvation Movement began in Saigon in the wake of intensifying anti-Japanese resistance. The main activity of the National Salvation Movement revolved around disseminating anti-Japanese propaganda, banning Japanese goods, and organizing emergency relief to

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China. Its objectives included supporting the personal development of its members through Chiang Kai-shek’s “New Life Campaign”. The programmes for personal development, which were adopted from the “New Life Campaign”, reflected the strong influence of, and support in the Chinese community and schools from, the Guomindang Party of China. The Youth Salvation Team of Hoi’an also published a weekly, Shikong Zhoukan ), and collected monthly donations ( using boxes marked “save-to-salvage-nation” placed in every home, school, and shops. Anti-Japanese sentiments were propagated through fairs, art exhibitions, and the “Double Ten” (Republic of China’s National Day) Scout Big Parade then held in Saigon. Personal development programmes aimed at improving skills in reading, and in speaking Mandarin and Cantonese, were delivered, with music also included. Mandarin courses were conducted by Hoa’s brother, Dieäp Truyeàn Anh, and music was provided by La Doãn Chánh, better known by his Cantonese pseudonym, La Hoái. Hoa wrote the lyrics of the song for Hoi’an’s Chinese Youth Salvation Team, while La Hoái composed the melody. Hoa also penned the Chinese lyrics of a song sung to La Hoái’s melody, Xuân và Tuoåi Treû ) — before the (Spring and Youth song was translated into Vietnamese in the 1946 by the famous Vietnamese poet, Theá Löõ ) (1907–89), after his sojourn in Hoi’an ( (see La Doãn Chánh). Hoa was born on 5 November 1918 in the Dieäp family home at No. 80, Nguyeãn Thái Hoïc Street. A signboard bearing the words, ” (Dieäp Ðoàng Nguyên), can be seen “ at its doorway. The home, which still stands in its original location, is currently called “The Hakka House” in tourist literature as Dieäp ) and his eldest son, Dieäp Khaœi Minh ( Truyeàn Anh, both helmed the Gia ÖÙng bang

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(Jiaying clan) of Hoi’an. The home boasts of antiques collected by the family through the generations, now guarded by a family member, ). Dieäp Gia Tùng ( Hoa was a proficient speaker and writer of the Chinese language. In 1941, he went to Kunming via Hong Kong and eventually sat for an entrance examination which he passed. He nurtured his interest in poetry writing at Xinan Lianhe University ( ) during the war years of 1944–45 when studying there. After the Second World War ended, he returned to Hoi’an in 1946, and tied the matrimonial knot the following year with ), the third child of a Ðaëng Kim Xoa ( well known medical doctor of Hoi’an, Ðaëng ).Trinh was deputy director Theá Trinh ( of the only hospital in Hoi’an. He was also head of Hoäi Quán Quaûng Trieäu (Guangzhao Native-Place Association, Hoi’an) from 1955 until his old age. He passed away in 1967. Hoa went to Qinghua University in June 1947, the same year of his marriage. In 1948 he returned to Hoi’an where he began a ten-year teaching career at Zhonghua Gongxue ( ), the Chinese school in Hoi’an which resulted from the merging of the four dialectbased schools in 1942. The dialect schools before World War II were Yangzheng School ) which was run by the Fujian ( bang (dialect-based clan), Peiying School ), the school of the Chaozhou bang, ( ) which was Guanghua School ( affiliated to the Cantonese, and Yuzhi School ), the school of the Hainanese bang. ( Hakka) Chinese in Hoi’an The Gia ÖÙng ( has never been a large congregation and thus do not have a building specially dedicated to their bang and educational activities, such as a native-place association building or a school. In 1959, Hoa left Hoi’an and settled in South Vietnam. He landed a job as a supervisor of translation at Asia Daily

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) and simultaneously taught at the ( English Language Institute. From 1960 to 1961, he was an instructor at both the Foreign Language Department of the National Teachers’ College of the Republic of Vietnam, as well as at the Philosophy Department of the National University for Humanities and Social Sciences. He went to the central region of Vietnam six years later to take up a post teaching Chinese literature at Hue University of Humanities and Social Sciences. In 1969 he became principal of Vieät Tú School in Saigon, which was operated by the Cantonese bang, the Huicheng Native). Place Association ( Hoa was remembered as a debonair man who exuded the air of a Confucian scholar and was always meticulously dressed. He was slightly plump in physique and had a high forehead and broad cheeks. He was admired for his literary and translation skills after he composed many inspiring poems, prose, and song lyrics. Among his most well-read prose (Hoi’an — Past and was “ Present)”. Writing commentaries on Chinese literature was another of his favourite past times. His expressions in the Chinese language frequently surfaced in the Chinese language press of Saigon. Several Chinese papers existed in the 1950s in Saigon, namely, Xinwen Ribao ), Meiri Luntanbao ( ), ( ), Yuenan Wanbao ( Asia Daily ( ), and Yuandong Ribao ( ). Since 1965 under Prime Minister Nguyeãn Cao Kyø until before 1975, at least six Chinese language newspapers were circulating in Vietnam after having merged several times. Hoa’s prolific poetry and prose writings finally culminated in an anthology in 1970. Hoa suffered from liver problems and was hospitalized at the Military Hospital of Saigon in December 1969. He died of meningopathy on 5 November 1970 in Saigon (currently, Ho Chi Minh City). He is survived by his three

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children — eldest daughter, Dieäp Gia Mai ( ), second daughter, Dieäp Gia Phong ( ), and youngest son, Dieäp Gia Töông ( ) — all of whom are currently professionals in the United States. His wife, Ðaëng Kim Xoa, currently aged eighty-three, also resides there. Grace Chew Chye Lay R E F E R E N C E S —

〈

〉，

》，2002 11 22 。

《

、 《 ，1993， 455–57。 〈 12。

》。

〉，《

：

》，2002

3 8 ，

Interviews with Ðaëng Töû Khôn, nephew of Ðaëng Theá Trinh, in August 2004, in Hoi’an (Vietnam).

Ðôùi Ngoan Quân ( , Dai Wanjun, 1913–2003) Artist,Vietnam

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ôùi Ngoan Quân was from Hengshui city (Hành Thuyû) of Hebei province,

). He had taken China ( a liking to traditional painting since he was young. At age twenty, or in 1933, he joined the Beijing Academy of Arts ( ). During the Chinese resistance war against Japan, Quân abandoned his studies and went to serve in the Chinese armed forces. After the end of World War II, he followed the Chinese army to Vietnam to receive the surrender of the Japanese there. After 1946, Quân retired from the armed forces and settled in Saigon where he entered the profession of teaching art. In 1976 he migrated to Paris and lived there till the end of his life. While there he served as a consultant on culture to the Chinese section ). of The European Times (

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In 1954 when the National College of Fine Arts in Saigon was established, Quân was invited to teach Chinese painting there. He was already known as an artist who followed the Capital School (Kinh phái or jing pai ), which specializes in traditional Chinese paintings; he was also a renowned sculptor who worked with materials such as ivory, bones, and stones. In the world of calligraphy, he was also famous for the Leã (Li ) form, which led to many contemporary artists and others in the culture arena going to him for help in producing the required calligraphy for use in various activities. While friendship was a key factor in these requests, it was also a recognition of the talent and character of the calligrapher who had gained a certain status within his community. As a result of the formal education and formal fine arts training that he received, Quân did not shine only in arts and literary works, but was also very well versed in the theories of art. He understood fundamentally the characteristics and styles of different schools and the value of different art forms. His assessments of art works were often accepted as authoritative in the field. Famous artists such as Löông Thieáu Hàng, Hoàng Höõu Mai, and Hà Lãn Hùng often asked him to write prefaces or epigraphs for their own publications or works. Quân often obliged and wrote the preface for Nam Tú Hoïa Taäp Ñeä Nhò Taäp (1967), published by Löông Thieáu Hàng and his students; the ) foreword for Höõu Mai Hoïa Taäp ( ); and the (1958) by Hoàng Höõu Mai ( introduction for authors of Coå Tùng Hiên Sö Sinh Tác Phaåm Niên Trieån Taäp ( ) (1973), published by Hà Lãn Hùng ) and his students. ( As for his own works, Quân did traditional water colour,seal,and microcarvings,in addition to calligraphy. His works are sought after by many museums. In addition to numerous

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exhibitions inVietnam, Quân did no fewer than ten exhibitions of his works outside Vietnam. One of his works entitled, “Heavenly Winds and Sea Waves” (Thiên Phong Haûi Ñào ), is collected in the Vieät Nam Sùng Chính Y Vieän Thö Hoïa Nghóa Trieån Ðaëc Taäp ( ), published by Hoa Ngheä ).This Kha Thöùc AÁn vuï Cuïc ( work clearly demonstrates that Quân belonged to the Capital School of water colour paints. The calligraphy in this piece is firm, yet smooth, and is well placed within a space just beside the scenery of strong flowing waves, evoking wind movements and their howling sounds. Quân’s most famous carving is his microcarving of the New Testament (Thánh Kinh Tân Öôùc Toàn ) on a block of ivory, seven by Thö eight centimetres. The entire work consisted of sixteen chapters, containing 18,000 words, ). This and engraved in regular script ( work was accompanied by seven other ivory pieces on which he engraved illustrations for the New Testament. All eight blocks have been collected by the Vatican Museum. In 1985 Quân was appointed honorary fellow by the Da Vinci Academy of Arts in Italy. The City of Long le Saunier in France awarded him a cultural medal in 1986. The same year, the French city of Montelimar selected him to be honorary president for the World Exhibition of Microcarvings. On 12 October 1998, the mayor of Paris awarded Quân a cultural medal of the City of Paris. At the grand ceremony organized for the award, China’s ambassador to France, Cai Fangbo ), read a speech, later (Thái Phöông Bá published in The European Times, containing the following sentence: “Mr Ðôùi is a great patriot, an artist of many talents, and has in him a deep understanding of Chinese culture. In him one sees many excellent qualities of the Chinese nation.”

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In his daily life in France, Quân continued doing what he did when living in Vietnam, meaning he was tireless in contributing to artistic causes and respected by everyone in the Chinese community there. Back in Vietnam he had been active in the field of fine arts for thirty years, and taught for twenty of those years at the National College for Fine Arts in Saigon. His influence on fellow artists, especially on those who worked on silk and water colour paintings, was considerable. As a follower of the Capital School of art — which started at the beginning of the twentieth century around the region of Beijing — Quân, like other followers of the traditional schools of painting, was able to preserve his style and inject new energies into his art when the Chinese nation was in a turmoil in the first half of the twentieth century. This school also managed to attract a younger generation of followers. Its artists persuaded many schools to teach the subject of traditional art to help the young retain this tradition. Therefore, the Capital School is also known as the National Essence School. Quân had played an important role in this effort, through a life dedicated to spreading traditional Chinese painting in both Asia and Europe. Phaïm Hoàng Quân R E F E R E N C E S Phaïm, Hoàng Quân. “Hoäi hoaï và Thö pháp ngöôøi Hoa Thành phoá Hoà Chí Minh”. In Vaên hoá và ngheä thuaät ngöôøi Hoa thành phoá Hoà Chí Minh. Ho Chi Minh City: Trung tâm vaên hoá thành phoá Hoà Chí Minh, 2006, pp. 235–36. Vieät Nam Sùng Chính Y vieän Thö hoïa Nghóa trieån Ðaëc taäp ( ). Chôï Lôùn: Hoa Ngheä Kha Thöùc AÁn vuï Cuïc ( ), 1970, p. 64. 〉，《 》 〈 (The European Times) Chinese Section, 1998 10 15 。

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《 2000， 404–07。

》

。

：

，

Dö Thò Hoàn (Vöông Oanh Nhi, 1947– ) Poet,Vietnam

D

, Wang Ying’er,

ö Thò Hoàn was born Wang Jing Er or Vöông Oanh Nhi in Vietnamese and her pen name is Nöõ Lang Trung. She is

an acclaimed contemporary Vietnamese poet, literary translator, and critic. The “Hoàn” in her pseudonym is formed from a rearrangement of the middle syllable “Oanh” in her original name, Vöông Oanh Nhi, with the addition of a falling tone (`); “Dö” means “spare, odd”, and “Thò” is the middle name for ladies. Thus, “Dö Thò Hoàn” means “the odd woman Oanh”. The ancestors of the Wang family had ), migrated from Guangxi province ( China, and settled down for seven generations in Vietnam. Hoàn was born in Haiphong (Haûi ) in the northern region of Phòng Vietnam on 1 August 1947. After graduating from Haiphong MiddleHigh School for Chinese Overseas (Tröôøng Hoa Kieàu Trung hoïc Haûi Phòng ) in 1965, she started to work. Her career can be of four periods. During the first period (1965–80), she worked as a wood turner, a tedious job, at the ship repair factory of Z-21, a part of the Bureau of Marine Transport in Haiphong. She met with a severe accident at work in 1972 and spent six years receiving treatment and recuperating. Thereafter she took on the job of a workshop clerk for two years (1978–80), but was fired during the Sino-Viet border war of 1979. However,

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throughout her fifteen years as a worker, she always received commendations and rewards from her employers for her contributions. During the second period (1980–90), she made a living from doing handicraft such as knitting and sewing, and doing petty trading in fabrics, clothes, and vegetables. She sat for the entrance examination of the Nguyen Du College of Literary Writing (TröôΩng Ðaïi hoïc Vieát vaên Nguyeãn Du) in 1989, but quit school after the first year due to poverty. During the third period (1990–98) which occurred in the era of economic renovation in Vietnam, she tried various jobs, first as a Chinese translator and interpreter for commercial affairs at the frontier between China and Vietnam (1990– 93), then as an agent for the commercial office of Hong Kong in Haiphong (1993– 96), and finally as owner and manager of her own business company (1993–96) until her retirement. In 1996 she was admitted to the Vietnam Writers’ Association and in 1998 she was elected a member of the Executive Committee of the Literature and Arts Union of Haiphong City, the vice-chairman of the Association of Literature (a part of the union), and branch chairman of the Branch of Poetry (also a part of the association). Until now, she has only published two poem collections: Loái Nhoû (The Narrow Path), which comprises forty-seven poems and was published by the Literature and Arts Union of Haiphong in 1988, and Bài Maãu Giáo Sáng Theá (The Kindergarten Lesson of Genesis), which comprises twenty-four poems and was published by the Publisher of Vietnam Writers’ Association in 1993. Though the rest of her compositions are only published in newspapers or still drafts such as, Du Nöõ Ngâm (The Gypsy Girl’s Song) and Taäp Thô Song Ngöõ Anh-Vieät (The Bilingual Poem Collection), she has created a remarkable position in contemporary

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Vietnamese poetry. Beside composing poems, Hoàn also does translations and writes literary critiques for many newspapers, such as Vaên Ngheä (Arts and Literature), Nhân Dân (People), Phuï Nöõ (Women), Lao Ñoäng (Labour), Tieàn Phong (Avant-garde), Theå Thao Vaên Hoá (Sports and Culture), Vaên Ngheä Thành Phoá Hoà Chí Minh (Arts and Literature of Ho Chi Minh City), and Ngöôøi Hà Noäi (Hanoian). Her critiques are also published in magazines, such as Vaên Hoïc Nöôùc Ngoài (Foreign Literature), Vaên Ngheä Quân Ñoäi (Army Arts and Literature), Nhà Vaên (Writers), Dieãn Ñàn (Forum), Tia Sáng (Light Array), and Sông Höông (River of Perfume). Poetry to her is an essential release for a soul preoccupied with emotions. She confessed, “I write when I cannot eat or sleep well, when I don’t bother even to comb my hair and feel scared of someone calling [at] the door…I write for nobody and thus cannot move anyone… Poetry came to me together with brand-new, deep hurts. It has given my life such overloaded shakes”. Her first three poems, printed in the weekly newspaper, Vaên Ngheä (number 1244, on 5 September 1987) — Viên Mãn (Fulfilled), Böôùc Chân Chaäm (Slow Steps), and Trong Beänh Vieän Tâm Thaàn (In the Mental Hospital) — were honoured as the best in 1987. They were the crystallization of her real personal suffering — at that time, she had such severe depression that she had to seek treatment at a mental hospital. They also signified an innovative turn of Vietnamese literature. With Loái Nhoû (The Narrow Path), the title of her first poem collection, Hoàn is referring to narrow paths that people must travel through in life: the path of love, the path of social rules, and the path of destiny. Walking on the narrow path of love, the woman in her poetry seems unsatisfied: there is something lost, uneven, and disharmonious in the interactions between lovers, but she is

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determined not to turn away. Living within the narrow path of social rules, the woman in her poetry has suffered from her own tragic experience, but her love and attachment with the Vietnamese environment still remain, as seen in Möôøi Naêm Tieáng Khóc (Ten Years of Weeping), Böùc Thö Ngöôøi Hoa (A Chinese Letter), Toå Quoác (Home Country), and Vieát Taëng Moät Nhà Thô Già (The Writing for An Old Poet). Crossing the narrow path of destiny, the woman in her poetry patiently searches for justice and true values, as seen in Cuûa Hoài Môn (The Dowry), and Lôøi Gieû Lau (Words of Clouts). This is where her awareness of creative nature occurs, with certainty and profundity, reflected as “An exceptional beauty” in Mai, (the name of a girl), “The joy of illegitimate pregnancy” in Ngöôøi Sáng Taïo (The Creator), and “Resisting the suppression” in Khi Caàm Bút (On Writing). Her collection, The Kindergarten Lesson of Genesis (Bài Maãu Giáo Sáng Theá), continues her human narration and reveals a number of questions on other dimensions: time and human, as in Ô Này Thôøi Gian (Hey Time), war as in Caàu Nguyeän (Pray), religious belief, as in Quo Vadis (original title, meaning “Returning to Where?”), paradoxes of the human world, as in The Kindergarten Lesson of Genesis, and idols and people’s illusions (The Dream). Human lives at the bottom of society are reflected in Nói Ñi Em (Please Say Baby), and those depraved under contextual influence, in Nhà Cöôøi (The Mirror House). Lastly, her own feelings have their place in Traêng Sáng Quá (How Bright The Moon Is) and Nôi Dó Vãng (The Place of Memories). A special feature in this collection are the two poems written in Chinese-Vietnamese: Tây Hoà Du (A Trip in Tay Lake) and Ðàm Hoa Ai (Crying over Flowers). Most of Hoàn’s poems are written in free form, are modern in tone and concept, concise, honest, and full of femininity. Unlike most

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contemporary Vietnamese poetesses, Hoàn not only exposes her personal sentiments, but also expresses her worries about age and the country. Anxiety and nervousness overflow in her writings, making up never-ending questions over the human fate. There is, however, a solitary woman seeking absolute values that ). Refusing only exist in the land of bliss ( habits, ruts, and clichés, the poetic character in Hoàn’s poetry desires to get through prejudices and reach primitive nature, following the spirit of Zen as in Toå Quoác (Home Country), Hóa Công (The Creator) and Vô Ñeà (Untitled). Vaên Tâm, the literary researcher, considers Hoàn’s poems “pain without resentment”,“surrounded by numerous torments, her own innermost feelings, her family, her country”. Wayne Karlin, the American author and editor who is known for his writing of the Vietnam War, wrote this about Hoàn’s poems: “…one senses in them an impish, sharp intelligence, confined in the darkness, but able to observe and report and hope for the light; a voice marked by a complete lack of self-pity and a wry sense of humor”, “their musicality, which echoes the chants of prayers and meditations that are so often her subject, their combination of words and rhythms and sounds are evocative in ways that allow the reader to sense the complexities of reality that can’t be expressed only in words or intellect”. With only a few compositions, Hoàn has created her own identity, which is like a coincidental beautiful crystallization of two cultures — Chinese and Vietnamese. As she humourously says about herself: “Chinese identity exists without my wish. Vietnamese essence is gained through my passion. Vöông Oanh Nhi is a short circuit, between the two cultures, and Dö Thò Hoàn is its consequence.” Nguyeãn Thò Thanh Xuân

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R E F E R E N C E S Chu, Vaên Sôn. “Thô Dö Thò Hoàn, 15 naêm nhìn laïi” (A look into Dö Thò Hoàn’s poems of the past 15 years). A piece in the summary record of the conference “Poetry of Haûi Phòng during 15 years of innovation and development” held by Union of Literature and Arts of Haiphong in 2001. Dö Thò Hoàn. “Qua thô, tôi muoán mã hoá nhöõng cuoäc tìm kieám trong ñôøi” (I want to code my explorations in life via poetry). Theå Thao Vaên Hoá Newspaper, no. 17, 28 February 2003. Karlin, Wayne (forthcoming). The foreword of Dö Thò Hoàn’s bilingual poem collection (supplied by Dö Thò Hoàn). Publication date unknown. Vaên Tâm. “Baïn ñã ñoïc chöa, thô Dö Thò Hoàn?” (Have you ever read Dö Thò Hoàn’s poems?). Cöûa Bieån Newspaper, Union of Literature and Arts, 1990. Private emails from Dö Thò Hoàn, June and July 2011

Dy, James ( , Li Fengwu, 1931- ) Businessman, philanthropist, community leader, Philippines

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r James Dy is widely known in business circles for leading more than a dozen companies in diverse fields such as music and entertainment, travel, and real estate. However, he is first and foremost a philanthropist. Under his leadership, thousands of poor people in rural, urban poor coastal and informal settlers areas throughout the country benefited from the weekly medical assistance programmes of the Philippine Chinese Charitable Association. Dy also undertook the improvement and modernization of the Chinese General Hospital and Medical Center (CGHMC), expanding the hospital’s services for thousands of charity patients in CGHMC. Under his guidance, public servants employed in several government agencies were provided with top-of-the-line free medical care.

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Born in the town of Yongning in Shishi, Fujian Province, Dr James G. Dy was barely three years old when he and his mother came to settle in the Philippines. With his unrelenting principle of “establishing a career to serve society”, Dy is today recognized as an accomplished entrepreneur, philanthropist, and respected leader in the Chinese-Filipino community. At the turn of the century, Dy’s grandfather came to the Philippines in search of better opportunities. He began by operating a grocery store in the streets of Chinatown. The family later began importing foreign food items and cigarettes when Dy’s father took over the business. After graduating with a degree in commerce from the University of the East, Dy joined the family-owned business and worked his way up to being general manager at the age of twenty-six. However, not long after that, he resigned from his duties at the family-owned corporation to launch Dyna Recording Company, a product of his love for, and fascination with music, and a deep awareness of the huge potential of the local music industry, particularly to a population whose very being reverberates with musical artistry. With meagre resources of 1,000 pesos and two operating machines and a small staff consisting of ten workers, Dy started by producing a few recordings which earned a little money. His big break came when he became the distributor of the widely popular song, “Yesterday”, sung by the Beatles, and the songs of other popular foreign artistes such as Teddy Randazzo, Paul Anka, Jo-Ann Campbell, Connie Francis, the Platters, The Bee Gees, Gary Lewis, and the Playboys. At the time — the early 1960s — his company recognized the talent of Filipino artistes and produced local recordings from Asia’s Queen of Songs, Pilita Corrales, and

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Perry Como-sing-alike, Diomedes Maturan, to name a few. As founder and chairman of the Philippine Association of the Record Industry (PARI) and the Asean Music Industry Association (AMIA), Dy professionalized and exerted the rights of the local music industry. Before piracy even became a byword, PARI and AMIA were already implementing an anti-piracy programme that initiated bills and laws protecting the intellectual property rights of Filipino composers, authors, publishers, and artistes. For this, Dy is recognized as the “godfather of the music industry in the Philippines”. In 1994, when Polygram Recording Company established its branch in the Philippines, Dr James G. Dy held 70 per cent of the stocks. Today, with over 60 per cent share of the local market, Dyna Records, has not only been a licensee of major worldrenowned recording companies, it has, under the able leadership of Dy’s late daughter, Bella Dy-Tan, launched and groomed top-selling local artistes that include industry giants such as Gary Valenciano, Jose Mari Chan, Apo Hiking Society, Kuh Ledesma, Jake Concepcion, and Celeste Legaspi, to name a few. Dy’s personal hobbies, including his love of travel, led him to establish Pan Pacific Travel Corporation in 1978. Owing to his achievements and prominence in local tourism, he was elected vice-president of the Philippine Travel Agencies Association. He was the presiding chairman of the 6th World Tourism Convention held in Manila in 1985. Aside from this, he has also ventured into the restaurant, manufacturing, real estate, and entertainment businesses. While there is no doubt that Dy is a consummate businessman, he is more recognized in the Chinese-Filipino community, as well as the mainstream Filipino society, for his leadership in various business

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and charitable organizations. He was elected president of the Philippine Chinese Charitable Association, Inc. (PCCAI) in 2001 and chairman in 2005, posts that he has held until today. He was also president of the Filipino-Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, Inc. (established in 1904) from 2001 to 2005, and honorary president from 2006 to the present. Additionally, he was also president of the World Lee Association (Taipei) from 2002 to 2005. The Philippine Chinese Charitable Association, Inc (PICCAI). had played a significant role in the history of the early Chinese migrants in the Philippines. The Comunidad de Chinos, the predecessor of the PCCAI, was organized in 1870 with charity donations from Chinese immigrants who wanted better medical and burial conditions for their countrymen. Together they donated and raised funds to construct a medical clinic, where treatment was free of charge. In 1879, more money was raised to purchase the lot where the Chinese Cemetery now stands for these ethnic Chinese who were refused burial in the adjacent Christian cemetery because they were not baptized Catholics. PCCAI also donated money to build the Chinese General Hospital in 1891 to cater to Chinese patients who could not speak the Filipino language very well and were wary and suspicious of Western doctors. Today PCCAI is the oldest and one of the largest charitable organizations in the Tsinoy (Chinese-Filipino) community and popular society. It oversees the Chinese General Hospital and Medical Center, the CGHMC College of Nursing, the Home for the Aged, the Chinese Cemetery, and a free clinic at the association’s headquarters. In August 1995, Dy personally led more than twenty doctors and medical personnel on a medical mission to the Philippines’

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southwest island of Palawan. For three days, they administered medical treatment and undertook forty-five small operations and 300 tooth extractions for local residents. They also gave out food and daily necessities to the people there, benefiting more than a thousand people in Palawan. Every time there are natural calamities occurring in the Philippines, the PCCAI is always at the forefront. It has sent hundreds of medical missions to marginalized rural areas and coastal villages, and urban slums, and has provided free medical attention (through close coordination between PCCAI and the CGHMC) for indigent patients. As part of the hospital’s and the organization’s continued advocacy to help in the country’s national development, policemen, firemen, and government workers are either given free medical treatment or huge discounts on doctor’s and hospitalization fees. Dy has always stood by his philosophy in life, “Do not just be occupied with your business”. For his achievements in socio-civic and humanitarian work, he has been conferred honorary doctorate degrees by the LyceumNorthwestern University in April 1999, the Central Luzon State University in 2004, the University of Pangasinan in 2006, and the Technological University of the Philippines in 2007. He was also given the Outstanding Manileño Award by the Manila City Government during the city’s 428th founding anniversary. Dy was also recognized as “The Outstanding Filipino Award for Humanitarian Service” by the Philippine Jaycee Senate and Insular Life Insurance Ltd., in December 2001, and as the Dr Jose P. Rizal Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence from The Manila Times, and Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran in July 2004. Linette Chua

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R E F E R E N C E S Guerrero, Marc. “James G. Dy: The Sweet Success of Sound”. The Philippine Star, 21 Janurary 2001. Retrieved 6 June 2009 from . Silva, Zeny. “James Dy: A Multi-faceted Trader”. Manila Standard, 22 June 1998. Yang, Elena, Mingti Wang, and Huang Dongxing (eds.). Dr. James G. Dy: A Filipino-Chinese Philanthropist. China: Fujian Pictorial Publishing House.

Dy, Manuel B., Jr. ( , Li Jipeng, 1947– ) Scholar, philosopher, Philippines

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hen asked, students speak highly of Dy. Some would even go to the extent of describing his teaching as that of a seasoned professional who makes the thinking-learning experience that is philosophy more palatable and enjoyable. This is the skill he has honed for the past forty years. Fresh out of university, Dy jumped right into teaching. He had wanted to be a teacher even as a young boy and even promised his high school alma mater in Cebu, Southern Philippines, that he would go back there after his studies and teach. Fate, however, had different plans for this teacher. Born on 22 April 1947, Dy’s education was wholly local, except for some graduate and postgraduate courses in Belgium, Hong Kong, and the United States. His foray into teaching was precipitated by the people of the profession in his life — his own teachers. In grade school and high school, the Sacred Heart School run by the Jesuits, Dy was blessed to have a teacher who truly wanted to teach him. In his second year at Ateneo, Dy answered the call for students to be the first batch of philosophy majors. As a student in the field, Dy excelled

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enough to gain the Departmental Award upon graduation. Along with the award, he was also given the offer to teach at the university. He has not left there since, except to study further, give lectures, or be a consultant. He took up his master’s in philosophy at Ateneo de Manila University, and his doctorate at the University of Santo Tomas. He taught at Ateneo while taking his master’s and his doctorate degrees. He then furthered his studies in Louvian, Belgium, and then Hong Kong and Washington DC. When asked how it is to be a teacher, he simply says, “When I’m in the classroom, I am energised. I forget my problems the moment I am in the classroom. Of course, there are always the frustrations there, but then I get an excellent paper and I am elated.” This energy emanates to his class in its own way. The Metrobank Foundation honoured Dy as an awardee of the prestigious Metrobank Foundation Search for Outstanding Teachers in 2004. Dy gives students reason to love philosophy although it is one of the “dreaded” required courses at Ateneo. He teaches them that philosophy is simply thinking, just plain thinking; and that no thought is wrong as long as the student can defend his ideas. He encourages students to ask questions and to seek answers instead of simply waiting for them; and he tells them that no answer is wrong if the student has truly thought about it. His own way of defining being a teacher sets him apart as well. He likens himself to a candle that sheds light on knowledge, explaining that, “Teaching, or being a teacher is only being an instrument — an instrument of peace, instrument of healing, instrument of reconciliation… It’s the passion. It’s a responsibility.” Besides his excellent performance academically, Dy also exudes the confidence and exhibits the skills that let him thrive with people from other cultures. As a product of

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two cultures, he shows pride in his heritage and has sought to marry the philosophies of his Chinese-Filipino ancestry. He has chosen to stay put in the country so that he can help hone more philosophically-oriented Filipinos in his teachings. In this sense, he is developing more global Filipinos by simply being himself — a patriot, an idealist, a philosopher. Although he has personally remained in the country, his life’s work has gone global. Dy can shed his light on philosophy anywhere. A true mark of a teacher is the ability to teach effectively, whatever the setting or circumstances. Dy has presented his work and represented the university, as well as the country, at various local, regional, and international conferences, seminars, and lectures. He shares what he knows and brings back what he has learned. Even when not physically abroad, his writings reach students, teachers, and enthusiasts of philosophy all over the world. His mind will not stop at simply learning. Dy has written about philosophy too. He has woven what he learned with what he experienced, and transformed this into compositions that reflect the mind of a true thinker. His writings cover many subjects, all close to his heart — Philosophy and Religion, Oriental Philosophies, Man’s Search for Meaning, Philosophy of Suicide, among other publications. Many of these books are now being used in schools of philosophy all over the world — for example, the Christian Academy in South Korea, The Catholic University of America, and the Centre International Pour Etude Comparee de Philosophie et D’Esthetique. His texts provide much needed information for courses in basic and advance philosophy and are studied in the Asian region as well as in various Jesuit institutions in other countries. Dy is also a research scholar in the International Asian Studies Program at the

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Chinese University of Hong Kong, and has served as secretary to the Asian Association of Catholic Philosophers. A frequent speaker at international conferences on oriental and contemporary philosophies, moral education and ethics, he has been published widely in philosophical journals both in the Philippines and abroad — such as the Council for Research on Values & Philosophy in Washington, the Asian Journal of Philosophy, the Junshin Journal of Human Studies, and the local Budhi papers, to name a few. Outside books and classrooms, he is also active in organizations in the Jesuit and Philosophical communities. This involvement is one of the things the Jesuits emphasize for all members of the community — students, teachers, administrators, and service personnel alike. He currently serves as a Director for the Jesuit Volunteers Philippines, an organization of volunteers that go to various parts of the country to teach and help in the community’s development. Also, it wasn’t so long ago that Dy was one of the fourteen controversial professors of Ateneo who made the headline in the papers for saying that the Reproductive Health Bill — a proposed law that would promote family planning and the use of contraceptives — was not entirely against the precepts of the Catholic Church. This stance is contrary to what many staunch Catholics and conservative men of the cloth have been evangelizing. In essence, Dr Manny B. Dy, Jr. fits Metrobank Foundation’s definition and paramenters of an outstanding teacher. The Metrobank Foundation “bestows honor upon the teaching profession by according special recognition to teachers who manifest profound commitment to the development of the youth through exemplary competence, remarkable dedication to their work and

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effective educational leadership. It singles out teachers who have made a significant contribution to national development by raising the quality of outcomes of education through their effective, innovative and creative teaching strategies, materials and devices and their admirable efforts to bring the school closer to the community and consequently, the community to the school,

thereby providing models of excellence in the teaching profession”. Ginnie Faustino-Galgana R E F E R E N C E S Testimonial dinner for Dr Manuel B. Dy, Jr. Retrieved February 2009 from . Personal interview, February 2009.

E Ear Cheam Heng ( ,Yang Guozhang, 1938– ) Businessman, Cambodia

E

ar Cheam Heng was born in 1938 in Phnom Penh. He is known by many for being the first person to create a wine with a Cambodian brand that made a name outside the country as early as the 1960s. He is also highly respected for his contributions to the economic development of Cambodia and the welfare of the Chinese community in the country. Ear’s parents, Ear Shao Sheng (father) and Lin Chan Xing (mother), were married in Chao’an, Guangzhou, before migrating to Cambodia in the 1920s. In 1930, Ear Shao Sheng established his beverage factory, Lao Hang Heng Wine Company, which initially produced soda drinks, but the senior Ear expanded its production capacity to bring

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out an alcoholic drink called Black Cat Wine. He was hence well known as a pioneer manufacturer of beverages in Cambodia. In 1958 Ear Cheam Heng inherited his father’s beverage business and in 1966 created another new brand, the Special Muscle Wine, with an improved formula to replace the company’s trademark Black Cat Wine. In 1968 King Norodom Sihanouk in his address to the nation during the National Water Festival praised the Lao Hang Heng Wine Company for producing excellent wine that brought honour to the kingdom. Ear Cheam Heng’s Special Muscle Wine was the first Cambodian wine that made a name in the Southeast Asian region, in particular, in Vietnam, Thailand, and Myanmar. The French administration of the Cambodian Chinese community ended in 1958. From the 1960s, Chinese community affairs were handled by a Chinese Hospital Committee, the largest group of Chinese merchants in Cambodia that funded and

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ran the Chung Hwa Hospital ( ), established in 1906. In 1971, the Cambodian Government approved the formation of a new body, the Federated Association of Chinese of Cambodia. This was the first organization formed by the five major Chinese dialect groups of Cambodia — Teochew, Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, and Hainanese ( 、 、 、 — 、 ) — and it functioned like today’s Association of Khmer Chinese in the ), handling Kingdom ( all matters relating to Cambodian Chinese, such as rendering help in social, cultural, and public health areas, as well as promoting friendly relations between Cambodians and Cambodian Chinese. In 1973 Ear Cheam Heng’s leadership, based on his achievements in business, was recognized by the Chinese community and he was elected chairman of the board of governors of Chung Hwa Hospital. At the time the hospital had more than two hundred doctors and nurses and was the only welfare organization providing free medical care to the needy in Cambodia, regardless of their race and ethnicity. According to the hospital records, Ear Cheam Heng, who was then thirty-five years old, was the youngest elected chairman of the Chung Hwa Hospital and he served for two years. In 1975, when the Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia, Chung Hwa Hospital was forced to stop its medical services and was later closed down. It did not resume operations thereafter and its location is currently taken over by a fortytwo-storey residential building called Gold Tower 42. In 1975 Ear foresaw political instabilities that would bring about various problems if he continued to stay in the country. He then made a quick decision to abandon all his businesses in Cambodia and sought refuge in Hong Kong

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with his family. There he started his business afresh by trading seahorse, a highly prized Chinese herbal medicine that he imported from Thailand to sell in China via Hong Kong. In 1978 he expanded his business to collect parts of television sets of major brands such as Sony of Japan, Philips of Holland, and ITT of Germany, to export to Thailand. These television parts were then reassembled and sold in the local market. His television sets were sold at lower prices compared with brand new sets because television parts were non-taxable by Thai customs. At the beginning he was selling one hundred television sets monthly, but demand grew so fast that his sales went up to three thousand sets a month. However Ear’s business suffered a setback when the Thai Government implemented a tax-free policy for some imported goods, including brand new television sets. In 1988 Ear switched to exporting goods such as daily necessities, electrical appliances, and biscuits to Vietnam. On average, his monthly revenue was more than US$1 million and, in good times, the credit of his Vietnamese customers could be as high as US$4 million in one month. In 1985 Prince Norodom Sihanouk, who was restored as king of Cambodia in 1993, visited Hong Kong and met up with Cambodians residing in the territory. He talked about the task of rebuilding the Cambodian economy after the fall of the Khmer Rouge and encouraged his audience to return to Cambodia to take up the task. In 2000, in response to the call of the king, Ear, at the age of sixty-two, decided to return to Cambodia. He understood that it was not going to be an easy task; his Special Muscle Wine would have been completely forgotten after a period of twentyfive years and also, many of his customers in the 1970s had either been killed during the Khmer Rouge era or had sought refuge in

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other parts of the world. However Ear, for the second time in Cambodia, managed to revive his customers’ confidence in his herbal wine. On two separate occasions — in 2008 and 2010 — Prime Minister Hun Sen awarded him gold certificates for his economic contributions to Cambodia. Today, the advertisement of Lao Hang Heng Wine Company can easily be spotted in magazines, newspapers, and on television in Cambodia. Ear was married to the late Chen Xiu ), a Cambodian Chinese with Zhen ( roots in Guangdong who passed away in Beijing in 1997. They have four daughters and three sons. The eldest daughter initially lived in Paris and later settled down with her husband in Macau to start a business in real estate. The second daughter has residency in both Canada and Hong Kong, and is running a jewellery business with her husband. The third daughter and her husband are running a law firm in Hong Kong. The fourth daughter is a businesswoman in the real estate business in Guangzhou. As for their sons, the eldest, who was a regional manager of an insurance company in Hong Kong, has returned to Cambodia to help manage his family’s wine business. The second son runs a travel agency in Hong Kong and occasionally returns to Cambodia to help in the family business.Their youngest son is a senior manager of a bank in Hong Kong. Lim Boon Hock R E F E R E N C E S Chandler, David P. The Land and People of Cambodia. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1991. Willmott, W. E. The Political Structure of the Chinese Community in Cambodia. London: University of London, The Athlone Press, 1970. 、 ：

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(1993–2004)》。

《 ，2004。

《 》 ，2001。

》。

：

《

Email correspondence in February 2012. Interview (October 2008, Phnom Penh).

Ee Peng Liang ( ,Yu Bingliang, 1913–94) Accountant, community and social worker, philanthropist, Singapore

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r Charity, Father of Charity, and Professional Beggar… these are just some of the nicknames Ee Peng Liang had earned for himself after his pioneering work in Singapore charity, which spanned more than six decades — from the late 1940s to the early 1990s. A founding member of the National Council of Social Service in 1953, he was the organization’s president for twentyeight years until his retirement in 1992. He was also founding president of the Community Chest of Singapore when it was established in 1983. For his contributions to the needy in society and humanitarian work, he was awarded some of the state’s highest honours, such as the Public Service Star (1964), the Justice of the Peace (1966), the Meritorious Service Medal (1967), the Distinguished Service Order (1985), and the Order of Nila Utama (Second Class) in 1991. Ee Peng Liang was born to Ee Seng Watt, a shipping clerk, and his wife, Lim Choo Neo on 24 November 1913 at No. 6, Sin Koh Street, near the Kallang River in Singapore. He was the eldest of seven siblings comprising three boys and four girls. He obtained his Senior Cambridge Certificate at St Joseph’s Institution in 1931 and after graduation, spent another eighteen months there taking commercial courses, which

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

included shorthand and typing, bookkeeping, and elements of commerce. He then passed examinations set by the London Chamber of Commerce with flying colours. Ee started work as a stenographer with a law firm and pursued professional accounting qualifications through correspondence courses, which led to fellowships to the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants and Chartered Institute of Secretaries and Administration in London in 1937. The year before that, he had just married his teenage sweetheart, Mary Seow. They met when both were members of the Singapore Amateur Orchestra. He was playing the flute and she, the piano, and was the only female member of the twenty-piece musical group. He started his own accounting firm, Ee Peng Liang and Co. in 1947, which operated for nearly forty years before it merged with Ernst and Whinney (later Ernst and Young) in 1986. Ee’s lifelong dedication to charitable causes came after his escape from three near-death experiences during the Japanese Occupation, which he attributed to the grace of God. A few days after the Japanese took over Singapore in 1942, a general roundup took place. He noticed that those who wore spectacles were called aside. He quickly shoved his glasses into a pocket and was passed over. The bespectacled were later shot. On another occasion, he found himself rounded up again, this time as a member of the Straits Volunteer Force. The Japanese officer unsheathed his sword and then asked for volunteers to face execution. As he held the most senior rank of sergeant, he was one of the three among their group of about ninety men who stepped forward — only to be treated to a drink and praise for bravery. When he was rounded up by the Japanese a third time, the group was divided into three

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rows. Two rows were arbitrarily sent home. Those who remained were sent to the firing squad. Ee, a staunch Roman Catholic, said in an interview with the Sunday Times in 1977 that: “I felt God had spared me for something and not just for myself. I felt I had to do something.” After the war he went straight into charity work, becoming the first honorary secretary for Marymount Convent, and helping to raise funds and set up the Marymount Vocational Centre in 1947. After that, he joined one organization after another to volunteer his services. When he was in his sixties and seventies when most people his age were long in retirement, he was still actively involved in no fewer than fifty organizations, most of them welfare groups. His involvement included being a member of the Public Service Commission and Advisory Board of the Central Council of Malay Cultural Organisations, president of the St John Ambulance National Council, chairman of the Catholic Welfare Services, Boys’ Town, and Catholic Junior College, and as trustee and adviser to many other community, civic, and charitable organizations. He was involved with the Singapore Scout Association since the early 1950s and was vice-president of the Singapore Scout Association in 1965, and president from 1973 till his death in 1994. For his contributions and long service, the association awarded him the Scouts’ Distinguished Service Medal in 1970. When the association built its new headquarters in Bishan in 1996, it was named the Ee Peng Liang Building in memory of the long-serving president. In 1991, the World Scout Foundation admitted him as a Baden-Powell Fellow, the scout’s movement’s highest honour named after its founder, Robert Baden Powell. Other

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honours he received included the honorary doctor of letters from the former University of Singapore (1976), Friend of the Labour Medal from the National Trades Union Congress (1981), Knight of the Order of St John conferred by the queen of the United Kingdom (1984), and Knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of St Sylvester by the Catholic Church (1992), which is awarded to only those who have been active in social work for more than forty years. One of his last public appointments was in 1993, when he was made pro-chancellor of the Nanyang Technological University. Of all his contributions, his most important achievement was perhaps the setting up of the Community Chest in 1983, which put in place a machinery that helped meet the financial needs of most welfare organizations in Singapore today. Ee died of a sudden heart attack on 24 August 1994, aged eighty-one. The late former Singapore President Ong Teng Cheong said of his passing: “He will be remembered as the father of charity. I hope more people would emulate his example. He has done us proud.” Ee was survived by his wife, Mary, and five children — daughters Theresa, Cecillia, and Agnes, and sons Lawrence and Gerard. Younger son, Gerard, later succeeded him as president of the National Council of Social Service and in other charity work to carry on his title as Mr Charity. Leong Weng Kam R E F E R E N C E S Chuang, Peck Ming. “A champion for charity”. The Business Times (Singapore), 25 August 1994, p. 2. Corfield, Justin and Robin S. Encyclopedia of Singapore. Singapore: Talisman Publishing, 2006.

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Ee-Chooi, Theresa. Father of Charity and My Father Ee Peng Liang. Singapore: SNP Publishing, 1997. Koh, Tommy (editor-in-chief). Singapore The Encyclopedia. Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2006. Miller, David. “The needy have lost a father-figure: PM Goh”. The Straits Times (Singapore), 26 August 1994, p. 3. Ooi, Suzanne. “Santa Claus wears glasses”. The Sunday Times (Singapore), 25 December 1988.

Ee Tiang Hong ( ,Yi Tianhong, 1933–90) Poet, teacher, academic, Malaysia

A

n eminent Malaysian poet, Ee Tiang Hong remains an important figure and influence in the literary landscape of post-colonial, post-Independence Malaysia. As part of the first wave of nationally recognized writers to spearhead the writing of literary works in English, Ee shares pioneering status with the generation of poets, fictionists, and dramatists who constitute the “university writers”, so-named because they were all products of the British tertiary education system, with some going on to pursue careers in academia. Ee’s poetry reveals a lifelong preoccupation with the experience of exile, displacement, and discrimination, and their impact on identity and notions of home. As such, his work resonates with Malaysians of Chinese descent and other ethnic backgrounds who find their cultural and political identities and allegiances undermined by racialized regimes. Disenchanted with the oppressive race politics in Malaysia which culminated in the race riots of May 1969, Ee migrated to Australia with his family in 1975. However, as his writings amply demonstrate, he never lost sight of his homeland.

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Ee Tiang Hong was born in 1933 in Malacca, Malaysia, into a peranakan (local born) family that had lived on the peninsula for six generations. Ee belonged to the seventh generation. Being a baba, Ee spoke Baba Malay as his first language.This is a Malay patois widely spoken by the Straits Chinese of Malacca and Singapore.The Straits Chinese refer to Chinese subjects born and long domiciled in the Straits Settlements (an administrative unit formed by the British in 1826 and named after the Straits of Malacca). Ee studied at Tranquerah English High School and Malacca High School before going to the University of Malaya in Singapore in the 1950s where he read English, history, and philosophy. Ee’s formative years as a student coincided with politically turbulent times. The British colonial administration was faced with anti-colonial sentiment, communist insurgency, the Japanese Occupation, and post-war pro-independence nationalism. After graduation, Ee became a teacher in the civil service and was once the principal of the Kota Bharu Teachers Training College. He eventually became senior education officer in the Education Ministry where he served till 1969. Subsequently, he embarked on an academic career at the University of Malaya in the Faculty of Education. In 1975, Ee migrated to Australia and made a new home for himself and his family in Perth, along the banks of the Swan River. He officially became an Australian citizen in 1979. Ee lectured at the Western Australian College of Advanced Education (now Edith Cowan University) and took a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Western Australia with a thesis entitled, “Education in Malaysia and Singapore: A Comparative Study of Racial and Cultural Factors as Determinants of Educational Policy 1945–70” (1984). As a scholar-poet and academic, Ee wrote not only poetry and

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literary criticism, but also monographs and papers on education. He co-authored Education in Malaysia (1975) and Reading and Thinking (1971) and co-edited The Writer’s Sense of the Contemporary: Papers in Southeast Asian and Australian Literature (1982). Ee produced five volumes of poetry in all: I of the Many Faces (1960), Lines Written In Hawaii (1973), Myths for a Wilderness (1976), Tranquerah (1985), and Nearing a Horizon (1994). Only the first two books were published while he was still in Malaysia. Generally, Ee’s poetry is inflected with the memory of a personal and communal history as well as perceptions of a national identity and nationhood that are fiercely at odds with those of the country. The Malaysia of the post-Independence era was heralding the dominance of Malays as the sons of the soil, and Ee who regarded his peranakan community as rooted to the land, and Malaysia as his only homeland, was moved to write poetry which expressed his dismay and frustration at the turn of events. As Leonard Jeyam notes: “We must remember that Ee was Malaya’s first national poet to choose self-exile after deciding that the new Malay-dominated vision of the land and its racial politics were unacceptable to him. Such disjunctions of nationhood and the meaning of nation would forever remain unresolved in his writing” (p. 189). In fact, Ee unequivocally defined himself as “a true son of the soil”; his sense of a “total self” was embodied in the “natural integration of cultures” (“Literature and Liberation”, p. 28) — Chinese, Malay, and European — as a result of centuries of cultural intermingling. That his community’s long-standing commitment to the land was not recognized amounted to a painful betrayal for him. In “Heeren Street, Malacca”, Ee nostalgically revisits a place of personal, communal, and national significance,

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but the decay and bleakness of the place belie its former glory: “Gharry and palanquin are silent. / The narrow street describes / Decades of ash and earth. / Here in the good old days / The Babas paved / A legend on the landscape” (Myths, p. 1). Not only are the good old days gone, but it is suggested that “our children” are powerless to “Blaze another myth, / Mediating in every wilderness / Of this golden peninsula” (Myths, p. 1), the “wilderness” being a metaphor for the crisis of identity and place afflicting the nation. Not surprisingly, arrogance and power abuse in the nation’s history are themes which Ee treats with characteristic candour and irony. In the poem, “Ownership and Control”, the speaker bitterly deplores those who presume to invent categorisations of inhabitants, based on degrees of rightful belonging or not belonging, such as “prince of the earth, son of the soil, naturalised citizen, / immigrant, permanent resident, new settler, / alien, illegal, etc.” (Tranquerah, p. 33). In Nearing a Horizon, his last book of poetry, the speaker laments: “Race, language, religion, birthplace — / the categories do not satisfy: / what do they say of you and me, / the space, the silences between?” (“Some New Perspectives”, p. 10). After the move to Australia in 1975, diasporic issues also came to the fore as the trauma of separation and loss began to weigh heavily on the poet’s sensibilities. The anguish of alienation and departure is captured in poems such as “A Page from Nature” (Myths, p. 17), “Patriotism” (Myths, pp. 52–53), and “Lesson from Childhood” (Nearing, p. 28), while the demands of founding a new home in Australia are conveyed in “The Burden” (Nearing, pp. 19-20), “Coming To” (Nearing, pp. 35–36) and “Done” (Nearing, pp. 38–39). In terms of style, Ee was among the first Malaysian English-language writers to attempt evoking a more authentic sense of place and

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culture in some of his poems by employing the rhythms and dialects of the English spoken by the locals. Agnes S. K.Yeow R E F E R E N C E S Above mentioned books by Ee Tiang Hong. Bennett, Bruce, Ee Tiang Hong, and Ron Shepherd (eds.). The Writer’s Sense of the Contemporary: Papers in Southeast Asian and Australian Literature. Nedlands, Western Australia: Centre for Studies in Australian Literature, University of Western Australia, 1982. Ee Tiang Hong. “Literature and Liberation: The Price of Freedom”. Literature and Liberation: Five Essays from Southeast Asia, edited by Edwin Thumboo. Manila: Solidaridad Publishing House, 1988. Jeyam, Leonard. “Countries of the Mind: Landscape and Consciousness in the Poetry of Judith Wright and Wong Phui Nam”. Diss. University of Kent at Canterbury, United Kingdom, 2007. Wong, Francis Hoy Kee, and Ee Tiang Hong. Education in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: Heinemann Educational Books, 1975. Wong, Francis Hoy Kee and Ee Tiang Hong. Reading and Thinking. Hong Kong: Heinemann Educational Books, 1971.

Eu Tong Sen ( ,Yu Dongxuan, 1877–1941) Entrepreneur, Singapore and Malaysia

E

u Tong Sen is a famous entrepreneur in South China and Southeast Asia. He came from a family of migrants. In 1861, his grandfather, Eu Hok-chung (1822–86) settled in Foshan, Guangdong from Jiangxi Province. He was a fengshui master, as well as a man with extensive social networks. In 1876, he utilized his connections and helped his eldest son, Eu Kong-pui (1853–91) to migrate to Malaya. Eu Kong-pui settled himself in

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Penang with his family’s acquaintances in a cloth shop and was later employed as a shop assistant in a Yue Sang grocery shop. The timing of Eu Kong-pui’s arrival is important. His migration to Penang coincided with the expansion of British colonial rule in the Malayan peninsula. After the making of the Treaty of Pangkor in 1874, Britain introduced the systems of British Residency Protection to the Malaya Peninsula. The systems encouraged the opening up of tax farms in tin mining and intended to expand British control to the inner parts of the Malayan peninsula. The British officials believed that the Chinese migrants were ideal partners in opening up the virgin land. Eu Kong Pui was one of them. In 1882, Eu Kong-pui secured financial support from his employer and acquired from the British colonial government a tax farm in Gopeng, Perak.With the revenue farm, he ventured into tin mining and developed a captive market among the miners. He opened a shop, Yan Sang, to sell groceries, Chinese medicinal herbs and other daily necessities. Eu Tong Sen (1877–1941) was born in Penang. He was Kong-pui’s only son. In 1882, he was sent back to Foshan for education. It was there that he became interested in Cantonese opera, a favourite pastime of his grandfather. In 1891, Eu Kong-pui died of an unidentified illness at the early age of thirtyeight years. In 1892, Tong Sen returned to Penang and his stepmother entered him at St Xavier’s School. He boarded with a Mr R. Butler, his father’s business partner, for almost two years. With this exposure, Eu developed a zest for horse racing. Eu Tong Sen inherited his father’s business at the age of twenty-one. The tax farming business, however, was in a state of decline.The British colonial government was phasing out the system. By his enterprise and hard work, Tong Sen eventually cleared his father’s liabilities and

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went on to amass a fortune from a wide of array of enterprises including plantations, foundries, real estate, Chinese medicine, banking, as well as theatres in Malaya, Singapore, Hong Kong and Canton. At the peak of his career, Eu owned 11 mines, which recruited more than 12,000 Chinese miners. By 1908, for instance, he owned two mines at Kampar, three at Gopeng, one at Tronoh, one at Chenderiang, and one at Papan. About 8,000 coolies were recruited for these mines. In Selangor, Eu also operated one mine at Ampang and one at Kancheng, together employing about 3,000 coolies. In Batang Benna and Negri Sembilan, Eu also operated a mine with about 1,000 miners. To offset the risk of fluctuating tin price, Eu set up a Sang Woh Foundry and extended his business into the manufacturing of tin-made items for China and Southeast Asian countries. By doing so, he also attempted to set up a “vertical integration” for his business empire. In 1908, Eu commenced planting two rubber estates of about 450 and 250 acres and ventured into the business of rubber plantation. This venture gradually expanded and helped Eu to diversify his business empire. With expanding business networks in British Malaya, Yan Sang shops also expanded its engagement in remittance, helping miners and coolies to send their income back to China. As the remittance and medicines businesses expanded, branches were set up in such major cities as Penang, Ipoh, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Singapore. In a branding exercise, Tong sen changed the name of his shop to ‘Eu , hereafter, EYS). A branch Yan Sang’ ( was established in the Sheung Wan district of Hong Kong in 1909. As his branches increased and his business spread out, his potential market also expanded. The distribution network extended by the EYS shops was converted into remittance channels. EYS gradually built up an extensive remittance networks connecting

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British Malaya with Hong Kong and southern China. In the 1920s when the rubber business deteriorated,Tong Sen further shifted his focus to remittance business. By the late 1920s to mid-1940s, the most profitable part of EYS’s business was in remittances, not medicines. In terms of the volume of money remitted, EYS was one of the most influential Chinese agents in remittance business. The EYS shop in Hong Kong became a distribution centre of Eu’s remittance business between Southeast Asia and southern China. With this foundation, Eu also established a Lee Wah Bank in Singapore in 1920. The Bank was set up to cater mainly to the Cantonese-speaking community. With increasing wealth and fame, Tong Sen became a community leader. He was the Chinese representative in the Federal Council from 1911–20. During the First World War, other than presenting a tank and an aeroplane to the British Government, he also made substantial donations to the Prince of Wales’s and other Relief Funds. In return to his services and loyalty, the British Government conferred upon him the Order of O.B.E. Eu Tong Sen had eight wives and 13 sons. All his sons were English-educated and adopted English names.They were arranged to study accounting, laws, business and finance in the United Kingdom or the United States of America respectively. Eu Keng Chee (1900–57), the eldest son, was sent to study at a boarding school in England and later arranged by his father to study for a degree in Accounting. Keng Chee returned to Singapore in 1925 and gradually took over the management of the family businesses. In 1928, Eu Tong Sen retired to Hong Kong and his eldest son, Keng Chee, took over his business in Southeast Asia. While most of Eu’s old businesses (like tin mining

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and the rubber plantations) were handled by Eu’s senior managers in Southeast Asia, the new businesses (like banking and real estate) was handled by Eu Keng Chee in Singapore. Eu Tong Sen was kept thoroughly informed of their operations by reading the monthly accounting reports submitted by the branch managers. In 1932, Eu set up an Eu Tong Sen Limited in Singapore to supervise his properties in Southeast Asia. To pre-empt power struggles among his sons, Eu Tong Sen converted business equity into shares. Eu Tong Sen owned a number of beautiful private residences in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. In Singapore, he had a grand house known as “Eu Villa”. After his retirement to Hong Kong in 1928, Tong Sen also acquired a large number of properties there. He built two Gothic-style castles — Euston on Bonham Road and Eucliff at Repulse Bay. An Austrian-style schloss named Sirmio was built in the New Territories. In 1934, Eu Tong Sen registered his will with the Hong Kong High court, which stated that his fortune would be equally distributed to his 13 sons after his death. By 1941, when the Japanese troops were approaching South China, Eu Tong Sen arranged for his family to migrate to Australia and the United States. He himself never managed to make the trip. On the 9 May 1941, spending a final week at Sirmio before departure, he had a heart attack and passed away. Following the terms set out by his will, Eu Tong Sen was cremated and his ashes were buried in the courtyard at Sirmio. His estate was divided among his 13 sons. Lawyer and scholar Song Ong Siang recorded in 1923 his impression of Eu Tong Sen as follow: “he is a level-headed man of business, of a frank, genial and sociable disposition and a warm-hearted friend. With the sole exception of the late

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Loke Yew, he can easily claim to be the richest man in the F.M.S.” Stephanie Chung Po-yin R E F E R E N C E S Arnold Wright and H.A. Cartwright. Twentieth century impressions of British Malaya: Its history, people, commerce, industries, and resources. London: Lloyd’s Greater Britain Publication Co., 1908, pp. 534–38, 856.

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Eu Hok-chung. Yushi zupu [Genealogy of Eu family], Foshan, about 1880. Eu Kong Papers, with the permission of Richard Yeeming Eu, National Archives of Singapore. Eu Yan Sang Accounts Books, Eu Yan Sang Archives, University of Hong Kong Library; Song Ong Siang. One Hundred Years’ History of the Chinese in Singapore. London: J. Murray, 1923, pp. 332– 33. Wills (Eu Tong Sen; Jenny Eu, Edward Eu), Probate Jurisdiction, the Supreme Court of Hong Kong.

F Fang Beifang ( , 1918–2007) Prolific novelist, Malaysia

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ang Beifang (meaning: Fang of the North) is arguably the most prolific Malaysian Chinese writer who produced at least 31 books, the largest number of which are the novels. Fang Beifang’s real name was Fang . He was born in Huilai Zuobin ), Guangdong, China, in 1918 and ( went to Penang, Malaya in 1928 at the age of 10 to join his uncle who ran a shop selling construction materials. Fang Beifang studied in the Chung Ling Middle School (Penang) but returned to China in 1938 during the anti-Japanese war to continue his studies. He eventually returned to Penang in 1948 and stayed with his cousin’s family. He became a citizen after Malaya gained its independence

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and stayed on in Malaya/Malaysia until he died in 2007 at the age of 89 years old. Fang was not a full time writer; he held a stable job as a Chinese language teacher in Hanjiang Secondary School of which he was once its principal. He was also a part-time Chinese newspaper editor in Penang for four years. Fang began to publish his works in 1947 when he was still in China. His first novel which was published that year was A Story in ). But his first published Spring ( book after his return to Penang was a literary report entitled The Old City Where A Thousand ). People Die Everyday ( Nevertheless, it appeared that he was more talented in writing novels. In 1952 he published a novel entitled Two Men who Commit Suicide ). But the novel which brought ( ) him fame was Nonya and Baba ( which was published in 1954 and was reprinted numerous times. It was also made into a movie by Cathay Film Co. in Malaya/Hong Kong. Although the movie was generally considered

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a poor adaptation of the original novel, it drew a lot of attention. The novel tells the story of a rich Nonya known as Lim Nonya who was a widow with a son by a previous husband. She married a Chinese migrant, Lin Tianfu, who had no say on anything. His step-son, Lim Baba, was sent to an English school and lost his Chinese values and cultural identity. Lim Baba married a wife who ended up committing suicide and their son, Lim Xiba, was abandoned. When Lim Baba went bankrupt and his new wife ran away, it was his forsaken child who came back to look after him. Lim Xiba was Chinese-educated and regained his Chinese values. This novel dwells on the views of a China-born and Chinese-educated writer on the Baba community. It is also a criticism of colonial education and an advocate of Chinese education for the Chinese overseas. Fang as a Chinese school teacher tended to preach, but in the novel Nonya and Baba the preaching was woven into a well-written story. However, as time passed, the moral teaching in Fang’s novels became more obvious. There were two schools of thought in Malayan Chinese literature: one was “art for art sake” and the other was “art for society”. The latter was known as the school of realism, and Fang Beifang belonged to this school. In 1957 he published the first volume of his Trilogy of ), Light Comes Late in the Trends ( ), which was followed Morning ( by The Extraordinarily Brief Noon ( ) in 1967, and The Evening which Vanishes ) in 1978. This trilogy portrays ( the lives of Chinese youths, especially the young intellectuals in mainland China during the 1930s and 1940s, their struggles against the Japanese invasion and their national awakening. Apparently this trilogy was a departure from Fang Beifang’s 1954 novel which uses Malaya as a background.

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Regarding this trilogy, supporters of Fang argued that this was the only substantial novel on China during the turbulent years written by a Chinese outside China, which reflected the talent and courage of the author, but those who were local-oriented regarded this trilogy as a work about China and hence foreign to those who were born and brought up in Malaya/Malaysia. It would seem that as a Malaysian Chinese writer Fang believed that people expected him to write about local Chinese society. Therefore he planned to write another trilogy which was later called the ). He wanted Malaya Trilogy ( to write the history of evolution of Chinese Malaysians from migrants to citizens. Fang Beifang stated his objectives of writing the above trilogy as follows: “After completing the trilogy on the anti-Japanese War in China, I realize that I have lived in Malaysia for more than 50 years, from youth to old age and from a foreigner to a citizen. I have special feelings for this land, and hope that through literary writing, I as a citizen, together with other citizens, will be able to contribute to nation-building. I will tell the story of the Chinese participation in opening up this land and developing this country....” In fact, the second volume of the Malaya ), which Trilogy, Under the Towkay ( was also entitled Healthy Branches Produce ), came out first. The Good Leaves ( first volume, entitled Big Tree Has Deep Roots ) was only published in 1980, and ( the last volume, Flowers Fly and Fruits Fall ), was published in 1994. In other ( words, the span from writing to publication of this trilogy was 14 years. The first volume, Big Tree has Deep Roots, tells the story of a migrant called Hua Ren and his sons in Malaysia. The second volume is a history of the fictitious Shi family in Malaya, its ups and downs, and

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its involvement in Chinese education, while the third volume tells the story of the Chinese community’s struggle in Malaya/Malaysia. Some critics have argued that of these three novels, his first, Big Tree has Deep Roots, is quite a successful narrative of the Chinese migrants and their struggles, while the third volume which includes a lot of statements and propaganda is the weakest. Fang Beifang, considered a pioneer of Malaysian Chinese literature, received a lot of praise from his own generation, especially the followers of literary realism. However, some Malayan Chinese scholars of the younger generation who rejected literary realism have criticized him for preaching his moral values and spreading political propaganda rather than writing literary works. The 1970s and 1980s, were the golden years for Fang Beifang. He was elected the deputy vice-president of Malaysian Chinese Writers Association (1978–80), and served two terms as of its President from 1980–84. In November1989 Fang was awarded the First Malaysian Chinese Literary Award, and in 1998 the ASEAN Literary Award. In his 40 years of writing career, Fang produced 31 books which included novels, collections of short stories, essays, commentaries and others. He died on 11 November 2007.To commemorate his contributions to Malaysian literature, the Malaysian Chinese Writers Association decided to reissue his complete works. This giant project was completed and published in 16 volumes in 2009. Leo Suryadinata R E F E R E N C E S 《

》。

：

，1964 ，1980。

(

)。 《

》。

：

《

》。

：

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，1985。

《 1998， 179–215。

》。

：

，

〈

《 》 〉（ ）。 (accessed October 2011). 《

》。 ，1986， 179–81。

Fang Xiu ( , 1922–2010) Literary pioneer, Singapore

T

he greatest contribution Fang Xiu made is his effort of documenting literary works written in vernacular Chinese in Singapore and Malaysia from the early twentieth century to the early years of independence. An amateur scholar but a devotee of literature, Fang dedicated his whole life enthusiastically to accounting for what happened in Singapore and Malaysian Chinese literature and the literary community. While critics have posed scepticism about his ideological inclination, few get close to him in providing a better understanding of how Singapore and Malaysian Chinese literature evolved in its early stage. Fang Xiu’s actual name is Wu Zhiguang ). His other pen (Goh Tze Kwang, ) and Ren names include Guan Zhi ( ). He was born on 9 February 1922 Xin ( in Chaoan, a Teochew speaking county in Guangdong, where he attended primary and secondary schools as well as received training as a teacher. He followed his mother in moving southward from China and joined his father in 1939 in Kuala Lumpur, where he subsequently worked in grocery shops, rubber factories, and western wine shops. The year 1941 marked his first entry into the local Chinese cultural reproduction industry when he worked for the

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Xin Guomin Daily News 《 》 as a proofreader and a night-shift editor. When Japanese troops invaded the Malayan Peninsula, Fang Xiu fled to Singapore together with his friends. In January 1941, he joined a training class for young cadres conducted by the Wartime Working Organization of the Singapore Chinese Cultural Circle. After the fall of Singapore to the Japanese army, he returned to Kuala Lumpur. After the Japanese Occupation, he became a reporter for two newspapers based 》 in Kuala Lumpur, Minsheng Bao 《 》in 1945 and Zhonghua Wanbao《 and 1946, respectively. He then left Kuala Lumpur again and taught in a few primary schools in Johor and Singapore. He landed a stable job in 1951 when he was appointed editor of a major Chinese newspaper based in Singapore, Sin Chew Jit Poh, for which he also oversaw the weekly issues. In 1956, he was promoted to chief editor for news about Malaya. He consecutively took care of such literary and cultural supplements as Wenyi《 ), Xingqi Xiaoshuo 《 》, Qingnian 》, and Wenhua 《 》. Zhishi 《 He retired from the newspaper in 1978. From 1966 to 1978, Fang Xiu taught at the University of Singapore as an adjunct lecturer, offering courses on Mahua (Malayan/ Malaysian Chinese) literature, modern Chinese literature, and studies of Lu Xun. After he retired from the newspaper and his teaching assignments, his passion for literature continued, and he churned out many publications on Singapore and Malaysian Chinese literature. In 1997, he founded the Tropical Literary and Arts Club ( ) and served as an adviser to the club for many years. Fang Xiu is most admired for his enduring determination to dig up and sort

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out historical materials of Malaysian and Singapore Chinese literature. The results are important compilations of literary works. His ten volumes of A Comprehensive Anthology of Modern Malaysian Chinese literature《 》 was a painstaking project done entirely on his own, which turned out to be a work of great value for reference in the study of Chinese literature in Southeast Asia. Also remarkable are his six volumes of A Comprehensive Anthology of Postwar Modern Malaysian Chinese literature 《 》. Other anthologies include Selected Works of Modern Malaysian Chinese Literature 》. The original editions of 《 these voluminous compilations were published from the early 1960s to the early 1980s. In addition to the documentation of literary works, Fang Xiu also published works on the history of Malaysian and Singapore Chinese literature. Useful as a starting point for access to the subject are his A Draft of the History of Modern Malaysian Chinese Literature 》(1965, 1976), The 《 Evolution of Malaysian Chinese Literary 》(1970), and Trends《 Modern Malaysian Chinese Literature and Its Historical Outline 《 》(1974). Besides observing and studying the literature, Fang Xiu produced creative writings as well in many genres. The anthologies of his proses and essays include The Light Dirt 》, Smoke from the Stove 《 》 《 》(1973). (1977), and A Long Night 《 He wrote both classical and modern poetry. Small Poems in Multiple Chambers 《 》(1998) is an anthology featuring sixtynine poems that he wrote over five decades — from 1948 to 1997. He passed away in Singapore on 4 March 2010. After his death, there have been many

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essays in newspapers about his contribution, and also academic discussions about his works. He is remembered as a literary pioneer who shaped significantly the understanding of how Chinese literature has reoriented from China to Malaysia and Singapore, and evolved across various ideologies. Yow Cheun Hoe R E F E R E N C E S Singapore National Library Board. “Fang Xiu”. Singapore’s National Library Board website, (accessed 10 September 2010). 〉， 《 ： 、 ，2005， 93–94。

》。

〈

《

》。

、 ：

，

2009。

Fann Wong (Fann Woon Fong, , Fan Wenfang, 1971– ) Model, singer, actress, Singapore

F

ann Wong is the stage name of Fann [ ] ) is a leading Woon Fang ( Singapore actress who has gone international. She was born on 27 January 1971 in Singapore, the second daughter of Fann Chin Khew and Wong Siew Toy, both tailors. ‘Fann Wong’ is a combination of the surnames of both her parents. Fann was educated at Temasek Secondary School and then at a private school. After completing her GCE ‘A’ level examinations, she enrolled in LaSalle International Fashion School where she earned a diploma in fashion merchandising. At the age of 16, Fann won a beauty contest organized by Her World magazine and

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thus kick-started a successful modelling career. She modelled part-time first for Imp Agency (which closed down), and then Carrie’s, while still studying. Carrie’s was responsible for securing her a modelling contract for an Oil of Ulan commercial which was aired in both Singapore and Taiwan, and this proved to be her big break. PT Models, a large Taiwanese modelling agency spotted her and engaged her to model up to 80 dresses a day for catalogues. In 1993, she moved to Taiwan. In 1994, Fann returned to Singapore, signed up as a full time TCS (Television Corporation of Singapore) artiste and starred in her first local drama series, Dreams Come ). This was quickly followed True ( by lead roles in The Challenger ( ), and Chronicle of Life ( ). At the Star Awards in 1995 Fann became the first actress to win both the Best Actress and Best Newcomer awards in the same year. In 1996, Fann released her first album, Fanntasy which featured the theme song of her TV drama, Brave New World which was a duet with Taiwanese singer Jeff Chang. The album was later repackaged for the Taiwanese market as ) and it won four IFPI I Live Alone ( (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) sales awards in Taiwan. It sold more than 500,000 copies. In 1996, controversy broke out when PT Models of Taiwan accused Fann of breaching their contract when she signed on with TCS. The six-year contract, signed in 1993, gave the modelling agency rights over Fann’s appearances in all film productions, sound recordings or any entertainment-related activity in Taiwan. The dispute was settled amicably in January 1997 and Fann returned from a TCS-imposed suspension to resume her acting career. Fann’s regional reputation was sealed with the 1998 release of her hit wuxia drama The

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Return of the Condor Heroes ( ) and of ). The music her second album, Shopping ( video of Shopping so impressed Hong Kong director Derek Yee that he flew to Singapore to cast Fann as the lead in his art film, The Truth ). The Hong Kong About Jane and Sam ( produced movie topped the Singapore box office for three weeks and she was nominated as Best New Performer at the 19th Hong Kong Film Awards. ) was Her third album, Missing You ( released in 1999. This was quickly followed ) in 2000. In the by No Problem ( meantime, Fann recorded Private Number with British boy band 911 and also performed Moments of Magic, Singapore’s official millennium song. In 2000, Fann became the first Singapore singer to hold a solo concert at the Singapore Indoor Stadium. That year, she stunned everyone by winning Mediacorp’s Special Achievement Award at the annual Star Awards since the award is usually reserved for veterans. In 2002, Fann became the first Singaporean actress to play a major role in a Hollywood move. She starred as Chon Lin in the movie, Shanghai Knights which starred Hong Kong star Jackie Chan. When the movie was released in 2003, critics were full of praise for Fann’s acting. Fann has starred in numerous drama series and films both in Singapore and abroad. For example, the serials A Romance in Shanghai was produced in Shanghai, while Wild Orchids was filmed in Sydney, and Brave New World in Amsterdam and Belgium. Fann has scored many firsts in her career. In late 2004, she released her first publication, a semi-autobiographical comic book entitled ) the first local artiste Girl Illustrated ( to do so. In August 2005, she became the

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first local actress to do a voiceover for Singapore’s first 3D animation film, Zodiac: The Race Begins. In 2007, she became the first Singaporean artiste to release a self-illustrated 3G animation titled Fanntasy World. Such was Fann’s popularity that in 2003, she was engaged by Tourism Queensland as its ambassador. Since 2002, she had been romantically linked with Malaysian actor, Christopher Lee. They have collaborated on eight occasions and in 2009, they starred in The Wedding Game ) as a celebrity couple who fake their ( romance and marriage just to boost their careers. The comedy won the best feature film at the 1st international comedy film festival in Thailand. The couple married on 29 September 2009 in the glittering celebrity-studded wedding at the Shangri-la Hotel in Singapore. Fann turned up in a $300,000 Bollywoodinspired gown while Lee was togged out and styled by Italian label Ermenegildo Zegna. Another wedding ceremony was held in Lee’s hometown of Malacca in October 2009. Fann’s hobbies include illustrating comics, gastronomy and shopping. Kevin Y.L.Tan R E F E R E N C E S Chin Soo Fang. “Fann to star in Single Girld in July comeback”. The Sunday Times, 4 May 1997, p. 3. “Fann Wong to pair up with two Taiwan kings?”. The Straits Times, 28 November 1996. Fannatic Fann Club; Official Fanclub (accessed September 2011). Ho Sheo Be. “Fann’s dream comes true”. The Straits Times, 23 October 1993, p. 5. Richard Lim. “Tell me how you got out of the contract mess, I will not report it”. The Sunday Times, 1 June 1997, p. 24.

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Fong Chong Pik ( , Fang Zhuangbi, 1926–2004) Key Malayan Communist Party leader, Singapore

F

ong Chong Pik was a key Malayan Communist Party (MCP) operative in Singapore nicknamed ‘The Plen’. Fong Chong Pik was born in China ), in 1926 in a village near Swatow ( Guangdong Province, and came to Singapore with his mother and his elder brother in 1932 to escape the communists. Little else is known about his family. They settled in the Teochewdominated Upper Bukit Timah area and he ) School in Jalan studied at Seh Chuan ( Jurong Kechil where he showed himself to be an excellent student. Indeed, his principal, Lu Jia Shu was so impressed by Fong that he personally took him to Chinese High School (the premier Chinese-language boys’ school in Singapore) for enrolment. He entered Chinese High School in 1939 and immediately demonstrated his academic and sporting prowess. However, he nearly dropped out of school on several occasions due to financial difficulties. His education was interrupted by the Japanese Occupation in 1942. Fong did not do much during the Occupation, but assisted his father in going to disused rubber plantations to plant crops like sweet potatoes and tapioca for subsistence. He also did odd jobs at a Japanese factory. When civilian rule was restored in 1946, Fong reenrolled in Chinese High School — which had set up temporary premises in the Singapore Kindergarten in Tras Street. Two months later, he was forced to withdraw because of financial difficulties and found work at the Orphan Centre at Mount Emily. Having saved a little

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money, he returned to school but left a month later to work at Lee Kong Chian’s Nam Aik Rubber Factory, having obtained the job at the recommendation of his school principal ). In 1947, Fong was Xue Yongshu ( determined to return to school to finish his education. He managed to remain in school till the end of the year and graduated with a Senior Middle Three certificate. In the meantime, he took an active part in school life, establishing a students’ cooperative with a few of his classmates and being elected President of the cooperative. He also became the foremost middle-distance runner in school, winning the 800m, 1500m and 3000m events. He was even All-Malaya champion in the 1500m. It was at Chinese High School that Fong began reading the works of Marx, Sun Yat Sen, and modern Chinese authors like Lu Xun, Guo Moruo, Mao Dun, Ba Jin and Lao She. He found their writings inspiring and given his difficult financial situation, he was already veering to the left in his political thinking. The arrest of some teachers of the school by the Malayan Special Branch in 1946 for anti-colonial activities hardened his political thinking. After leaving school, Fong remained at Chinese High School as Discipline Officer. He left in 1948 to become a teacher at Sin Min Primary School where he took charge of physical education. As his job was not terribly demanding, Fong decided to improve his English by enrolling in an English school. Through a friend, he was introduced to Canon Adams, principal of St Andrew’s School, who put him in Standard 8, one of the higher classes. Fong did well, topping the class in Mathematics and Scripture, scoring distinctions in History and Geography but achieving only an ‘average’ grade for English.

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Fong was never to finish his English education as he was invited to join the Nan Chiau Jit Poh ) by his former teacher, Chu Chi ( Chok, at the end of 1949. This left-leaning Chinese daily was reputedly controlled by the radical China Democratic League. It was while working at the newspaper that he first met Eu Chooi Yip a member of the Malayan Communist Party’s (MCP’s) Singapore Town Committee and who would later become the MCP’s main operative in Singapore. Eu had been hired by the paper as a translator, and subsequently became Fong’s contact with the communist underground. Fong, who was, by now, fiercely anti-colonial, was a willing and ready recruit of the communist-led Anti-British League (ABL) which had already singled him out as a ‘candidate for development’. By this time, the British were already suspicious of Fong and in 1948 arrested him for questioning. Fong was initially told by Eu to translate War News of the Chinese Liberation Army into English for publication in the underground ). He subsequently paper, Freedom News ( assumed full responsibility for the production of Freedom News. In September 1950, the authorities raided and shut down Nan Chiau Jit Poh but Fong evaded arrest and hid out in an attap hut in Lorong Tai Seng where he continued producing Freedom News. In early 1951, there was another raid and Fong once again escaped by jumping into a duck pond. The police offered a $2,000 reward for his arrest, along that of Eu ($5,000) and Lim Kean Chye (also $5,000). Fong then rented a piece of land in the middle of Singapore island and pretended to be a chicken farmer. With him were his , who was later sister (Fung Yin Ching elected Assemblywoman), brother-in-law and

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nephew. There, he remained for several years, forging identity cards for MCP members. In the meantime, his superiors had been evacuated to the Riau Islands where they established a three-man Singapore Working Committee comprising Eu, Wong Meng Keong and Chiam Chong Chian to direct operations in Singapore. In 1957, Fong was summoned by his superiors to Moro Island, given full authority over all operations on the island and power to negotiate with Lee Kuan Yew, leader of the then-opposition left-wing People’s Action Party (PAP).The plan was to work closely with the PAP and to share power when they won the forthcoming 1959 general elections. The first of their four meetings took place sometime in March 1958, and the last, sometime in 1961. Lee wanted Fong to prove his credentials and challenged him to order Chang Yuen Tong of the Workers’ Party to resign from the City Council as well as for the communists to withdraw support for the Parti Rakyat Singapore. Fong naively agreed, but the shrewd Lee kept the communists and pro-communists at bay, refusing to appoint any one of them to a cabinet post when the PAP swept to power and landslide victory in the 1959 polls. It was Lee who gave Fong the nom de plume, ‘The Plen’, short for ‘Plenipotentiary’. By 1961, when Malaya’s Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman agreed to a merger with Singapore, the tables had been turned against the MCP and now, armed with the powerful Internal Security Act, the Internal Security Council proceeded to arrest and detain without trial all suspected communist leaders, activists and grassroots workers under Operation Coldstore (1963). All of the MCP’s exposed cadres were systematically evacuated, and Fong escaped to Indonesia sometime in January or February 1963.

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Little is known about what happened to Fong while he was in the Riau Islands, but in 1977, he managed to make his way to the Thai-Malaysia border where the MCP’s armies were sequestered. There he joined the Special Force and within a year, transferred to the 12th Detachment, the largest MCP unit at the border. He was then known as Ah Tong or Lee Ping. In 1989, the Malaysian government signed the Haadyai Peace Agreement with the MCP, ending over 40 years of hostility. Fong then emerged from the jungles where he had been involved in guerrilla warfare and granted a series of interviews, urging the Singapore Government to allow former MCP members to return to Singapore. Fong died in a Haatyai hospital on 6 February 2004 after losing a battle with cancer. He was survived by his wife, Zheng Hong Ying and son, Guan Shao Ping. Fong, who had been banned from entering Singapore since 1966, failed to realise his last dream of returning to Singapore as he refused to comply with the three conditions the Singapore Government insisted on. Kevin Y.L.Tan R E F E R E N C E S C.C. Chin. “The United Front Strategy of the Malayan Communist Party in Singapore, 1950s–1960s”. In Michael D. Barr & Carl A. Trocki (eds.), Paths Not Taken: Political Pluralism in Post-War Singapore. Singapore: NUS Press, 2008, pp. 58–77. Fong Chong Pik. Memoirs of a Malayan Communist Revolutionary. Kuala Lumpur: SIRD, 2008. Lee Ting Hui. The Open United Front: The Communist Struggle in Singapore 1954–1966. Singapore: South Sea Society, 1996. “The Plen: What Singapore would have become”. The Straits Times, 22 July 1997, p. 42.

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Fong Swee Suan ( , Fang Shuishuang, 1931– ) Trade unionist, politician, Singapore

F

ong Swee Suan was a powerful leftwing anti-colonial trade unionist and politician and founder member of the Barisan Sosialis. Fong Swee Suan was born on 27 October 1931 in Senggarang, near Batu Pahat in the state of Johor, Malaya. His grandparents and parents had come from China in search of a better future. In Senggarang, his elder brother and father operated a laundry shop while his mother leased a piece of land to grow gambier and other cash crops to supplement the family income. The family lived apart for some time, him with his mother, and his brother with his father. Fong thus regards his mother as the most important influence in his life, having taught him the right values and how to be a person of good character. Fong attended the Chung Hwa Primary School but the onset of World War II meant that everything came to an abrupt halt. When the War ended, he resumed his studies and left the school in 1948. He then enrolled in the Chinese High School in Batu Pahat, but transferred to the Chinese High School in Singapore the following year. Among his classmates was Lim Chin Siong, with whom he worked closely to form the People’s Action Party (PAP) and then the Barisan Sosialis (BS). During this time, the Chinese High School, just like Chung Cheng High School, was the hotbed of radical student activity. Fong took an active part in these activities — many of them communist-inspired and anti-colonial — and in 1951, organized and participated in the

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examination boycott. This led to his expulsion from school. He then enrolled in an English school while he found employment as a clerk in a shipping firm. In 1952, Fong joined the Green Bus Company and became involved in trade union activities, getting himself elected as SecretaryGeneral for the Bus Workers’ Union in April 1954.That year, together with Lim Chin Siong and other trade unionists, Fong met Lee Kuan Yew for discussions on the formation of the People’s Action Party (PAP). At the party’s inauguration on 21 November 1954, Fong was elected a member of the Central Executive Committee. The PAP was seen as a fiercely anti-colonial, left-wing party and many of its members, including Fong and Lim Chin Siong were radical left-wing trade unionists who were experts at mass mobilization, especially among the Chinese-educated (who formed the bulk of the population). Lim and Fong expanded their spheres of influence by expanding their unions and amalgamating smaller unions and bringing them under their control. This invariably led to clashes with other trade unionists who were unsympathetic to the pair’s left-wing socialist ideology and methods, as well as with employers. In May 1955, Fong became involved in the tragic Hock Lee Bus riots that would forever be linked to his name. At the end of April 1955, a dispute concerning pay and working conditions had broken out between workers and management of Hock Lee Amalgamated Bus Company. The workers were all members of the Singapore Bus Workers’ Union (SBWU) which was under Fong’s control. To pressure the management into accepting the workers’ demands, Fong declared an official strike at the bus company. To add further pressure on the management, Fong urged all other bus companies’ workers to stage a sympathy strike if the dispute was not settled. On 29 April, thousands of Chinese

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middle school students then joined the strikers in support, providing them with food and entertainment. The following day, sympathy strikes were held throughout the island. On 9 May, negotiations between the management and SBWU broke down and the police were ordered to clear the picket lines for the buses to pass. Fire hoses were used to disperse the strikers.A riot broke out and this was supported by some 20 lorry loads of Chinese school students who were ferried to the scene. A mob of some 2,000 rioters attacked the police. In all, four persons died and 31 persons were injured in the three-day riots. By 13 May, order had been restored and on 14 May, the government arbitrator negotiated a settlement in which the bus company management had to reinstate the dismissed workers. Normal bus services resumed on 16 May. Fong publicly apologized for the violence which got out of hand: ‘We express our deep distress at the violence used against the buses of the Hock Lee Bus Company and the police.’ He had always maintained that while his SBWU was certainly the instigator of the strikes, he did not expect that there would be such violence, and did not expect it to turn into a riot. On 11 June, Fong was arrested, along with the other union leaders held responsible for the strikes. They were released after 45 days in detention. Fong immediately returned to his trade union activities, his power in the unions, even greater than before. Numerous strikes continued to be organized. By now, he had brought his SBWU in alignment with Lim Chin Siong’s Singapore Factory and Shop Workers’ Union (SFSWU), becoming its Deputy SecretaryGeneral in 1956. That year, he was also appointed vice-chairman of the Association of Workers’ Singapore Industry. In this latter capacity, he led a seven-member delegation to meet Chief Minister Lim Yew Hock on 21 September 1956 to discuss the matter of the

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arrest of the Association’s president, Lim Zhen Guo. Lim Yew Hock, who had by now lost patience with the left-wing unions, ordered Fong’s arrest, along with those of Lim Chin Siong, Devan Nair, and some 200 others on 27 October. With this single stroke, the Chief Minister succeeded in smashing the leadership of the Middle Road Unions. Fong remained in detention till 4 June 1959 when he was released after signing a jointstatement (along with James Puthucheary, Lim Chin Siong, Devan Nair and Sandra Woodhull) to support the PAP’s 1958 policy statement, ‘The New Phase after Merdeka: Our Tasks and Policy’, and to commit to prioritizing nation-building in a multi-racial society over any ‘socialist objective’ and shunning the ‘communal road’. Like many of the left-wing trade unionists who had been detained by Lim Yew Hock, Fong was not trusted by the PAP’s inner circle, who were convinced that both he and Lim Chin Siong were open front leaders of the Malayan Communist Party. He was thus not given a prominent role in the new PAP Government of 1959 but was instead appointed Political Secretary of the Ministry of Manpower and dispute secretary of the Trade Union Congress. The following year, after he publicly criticized his minister’s labour policies, Fong was transferred to the office of the Deputy Prime Minister as Political Secretary. By this time, the fissures within the PAP were showing and an attempt was made to unseat Lee Kuan Yew’s government through a ‘no confidence’ vote. Thereafter, the 13 PAP Assembly men who were dismissed from their party formed the Barisan Sosialis (Socialist Front). Fong was then the Secretary-General of the Singapore Association of Trade Unions (SATU) and the adviser of many other unions. On 2 February 1963, in a massive security sweep codenamed Operation Coldstore, Fong

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was detained under the Internal Security Act, along with some 111 other trade unionists, left-wing activists and grassroots leaders. As Fong was a Malaysian, he was sent to Kuala Lumpur for a short period of detention, and then to Muar Detention Centre where he remained till 25 August 1967 when he was released. While in detention, Fong completed both his GCE ‘O’ and ‘A’ level examinations. He then worked as an administrative assistant in a sugar factory in Kuala Lumpur before moving to Johor Baru in 1970 where he became branch manager for De Cheng Machinery Pte Ltd. At this time, he moved his family (who had remained in Singapore) to Johor Baru so that his children could continue attending school in Singapore. In 1976, he established You Lian Machinery Pte Ltd and ran the business till he retired in 1996. In the meantime, Fong continued to study part time and obtained his Bachelor in Business Administration degree from Kensington University and then proceeded to complete an MBA and Ph.D. at the British West Indies St Clements University. Fong moved back to Singapore in 1998 even though the ban on his entering Singapore had been lifted by 1990. He is married to fellow unionist, Chen Poh Cheng (who was known as the ‘Black Peony’ during her trade union days), and they have three children, Xiu Min,Yong Jin and Yong Zheng (Otto). Kevin Y.L.Tan R E F E R E N C E S “A life with (almost) no regrets”. The Straits Times, 11 September 2009. John Drysdale. Singapore: Struggle for Singapore: Times Books International, 1984. 《

》。

Success.

：

，

2007。 Interview with Fong Swee Suan, 8 November 2010.

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G Gaisano, Henry ( , Shi Weipeng, 1920–2004) Entrepreneur, philanthropist, Philippines

G

aisano is a name quite well known in the southern parts of the Philippines. In Visayas and Mindanao, the Gaisano brothers and the Gaisano brand are acknowledged pioneers of the shopping mall business. Today, the businesses are operated entirely by second-generation Gaisanos who understand their fortune in having one another and working together to attain smooth and coordinated growth and success for every Gaisano. Born on 21 May 1920, Henry Gaisano was the foremost member of the clan, the third son of Jose Sy Leng Kee, who was a Chinese from Long Hu Ya Kou, Jinjiang in Fujian, China. Sy married Doña Modesta Gaisano with whom he had eleven children — five boys, David, Stephen, Henry, Victor, and John, and six girls, Pian Pian, Kam Kam, Eng Eng, Yan Yan, Ching Ching, and Teng Teng. The Gaisano empire began with a small store in Cebu City whose operations were interrupted by World War II. Soon after the war, the brothers set up White Gold Store, a retail outlet that carried an increasing array of merchandise. Henry Gaisano was in charge of daily operations and finance. When White Gold Store succeeded, the brothers decided to construct a five-storey building to house White Gold Department Store. It was the first multistorey department store in Cebu

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City. White Gold became the “go-to” place of every Cebuano living in and around the city capital. It carried everything one would need — clothing, houseware, kitchenware, appliances, toys, groceries, and in 1962, even a fine Chinese restaurant at the top floor of the building. White Gold Department Store was the concrete realization of the teachings of the family matriarch, Modesta Gaisano, who throughout her life emphasized the importance of family unity. She drummed into their consciousness that “united, you brothers could move mountains”, and her children did work as one until the much larger number of second-generation Gaisanos were ready to take over. Big though the department store became, the brothers stayed hands-on managers. Key positions in the company were not given to outsiders in the early years. All work and responsibilities were shared among the brothers. They worked day and night, taking turns to work at night — doing the inventory, restocking shelves, balancing the books, and even cleaning the aisles. The line of satisfied customers who returned to White Gold again and again proved that their concept of a department store was on the mark; it was also the precursor of the shopping mall concept where everyone’s needs are in one place. This showed the foresight of the brothers. However, success did not come without trials. White Gold was burned down in 1974, but from the ruins, the brothers emerged stronger and more confident. Together, they reconstructed their business, even branching out to other provinces. This chain of establishments later emerged to

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be the Gaisano malls known throughout the south. The brothers also entered into the real estate business, banking, and finance. Their collective efforts, coupled with their dedication and hard work, spelled magic. As Henry Gaisano often said, “the measure of your giving is the measure of your fortune” ). Although the five brothers handled ( the family businesses as a single family entity, it was Henry Gaisano who was renowned in the Chinese-Filipino community because of his ardent support of education. He believed that education was the only way to lift a person from poverty. With education, a person gains more self confidence, giving himself value, and recognizes his own value in the society. Hiding his identity behind the name “Cebu )”, he gave annual Anonymous ( recognition and cash rewards to outstanding Chinese schoolteachers and principals. For seventeen years, he gave away more than 23 million pesos to almost 1,400 outstanding Chinese language teachers — a selfless act of generosity which he concealed (his identity was revealed the day he passed away). As Cebu Anonymous, he also supported the Chong Hua Hospital of Cebu City and the ChineseFilipino volunteer fire brigade in Cebu. To him, maintaining anonymity in giving donations was the purest form of benevolence as it shows genuine concern for those in need and not a hankering for recognition. Out of love for their mother, the brothers set up the Modesta Gaisano Scholarship Foundation, which provides scholarship grants to deserving students to go to university. It is one of the most prestigious scholarship grants in Cebu City and one of the longest-running in the country. Now in its fifty-sixth year, it is ably run by the younger Gaisanos with Joseph Gaisano as chairman. Influenced by their mother, the Gaisano brothers developed a strong passion for

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traditional arts and culture, such as calligraphy, painting, carving, classical literature and even horticulture. Henry Gaisano’s exposure to the classics made him a good finance manager as he applied what he read in real life situations. In 1981 the brothers decided to go their separate ways after the death of their matriarch, but the teachings of Modesta Gaisano left a permanent impact on them. They stayed united even after the family businesses were split among the five brothers. The assets had been divided, but not their strength and power as a family, and the Gaisano empire grew even bigger after the division of the assets. They also ventured to Manila with their Isetan Department Stores. Henry Gaisano died on 8 September 2004. Today, the businesses are operated entirely by second-generation Gaisanos. In addition to the stores in Manila and the mother stores in Cebu, one sees the Gaisano chains (Gaisano Department Store, White Gold Department Store, Isetan Department Store) everywhere in the south — Iloilo, Roxas, Kalibo, Bacolod, San Carlos, Ormoc, Davao, Cagayan De Oro, and Ozamiz. The Gaisano descendants understand their forture in having one another and working together to achieve smooth and coordinated growth and success for every one of them. Sining Marcos Kotah R E F E R E N C E S Aw, Olivia Limpe and Lito Gutierrez. “A nice man”. In Asian Dragon, January–March 2007, pp. 138–45. Business Mirror. “Gaisano is Entrepreneur of the Year of Cebu”. 25 June 2010, vol. 5, no. 196. “Henry Sy Gaisano, a lifetime of humility and magnanimity”. Monograph, privately produced. Meniano, Sarwell Q. and Joey A. Gabieta. “Gaisano Central Mall held soft opening yesterday”. In Leyte Samar Daily Express, 29 November 2008.

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The Freeman. “The Scholars of the Doña Modesta S. Gaisano Foundation”. 1 May 2010.

Gan Say Hong ( ,Yan Shifang, 1890–1956) Community leader, banker, Singapore

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an Say Hong made a significant contribution to the Chinese community in Singapore and beyond, and yet not much has been written about him. In fact, he was a founding member of both the Tung Ann (Tong An) Association (Singapore) and the OCBC Bank, and a leading trustee of ) Medical the Thong Chai (Tong Ji Institution in Singapore, known as Tong Ji Yi ) in Mandarin. Yuan ( Gan was born in 1890 (one source says ) in Tong 1887) in Shuang Zhen Tou ( , also spelt “Tung Ann”) county, Fujian An ( province. He later moved to the downtown area of Tong An. There is not much else known about his early life in China. In 1908, at the age of eighteen, he sailed to Singapore and worked in a local commercial firm. Several years later, he set up the Ho Seng Company and, in 1926, the Khiam Bee & Co., both of which did traditional import and export business in commodities. Gan gradually excelled himself in the commercial sector and later entered the banking world where he, in the early 1930s, served as director of the Chinese Commercial Bank (CCB) in Singapore, prior to its merger with two other Chinese banks. In 1932, the CCB, established in 1912, the Ho Hong Bank (HHB), set up in 1917, and the Oversea-Chinese Bank (OCB), founded in 1919, were merged into a new bank, the Oversea-Chinese Bank Corporation (OCBC).

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Gan, who was then the director of the CCB, played an important role in the merger. Most members of the first board of directors of the OCBC were from the CCB, viz. Cheok Cheng Lee, Lee Kong Chian,Yap Twee, Wong Siew Qui, Gan Say Hong, and Lim Keng Lian. Gan was not only a founding director of the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation but he also remained as a director until his death in 1956. From 1933 onwards Gan was also elected a director of the pre-war Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce, representing the Hokkien clan. (The Hokkien clan had twelve directors; Gan was one of the long serving directors.) He remained a director until 1941, before the Japanese invasion. Like many leading Chinese businessmen in the past, Gan was also active in community service. In 1929 on his initiative, he and other clan members established the Tung Ann Association into which he put much of his money and effort. He was later elected the fourth president of the association where he continued to be active until after World War II. Equally important was his involvement in the Thong Chai Medical Institution in Singapore where he served as the leader of the board of trustees between 1932 and 1942. From 1943 until 1957 when he died, he remained a trustee; his name was listed in the second or third, rather than the first position. But he never served as treasurer or president of Thong Chai as indicated in Ke Mulin’s Chinese Historical Figures in 》. Thong Singapore 《 Chai Medical Institution, first established in 1892 with the goal of helping poor Chinese patients, is one of the oldest Chinese hospitals in Singapore using Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Gan was also active in the educational service in Singapore. He was the major sponsor

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of the Chinese Girls High School (Zhonghua ). During the Nuzi Zhongxue 1930s, he served as chairman of its school council until the Japanese Occupation.After the Japanese surrender, Gan formed a committee to rebuild the Chinese Girls High School as it was bombarded during the war. He was closely associated with the school and remained active as its chairman until his death. Similar to other first generation Chinese migrants in Singapore, Gan was concerned with the well-being of China, particularly his birthplace. During the anti-Japanese war in 1937, Gan, as president of the Tung Ann Association in Singapore, participated actively in the war of resistance against the Japanese. On 10 May 1938 when Xiamen fell to the Japanese, the Singapore Tung Ann Association organized the Save the Homeland Refugees Committee. Gan, as the elected chairman, began “the Overseas Kinsmen Active Donation” drive to save the refugees in his homeland. He also played a part in the fund raising campaign for the war of resistance in China led by Tan Kah Kee in the Ee Hoe Hean Club ). In 1937 Tan became (Yi He Xuan the chairman of five committees. One of them was the Sing Hwa Fund-Raising Committee which consisted of thirty-two respected members, including Gan, who put in both money and effort. Gan was equally enthusiastic in promoting public welfare in his homeland in China. In 1933, he initiated the repair of the Gan ancestral temple in Front Street in Tong An county; built a primary school in his ancestral home in An Loo village; and assisted in founding the Tong Min Hospital, also in Tong An county. For the respect he commanded in Chinese society, as well as for his contributions to the colonial society in Singapore, Gan was made a Justice of the Peace (JP) by the colonial

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government. He died on 6 September 1956 in Singapore, leaving eight children: six sons and two daughters. Leo Suryadinata R E F E R E N C E S Wilson, Dick, Arun Senkuttuvan, and Ilsa Sharp. Solid as a Rock: the First Forty years of the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation. Singapore: The Corporation, 1972. 《 ，1995。

》。

：

(1885–1985)》。

《

：

，1968。 《 ，1931–1984》。 ：

，1986。 》。

《

：

，2008。 Information provided by Dr W.S. Gan, grandson of Gan Say Hong (July and September 2010).

Gautama, Sudargo (Gouw Giok Siong, , Wu Yuxiang, 1928–2008) Professor of Law, prominent advocate, Indonesia

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udargo Gautama was the longest serving professor of law at the University of Indonesia who concurrently held professorship at the two other educational institutions in Indonesia. He also wrote the first dissertation on regulations relating to mixed marriages in Indonesian which attracted a lot of attention. Known as Gouw Giok Siong before the name-changing regulation in 1966, Gautama was born in Jakarta on 1 March 1928. He started his law studies in mid1947 at Rechtshogeschool, which later became

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the Faculty of Law, University of Indonesia (FHUI). He completed his studies on 18 December 1950 thus obtaining the title Mr (meester in de rechten or master of laws) within three-and-a-half years in what normally would have been a five-year study. He immediately embarked on his doctorate studies at the same university and obtained the title Dr (doctor in law) in 1955. His dissertation “Legal Aspects of Mixed Marriage Regulations” (Segi-segi Hukum Peraturan Perkawinan Campuran) attracted the attention of not only the foreign legal scholars, but also foreign linguistic scholars, especially those of the Van Vollenhoven Institute of Leiden University in the Netherlands.This was so because it was the first ever law dissertation written in Indonesian. The dissertation aroused interest for the former legal scholars because it discussed mixed marriages after Indonesia’s independence, and for the foreign linguistic scholars because it was expected to contribute to the translation, or perhaps even transformation, of Dutch legal concepts into the language of the new-born Republic. Gautama’s contributions as a legal scholar are enormous. They began with a series of talks broadcast in Programa III Radio Republik Indonesia, a governmentowned and controlled radio station, from 25 May to 28 September 1955.These talks were mainly on constitutional law, with an emphasis on the idea of Rechtsstaat. On the one hand they aimed at educating and enlightening the general public on the foundations of the newborn Republic, and on the other hand they were designed to promote public participation in the upcoming general election to be held on the day following his final talk. Professor Djokosoetono, the first dean of the FHUI, appointed Gautama as professor of law responsible for inter-population-group law (intergentielrecht or hukum antar golongan), replacing the former professor and promoter,

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G. J. Resink. Thus on 27 September 1958, Gautama delivered his inaugural speech at the age of thirty. He would retain this position until he passed away in 2008, with a tenure spanning fifty years. It made him not only one of the youngest professors in the country to date, but also one who held the professorship longest. Besides being a professor at FHUI he was also a professor in law at the National Police Institute (Perguruan Tinggi Ilmu Kepolisian), the Military School of Law (Perguruan Tinggi Hukum Militer), both in Jakarta, and at the Padjadjaran University in Bandung, West Java. He was also a visiting professor at the University of Amsterdam (1967–1968), the University of Sydney (1970), and the National University of Singapore. A professor is responsible for developing his field of expertise, and Gautama carried out that duty proficiently. When he was studying law, most of his professors were Dutch and most, if not all, of the subjects were taught in Dutch. However, independence for Indonesia brought about changes not only in the use of Indonesian instead of Dutch, but also in opening up opportunities to Indonesians from all walks of life to become educated. Knowing that his students were no longer trained in Dutch and therefore did not have a good command of the Dutch language, he wrote textbooks in the Indonesian language in his field of expertise, which he later referred to as hukum antar tata hukum (interlegal law). The textbooks were later compiled into a series of eight books, titled Hukum Perdata Internasional Indonesia (Indonesian Private International Law) which may be considered as his magnum opus as a legal scholar. This work contains not only his rich scholarship, but is also the underpinnings of legal science in Indonesia, especially in the field of private international law. The legal theories and frameworks developed by him in these books

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were later adopted by the National Legal Development Body (Badan Pembinaan Hukum Nasional) when it drafted the Bill of Private International Law for Indonesia in the 1980s and 1990s. The bill unfortunately has been delayed indefinitely. In envisioning the development of law and legal science in Indonesia, Gautama introduced the term, Hukum Antar Tata Hukum, or HATAH. According to him, this term was derived from the term “Interlegal Law” introduced by English legal scholar, Alf Ross, and the term “Interrechts-ordensrecht”, proposed by his own Professor, J. H. A. Logemann. This term clearly states that all legal systems in the young Republic are of equal importance, and the applicability of one legal system over that of another is based on the pursuit of justice and not on its superiority. In doing so, Gautama did not only contribute to the ongoing search for a national legal system, but also injected neutrality into sensitive social issues in post-colonial Indonesia. He later divided HATAH, a branch of legal science, into two strains. The external one has a foreign element and is comparable to private international law or conflict of laws in most countries. The internal one deals with legal issues that are uniquely Indonesian owing to its continuing legal pluralism. By the time of his death, he may well have written more than 100 works on Indonesian law covering issues from mixed marriage, citizenship, nationalization, contract law, agrarian law, commentaries on landmark court decisions and legislation, intellectual property rights, arbitration and international trade, to corporate law. An Introduction to Indonesian Law, which he co-authored with Robert Hornick, was the first textbook in English on Indonesian law. It was published initially as a temporary edition in 1972, and later revised four times until 1983.

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Gautama was also prominent as an advocate. He started his law practice by joining the law office of Professor Iwa Kusumasumantri and Mr A. A. Maramis. He later established his own law office in Jl. Merdeka Timur, Jakarta, a prestigious location for prominent advocates. Since the beginning of his law practice, he had been a counsel for the Government of Indonesia. One of his famous cases was the “Bremen Tobacco Case”, in which he defended the newly established state-owned Perusahaan Perkebunan Nusantara (PPN) Baru before a Bremen District Court in the then West Germany in 1958. PPN Baru took over the assets of two Dutch companies, DeliMaatschappijen and Senembah-Maatschappij, whose tobacco plantations in East Sumatra had been nationalized by the Government in the previous year as a result of the rising tension over the protracted dispute between Indonesia and the Netherlands over West Papua. The act of nationalization did not conform to the norms then existing in international law, which required it to be followed by prompt, effective, and adequate compensations. The Dutch companies thus accused the Government of Indonesia of practically confiscating their properties. This case immediately attracted international attention, since this was the first act of nationalization by a former colony which came before a court in the West. Another interesting aspect of this case was that in defending Indonesia’s position Gautama and his fellow members of the team of experts such as Professor Soekanto and Mochtar Kusumaatmadja, among others, were arguing against Professors Kollewijn, Lemaire, and Logemann, their former professors at FHUI. The Bremen District Court later found the nationalization move lawful, thus revising the norms of international law on nationalization.

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Gautama was later involved, both as a legal counsel and a legal expert, in many other legal cases where the Government of Indonesia became a party or a respondent. Three famous cases (during the Soeharto rule) were the Kartika Thaher case involving the Indonesian State Oil Company which came before the Singapore court, the nationalization of Kartika Plaza Hotel, and the dispute between the Indonesian State Oil Company/State Electricity Company and the Karaha Bodas Company, the latter two being brought before international arbitration tribunals. Recounting his experience as an expert witness to his teaching assistants at FHUI, Gautama once said, “The loneliest place on earth is at the witness stand”. Gautama continued practising law and law teaching until he passed away on 8 September 2008 at the age of 80 in Perth, Western Australia where he had spent most of his final years, which probably explains why his passing received minimal attention from the media. Yu Un Oppusunggu R E F E R E N C E S Sudargo Gautama. Hukum Antargolongan, Hukum yang Hidup! Inaugural speech. Jakarta: Fakultas Hukum Universitas Indonesia, 27 September 1958. ———. Pengertian Negara Hukum. Bandung: Alumni, 1983. ———. Segi-segi Hukum Peraturan Perkawinan Campuran. Bandung: Citra Aditya Bakti, 1996. Sudargo Gautama (Gouw Giok Siong). Pusat Data Tempo. Yu Un Oppusunggu. “In Memoriam Prof. Mr. Dr. Sudargo Gautama”. In Jurnal Hukum dan Pembangunan, Tahun Ke-38 No. 4, Oktober 2008, Fakultas Hukum Universitas Indonesia. Information provided by Professor Ko Swan Sik of Erasmus University to the author in September 2008 via email, and by the author’s colleagues at the International

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Law Division at the Faculty of Law of the University of Indonesia.

Go Ching Hai ( , Wu Qinghai, 1924-2011) Engineer, inventor, Philippines

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hen Go Ching Hai was born on 8 June 1924, he was said to be quiet for a few minutes before breaking into a loud, reverberating cry, to the merriment of his parents and every household member. When he turned three, his father decided to move his family to the Philippines sometime in 1927 to settle in a small town called Matatalaib, Tarlac, and set up a small rice mill for the Cojuangco clan. A few years later, the family moved back to China. When the father died, the family resettled in the Philippines. Go Ching Hai was thirteen at the time. When his older siblings got married, Go was left to fend for his widowed mother and younger siblings. He sought ways and worked in several odd jobs to make ends meet. He soon invented an alternative fuel for steam engines using coconut charcoal. Subsequently, he embarked on other profitable enterprises which came in quick succession to provide enough income to embark on more significant projects, such as running a paper factory, and manufacturing a thread spinner, an ice cream maker called Velvete and a dishwashing detergent similar to the modern-day household cleaning powder. When the Americans liberated the Philippines from the Japanese, life went back to normal for Go. At age twenty-one, he decided to go back to university to devour books especially those on Confucius, which he read with great enthusiasm. It was Confucius who

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made him realize that “to live is to keep on dreaming”. He dreamt of a better life, and to realize that dream, he needed to earn and save money. To save on jeepney fare, he walked almost three kilometres from home to school and vice versa. He slept less so he could work more, or think of more and alternative solutions to a particular problem. Go obtained a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from the Mapua Institute of Technology in Manila. In 1950, shortly after graduation, he moved to Cebu with only 25 pesos in his pocket. He decided to stay in the house of a relative’s and sought employment in an upstart company named Gotao Corn Mill. His main task there was to increase corn production, a challenge that Go Ching Hai faced with enthusiasm much to the satisfaction of his employer. As an inventor, he was restless and prodigious. He never cared to patent any of his inventions as he wanted people to enjoy the fruits of his inventions and innovations. His inventions started with machinery that dealt with corn products. In the beginning, he made a machine that ground corn kernels into a rice-like consistency. The harsh taste of the corn-rice induced him to invent a machine to improve the taste — the degerminator — which is now a vital piece of equipment in corn milling. It peels off the waxy coating of each corn kernel. Another invention of his was the aspirator. He found that when the waxy peel was removed, the germ or corn oil remained intact. The aspirator would then separate the corn by-products into three different layers from big grits to smaller grits to finer grits. These different grades are then sold for different uses, for example, the corn germ for making corn oil and the corn bran for feed additives. Another innovation is something so simple that corn millers often remark the equipment

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is taken for granted. Go created a “bagger” for all the equipment and their variations. With one push of a button, a machine releases 50 kilograms of corn grits or cassava starch directly into a sack that also gets mechanically sewn up. Prior to this innovation, a corn miller had to hire six people to shovel, bag, weigh the product, and sew up the sack. Corn millers from Aparri to Jolo (from the northern tip to the southern tip of the Philippine archipelago) would call on Go to build their factories. Millers, in particular, request for his “turn-key” procedure, where he would install a “turn-key” to make the machine produce only a certain amount of grain or corn per eight-hour run. This is important for millers because their budgets are quite fluid. When there is a lot of corn, millers simply turn a key and the machines come out with 800 cavans (50 kg. bags) every day. If there is a limited budget, the turn-key will make the machine produce only 200 cavans in eight hours. The turn-key enables millers to adjust their production levels without buying other equipment. As a testament to Go’s enduring inventions, the machinery he had invented in the 1950s and 1960s are still operational today. Some millers recount that Go’s equipment was made so sturdy, e.g. a roller mill (which grinds corn kernels) can be dropped from three storeys high and only the cement ground would be damaged. One major invention and the only one for which Go got a patent was the MV Martina, named after his wife. This is the predecessor to today’s “roll-on roll-off” barge. The MV Martina was borne out of a challenge from friends to provide a solution to the problem of transporting vehicles across the Mandaue-Mactan channel in 1968, when the now famous Mactan-Cebu bridge was not yet in existence. It became an overnight

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favourite as the MV Martina was more than a superbarge. Not many know that it was due to the genius of Go that it came into being. Go was sketching on a piece of table napkin the blueprint for the barge, displaying his ingenuity with marine engineering. He designed the barge with two openings with a view to saving time and effort in moving the vessel, as well as unloading cargoes. For at least five years MV Martina was the only superbarge around. Today, the roll-on roll-off barge, more popularly known as RORO, has made public transportation between regions easy. Prior to the popularization of the RORO, passengers needed to wait for days on end to find a boat travelling to their destination. Now, buses regularly ply routes across the vast Philippine archipelago. All that the buses have to do is get on a RORO to cross the various seas connecting the Philippine islands. Inventing and seeking solutions were Go’s lifelong passions. He established Hayco Engineering on a 1,256 square metre lot in Cebu City on 8 June 1950. Hayco Engineering used to design and build machineries for business clients all over the country. At present it only caters to the needs of other Hayco businesses maintaining the same quality of workmanship as that in the days when Go ran the business himself. Being open to the possibilities of technological advancement, the company constantly kept itself abreast of industrial developments and market needs. In 1991, motivated by the need to be of greater service to the food industry and backed by its fortyyear experience, Hayco Engineering started to diversify into other business ventures, such as food manufacturing via a new company called Geltech Hayco Inc. which has two production plants located in Cebu, Philippines.

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Go had long been convinced about the value of soy as a versatile and nutritious food source. Inspired by his mother’s ingenuity and resourcefulness in the preparation of dishes based on soybean especially during periods of scarcity, Go oversaw the production of soybased food products through Geltech Hayco. In 1995, together with his wife and family, he introduced Meat Magic, an all-natural, protein-rich meat alternative based on soybeans and carageenan. Meat Magic, according to Go, helped prevent obesity, and kept high cholesterol at bay. It earned distinction in the 2005 Likha National Invention Contest for “Outstanding Creative Research by a Private Sector in Food and Nutrition”. Go Ching Hai’s genius, resourcefulness, and proactivity has extended to his family members who share a similar passion for seeking solutions to practically anything where no solutions supposedly exist. Go’s wife, Martina, synergized with him in almost anything he started or thought of doing. The couple appointed themselves “P1-a-year” supervisors in the construction of an edifice called the Cebu International Convention Center. Despite scepticism from the public, they saw the completion of the Convention Center on 1 December 2006, including the landscape within the compound, the surrounding centre islands, lights, and thirty flagpoles to be used during international summits. Since then Mandaue City and Lapulapu City have been welcoming summit delegates to ASEAN conventions. In 2001 Go established the Go Ching Hai Foundation which aim at encouraging research and development to reduce poverty, helping the poor develop a sense of health awareness, providing education and livelihood training, and feeding the poor with nutritious and affordable food such as Go’s pre-sweetened

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milk, high-protein soya-based rice topping, and corn grits and iodized salt. Throughout his life, Go maintained one philosophy, “I only think of people and their welfare, of things that will make them happy and prosperous. When they are happy, I’m happy I benefit from their prosperity, too. If you are surrounded by poor people, how can you be happy.” Go passed away on 7 September 2011. Angelo B. Ancheta R E F E R E N C E S Go, Martina L. (as told to Jess Vestil). Go Ching Hai, Values in a Life Well Lived. Cebu City: Self published, 2003. Personal interview, June 2009.

Go, Josiah Lim (1962– ) Marketing guru, Philippines

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orn on 22 April 1962, Josiah Go ( ) is acknowledged as one of the Philippines’ marketing gurus. He has his hands full not only as a marketing practitioner, but also as marketing educator, consultant, author, marketing resource speaker, lecturer, and trainer, and is a hands-on entrepreneur as well. The year is 1991. A room is filled with enthusiastic chatter: marketing strategies, consumer behaviour, new products, new ideas. Grey-haired men in suits are giving out their calling cards. Women are shaking hands with former colleagues. It is a confluence of ideas and experience about marketing. Men and women with decades of experience in this field are exchanging insights about their ventures. Above the din of the crowd, a man tests the

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microphone and addresses everyone. He was a young man, so young that some of those in the crowd have been working in marketing even before he was born. And yet, at twenty eight, he had earned their respect.The man was Josiah Go, then, the youngest national president of the Philippine Marketing Association. It was always clear that Josiah Go was to revel in the world of business. He graduated with a bachelor of science management degree from the De La Salle University in 1982, with a gold medal for community leadership. After earning his degree, he entered the corporate world. Having chosen to join one of the top thirty corporations of the Philippines, he was learning the ropes of business from experts of the field. However, his thirst for more challenges was barely quenched by this comfortable career path. He was determined to tread off the beaten path and make his own trail. The knowledge culled from the usual business career was not enough for him. Propelled with the zest to learn, he ploughed through the available resource of marketing books in the country. But while reading all these materials, he realized that many of the ideas, case studies, and models presented in these books fitted only a specific context. They were not so reliable for, and suited to the Philippine experience. Inspired to share his own ideas that were culled from his experience and understanding of the Philippine market, Go decided to write his own books. At a time when little attention was given to nuances of the Philippine market, here was Josiah Go, proclaiming new ideas about how marketing worked in the country. This was a feat. Fortunately for him, his books were received positively. His ideas proved to be so valuable and insightful that several other marketing books were written and published.

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As a further testament to the books’ innovation and credibility, Go’s books were endorsed by the Philippine Marketing Association and also supported by the Association of Marketing Educators. His fifth book, Marketing Plan Building the Profitable Preferred Brand published in 1997, is the first pre-tested, local marketing plan workbook. Books were not his only platform for sharing his ideas. He served as a marketing professor at the Ateneo de Manila University, imparting his marketing ideas and innovations. His effectiveness as an educator was affirmed when he served a three-year stint as director for marketing programme. It was not a surprise either that he chose to return to his alma mater as a professorial guest lecturer at the undergraduate and, later, graduate school of De La Salle University. An innovator at heart, Go knew that he must personally expand his own horizons to be updated on the changing market so he attended various advanced marketing and innovation courses at universities outside the country. He studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan, the London Business School, University of Illinois in Chicago, Kellogg School at Northwestern University, Wharton Business School , the University of Marketing and Distribution Sciences in Japan, Blue Ocean Strategy — Initiative Centre in France, and New York, the United States. He has also earned the distinction of being the first Filipino to complete the Blue Ocean Strategy qualification course at INSEAD in France in 2006 and the first in Southeast Asia to teach it as a three-unit, full-semester course in the country. To earn the esteem of colleagues and students, it is important that one practises what one teaches. This is what Josiah Go does by infusing his own business ventures with his own expertise. He is the chairman and

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chief marketing strategist of Mansmith and Fielders, Inc., the leading marketing, sales, and innovation training and consultancy company. Since 1995, he has also been serving as CEO of Waters Philippines, the market leader in the direct selling of home water purifiers, ion cleanse foot detox, and therapy shower in the Philippines. To share with others what he himself has gained from hands-on experience and from his own unquenchable search for new knowledge and ideas, Go generously gives his time and advice to non-profit, non-government, causeoriented organizations, which benefit from fresh marketing ideas to push their causes and advocacies. In 2010, in celebration of his twentyfifth year as an entrepreneur, he established Day 8 Business Academy Inc. an innovative social enterprise focusing on the training and development needs of small and medium-sized enterprises, giving small business owners a “Pay What You Want” scheme. This is a boundarybreaking first in the world of education — inspired from his interest in religious studies since 2002 — for which he applies his learning of helping the lost, the last and the least in society through his work ministry. The academy does not charge tuition fees per se. Instead small business owners who attend various courses pay what they want or what they can afford. All proceeds go directly to charity. The academy’s focus is to help small business owners succeed. This ripples outward as business owners are able to hire more people, who then buy more things, and ultimately help perk up the economy. Go thought of the academy because over 90 per cent of companies in the country are small businesses with no major school guiding them. As a recognized leader among his peers in business education, he has won various awards and distinctions. In 1994, he was honoured

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by the Philippine Marketing Association as the youngest Agora awardee for marketing education and he was chairman of the Direct Selling Association of the Philippines in 2002. In 2001, he was named one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Philippines, one of only three in business education to be accorded this distinction in the more than forty-year history of the award-giving body. The following year, he was declared one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the World, the first and only Filipino in business education to be given such award by the World Jaycees. Two years later, he was among the first batch winners of the Dr Jose P. Rizal Awards for Excellence organized by the Manila Times and Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran. Remarkably, in 2007, he was given the rare Lifetime Achievement Award by the Association of Marketing Educators. As a leading book author, Go has twelve best-selling marketing books continuing to spread his expertise. These books — suitable for the Philippine setting — are used by both industry practitioners and university students. As the country’s foremost marketing expert, he is consulted by countless top executives across the Philippines. An esteemed marketing consultant, trainer, and speaker, he consults with and trains many local and multinational companies both in the Philippines and abroad (India, Japan, Indonesia, among others) and has handled more than 500 seminar-workshops. His vast network for consultancy has covered almost all types of organizations, from small to medium to largescale industries, ranging from business model innovation, market-driving strategy, profit strategy, and innopreneurship (or the marriage of innovation and entrepreneurship). Go also continues to be involved in various advocacies aimed at youth empowerment and entrepreneurship. These

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advocacies include: the Young Market Masters Awards; the Market Masters Conference; the Marketing Rescue; the Mansmith Blue Freedom Fund, which is the first venture capitalist for young entrepreneurs dedicated to the Blue Ocean and Market-Driving Strategy ideas; and the MarkProf Foundation, which conducts annual search and training of top marketing management trainees. There is no doubt that countless students, schools, companies, and marketing practitioners have benefited from Go’s ideas.What is equally compelling is that these ideas not only pertain to the field of business, but are also ideas in tune with the people and society which business is meant to serve. As an educator, this is how Josiah Go wants these ideas to be. Anna Katarina Rodriguez (with input from Andrea Tan) R E F E R E N C E S “An Interview with the Philippines’ Foremost Marketing Expert: Josiah Go”. 18 October 2009. Retrieved January 2010 from . Josiah L. Go’s Brief Profile. Retrieved May 2009 from Philippine Marketing Association website ; Mansmith and Fielders, Inc. website and Waters Philippines website .

Go Kim Pah ( , Wu Daosheng, 1899–1983) Banker, community leader, Philippines

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o Kim Pah’s brand of personalized banking was unheard of in his time. This forward-thinking man made all his business endeavours customer friendly, and today, personalized banking is a byword in the Philippine banking system. The trust that Go

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earned as a businessman was so widespread that it helped him become a leader in the Chinese community. He was at the forefront of the anti-Japanese propaganda during the Second World War, and was one of the first leaders to be imprisoned. This, however, did not stop him from serving his country in all its times of need. Like in many success stories of a poor child leaving his homeland for greener pastures, Go Kim Pah left China for Manila at age fifteen and immediately started working. For a boy who had only had four years of informal schooling, Go could not afford to be choosy. His first job was as an apprentice at Hong Huat Exchange, owned by a relative. Being an apprentice meant Go was a messenger, cleaner, training boy, gofer, and an all-around-boy who did any odd job he was given. His main job, though, was to deliver “letters” — these are remittances of money from the Philippines to families waiting in the mainland for the precious and much-awaited financial support from overseas. This network of remittances was a crucial service unique to overseas Chinese long before bank transfers and foreign exchange services started. Because of his diligence, honesty, and integrity, Go rose from the ranks to become manager of Hong Huat Exchange eventually. At twenty-two, he returned to China to marry a woman his mother chose for him. Like most immigrants, he left his wife in China and returned to the Philippines to continue working. He returned to China a few times before he saved enough money to bring his mother, wife, and sons to the Philippines. When the owner of Hong Huat Exchange passed away, Go decided to open a similar type of business, albeit on a much smaller scale. He borrowed money and set up Kian Lam Exchange and Trading on 16 January 1927. The name of the business

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reflected Go’s dreams — Kian Lam — to build in the south. Just like for any other Chinese businesses, trust and integrity were the most important capital. Go’s solid reputation as a trustworthy person allowed his business to flourish. The Kian Lam Exchange and Trading, just like the Hong Huat Exchange, functioned like a clearing house that helped spur economic transactions even without banks. The network of remittances served as an informal banking system, not just for overseas customers, but also for local businesses. Go succeeded in using his Kian Lam Exchange to tie up Chinese businesses throughout all the islands of the Philippines. For example, a copra businessman in Cebu, southern Philippines, might need to buy supplies in Manila. He need not give money to the supplier in Manila, but could use the Kian Lam Exchange to pay the Manila supplier from money owed him for copra someone in Manila purchased from him. This unprecedented network of exchanges was crucial to supporting Chinese trading and was carried out on a mind-boggling scale using only xin yong, or trust, as the key capital. The community itself played a role in exacting social sanctions against anyone who defaulted in payment through such exchanges. He would lose his credit standing immediately and other businessmen would be wary of continuing to do business with such a person. Although Go was busy with his business, he kept abreast of national and international events. When the Sino-Japanese war broke out in China in 1937, he became very active in the anti-Japanese movement in the Philippines, especially in the “Boycott Japanese Goods” movement. Go appeared to be a regular businessman, but his remittance business provided a crucial mechanism for sending money home for the war effort in China. The money amounted to millions, and it went to

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buying airplanes and supplies needed to finance China’s war with Japan. When war was brought to the Philippines, the Japanese, immediately upon arrival, rounded up Chinese community leaders and executed several dozens of them in the first week alone. Go Kim Pah was arrested and imprisoned at Fort Santiago, along with thirty-five other businessmen. They were all loaded onto two trucks. All the passengers in one truck were killed in a cemetery. In the other, which carried Go, the men heard gunfire and awaited their turn to be shot, but they were instead brought to trial and sentenced to twenty years in prison for political crimes. It was during his incarceration that Go learned to speak English from fellow prisoners. After three years, the prisoners were given amnesty. Go’s business had to close down during the war, but he had safeguarded his assets well. When the war ended, he was able to get some of his money back and resurrect his remittance business. The post-war years saw the rapid growth of Kian Lam’s operations. It maintained offices in Xiamen, Shanghai, and Quanzhou. Aside from remittance operations, its other main function was to bring business to banks. Kian Lam would stand as guarantor to its clients when they opened letters of credit with the banks. This was usually carried out for clients in the business of importing textiles or foodstuff, or for those seeking loans to expand their trading business. The system allowed small and medium-scale businesses to operate even with just a minimum capital outlay. When the Central Bank of the Philippines was established in 1949, Go saw an opportunity to play a bigger role in postwar nation building. At this time, he had been working hard in the Philippines for fifty years. It had been a long journey from his village in

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Fujian, where a young boy with no money and no certainty in his future, to a bustling building in Manila where hundreds of people entrusted him with millions of pesos. Equitable Banking Corporation ( ) opened its doors in 1950 in the same building that used to house Kian Lam. In the early years of the bank, Go pounded the pavement and personally called on potential clients to open accounts at his bank.The bank’s primary concern at the time was to continue to aid the country’s recovery by providing credit facilities to finance various business endeavours, especially small- and medium-scale enterprises. His business stature and his approachable and humble ways were distinct advantages when soliciting clients. Friends in the community with firmly established enterprises would bank with him. Likewise Go would also continue to support floundering businesses as testament to his commitment to personalized banking. He believed that the character of the borrower was a more accurate gauge than anything written on a document.This boosted, to a large extent, post-war rehabilitation efforts in the Chinese community, allowing many of the Chinese businesses to be among the first to rise from the ashes of war.The bank financed the setting up of many factories to manufacture textiles, shoes, and paper. With Go’s triumph in the business world, he set up the Equitable Bank Foundation in 1974 as his way of giving back to a country that he saw as his second home. His benevolence stems from the fact that he came from an extremely poor family. Scholarships are provided to students who exemplified leadership qualities and outstanding academic aptitude. The Go Kim Pah scholarship programme has allowed many deserving Filipino youths to attend the country’s top-tier universities and vocational schools, enabling

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them to finish undergraduate, non-degree, technical/vocational, and graduate studies. Go had seven sons and one daughter who continued his valued traditions while using Western banking methods and structures. The bank flourished and on 3 April 1997 Equitable Bank was listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange, and in 1999, the merger plan between the smaller Equitable Banking Corporation and the larger PCI Bank was approved, and Equitable Philippine Commercial International Bank achieved toptier position in the banking world. However in 2001, at the height of the impeachment trial of former President Joseph E. Estrada, Equitable Bank got into political trouble that affected its financial position. On 5 August 2005, the SM Group of Companies and Banco de Oro Universal Bank gained a 34 per cent share in the bank from the original founders, the Go family. On 6 January 2006, Banco de Oro Universal Bank submitted a merger offer to the bank — with Banco de Oro as the surviving entity. Today, members of the Go family hold nominal shares in the bank. Carmelea Ang See R E F E R E N C E Custodio, Teresa Maria. A Walk of Ten Thousand Miles, the Equitable Bank Story. Manila: Equitable Bank Foundation Inc., 2000.

Go-Belmonte, Betty ( Wu Youde, 1933–94) Journalist, entrepreneur, philanthropist, Philippines

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etty Go-Belmonte led a group of journalists to found the Philippine Daily Inquirer in December 1985, when the

late President Ferdinand Marcos called for snap presidential elections. In July 1986, Go Belmonte left the Inquirer and started The Philippine STAR. She is thus the only journalist in the Philippines to have founded two of the country’s largest newspapers. Born on 31 December 1933, GoBelmonte was a diminutive woman who used her pen to fight and help fell a dictator, Ferdinand Marcos. Go-Belmonte was tolerant and easily forgave those who wronged her, but people often underestimated her political savvy and business acumen. In fact, as a news correspondent, she braved Martial Law and fought the Marcos dictatorship that suppressed freedom of the press. At the height of the nation’s martial rule, arbitrary arrests, murders, torture, and abuses were rampant. Journalists and opposition leaders were disappearing one after the other, to be found dead later or never to be found at all. Major newspapers preferred to keep silent and stay alive rather than court the wrath of Marcos. Freedom of the press was irrelevant as daily newspapers passed through government censors. Throughout all this repression, Go-Belmonte continued to write stories the government did not want people to read. She wrote for the “mosquito press” or the biting and irritating alternative press that photocopied articles about Marcos family abuses for distribution. The restoration of democracy after the successful People Power Revolution (popularly called EDSA I) of 1986, gave birth to the Philippine Daily Inquirer and later The Philippine STAR, two of the largest circulating newspapers in the country. Betty Go-Belmonte was co-founder of the first in December 1985 and founder and publisher of the second in July 1986. She was also deeply involved in the EDSA I and the resistance against Ferdinand E. Marcos. The Philippine STAR was an avenue for the continuous commitment to press freedom,

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and act as a vehicle for national development after years of plunder and oppression. The Philippine STAR was unique because it did various charity work throughout the year, including helping sick children, building classrooms and libraries, giving free education to adults, conducting medical missions, giving gifts during Christmas, helping with relief during calamities and disasters, and recently helping preserve the environment. It was different from the other dailies as it prided itself with its bible journalism while upholding truth and fairness. Go-Belmonte believed that only with the Lord’s guidance can an entity be true and succeed. These have become important ingredients of The Philippine STAR’s tradition of excellence. In fact, it is this adherence to faith that fed and empowered the volunteers of the EDSA People Power Revolution. Lacking the funds to have a full-time media bureau during the campaign for the snap presidential elections, the late President Corazon C. Aquino relied on volunteers. Go-Belmonte assigned her eldest son, Isaac, to take charge of printing campaign materials using the family’s printing press at the family-owned The Fookien Times where she had first worked as a typesetter and for which she had done some editorial work (in Chinese) and taken charge of the printing advertisement. Daughter of Fookien Times ) publisher Jimmy Go Puan Seng ( ) and brought up in a journalistic ( and fiercely nationalistic environment, she co-founded the People Power Movement Foundation and was likewise awarded by various institutions for her involvement with civic groups which cared for the people with disabilities, street children, out-of-school youth, and other marginalized groups. Go-Belmonte was a religious, motherly, and very compassionate person. She was known for writing spiritual and uplifting articles she

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called “Angel Stories” in her column entitled, “Pebbles”. Like the name of her column, Go-Belmonte was like a pebble — the most durable building block of any man-made or natural structure — the outcome of the long weathering of the elements — rain, sun and plant, animal, and human intervention. She thought of herself as a humble instrument of God. Other journalists were critical of her religiosity, often saying that it has no place in newspapering. Go-Belmonte faced the distrust and cynicism with her usual calm and equanimity, remaining steadfast in her belief that journalistic integrity is nothing but God’s own message of honesty, truth, and fairness. Even in the last year of her life, when she was afflicted with cancer and obvious pain, she continued to publish patient appeals and insisted that the paper should continue to help sick patients. After her passing, GoBelmonte was hailed as one of the country’s outstanding Chinese Filipinos by the Bahay Tsinoy Museum, where her portrait hangs. A station at the Metro Rail Transit line in Manila has even been named “Betty GoBelmonte Station” in her honour, and blogs from young students who ride the commuter train daily reveal how they try to learn who the person was and to be inspired by her. A street in Quezon City near her ancestral house was named “Betty Go-Belmonte Street” as well, and a school in Quezon City was renamed “Betty Go-Belmonte School” in recognition of her indefatigable spirit in championing the rights of the poor and underprivileged. Also in honour of Go-Belmonte’s compassion, Dr Jose Hernandez and Dr Pablito Magdalita of the University of the Philippines named a hybrid hisbiscus after her — the hibiscus rosa seninsis BGB — which they began cultivating in 1994, the year of her death. As for her significant entrepreneurial contribution to the

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field of journalism, Betty Go-Belmonte was given a posthumous award by the Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship in 2007 for being one of the Most Inspiring Manila Entrepreneurs. Go-Belmonte’s journalistic crusade and great love for the truth run in her blood. Her father, Go Puan Seng, was a Chinese immigrant who eventually became one of the country’s leading newspapermen and fearless journalistic crusaders. Born in Xiamen, Fujian, Go came to the Philippines at the age of fourteen. He first worked as a reporter and later as an editor of the Kong Li Po (founded in 1912 to promote Sun Yat Sen’s revolutionary cause). In 1926, together with renowned community leader Dee Ching Chuan, Go promoted the “Save Fujian Hometown campaign” among the Chinese in the Philippines through the newspaper, The Fookien Times, to save Fujian from the ravages of civil war. He then rose from the ranks and became editor, editor-in-chief, and eventually manager and co-publisher. He was with The Fookien Times for forty-seven years all together (publication of the paper stopped temporarily from the end of 1942 to 1945 during the Japanese Occupation). After the 18 September 1931 incident in China, Go Puan Seng helped in the antiJapanese campaign and boycott Japanese goods movement. On 7 July 1937, with the infamous Marco Polo Bridge incident that signalled the outbreak of Sino-Japanese war, Go increased the tempo of the anti-Japanese campaign and attacked Japanese aggression through his writings in the newspaper. General Douglas MacArthur warned Go Puan Seng that he (Go) would be the first Chinese-Filipino the Japanese would execute for writing antiJapanese propaganda and true enough, Go’s vocal anti-Japanese stance landed him in the Japanese blacklist.

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Soon after the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in 1941, Go went into hiding in the mountain vastness of the Sierra Madre. His book, Born from the Ashes (also called Refuge and Strength), describes the 1,105 days when he was running for his life and how he was reborn. The Fookien Times was revived after the liberation with Go again serving as editor-inchief until President Marcos declared martial law in 1971. Go continued his journalistic work through the publication of The Fookien Times Yearbook, now called The Fookien Times Philippines Yearbook. Go Puan Seng’s journalistic crusade became even more remarkable after he wrote a story in 1929 about a young Cantonese girl sold as a slave and brutally abused by a Chinese merchant in the Philippines. The two prominent community leaders who were named in the story filed libel charges against him. He was convicted and sentenced to two months’ imprisonment and a fine of P300 pesos. On appeal to the Supreme Court, he was acquitted by no less a personage than Chief Justice George Malcolm and Go’s case laid the groundwork for contemporary Philippines’ libel laws. This is the Go family’s legacy even as they continue to be bastions of truth and fairness. After her death on 28 January 1994, Go-Belmonte’s mission for respectable and credible reportage has been kept alive by her three sons Miguel, Isaac, and Kevin, who are now the president/CEO, editor-in-chief and corporate secretary of The Philippine STAR, respectively. Her only daughter, Joy, who is active in cultural and social development work, was elected vice-mayor of Quezon City in the 2010 elections. The work of Go-Belmonte’s charitable foundation, The STAR’s Operation Damayan, has been diligently continued and expanded by her son Miguel, who has

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inherited and imbibed a lot of his mother’s compassionate qualities. Carmelea Ang See R E F E R E N C E S Garcia, Danilo. “Gumamela pinangalanang ‘Betty GoBelmonte’ ”. In Pilipino Star Ngayon, 1 April 2008. Retrieved 21 November 2010 from . Go Negosyo. “Betty Go Belmonte: A Truthful Tradition”. Retrieved 21 November 2010 from . New York Times. “Betty Go Belmonte; Newspaper President, 60”. 30 January 1994. Retrieved 21 November 2010 from . Ong, Willie. “Learning From Philippine STAR Founder Betty Go-Belmonte”. In The Philippine STAR, 14 October 2008. Retrieved 21 November 2010 from . Tan, Antonio S. The Chinese in the Philippines, 1898– 1935: A Study of their National Awakening, pp. 122–54. Quezon City: R.P. Garcia Publishing, 1972. 《 · ，2001， 529–30。

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Goh Chok Tong ( , Wu Zuodong, 1941– ) Economist, civil servant, politician, Singapore

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est known as the one who succeeded the man many regarded as Singapore’s founding father, Lee Kuan Yew. Goh Chok Tong became prime minister in 1990 and secretary-general of People’s Action Party in 1992. He was initially written off by critics of the People’s Action Party (PAP) as a weak and transitory seat-warmer for Lee Hsien Loong, the eldest son of Lee Kuan Yew. Throughout his tenure as prime minister, Goh strove to

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shake off that image of a “seat-warmer. To this end, he initiated subtle changes in the PAP government. In doing so, he came into his own in the political arena. In contrast to his predecessor, Goh practised a more open and consultative style of leadership. He seemed to have a good grasp of the times and was keenly aware that Singaporeans lived in rapidly changing times. He also realized that this could likely mean that an increasing number of younger Singaporeans would want a say in the public policies that would affect them. Goh’s open and consultative behaviour is the result of his upbringing and education. Born the eldest of five children on 20 May 1941, Goh experienced hardship from a young age as his father died when he was nine years old. While his mother worked as a Chinese-language teacher, Goh and his siblings were raised by a grandmother, uncle, and aunt. He was an able student and made it through Pasir Panjang Primary School and Raffles Institution with good grades. As may be seen from his numerous extra-curricular activities as a student, his easy temperament and personable demeanour made him a responsible and consultative prefect, Boy Scout troop leader, swimming team captain, and chairman of the Historical Society. After obtaining first-class honours in Economics at the University of Singapore, he went to Williams College in the United States to pursue a master’s degree in development economics. He later joined the civil service in 1964, but left in 1969 to work at Neptune Orient Lines (NOL). His leadership skills enabled him to climb the ranks and he was NOL’s managing director from 1973 till 1977 when he left the company. At this stage of his life, Goh was feeling the call of public service and had entered politics in 1976 on the PAP ticket. He was

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elected as a Member of Parliament for the Marine Parade constituency, which he still represents today. In his long political career, he served the government in many capacities, most notably as minister for trade and industry (1979–81), health and defence (1981–84), first deputy prime minister and minister for defence (1985), and then prime minister (1990– 12 August 2004), by which time he had gained a reputation for his open and consultative style of leadership. As if challenging his consultative leadership style, Singapore faced many crises during Goh’s time as prime minister. Some of these crises included: the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, threats of terrorism such as the 2001 plot to bomb embassies in Singapore by Jemaah Islamiyah, the economic recession of 2001–03, and the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003. Goh rose to the challenges of these trying incidents and continued to be open with Singaporeans on handling the crises and how Singaporeans should come together to deal with these events. Under his premiership, Singapore launched several new initiatives reflecting the Goh administration’s more open stance towards public opinion. His administration also introduced several major policies and policy institutions such as the Non-Constituency Members of Parliament (NCMPs) scheme, Nominated Members of Parliament (NMP) scheme, Group Representation Constituency, and elected presidency, to name a few. Indeed, the institution of both the NMP and NCMP schemes may be considered one of the achievements of the Goh administration. The schemes have their roots in 1984 when Goh (who was deputy prime minister at the time) saw the need for alternative non-PAP voices in parliament. To bring this about, Goh

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proposed an amendment to the constitution. The upshot was the introduction of the NCMP scheme. The idea was that the NCMPs and the opposition MPs would voice discontent about government polices and check the PAP in parliament. Thus, the NMP and NCMP schemes came into being. The NMP scheme, which was approved by parliament in March 1990, allowed citizens without any political party affiliation to participate and contribute to parliamentary debates without going through the electoral process. The NCMP scheme allowed top opposition losers (that is, those who obtained more than 15 per cent of the votes in their respective constituencies) to participate in parliamentary debates. While both the NMP and NCMP schemes did contribute to debates in parliament, they garnered some negative press as well. This was because individuals who entered parliament under those schemes could not vote on the following issues: the amendment of the constitution, the distribution of public funds, vote of no confidence in the government, or removal of the president from office. Despite criticism of these schemes, Goh’s initiative must be applauded because an NMP proposal by Walter Woon resulted in the introduction of the Maintenance for Parents’ Act. The government’s adoption of this act meant that Goh was somewhat successful in introducing an alternative non-PAP voice in parliament. These schemes further added to the image of Goh as an open and consultative leader. He was also lauded for forging his own leadership style. Despite his reputation as an open and consultative leader, Goh could be firm and strict in matters of law. He demonstrated his mettle in the way he handled the caning of Michael Fay in 1994 for vandalism and theft. Against the face of American pleas for

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clemency, Goh remained firm in his decision that Singapore was right to try and punish Fay with due process of law. He reasoned that Singapore was a sovereign state, and as such, was not obliged to base its actions on the will of the American public or government. This incident clearly demonstrated Goh’s principles. While he encouraged greater participation of Singaporeans in the political process, he could be as firm as his predecessor vis-à-vis the country’s laws. Local attention on the Michael Fay incident soon faded with the arrival of the Asian Financial Crisis and its attendant economic recession. Given his formal training in economics (he holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Singapore and a master’s degree in Economics from Williams College in the United States) and his previous experience working in Neptune Working Lines as a planning and projects manager, and then managing director where he achieved impressive financial results during his tenure, it was no surprise that he managed to lead the country out of recession successfully. However, he stepped down as prime minister not long after that in 2004. Goh is still active in politics and continues to serve Singapore as emeritus senior minister in Lee Hsien Loong’s cabinet. As part of his duties as emeritus senior minister, he visits various countries to improve diplomatic relationships. In so doing, he is able to gain wider business opportunities for Singaporean businessmen. He also continues to encourage dialogue between Singaporeans and their Members of Parliament and is patron of the Institute of Policy Studies, a government think-tank where views of academics vis-àvis local political issues are published. Due to his personable demeanour and open and

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consultative leadership style, he was briefly considered for the position of secretary general of the United Nations in 2006. While the post went to Ban Ki Moon, the fact that he was considered at all for the position demonstrates the high regard in which the world regards Goh Chok Tong and his style of political engagement. Ho Khai Leong R E F E R E N C E S Chua Beng Huat. Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore. London and Singapore: Taylor and Francis, 1995. Ho Khai Leong. Shared Responsibilities, Unshared Power: The Politics of Policy-Making in Singapore. Singapore: Eastern University Press, 2003. Mauzy, Diane K. and R. S. Milne. Singapore Politics Under the People’s Action Party. Singapore and London: Routledge, 2002. Mukunthan, Michael. “Goh Chok Tong”. Singapore Infopedia, National Library Board, Singapore, 17 April 1999, revised 2004. (accessed 28 November 2010). Mutalib, Hussin. Parties and Politics: A Study of Opposition Parties and the PAP. Singapore: Marshall Cavendish Academic, 2005. National Heritage Board. “Goh Chok Tong”. In Singapore: The Encyclopedia, edited by Tommy T. B. Koh, et al., pp. 215–16. Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2006.

Goh Choo San ( , Wu Zhushan, 1948–87) Choreographer, ballet dancer, Singapore

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oh Choo San is best known as a classical and contemporary ballet dancer and choreographer who once worked with internationally renowned ballet dancer, Mikhail Baryshnikov. The youngest of ten

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children to Goh Kim Lok, an oil manufacturer, and Siew Han Ch’ng, Goh Choo San was born in Singapore on 14 September 1948, not long after his parents moved to Singapore from Medan in Indonesia. Despite sister Goh Soonee’s efforts at teaching him dance, his earliest ambition was to be an airline pilot. However, his love for dance soon engulfed him so much so that he wanted to follow in three of his elder siblings’ footsteps to make dance his career. However, his father urged him to complete his formal education at a university so that he would have something to fall back upon should his projected artistic career fail to come about. Accordingly, following his studies at Nanyang Primary School, Chinese High School, and Raffles Institution, Goh graduated from the University of Singapore with a degree in biochemistry in 1969. However, in his honours year, Goh’s feet itched to exert themselves on the ballet stage. Therefore, he responded to a magazine advertisement for a dance scholarship halfway through his honours year at the university in 1970, and left Singapore for Lausanne, Switzerland, to dance briefly with a Swiss student company. On leaving Switzerland, he moved to Amsterdam to study British ballet on a two-year scholarship with the Dutch National Ballet. His talent ensured that he was asked to stay when his scholarship lapsed. Thus, he began his formal career in dance with the Dutch National Ballet as a corps de ballet member before eventually becoming a very capable soloist. In his five-and-ahalf years with the Dutch National Ballet, he demonstrated both poise and technical excellence in flawlessly executing the works of the company’s resident choreographers, Toer van Schayk and Rudi van Dantzig, as well as in works by Balanchine and Petipa. During this time, he was strongly influenced by his

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teachers to pursue his interest in choreography. The upshot was his first choreographed ballet in 1973.This served to bolster his reputation as a dancer and choreographer in his own right, while enhancing the company’s rich blend of classical and contemporary choreography. Indeed, the Dutch government recognized and lauded his work by awarding Goh with the creative arts grant for choreography in 1973 and 1975. This grant was in acknowledgement of Goh’s choreography of two ballets for Dutch graduates as well as his organization of a choreographer’s workshop. Unfortunately, the Dutch National Company did not have any vacancies for a resident choreographer. His choreographed short ballet routines soon brought him to the notice of Mary Day, director of the Washington School of Ballet in Washington, D.C., who offered him a position with her newly founded Washington Ballet in 1976. Goh accepted the offer and soon became both the company teacher and resident choreographer with the Washington Ballet and grew in artistic strength alongside the company. In his years with the Washington Ballet, his works became critically acclaimed for sophistication, as well as its strong Asian artistic style through which he blended classical and modern movements. Many reviewers and critics observed that his work connoted a usage of classical ballet vocabulary stemming from his Asian heritage.Instead of alienating the audience, his style of uniting both classical and modern dance movements was deemed “symphonic” because he preferred using numerous soloist dancers in a work rather than the traditional principal dancer/corps de ballet arrangement typical in classical choreography. By 1978, Goh had come into his own in the ballet world when he created his definitive work entitled, Fives, where he constructed fluid and dramatic

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movements to Ernest Bloch’s Concerto Grosso. This, in turn, brought him to the attention of several important artistic directors of dance companies as he rapidly established himself as a choreographer capable of conceptualizing works of a very high quality. Mary Day must have shared this view because Goh was soon promoted to associate artistic director with the company. In his eleven years with them, Goh choreographed fourteen ballets for the dancers and brought international attention to the Washington Ballet company. Indeed, by 1984, the company conducted its first, large-scale overseas tour which went to Europe, South America, and Asia. All its performances, ranging from Fives, Variations Serieuses, Birds of Paradise, In the Glow of the Night, Unknown Territory, and Schubert Symphony featured Goh’s choreography. To honour his contribution to dance, the city of Washington presented him with the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in 1986. By 1979, Goh was not only creating one or two new works annually for the Washington Ballet; he was creating new works for other companies as well. Thus, he managed to work with most of the major dance companies in the United States and elsewhere such as the American Ballet Theatre, the Berlin Ballet, the Joffrey Ballet, the Pennsylvania Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, the Dance Theatre of Harlem, the Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre, and the Boston Ballet. Goh’s biggest break came in 1981 when Mikhail Baryshnikov, artistic director of the American Ballet Theatre, commissioned him to create a work especially for him. This naturally placed Goh at the centre of the international ballet stage. Accordingly, Singapore honoured his talent and artistic endeavours in 1987 with the country’s highest award for artistic achievement, the Cultural Medallion. Amidst the international recognition of his works and artistic vision, Goh’s health

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waned in 1987 and on 28 November 1987, he died from an AIDS-related disease, viral colitis, at his home in Manhattan, New York, at the age of thirty-nine. He left a US$500,000legacy in his will to create the Choo San Goh & H. Robert McGee Foundation for young dancers and choreographers. The foundation tacitly acknowledged his links with the Washington Ballet where he first came into his own by stipulating that it was to be based in Washington. The foundation was also to collect applications for grants and scholarships from choreographers and dancers from around the world. Similarly, Goh made provisions for the money and fees for staging his ballets to be invested, and the resultant interest, distributed, as grants for choreographic works and scholarships. The annual Choo San Goh Award for Choreography was also part of the behest of his will. His works continue to live on both internationally and in Singapore. In order to highlight Goh’s links with country and the Asian influences in his choreography, the Singapore Dance Theatre added ten of Goh’s works to their repertoire. In so doing, the company brought his unique identity as a Singaporean choreographer back to the country of his birth. Sharon Loo R E F E R E N C E S National Heritage Board. “Goh Choo San”. In Singapore: The Encyclopedia, Tommy T. B. Koh, et al, ed. Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2006, p. 216. Schergen, J. and Soo Khim Goh. Goh Choo San: Master Craftsman in Dance. Singapore: Singapore Dance Theatre, 1997. Teng, Sharon. “Goh Choo San”. Singapore Infopedia, National Library Board, Singapore, 18 August 2002. (accessed 28 November 2010).

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Goh Keng Swee ( , Wu Qingrui, 1918–2010) Civil servant, politician, Singapore

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ith a two-decade long public career in which he served as a key founding member of Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party, as well as minister for finance, defence and education, Goh Keng Swee may truly be said to be one of the few who shaped modern Singapore’s political and socio-economic landscapes. Goh is held by many to be Singapore’s economic architect as he had been instrumental in economizing government spending and was a key player in changing Singapore from a trading economy to a broader-based economy in his capacity as finance minister. Having gone through and survived the changing times where Singapore evolved from a colonial entity, with the Japanese Occupation in between, to full political independence, Goh, who was born on 6 October in Malacca in British Malaya, had experienced first-hand the best and worst of all these regimes. It was no surprise therefore that he had a clear vision of how he wanted Singapore to progress. As he had lived through the different regimes, he was more adept at picking out beneficial aspects of their time in power and readapting them for the benefit of Singapore’s development.These skills of observation, re-learning, re-adapting the old for the new, were honed during his education at Anglo-Chinese School and Raffles College where he focused on social welfare issues. After the Japanese Occupation, he joined the civil service in the Department of Social Welfare. His outstanding performance there earned him a scholarship to study at the London School of Economics where he obtained a first-class

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honours in economics and won the William Fan Prize in 1951. Later, in 1956, he graduated with a Ph.D. in economics from the University of London. During his first foray into Britain, he met with Lee Kuan Yew and Toh Chin Chye, and discovered that they shared a passion for bringing about independence for Malaya. Accordingly, they formed a discussion group called the Malayan Forum, of which Goh was the founding chairman. The call to enter politics actively to shape Singapore as he had discussed at the Malayan Forum emerged in 1958 when he left the civil service to work full time for the fledgling People’s Action Party (PAP) in its Central Executive Committee. His vision for a future where Singapore was able to sustain itself through trade and industry certainly struck a chord with the PAP and he soon rose to become the party’s vice-chairman. In 1959, he successfully contested the Kreta Ayer seat in the Legislative Assembly elections, and joined the first government of Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew as minister for finance. In this role, he was to assume stewardship of Singapore’s economy, and in the following decade, Goh acted as the chief architect of the country’s economic development. As part of his scheme to create jobs for Singaporeans in the aftermath of World War II and prevent people from falling in with left-wing groups of the time, he introduced an industrialization programme by transforming the swamps of Jurong into the country’s first industrial estate. To encourage foreign investment, the Economic Development Board (EDB) was formed in 1961 to demonstrate the government’s commitment to overseeing the country’s development. He also included tourism in the Ministry of Finance by taking it out of the Ministry of Law and National Development where it had been overlooked.

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Under his leadership, a major hotel building programme to raise the number of rooms from 2,800 to 13,100 by 1972 was implemented. Funds for the overseas promotion of Singapore were increased from S$900,000 to S$3 million, and to encourage tourists to stay in Singapore for several days, he successfully called for the construction of a Bird Park at Jurong, as well as an aquarium and a zoological garden. These attempts to foster growth in Singapore’s economy in the 1960s were at times overshadowed by the communist threat arising from agitators who recruited from Chinese language-medium schools and trade unions. The rise of the communists led to a schism within the PAP with the pro-communist faction trying to wrest control of the party from the moderate wing. Goh, who belonged to the moderate faction, was especially targeted for his call for Singapore to merge with Malaya. Goh recommended the merger because he saw Malaya as a rich hinterland that would help Singapore economically. Furthermore, a merger with Malaya would also curb the rise of communism amongst Singapore’s mainly Chinese population. The merger soon proved to be problematic for Singapore and the country was expelled from the Federation of Malaysia. Subsequently, Goh played a key role in orchestrating Singapore’s departure from the Federation in 1965. When Singapore was fully independent in 1965, Goh was appointed minister for defence. As he had done with the economy in the 1950s, he revitalized the Defence Ministry by strengthening Singapore’s military and domestic security capabilities. A key policy of his making was the creation of National Service, which was a compulsory conscription system for able-bodied young men into the military. This was as much for the protection of Singapore against external forces as it was

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a means of providing the young people of Singapore with a sense of belonging to their country. His legacy in this respect continues to live on for young men are still required to be inducted into National Service. Later, in 1979, he was moved to the Ministry of Education where he developed aspects of the Singapore education system with a streaming programme where students could learn at their own pace, and with a religious education programme. Despite his retirement from politics and his position as deputy prime minister in 1984, Goh Keng Swee’s legacy lives on. The measures he took to develop the Singapore economy are still in place today as they have shaped the country into a vibrant financial and business hub. Similarly, his contributions to the tourist industry, such as the Jurong Bird Park and the promotion of Singapore as a holiday destination with comfortable amenities and many things to do and see, have cemented the island as a top holiday spot for Westerners and Asians alike. Although his policy of religious education was dropped from the Singaporean education curriculum, the streaming of students continues to be part of the education policy with education extended to all students who are, in turn, allowed to learn at their own pace. To commemorate his achievements and contributions, he was awarded the prestigious Order of Temasek (First Class) in 1985 for his work in the development of Singapore. To encourage young economists to follow in his visionary footsteps, the Goh Keng Swee Scholarship Fund and the Goh Keng Swee Professorship and Master’s Scholarships in Economics by the National University of Singapore (NUS) were established in 1992 and 1998 respectively. Goh Keng Swee died on 14 May 2010 in Singapore after a long illness. He is remembered

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as a leader who laid the foundation stones of Singapore’s economy and defence forces. Ho Khai Leong R E F E R E N C E S Chew, Melanie. Leaders of Singapore, pp. 141–50. Singapore: Resource Press, 1996. Lam, Peng Er & Y. L. K. Tan (eds.) Lee’s Lieutenants: Singapore’s Old Guard, pp. 24–69. Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1999. Low, K. C. & P. K. G. Dunlop (eds.) Who’s Who in Singapore, pp. 72–73. Singapore: Who’s Who Publishing, 2000. Ministry of Culture. Biographical Notes of the President, Prime Minister and Ministers. Singapore: Publicity Division, Ministry of Culture, 1977. Singapore Chronicles: A Special Commemorative History of Singapore, p. 36. Hong Kong: Illustrated Magazine, 1995.

Goh King Chin ( , Wu Jingjin, 1943– ) Entrepreneur, community leader, philanthropist, Brunei

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ehin Kapitan Lela Diraja Goh King Chin is a successful entrepreneur in the automobile business, and also very concerned about national issues, especially the welfare of his fellow Chinese and immigrants. He is also a philanthropist who donated millions to the community. Goh’s father, Goh Hock Kee ( ), was a shareholder of the company ), in Tutong. Goh Chop Hock Kee ( King Chin is the eldest of eight siblings. In his early years, he began his education at Chung Hua School Tutong ( ). After graduation, he furthered his studies at Sultan Omar Ali Saiffudien (SOAS) College, a prestigious school during his era

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— where he was classmate with His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzadin Waddaulah Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam. After graduating from SOAS College, he took up employment in the government sector as a custom and excise officer from 1964 to 1970. In 1970 Goh decided to change his career path by going into business. He established a company called Goh Hock Kee Motors (GHK Motors), named after his father. The company was involved in the management of motor vehicles and spare parts and later flourished after it became the agent of several car companies, namely Daihatsu and Mitsubishi from Japan, Daewoo from Korea, and European and China manufacturers. Goh’s resources and ideas have facilitated his business, which, in turn, has won him a national reputation in the commercial field. By 1990 he decided to upgrade and transform his company into one with an international business philosophy and policies. As a result, it was converted to GHK Motors Sdn. Bhd. Since then he has been very much pre-occupied with his automobile business. To expand his business further, Goh invested in a number of ventures, the most noticeable being the setting up of GHK Auto Assembly Plant Sdn. Bhd. in 1998 for the prefabrication of various types of commercial vehicles. It was the first auto prefabrication plant in Brunei, opened officially on 31 July 2000 by the minister of communication. In July 2003, Goh acquired 100 per cent equity in the MBA Insurance Co. Sdn. Bhd. for Brunei operations, and this venture was integrated as part of the GHK Group of Companies. In 2007 Goh was appointed vice-chairman for the Brunei Times. In the community, he was director of the Chamber of Commerce until 1994 and is currently director of Chamber of Commerce and also honorary adviser of Chung Hwa

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Middle School Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei ) and Chung Darussalam ( Hua School, Tutong. For his fellow Chinese in Brunei, Goh proposed, as a member of Legislative Council, that residents of Chinese descent born in Brunei should automatically be given citizenship when they reach the age of fifty-five. During the sixth day of the 2nd National Congress Meeting, he said that the peace and harmony experienced by Bruneian Chinese residents were the result of His Majesty’s remarkable management and ruling of the country, that Bruneian Chinese respected His Majesty and the Brunei Government greatly, and that they also wholly supported the Brunei Islamic policy. He also stated that the Chinese residents were willing to contribute to and support the development of the country, and requested that the relevant authorities consider his proposal. In the same meeting, Goh suggested that entrepreneurs or investors from foreign countries be given permanent resident (PR) status. He pointed out that foreign entrepreneurs or investors in Brunei were less likely to give full financial contributions to Brunei, and were very likely to transfer their funds overseas if they could not be sure of their status in the country. He argued that with a stronger sense of belonging, these investors would greatly support small- and medium-scale business development with their funds, which would in turn also provide plenty of business opportunities to the residents of Brunei. Goh further proposed that the government grant foreigners married to local women in Brunei PR status because, to his knowledge, there were people married to female citizens of Brunei for over twenty years and yet were still not granted PR status. Goh openly requested that the government modify its immigration policy to adapt better to the current situation of the country, rather than rely on an old

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policy established during the British Colonial period. In response to Goh’s proposals, Pehin Adanan of the Ministry of Home Affairs stated that from 1958 to 2005, there were 42,600 or more people who received the PR status, and that local women who married foreigners could also apply to the relevant authorities to have their children naturalized in Brunei. He stressed that every country has its own immigration and national registration policies. Those born abroad but holding PR status in Brunei for more than twenty-five years can apply for citizenship to the National Registration Bureau, while those born in Brunei and holding this status for more than twelve years can apply as well. In April 2004 Goh was bestowed and appointed by the sultan as Pehin Kapitan of Brunei Chinese Community. In September the same year, the sultan reappointed him as a member of the Legislative Council. On 15 July 2006, during His Majesty’s birthday celebration, he was bestowed the honorary title of “Dato Paduka”, in recognition of his remarkable contributions to society. At the age of sixtythree, Goh is a spirited philanthropist who is involved in numerous charitable activities contributing to the community. In 2003, he donated $2.6 million for the construction of hawker stalls at Beribi, Gadong, which are specifically designed to accommodate the business of the poor and underprivileged villagers. Goh is married to Datin Chang Nyuk ) who has borne him two sons Kee ( and two daughters. Their son, Goh Kiat Hing ), took up the position of Director in ( the company, while their daughters, Poh Ling ) and Poh Yeek ( ), are involved in its ( administration. Yu Chin Chai

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R E F E R E N C E S Asia Pacific Entrepreneurship Awards 2008, p. 21. BRUNEIresources.com. (accessed February 2012). GHK Motors Sdn. Bhd. (accessed February 2012). Hadi DP Mahmud. “Brunei’s Noted Entrepreneurs Honoured”. The Brunei Times, 30 August 2008. Personal interview 2010.

Goh Poh Seng ( , Wu Baoxing, 1936–2010) Physician, writer, cultural activist, entrepreneur, Singapore

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r Goh Poh Seng was a distinguished member of the first generation of writers in English (originally Malayan, then Malaysian, eventually, Singaporean) and is thus one of the four honoured in the permanent Singapore Literary Pioneers Gallery at Singapore’s National Library. Acclaimed by Asia Magazine as “one of Asia’s finest living poets”, he was the only one who wrote in all four main literary genres — drama, poetry, short fiction, and the novel. Apart from creating a substantial body of work, he has the distinction of publishing Singapore’s first novel in English, If We Dream Too Long (1972) and pioneering the use of the local variety of English in dialogue in drama and the novel. His novel won the inaugural National Book Development Council of Singapore Award for Fiction in 1976 and has been translated into Russian, and Tagalog. His third novel, Dance of Moths, also won the award in 1996. Goh was a man of great energy and remarkable vision whose politically and socially engaged plays, novels, and poetry, and whose passion

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for fostering a post-colonial Singaporean cultural identity, contributed substantially to the development of Singaporean literature and culture. Although a full-time physician, he managed to write and stage plays, write novels and poetry, form a cultural association, privately start and edit a journal, set up his own publishing firm, and serve influentially on various national cultural and other public bodies, eventually winning the prestigious Cultural Medallion for Literature national award in 1982. He subsequently became a private “cultural entrepreneur”, his Hujong Enterprises promoting rock music and poetry readings through the then new concepts of the live music disco and bistro. When his businesses failed because he fell foul of the then strict local regulations, he emigrated disappointed and disillusioned to Canada in 1986. He continued to practise medicine and write, publishing two more poetry collections and novels, giving poetry readings in North America, and earning himself a reputation as an Asian Canadian writer as well. In 1995, diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, he retired as a doctor, and began writing full-time. He published his last novel, completed his first collection of autobiographical short stories, Tall Tales and Misadventures of a Westernized Oriental Gentleman, and began on the first of four projected volumes of an “imaginary autobiography” entitled Bite the Bitter Wind, but did not live to complete this. Goh was born to a middle-class family, grew up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaya, and was educated at the Victoria Institution before leaving for further education in Ireland where his interest in writing was encouraged. He even took a year off from medical studies at University College in Dublin to pursue his literary interest in London. Upon graduation, he returned to then Malaya, and after his

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marriage, moved to Singapore to practise medicine. Caught up in the nationalist fervour of a newly independent Singapore and inspired by the literary culture of Dublin where he had begun to write and publish, Goh in 1964 founded and edited an early literary magazine, Tumasek, and then an association of likeminded writers and supporters, Centre 65, for promoting the arts in Singapore through “evenings of poetry and music”, painting exhibitions, talks, and forums. When he was unable to find a publisher for his first novel in English, If We Dream Too Long (1972), he founded Island Press. This also published his two poetry collections, Lines from Batu Ferringhi (1978) and Bird With One Wing (1982), and hoped to help other writers publish their works. Active in public service, Goh was from 1967 to 1972 Chairman of the National Theatre Trust, and vice-chairman of the Arts Council, responsible for promoting and implementing Singapore’s post-independence cultural policies and the arts, supporting orchestras, dance companies, and journals such as Poetry Singapore. He also served on the boards of the People’s Association, the National Youth Leadership Training Institute, and was a director of the then Singapore Tourist Promotion Board. A man with ideas ahead of his time, Goh envisaged a city with a vibrant nightlife and proposed plans for regenerating the derelict Singapore River vicinity as a cultural centre showcasing traditional arts and crafts, with restaurants and shops day and night. This is now a reality. He opened Singapore’s first live music disco, Rainbow Lounge, promoting local rock bands and music, and sponsored the first David Bowie concert in 1983. He also pioneered poetry readings at his bistro, Toulouse Lautrec.

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When invited back as a “pioneer writer” to grace the Singapore Writers Festival in 2007, he struck a chord with the public still, and a new edition of If We Dream Too Long (2010) was subsequently published to meet this awakened interest. Motivated like most writers of his generation by a compelling,nationalistic mission to create “a literature of our own” and believing that Singaporeans “need our own literature in order to know about ourselves”, his work is pervaded by a distinctive poetic sensibility alert to language as both artistic medium and ideological tool of the sharply observant conscience. Thus his plays, early novels, and poetry, seriously engage with contemporary issues and anxieties of the developing society and region in which both the author and his characters live, as indicated by their very titles: The Moon is Less Bright (1964) a play set during the Japanese Occupation; If We Dream Too Long (1972), a novel about a restless, alienated young English-educated clerk who drifts through 1960s’ Singapore unable to realize his dreams; Eyewitness (1976), with its introspective poems meditating on current events (“Vietnam”), on the contemporary landscape as social comment (“Singapore”), or as metaphor for a colonized condition (“Exile in a Cold Land”); and The Immolation (1976), a novel about resistance to foreign intervention in an unnamed Southeast Asian country from the guerrillas’ perspective, which also interrogates at the same time, idealistic commitments to causes. His later novels continue the theme of the individual’s existential quest for meaning and fulfilment in a seemingly indifferent universe. Dance of Moths (1996) explores this through the interwined lives of two men who, in contrasted ways, are irresistibly and fatally drawn to the search like moths to light, while in Dance With White Clouds: A Fable for Grown-Ups (2001)

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a successful businessman leaves everything behind, including a loving family, to begin a new life — ironically only to achieve what he had before, except with different people, in a different country, and not without pain. The spirit of his last novel is similar to that of his last poetry collection, as reflected in its title, As Though the Gods Love Us (2001). Meanwhile, the gods drain our blood, eat our flesh, feast on our bones as though they love us. As for poetry, it was “as always, a continuing passion”; as even his best prose shows, he had a poetic sensibility, a keen eye for landscape, and significant, telling detail wherever he was. The best of his poetry sings with lyric grace without loss of his characteristic passionate social and moral engagement as in “Spring Moon Blues”: SPRING MOON BLUES How to live now, my dear, with the moon so full on this warm Spring night? You know how it is when hours are disposable, traded away for surface, for safety, something misleading, which, in the end, proves unworthwhile, reached without risks, without true striving, when always, always the mountain can only be climbed by daring, only by daring. Have we really forgotten? So how to live now, my dear,

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with the moon so full on this warm Spring night? He was a compelling reader of his own works as evident from the many international invitations to read in England, Russia, India, Korea, Hong Kong, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and Canada. His poems have also been widely anthologized or published both in Singaporean and international journals such as The London Magazine, Poetry International, Commonwealth Poems of Today, and New Voices in the Commonwealth. They have also been translated into Chinese, Malay, Tagalog, Russian, and German. Goh died of complications from Parkinson’s Disease, leaving behind his wife, Margaret Goh, and four sons. Koh Tai Ann R E F E R E N C E S Benson, Eugene and L.W. Conolly (eds.), “Goh Poh Seng”. Encyclopedia of Post Colonial Literatures in English, p. 593. London: Routledge, 1994. “Goh Poh Seng (1936–2010)”. National Library Board Singapore. (accessed 1 October 2010). Goh Poh Seng official website. (accessed 1 October 2010). Goh Poh Seng’s works. Lee, Soon Yong, Andy. “Caught between Earth and Sky: The Life and Works of Goh Poh Seng”. In Sharing Borders: Studies in Contemporary SingaporeanMalaysian Literature I, edited by Mohammed A.Quayum & Wong Phui Nam, pp. 210–24. Singapore: National Library Board and National Arts Council, 2009. The Straits Times. “Singapore Festival ’68 to Be the Biggest Ever”. 25 October 1967. Yeow, M.S. “Rainbow Lounge Fans are Disappointed by its Closure Order”. The Sunday Monitor, 30 November 1983.

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Goh Then Chye ( , Wu Tiancai, 1936– ) Poet, educationalist, translator, historical material collector, Malaysia

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u Tian Cai, who was born in 1936 in Kuala Lumpur, was an educationist in Chinese education and taught in secondary schools as a Chinese language teacher in Chong Hua Secondary School in Klang, Hua Lian Secondary School Taiping in Perak, and De Xing High School in Singapore. He also served as a lecturer and head in the Department of Chinese Studies at the University of Malaya. He was one of the few Chinese writers who was proficient in both the Chinese and Malay languages. Important Chinese-related posts he held in various organizations include serving as president of The Association of Translation and Creative Society ( ), translator of Chinese Poetry for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Asia of Chinese Poetry, consultant committee member of the Multiracial Translation Committee of Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, committee member of literary terminology in Dewan Bahasa Dan Pustaka ( ) and committee member of the National Bureau of Unity. Wu furthered his studies at the Nanyang University of Singapore (Nantah), majoring in Chinese Studies in the Department of Chinese Studies after his secondary education. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree from Nantah and continued to do a Master of Arts degree at the University of Malaya. Wu has been a writer as early as his secondary school days. He published his articles in newspapers by using the name Situ Juanjuan

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). He used to publish his articles in ( the Oasis Column in the Southern Evening Press ). Other pen names or pseudonyms ( ), Ru Zi Niu he used included Lu Mang ( ), Jiang Qi ( ), Ding Ping ( ), ( ), Ding Feng ( ), and Jiang Ding ( ). He was also a poet since Shi Feng ( the 1950s and has published a few collections of poems, namely Liushui Xingyun zhi Meng ), Linghun di Beige ( ( ), Hua zhi Lian ( ), Xinfeng zhi Xing ), Xin Yongyuan Xiangzhe Ni ( ( ), Liming di Xingshan ( ), and Xingguang Shanshuo Jiangtao Song ( ). He also wrote literary criticisms and published three collections, which include ), Cuo Malai Bandun Xiaolun ( ), and Yanjiu Lun Malai Bandun ( Mahua Xinwenxue Zhongyao Lunwen Zhiyin ). His recent ( research collections are Jiang Shan Yanjiu ) and Jiang Shan Lunwenji ( ). Yanjiu zhuanji ( As a translator of the Malay Language to the Chinese language and vice versa,Wu Tiancai has translated two books. The first was the translation of Chinese Modern Poems into the ) and the second Malay Language ( was The Collection of Modern Poetry in Malaysia ). With his wide knowledge ( of Malay, he succeeded in publishing three other translation works namely: (1) Pantun Melayu; (2) Pantun Peribahasa Melayu; and (3) Bintang MengerdipTersenum. In the translation of Chinese Poems in the Malay Language, Wu was the pioneer. Wu is also a literary critic, but his interest is limited to the study of the articles by Jiang ). He has published two books in Shan ( this field, namely Collection of Essays on Jiang ) and Special Collection Shan ( ). of Essays on Jiang Shan (

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Wu is also a famous collector of historical materials on Malaysian Chinese literature, as well as Modern Chinese literature in China and Taiwan. To date, he has published four books of this kind, namely: (1) Classification Catalogue on Malaysian Chinese Literary Articles ( ), (2) Complete List of Modern ), Poem Collection in Taiwan ( (3) Complete List of Modern Poem Collection ), and (4) A Brief in China ( Introduction To Taiwan Contemporary Poets ). ( In addition to teaching and writing, Wu is also active in promoting cultural activities. Other than the posts he held mentioned above, he was also the editor of the magazine, Nusantara, which was published by Dewan Bahasa Dan Pustaka; the head of the publishing and historical material preserving section of the Malaysian Chinese Cultural Society ( ), editor in Eastern Literary Publisher ( ) and a committee member of the research section on Malaysian Simplified Chinese Characters. Wu’s publications total more than thirty books, inclusive of books in both the Chinese and Malay languages and also dictionaries. Due to his good work in the various fields, his life history has been included in a book entitled Dictionary of World Great Writers ( ), which was published in China in 1988. Chiah Seng R E F E R E N C E S 《 1984。 《 1991。

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Gokongwei, John Jr ( , Wu Yihui, 1926– ) Entrepreneur, philanthropist, Philippines

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ohn Gokongwei, Jr built his empire from scratch. Considered one of the five taipans in the country, Gokongwei has gone from offering candles, threads, and soaps in the 1940s, to world-class Filipino products and services such as snacks, beverages, telecommunications, real estate, finance, and transportation. More than being a great entrepreneur, Gokongwei also distinguished himself as a philanthropist. In recognition of his philantrhopic work, the February 2008 issue of Forbes Asia named him one of the four heroes of philanthropy of the country (48 in Asia). Throughout his career as an entrepreneur, Gokongwei has responded keenly to the shifting nuances and needs of Filipino consumers and upgraded what he offers them. He has formed corporations on the foundations of integrity, hard work, and industry. Each valuable product and service embodies his vision: Filipino products that are received, patronized, and respected in Asia and around the world. He has made it his life’s abiding vision to restore belief and hope in what the Filipino can contribute to his own country, as well as to the entire world. John Gokongwei, Jr was born to a wealthy Chinese-Filipino family on 11 August 1926, the eldest of six children. He spent his early years in Cebu, Southern Philippines. There, he and his family enjoyed a comfortable, even lavish, lifestyle. His grandfather was known to be the wealthiest man in the city. His father owned many businesses. Growing up, Gokongwei divided his time between his huge house and his prestigious

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school, the San Carlos University. He excelled in class and was surrounded by many friends. Occasionally, he would treat them to free movies in the chain of movie houses his father owned — even the first air-conditioned one. This life of comfort and luxury was shattered by the sudden and untimely death of his father from complications due to typhoid. Everything they held dear — the huge house, the chain of businesses, the lavish life — were taken from them by banks, to which his father owed money. He and his young mother were left with nothing more than a humble house and five young ones to feed. His mother then sent his younger siblings to China, where the cost of living was significantly lower. For the first time in his young life, he had to work to sustain himself and his family. The young Gokongwei chose to make the best of it. At age fifteen, he rode his bicycle to the market at 5 a.m. every day. He carefully chose his products — those most needed: soaps, threads, and candles. As he succeeded in selling these, he and his mother were able to send money to support his siblings in China. More than that, he was able to save enough to improve his business. At seventeen, he upgraded to his new product of choice: tyres, on a batel, a small but sturdy boat. He travelled for two to three weeks from Cebu to Lucena in Quezon Province in Southern Luzon, navigating stormy weathers and rough seas. From Lucena, he rode trucks headed for Manila, enduring discomfort for five to six hours. Still, he trudged on, selling his tyres and then buying other products to sell in Cebu. In spite of the difficulties, he spent his spare time reading books about the lives of great men: Disraeli, J.P. Morgan, Bismarck, Alexander the Great, Rockefeller, and Ford. When the war broke out, people from all walks of life faced loss and destruction.

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To survive, they had to rely on their wits. Gokongwei’s adaptability and responsiveness to change became all the more sharpened. By the end of the war, he, with the help of his brother, was ready to venture into his first business, Amasia Trading. This opened the opportunity for him to trade basic necessities of post-war Philippines: fruits, used clothing, old newspapers, and magazines. They established the business in Binondo (Chinatown), Manila. He was not alone in managing the business as his brothers and sisters had now returned from China. They established an efficient routine and effective delegation of tasks. By the 1950s, Amasia had begun expanding its products to include whisky and cigarettes. Even with the brisk business, Gokongwei felt unsettled. In 1957, he dreamt of changing from trading to manufacturing. The only problem was — he did not have enough means to do so. This prompted him to sell his ideas to a bank that would finance them. He visited bank after bank, until the chairman of China Bank, Dr Albino Sycip, recognized his potential and gave him a clean loan of 500,000 pesos. John Gokongwei, Jr.’s dreams were fuelled. His vision propelled him forward and he has never looked back. Universal Corn Products emerged as a new threat to strong and established manufacturers of glucose and cornstarch. He learned to play by the rules of much tougher players, lowering the cost of the product to compete and survive. In the 1960s, he realized that the cut-throat competition became counterproductive. It was time to take on greater challenges. Inspired by the strategy of branding by consumer corporations such as Procter & Gamble and Nestle, Gokongwei created Blend 45, the poor man’s coffee. It was not long before Blend 45 was followed by a string of snack food items that

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became staples for the Filipino palate. Jack’n’Jill snacks have become synonymous with merienda (morning or afternoon snack time). In five decades, Gokongwei has expanded into different fields: textiles, retail, real estate, banking, telecommunications, aviation, and petrochemicals. While expanding his business, Gokongwei was determined to further his studies. He went to De La Salle University to complete his MBA. He also went to Harvard University for a threemonth business course.These helped him build on the theoretical aspect of experiences and strategies that he had developed over the years. His journey was not without its share of great trials and triumphs. Who would have thought that Filipinos from all walks of life would fly? But Cebu Pacific Air offered aviation services that allowed every Juan to fly. In telecommunications, Sun Cellular Network lured a considerable share of subscribers by offering cheap yet invaluable services — a fixed rate in exchange for unlimited text messages and calls. Who would have imagined that a beverage could represent rest and relaxation? C2 Iced Tea has quenched the thirst of Filipinos, leaving them “Cool and Clean”. Each of these products and services competed valiantly against those of daunting multinational consumer institutions. Inch by careful inch, they have earned their rightful place in the Filipino psyche as great products. In 2001, Gokongwei announced his retirement and turned over the management of his business to his youngest brother, James, and his only son, Lance. Even so, he continues to participate in key decisions and in setting goals for J.G. Summit as its chairman emeritus. Various branches of his empire is ably run by his children. Robina Gokongwei Pe is in charge of the Robinsons Retail Group, while Lisa

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Gokongwei Sy manages Summit Publishing, producing local versions of much coveted international titles such as Cosmopolitan, FHM, and Good Housekeeping. Its local publications have also garnered a following from Filipinos all over the country. More than a great entrepreneur, Gokongwei has also distinguished himself as a philanthropist. He established the Gokongwei Brothers Foundation in 1992. Since then, it has set up a Technical Training Center offering scholarship programmes for upgrading technical knowledge and skills. To support education and literacy of youth, it offers The Children’s Library, a multimedia resource centre open to public schools. These libraries are strategically located in branches of Robinson’s Malls and in areas in public libraries. He has likewise donated financially to various schools, such as the University of San Carlos, Xavier School, the De La Salle University, Sacred Heart School, and the Immaculate Conception Academy. In 2002 the Ateneo de Manila University John Gokongwei School of Management was launched. For all these efforts, the February 2008 issue of Forbes Asia named Gokongwei as one of the four heroes of philanthropy of the country. As John Gokongwei, Jr. looks back at his life, he also looks forward to helping countless Filipino entrepreneurs. He has given back to this country that he deeply loves by investing in education, investing in the future. In the 2002 launch of the Ateneo de Manila University John Gokongwei School of Management, he had this to say to hopeful Filipino entrepreneurs: “Choose to be an entrepreneur because then YOU create value. Choose to be an entrepreneur because the products, services, and jobs you create then become the lifeblood of our nation. But most of all, choose to be an entrepreneur because then you desire a

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life of adventure, endless challenge, and the opportunity to be your BEST SELF.” Anna Katarina Rodriguez R E F E R E N C E S Flores, Wilson. Business for All Series: John L. Gokongwei, Jr. Manila: De La Salle University Press, 1997. Gokongwei, John. “Speech at the 20th Ad Congress”. Retrieved 6 May 2009 from . Gokongwei, John. “2002 Speech at the Launch of the Ateneo de Manila University John Gokongwei School of Management”. Retrieved 6 May 2009 from . Khanser, Marites A. John L. Gokongwei Jr., The Path of Entrepreneurship. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University, 2007.

Gotianun, Andrew L. Sr. ( , Wu Tian’en, 1927– ) Entrepreneur, philanthropist, Philippines

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onsidered one the country’s taipans, Andrew L. Gotianun Sr. founded one of the Philippines’ top real estate enterprises that is now considered a leader in the industry, helping to develop top-of-the-line housing and communities. With uncanny foresight, Gotianun entered the real estate industry way before the real estate boom in the country. As well, all his companies practise corporate social responsibility long before it became a byword in multinational corporations. In 2010, Forbes ranked Gotianun the fourteenth richest Filipino, with a net worth of US$500 million. Born on 24 November 1927, Gotianun is a descendant of the Go clan based in Cebu. He is the grandson of the brother of Don Pedro Gotiaco who arrived in Cebu in the

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late nineteenth century from Xiamen, China. Gotiaco started selling rice and worked hard to become one of the wealthiest taipan during those times. World War II was a difficult time for all Asians, especially the Filipinos. But for enterprising young men, there was always opportunity amidst the rubble of war. And this was how a leader in the real estate industry, Gotianun, started. In his teens, he spent his time salvaging ships in Cebu during and after the war. Every salvageable part was taken to be sold as either scrap metal or spare part for other machinery. Ships that could still be saved were rehabilitated for sale. Every centavo earned went to augmenting the meagre family income. Gotianun took this responsibility very seriously as his father had died quite young. His business savvy is reflected in the evolution of his enterprises over the decades. He heeded the call of the times, and sometimes, foresaw the call of the times. With his young wife, Mercedes, he moved to Manila in the 1950s to seek better opportunities. Using borrowed money, the couple set up the Filinvest Development Corporation (FDC), a usedcar financing enterprise. Twenty years later, it expanded into a major lending company, Filinvest Credit Corporation (FCC), which went into partnership with foreign institutions such as Chase Manhattan Bank, Westinghouse Electric Corporation, and Ford Philippines. By the early 1980s, FCC had become one of the leading consumer finance companies in the Philippines in terms of assets. Gotianun also established the Family Bank and Trust Company and Insular Bank of Asia and America (IBAA). He was forced to sell the two banks to rivals at the height of the financial crisis in the mid-1980s, following the assassination of former Senator Benigno

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Aquino Jr. Family Bank merged with the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), and the BPI-Family Bank became the biggest savings bank in the country. IBAA merged with the Philippine Commercial and International Bank to later become one of the country’s biggest private commercial banks. In 1967, Gotianun added real estate to FDC with the establishment of Filinvest Realty Corporation, which engaged in the development of residential subdivisions. Where others saw decline and downturn in the economic crisis, Gotianun saw opportunity. After unloading all his stocks in his two banks, he used the proceeds to buy large tracts of real estate at very low prices. This was an ingenious move as the real estate boom in the Philippines was just beginning, so the FDC was already a recognized leader in the real estate business and had been capitalizing on property development by the time it peaked. With the success of his business enterprises, and with his children securely at the helm, Gotianun and his wife thought of retiring in the 1980s.The whole family moved to Canada for a time while continuing to travel back and forth to the Philippines. After the 1986 People Power Revolution, Gotianun returned to the Philippines and went into the Philippine Investment Development Corp. with the proceeds of his bank sales and real estate investments. With political stability, his fortunes rose again — real estate prices increased manyfold as there was a very high demand for low-cost housing. Gotianun therefore decided to focus on real property development. He also joined the government’s low-cost housing projects, using only small capital, but gaining quick returns and enabling even middle-income employees to acquire their own homes. Using a new subsidiary, Filinvest

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Land Inc. (FLI), Filinvest became synonymous with housing. FLI’s success came with its innovations in housing concepts which included the addition of a second storey on homes situated on small lots, without requiring occupants to vacate their homes; and the “Entrepreneurial Village”, which is the result of a collaborative effort with the government to allow entrepreneurs with small- and medium-size businesses to live and work in a residential development with access to government agencies that assist small businesses. FLI was also a pioneer in the development of very large master-planned township developments that allowed for a convenient mix of commercial, industrial, and residential uses. Filinvest’s name resounded the most strongly when it was able to win a bid over the old Ayala family and the Gokongweis to acquire the 244-hectare Alabang Stock Farm in Muntinlupa. This huge project necessitated another subsidiary, Filinvest Alabang Inc., that took on the ambitious endeavour of transforming an underutilized property into a model for urban development, dubbed the “Makati of the South”. Today, Filinvest Corporate City has single-handedly revitalized the Alabang area and transformed it into a premier satellite city and central business district that is changing the quality of life for people in the south. And to date, Filinvest has developed more than 1,800 hectares of land, and provided home sites for more than 100,000 families, which makes it one of the largest home providers in the Philippines today. Long before the concept of corporate social responsibility became a byword in the business landscape, Gotianun and the Filinvest Group had been quietly and steadfastly practising it. The Gotianuns and the whole Filinvest Group had been actively supporting

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the Educational Research and Development Assistance (ERDA) Foundation since its establishment in 1974 by a French Jesuit priest, Father Pierre Tritz, who became a naturalized Filipino due to his love for his new home, the Philippines, and its people. ERDA provides scholarships to children who are too poor to go to school. The Filinvest Group provides much needed support for ERDA’s needs — scholarships, books, school supplies, livelihood training, and pre-school classrooms. Instead of a grand and lavish party to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, FDC held a Fun Run for the benefit of ERDA scholars. For every runner who finished the run, FDC pledged to send a child to school for one whole year and take care of his or her school fees and supplies. Filinvest was able to raise 2.8 million pesos, an amount that changed the lives of elementary and high school scholars of ERDA forever.The success of this maiden venture inspired FDC to hold yet another Fun Run in 2009. With the invaluable support of the FDC family, its business partners, and clients, the company raised a sum of 5 million pesos, which again brought the less fortunate kids at the ERDA Foundation closer to their dream. Together, Filinvest and ERDA continue to build dreams and make a difference, one child at a time. Another example of FDC philanthropy was seen after the country was struck by super typhoon Ondoy in September 2009. Filinvest donated a total of 20 million pesos’ worth of food, medicine, and clothing materials to more than 10,000 families in the affected areas. Employees of Filinvest Land even decided to forgo their annual Christmas party and donated the funds to the Philippine National Red Cross and families that were directly affected by the calamity. EastWest Bank, a subsidiary of FDC in the banking and financial services, also donated 16 million pesos’ worth of textile

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items to flood victims through the ERDA Foundation, Caritas Manila, and ABS-CBN Sagip Foundation. Carmelea Ang See R E F E R E N C E S Diola, Rodney P. “Hot New Listings: A taipan’s treasure”. In The Sunday Chronicle, 26 September 1993, p. 11. East West Bank official eastwestbanker.com>.

website

(accessed March 2012). 〈

《 ，2002。

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N Na Teng Choon, James ( , Lan Tingjun; pen name: , Yun He, 1942–2012) Writer, leader of literary movement, Philippines

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ames Na Teng Choon was the leader of the literary movement that caught the attention of mainstream Filipino literary organizations which started appreciating works in Chinese, albeit through translations. These translated works produced by ethnic Chinese in the Philippines is now accepted by Filipinos as part of Philippine literature, regardless of the language used — Chinese, English, Filipino, or the local Philippine dialects. Na was the most prolific writer of these works having produced an impressive collection of poetry recognized internationally. Na came from a family of literary artists. ), was His paternal grandfather, Na Tim ( a close associate of the pioneer newspaper ), father of the publisher, Yu Yi Tung ( renowned journalist-activists known as the Yuyitung Brothers. Na’s maternal grandfather, ), was likewise a Xu Rong Zhi ( newspaperman in Fujian, who once served as general manager of Xiamen’s daily newspaper, ). Na’s father, Jiangsheng Daily ( ), born in 1917, Na Tian Min ( emigrated to the Philippines from Xiamen in 1936. He was renowned as a pioneer who promoted literary activities in the Philippines. ) negotiated to He and Wang Wenting ( have a weekly supplement in Kong Li Po ( ) to publish the works of young writers.

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Both of them also had their own columns on philosophy and literature to encourage new thinking among the youths, thus planting the seeds of literary writing and appreciation in them. When Na Tian Min worked at the Chinese Commercial News, he started a literary ) and supplement named New Horizon ( established the NewVoice Society to encourage many young talents to pursue their interests and hone their skills in the world of literary arts. It was thus one of the important literary organizations in the 1930s. Na continued his efforts in this field until his retirement in the 1990s. He was a true pioneer in filling the dearth of literary works and a cultural bridge in the Chinese-Filipino community. James Na Teng Choon was born on 28 April 1942 into this literary environment where his love and interest in the literary arts would be nurtured. From the age of twelve, when his poem, “Purple Sounds” ( ) was first published, there was no turning back. In fifty years, he produced a prolific body of works. Following in his forebears’ footsteps, he founded the first modern poetry study group in the late 1950s to early 60s. In 1982, he founded the Society of Contemporary ), Arts and Literature (SCAL, and persevered in advocating the idea that works depicting the thoughts, sentiments, and experiences of ethnic Chinese should be considered part of the body of ethnic Chinese literary works, in whatever language it was written — Chinese, English, Filipino, or the local Philippine dialects. From 1961 to 1962,

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he was editor of the poetry supplement, ” in the Huaqiao Weekly magazine “ ). From 1982 he edited the ( literary supplement of the World News ). Na also served as director of the ( largest organization of Filipino writers in the country, the Union of Filipino Writers (UMPIL), in 1987. Among his notable published collections of poetry are Melancholic Score (1959), Springtime in Autumn (1960), The Rainbow Snatcher (1961), The Blue Dust (1963), Wild Plant (1985), In the Light of Poetry and Photography (1989), 100 Poems (2002 and 2003), Poems by James T.C. Na: A Collection of Originals & Translations in 9 Languages (2003). His books of poetry have been translated into several languages besides English. Because he was born in the Philippines, he experienced the ambivalence of being an ethnic Chinese in an adopted land. He believed that the journey from being a huaqiao ( , ethnic Overseas Chinese) to a huaren ( Chinese) was one fraught with difficulties and heartaches. However, as soon as a huaqiao gave up his Chinese citizenship to become a huaren, he became a cultural minority in his adopted country and must thus assert his new identity and seek to be an integral part of the nation. These thoughts are reflected in many of his works. , translated “The Wild Plant” ( into English by Teresita Ang-See) is the most notable among Na’s poems: With leaves But without stem With stem But without roots With roots But without soil It is a wild plant Called Overseas Chinese

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It is the one most quoted and cited because it expressed the sentiments of a “transplanted” people fully. It has been translated into English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Filipino, and was selected to be included in many poetry anthologies because of the cultural philosophy it embodied — the search for identity and belonging of an immigrant generation transplanted from its native soil to a new homeland. Na obtained a degree in architecture from the Far Eastern University in Manila, the Philippines. He was vice president of AddMayer Development Corp., the Philippines, involved in architecture and the construction business. His passion for both poetry and photography had garnered him countless awards and recognition such as the Federation of International Art Photography Award (1982), World Academy of Arts and Culture, honorary degree of doctor of literature from the World Academy of Arts and Culture (2006), Certificate of Merit on Poetry for World Brotherhood and Peace from the United Poets Laureate International, the United States (2007), and fellowship of the World Literature Academy in the United Kingdom (1993). He was a member or officer of various prestigious literary organizations in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and held editorial positions in international publications such as The Epoch Poetry Journal, Taiwan (1965), the Overseas Chinese Literature (Serial), Lujiang Publishing House, Xiamen, China (1987), Directory of Overseas Chinese Literature, ), Guangzhou, Jinan University ( China (1987), Anthology of Chinese Poetry in Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Wen-Lian Press, Beijing, China (1988), Four-Seas Literary Magazine, Wen-Lian Press, Beijing, China (1988), South East Asian Chinese Literature (Philippines), Lujiang Publishing House, Xiamen, China (1999).

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Na represented Chinese-Filipino writers at many international conferences. In 1989, he was co-convener of the Conference on Social Change and Southeast Asian Chinese Literature, held with the Chinese Studies Program of De La Salle University, Philippines. In 2006, he was one of the conveners of the PEN Club of Southeast Asia Chinese Poetry Writers, and shouldered the responsibility of being editor-in-chief of the Southeast Asian Chinese Poetry Journal, and convened the international conferences of Southeast Asian Chinese Poets, held successively in Fuzhou, Guangdong, Ho Chi Minh City, Guiyang, among other places. It was Na’s leadership in the literary movement that gradually caught the attention of mainstream Philippine literary organizations which then started appreciating works in Chinese, albeit through translations. Through the nomination of fellow writer and UMPIL director, Joaquin Sy, Na received in 2008 the Gawad Balagtas, the most prestigious literary award given by UMPIL. The citation highlighted the recognition of Na’s work by Filipino mainstream society:“For his admirable achievement in Chinese poetry that reflects the Chinese-Filipino experience in the Philippines, as well as the unbreakable ties of overseas Chinese to their roots and memory. His eight books of poetry translated into several languages apart from English showed his extraordinary devotion to his craft while finding commonality in the deep but universal experience of humanity, nature, and beauty. In his capacity as literary editor to various local and foreign Chinese literary publications, [and through] his extensive membership in literary organizations, and in his fellowships and visiting lectures in the Mainland and in international literary academies, he has both distinguished himself and ably represented the Philippines and the Filipino-Chinese community.”

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Na Tian Min and Na Teng Choon together edited the three literary supplements in local Chinese-language dailies, collectively ) — haichao called the “three tides” ( ), chaosheng ( ) and xinchao ( ) ( — which published the works not just of local writers, but also those from China and elsewhere. These three eminent journals have become not just good reference materials on the development of literary works among local Chinese writers, but are also bridges of mutual enrichment between China and the Chinese overseas. ), James Na’s wife, Liu Mei Ying ( ), is herself a using pen name Qiu Di ( renowned essayist-writer and has been teaching in a Chinese school. She is one of the founders of the New Horizon Literary Organization, and is quite active in literary organizations and literary activities in the ChineseFilipino community. Many of her essays have won distinction and are recognized to be representative of the views and experiences of Chinese-Filipino women. James Na died of kidney failure on 9 August 2012. Teresita Ang-See R E F E R E N C E S Umpil Awards. “James Teng Choon Na”. Retrieved January 2011 from . 〈 〉，

《

》，

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〈 （ ） 〉， 《 》20120417 。Retrieved June 2012 from . 《 · 》。 ，2001， 253、431、659–60。

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Personal interview with James Na Teng Choon on 15 December 2010.

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Neo Chee Keong, Jack ( , Liang Zhiqiang, 1960– ) Film director, actor, comedian, Singapore

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aving made a number of top-grossing films, Jack Neo Chee Keong now sees his name to dominating Singapore’s commercial film industry. Neo’s initial fame came from his groundbreaking comic sketches on television before he embarked on a filmmaking career that encompasses directing, scriptwriting and acting. Some of Neo’s films have become national talking points on topical issues, such as the high-pressure education system and the marginalization of the Chineseeducated in a society dominated by the English language. Jack Neo Chee Keong, popularly known as Jack Neo, was born on 24 January 1960.The eldest in a family of four children, Neo grew up in humble circumstances in a village — Kampung Chai Chee — and had to help with household chores that included the rearing of pigs. He attended Yu Neng Primary School, Anglican High School before graduating from Tanjong Katong Technical School with “O” level (10th grade schooling) qualifications. Although he did not shine in his studies, he discovered in school a talent and liking for performing. At fifteen, he signed up for training classes offered by the then Radio and Television Singapore that paved the way for a freelance career acting or hosting shows on air. The early show business experience came in useful when the Music and Drama Company of the Singapore Armed Forces talent spotted him. By then the twenty-one year old Neo had joined the army as a professional soldier. He spent the next seven years in the army as a drama director. Writing scripts and training performers for the regular army road shows

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honed his entertainment skills. In his free time, Neo performed skits at private functions and on television. Beginning in 1990, Neo was on his way to attaining celebrity status as one half of Singapore’s top comic duo, the other being comedian Moses Lim. With Lim, he hosted a greatly successful weekly television variety show, Comedy Tonight. For this show, Neo created his two iconic characters: a bumbling old woman known as Liang Po Po, and a suburban middleaged housewife, Liang Simei, both of whom became larger than life for their acute depiction of the many foibles of the Singapore character. That Neo had to cross-dress for these female roles added to their piquancy and also pointed to his daring as a performer. Neo’s comedy was not just laughter-inducing jokes. Believing that comedy can play a role in important social discourses, he served up some biting satires that won him his fan base. Watching Eric Khoo’s Mee Pok Man (see entry on Eric Khoo) in 1995 set Neo thinking about the possibility of making Singapore films. His entry point into films was as an actor, first in a television drama, and then as a major character in Khoo’s 1997 feature, 12 Storeys. The celebrity television comedian impressed with his realistic portrayal of a buck-tooth hawker living in a typical Singapore public housing estate. In 1998, he proved he could direct by winning the Best Director award for his short film, Replacement Killers, at the Singapore Short Film Award of the Singapore International Film Festival. The year 1998 was a watershed in Neo’s nascent film career. Money No Enough (Neo wrote and acted) took in $5.8 million at the box office, making it the highest grossing Singapore film and the third highest grossing film in Singapore after international blockbusters, Titanic and Lost World.The theme of the average guy grappling with money woes

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served up with Neo’s vintage comic flair and adroit feel for heartland issues, spawned a spate of comedy films by others. The extraordinary public reception to Money No Enough was a seminal event in Singapore’s film industry. It and a few more of Neo’s blockbusters to come proved to movie distributors here that homegrown movies can have good box office and a future. In 1999, Neo directed his first full-length feature, That One No Enough. But it was his second directorial outing, I Not Stupid, in 2002 that brought him a measure of critical recognition alongside the film’s box office success.The film offers an engaging look at the pressures children have to negotiate when they are at the bottom of Singapore’s competitive education system. While critics baulk at considering it an artistic triumph, the film struck a chord with a great many people and, unlike his previous films which were too local to travel beyond Singapore and Malaysia, I Not Stupid was released in Hongkong, Taiwan and China. At the Golden Bauhinia Awards 2003 in Hongkong, the film was voted one of the 10 Best Chinese Films. Following I Not Stupid, Neo upped the artistic ante by reworking Majid Majidi’s classic Iranian film, Children of Heaven, into Homerun. This 2003 film has turned out to be Neo’s most critically acclaimed work, picking up a string of awards at international festivals. Homerun avoids the slapstick and comedy-skit pacing of Neo’s previous works. An ample production budget gave the finished work a high standard of technical polish, such as the attention paid to details of the story’s Singapore in a 1965 setting. The plot is about a brother and sister so poor, they had to share a pair of shoes, a storyline somewhat similar to Majidi’s original. However Neo again used his characters as allegories of topical national

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issues; in this instance, two gangs of children satirizing Singapore-Malaysia relations. For some, that comic touch came across as a more populist device than apposite humour, and resulted in a film that mixes arthouse direction with commercial objectives, not always to the best effect. The “arthouse versus commercial” debate dogs Neo’s accomplishments. Early in his film career, Neo foresaw his position in this dilemma when he said,“He (Eric Khoo) is very art. I am very commercial”. If watching Khoo’s Mee Pok Man had set him thinking about filmmaking, he also confessed to being perplexed by Khoo’s arthouse cinematic style, finding the pace too long and slow. In the six years since Homerun, Neo’s output of at least one film a year comprised entirely of his signature crowdpleasing comedies, most of which timed for release to catch the Chinese New Year festive crowd. Neo makes no apology for making commercial films. He said in a 2009 media interview: “I know what my audience wants and I will not sacrifice this to make movies for critics.” Despite critics dismissing his films as formulaic crowd pleasers, with little merit as cinematic art, Neo has his supporters who reject this elitist perspective.They contend that popular appeal should not make a film less valid as art. Like his comedy, Neo’s films deliver satiric jibes at both both state and society in Singapore. However the nature and extent of the critique is never powerful or hostile enough to risk the wrath of political authorities; neither would that be Neo’s intention. Nevertheless embedded in each of Neo’s films is also a potentially delicate narrative that taps into a long-standing cultural divide in Singapore’s Chinese population. Neo’s characters are more comfortable speaking Mandarin or a Chinese dialect than English,

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a reality not uncommon among heartlanders. He helps them to give vent to their sense of being eclipsed in a Westernized society where English dominates its key institutions. This has led an academic researcher (see Kenneth Paul Tan below) to describe Neo as an “organic intellectual” who “articulates his criticism of society and government in the name of the Chinese-speaking community that appears to be systematically disadvantaged by the dominance of the English language, Westernization in general and the inflow of foreigners that a globalized economy necessitates”. Despite his penchant to poke fun at authority, the popular director does not build his image on being fringe or radical. Except for a whiff of scandal in early 2010 involving an extramarital affair, Neo’s public image seems no different from that of the average citizen leading a regular life. Two Singapore prime ministers have commended his films at four National Day Rallies and Neo takes pride in that. In 2004, he received a Public Service Medal. The following year, he became the first film-maker to be awarded the Cultural Medallion, Singapore’s highest recognition for artistic achievements. Neo’s success story, in particular, the poor-boy-makes-good career trajectory, burnishes an image of Singapore as a place of opportunity for the talented and hardworking. Neo is proud that he has come so far, not through any formal training, but through the trial and error of practice. The growth of Neo’s career is also marked by an indefatigable capacity to try his hand at anything and this has given him an impressive reputation of versatility. He had published comics, composed songs, recorded video cassettes, written newspaper columns, done musicals and serious drama on stage and hosted radio programmes.

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Neo is married and has a daughter and three sons. Alongside his film-making, he helms J. Team Productions, one of Singapore’s pioneer production houses that he founded in 1995. Russell Heng Hiang Khng R E F E R E N C E S Chen, Andy. “Master of One”. The Straits Times, 9 February 2009. Ong Sor Fern. “What’s Neo, Jack?”. The Straits Times, 25 January 2006. Tan, Kenneth Paul, “Imagining the Chinese Community through the Films of Jack Neo”. In Cinema and Television in Singapore — Resistance in One Dimension by Kenneth Paul Tan, pp. 145–84. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2008. Uhde Jan and Yvonne Uhde-Ng. “Singapore Developments, Challenges, and Projections”. In Contemporary Asian Cinema, edited by Anne Tereska Ciecko, pp. 71–82. New York, Oxford: Berg. 2006. 〈 〉。《

10 》，1997 12 11 。

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》，

Neo Chwee Kok ( , Liang Shuiguo, 1931–87) World-class swimmer, Singapore

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eo Chwee Kok was an inspirational swimmer who entered the world of competitive swimming in 1949. Barely two years later, he thrust himself into the spotlight when the Asian Games were introduced. His performance in New Delhi, in 1951 winning four gold medals, is often represented as the pinnacle of his achievements and certainly served as reference points for all who followed. However, later in 1953, when he was able to challenge

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future Australian Olympic gold medalists, he achieved a world ranking of third place, his highest ever. This was the true period of his peak performances. His story is a mixture of humble stardom, misfortune, and probably unfulfilled promise. Neo Chwee Kok was born on 31 May 1931 in Singapore, but raised on Pulau Samboe, an Indonesian island seven miles from Singapore. He was the fifth child in a family of eight. He only began school in 1947 after the war. His family background provided few opportunities for success and yet in a Straits Times survey conducted in 1999, he was voted number 3 in the list of Singapore’s fifty Greatest Athletes. He came to prominence at the age of eighteen, a late age for a swimmer, but his impact was almost immediate.His representative swimming began with the Katong Boys Club and then the Chinese Swimming Club in 1949, under the tutelage of Koay Teck Choo and “Jubilee” Kee Soon Bee. At just 1.65m tall and weighing under 60 kg, he seemed unlikely to make an international impact, but he made up for these apparent limitations by demonstrating explosive power and determination. Neo’s first big competition was in 1950 at the Chinese Swimming Club gala. He recorded reasonable times in the 100-metre and 400-metre freestyle events, coming in at 64 seconds and 5:33.0 minutes respectively. From then on his progress was meteoric. He took the Singapore Amateur Swimming Association titles in the 200-metre and 400-metre freestyle events, and later set Malayan records in all the freestyle events. Although developing his own style, he was, predictably, compared with other Asian champions. In 1950 he earned a nickname that remained throughout his career. The Japanese record breaker, Hironoshin Furuhashi, had been dubbed the “Flying Fish”, so Neo was

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given the same title. He was also known as the “Boy Marvel”. By January 1951 he had arrived at the first stepping stone to international success when he qualified to represent Singapore. The first Asian Games, which were staged in New Delhi, provided him with a perfect arena to display his exceptional talent. He won four gold medals: three in the longer freestyle events, and one in the relay with Lionel Chee,Wiebe Wolters, and Barry Mitchell. Neo was later inducted into the Singapore Sports Council Hall of Fame on the basis of these medal-winning performances. The only question mark that existed over the results in New Delhi was that the Japanese did not enter a swimming team and so there was no opportunity for Neo to test himself against the likes of Furuhashi, the “Flying Fish” of Fujiyama. There was controversy when the team returned to Singapore due to issues of amateur status. P.F. de Souza, a representative of the Singapore Olympic and Sports Council (SOSC) was to present a gold watch to Neo to commemorate his achievements. Hasty last minute remonstrations led to a postponement. Later explanation focused on the need to ensure the preservation of Neo’s amateur status. It was not clear whether receiving a watch would represent “professional” gain and therefore rule him out of the “amateur” Olympics. Neo focused on his own challenges. He gave swimming demonstrations and trained hard, using blocks of wood to provide resistance and to strengthen his arm pull. During the year prior to the Helsinki Olympics in 1952, he had reduced his timings by 8–12 per cent (in the 100-metre event from 64.0 to 58.8 seconds, and in the 400-metre, from 5:33.0 to 4:51.0 minutes). He was one of Singapore’s best ever bets to win an Olympic medal. His 58.8 seconds

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timing was close to the 1948 Olympic Record of 58.7 seconds. There were still barriers to his success though. Ideally for him to acclimatize to the conditions in Helsinki would have required weeks, but only days were going to be available. He was used to swimming in salt water in Singapore, whereas the open-air pool at the Olympics would be fresh water. A simpler problem to solve concerned which of the events he should enter. In Helsinki Neo learned much about international competition and realized that there was no substitute for good physical and mental preparation. The water and air temperatures provided a severe shock to his system. He also quickly learned of the competitive atmosphere that existed, when he experienced trouble with a Russian coach who claimed that his swimmer had exclusive rights to one of the lanes. Neo rightly felt that all lanes were open to all swimmers. His ability and potential were quickly noticed by many of the western coaches. However his lack of experience and aspects of technique brought disappointment. On 26 July 1952, there were a record sixty-one swimmers in the competition. In Heat 2 of the 100-metre freestyle event, Neo could only manage third place with 1:00.6 seconds. His ultimate ranking was 27th. To his credit he made no excuses. In Heat 2 of the 400metre freestyle event, he came in third again, with a time of 4:57.5 minutes, which was 24.2 seconds behind Japan’s Hironoshin Furuhashi and the Russian Viktor Drobinsky. A time of 4:55.1 minutes (four seconds slower than his best in Singapore) would have qualified him for the semi-finals. Neo himself attributed his lack of success to three factors: his nervousness, the cruel weather, and his inability to dive and turn as well as his international rivals. Had he swum his best 100-metre time from Singapore

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he would have won the bronze medal. At the end of the year he was voted third in a Sportsman of the Year contest, behind Ong Poh Lim (badminton) and Chay Weng Yew (weightlifting). The Olympic experience was a motivating one and Neo received support in his quest to improve. A strong association grew up with swimming in Australia. In August 1953, a future Olympic gold medallist, Jon Henricks, visited Singapore. In a challenge race at the Chinese Swimming Club, Neo returned a national record time of 57.4 seconds, behind Henricks’ 56.9 seconds. It was his inability to master the tumble turn that proved to be the real difference between the two sprinters. A new opportunity was revealed. In January 1954, having bettered his record to 57.2 seconds, Neo, accompanied by Kee Soon Bee, was invited to compete in Australia. The six-week tour provided him with the top-class opposition that was required to sustain his progress and prepare him for the Asian Games later in the year. In Melbourne Neo defeated John Devitt, who would be the Olympic silver medalist in Melbourne in 1956. After competing in eleven events across the country, he returned home and after achieving a new personal best of 56.9 in the 100-metre, thus equalling Clark Scholes’ winning time at the Helsinki Olympics. In what was to be the ultimate test for Neo, the 1954 Asian Games brought him back into competition with the Japanese swimmers. He claimed a bronze medal in the 100-metre freestyle event, with a time of 58.6 seconds, behind Suzuki (58.2) and Tanagawa (58.4) of Japan. Again the vital factor was the limitation imposed by his turn. As there were no Empire Games in 1954 for Singapore because of financial constraints, the only target remaining for Neo was another

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tilt at the Olympic Games. But there was to be no renewed challenge. He did not participate in the Melbourne Games, which was a great relief to the Japanese swimmers, who considered him a threat to their dominance of the Asian pool. He had taken a job as a superintendent at the Yan Kit Pool, knowing that his amateur status would then dissolve.The practical exigencies of the time obliged him to seek employment. He turned to coaching and placed great emphasis on giving his students a solid foundation. After spending many years helping to groom new generations of swimming champions, he received a six-month scholarship to learn more about coaching at the Australian Institute of Sport in 1983. Neo continued to be an inspirational coach until he passed away on 23 January 1987. In May 2011 he was posthumously awarded a medallion to commemorate his appearance at the Helsinki Olympic Games. As one of Singapore’s 167 acknowledged Olympians since 1936, he had been assigned the number 11 in the chronology by the association known as Olympians Singapore. Nick Aplin R E F E R E N C E S Aplin, N.G., D. Waters, and M.L. Leong. Singapore Olympians: The Complete Who’s Who 1936–2004. Singapore: Singapore National Olympic Council, 2005. Mok Sin Pin. “Chwee Kok is ready to retire”. The Straits Times, 20 April 1956, p. 16. Singapore Sports Council. “Neo Chwee Kok”. Sports 11, no. 10 (November/December 1983): 4. ISSN 02173132. The Straits Times.“Chwee Kok swims 100 Metres in 56.9”. 18 April 1954, p. 19. ———. “SOSC decision today”. 12 June 1951, p. 12. ———. “Souvenir Watch for Neo Chwee Kok”. 27 March 1951, p. 7.

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Newn Ah Foott, George ( ,Yin Yafo, 1894–1990) Businessman, national leader, philanthropist, Brunei

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eorge Newn Ah Foott was a successful businessman venturing widely in different areas, and was also a leader of the nation, being appointed to organise a civilian government after the Japanese occupation, and held several appointments in the Brunei Government. He was also very involved in supporting education, even recognized by the Catholic Church for his contributions, particularly to the Saint George’s School. Newn was born in 1894 in Waichow ), Guangdong Province of China. Due to ( poor family circumstances in his hometown, at the mere age of 8, before arriving at Brunei, his mother sent him to Biliton Island, situated between Borneo Island and Sumatra of Indonesia, to visit his uncle who worked at the island’s tin mines. Although he was young, he was a considerate and helpful boy. While at the tin mines, he worked hard and was keen to assist his uncle. At such an age, he understood that success was the product of hard work and perseverance. Newn later stepped foot at Sarawak and was educated in Kuching. He also got married in Sarawak shortly before leaving for Brunei. In 1916, at the age of 22, Newn arrived at Brunei during the reign of Sultan Haji Omar Ali Saifuddien Saadul Khairi Waddien. He worked for the Island Trading Company Limited, which had a cutch-making factory. ‘Cutch’ is the grounded bark of mangrove trees, which after being soaked and boiled and then dried, becomes a form of dye that can be used as base colouring for cloth fabrics and

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

fishing nets. Newn was talented in business and had a strong drive to succeed. He was not a person who was keen to work under a superior and was determined to be a leader. Therefore, while working for the company, Newn established a small business selling stationery and carbonated drink such as “ Orange”. He was an intelligent man who finds every opportunity to expand his business. His eldest son, Francis Newn, said there were hardly any cars in Brunei at the that time, and so George Newn came up with a brilliant idea to establish a bicycle-hiring business, which was first of its kind in Brunei Darussalam. At that time, he had about half a dozen bicycles that were hired out for between 5 and 10 cents per hour, which was quite lucrative in those days. In 1943, during the Japanese occupation, commodities such as sugar were scarce and the occupying forces ordered Newn and an English engineer W. Dougherty to process palm sugar from the abundant palm trees found throughout Brunei. The Palm sugar was rationed and made available to the public. When liberation arrived in 1945, he was asked to organise a civilian government. He was also asked to organize the production of “bakau” or mangrove firewoods to be exported to Hong Kong. Newn was a devoted businessman who further continued in the expansion of his business and had grown to deal vastly in board engines, cars and agricultural chemicals later in his career. Apart from his business, Newn was a national leader as well. He was a Member of State Legislative Council, Brunei Darussalam, and was also a member of the Brunei Public Service Commission and that of the Municipal Board’s Committee. Although Newn had neither university qualification nor high school qualification, he was able to write and speak

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English fluently, on par with those university graduates he worked with. Although his educational level was limited, Newn ensured that all his children were well-educated in Kuching as during that time, Brunei Darussalam’s education system was very limited. Newn had strong belief that education could cater for a better future of various communities in Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of Brunei Darussalam. Seeing the shortage of schools and educational opportunities for the people in Brunei, Newn founded the Saint George’s School, Bandar Seri Begawan. Before the land was donated by Newn, the Catholic school was first started by a resident priest named Fr Piet de Wit in a rented house owned by Mr Kay in Jalan Padang, which also housed a chapel and the living quarters of the priest. The first building for the school was constructed in 1941, at Kumbang Pasang, on the land donated by Newn. After the war in 1945, the Saint George’s School at Bandar Seri Begawan was re-established and managed by Newn, with his daughters as teachers. After World War II, the school was named after him in his honor. During that era, the School was far different from what we see today. It was then a simple thatch building with attap roof; now, it is made of concrete and well-furnished with air-conditioned classrooms. Furthermore, Saint George’s School has now expanded to provide high school education up to the GCE “O” levels. The School can be considered as one of Brunei’s prestigious schools now where most parents would want their children to attend. For his services rendered to the Catholic Church, and more particularly to the Saint George’s School, in 1972, Newn was conferred the Papal Decoration “Per Ecclesiet Pontifice 22”. Newn finally retired in 1979 at the age of 85, leaving his business to his children. He

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passed away at the ripe old age of 96, in 1990. His 132 children, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren and their families are scattered all over the world, including Singapore, America, England and Australia. Yu Chin Chai R E F E R E N C E S Mahari Ismail. “From cutch man to the state legco”. The Borneo Bulletin, 23 May 1987, p. 16. St George’s School, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam website. (accessed February 2012). “St George’s School, Brunei”. Wikipedia. (accessed February 2012). Personal interview of one of George Newn Ah Foott ‘s sons, 2010.

Ng Eng Teng ( , Huang Rongting, 1934–2001) Sculpture artist, Singapore

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g Eng Teng is an internationally renowned sculptor who remains highly regarded for his landmark contributions to Singapore’s sculpture art scene. His largescale figurative sculptures with introspective and whimsical interpretations of humanist themes can be seen in many public locations in Singapore, adding vibrancy and texture to Singapore’s streetscape. If one were to drop by Orchard Road, Bras Basah Road, Changi Airport, among other areas, one would see some of his best known works, such as the Mother and Child bronze sculpture, and The Explorer. Born in 1934, Ng enjoyed making figures using plasticine during his primary school years. After completing his Senior Cambridge in 1955, he had his first foray into formal art

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education in the form of painting and sculpture classes at the British Council. A year later, he joined the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, but discontinued his studies a few months later due to illness. He then spent some time in Kuala Trengganu, Malaysia, recuperating under the care of his uncle, Dr Ng Yew Seng. In 1958, Ng worked as a trainee artist for Shaw Brothers and then Fortune Advertising. In 1958, he had the opportunity to study under Liu Kang, who was already well known in local art circles at the time. In 1959, Ng re-enrolled at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts to hone his skills and attended classes taught by Chen Chong Swee, Georgette Chen, Chen Wen Hsi, and Cheong Soo Pieng. Going beyond the boundaries of the art curriculum, he experimented with art in various media. His interest in sculpture went a step further after he met British sculptress Jean Bullock, who exposed him to sculpture art and the use of ciment fondu. At that point in time, ciment fondu was a relatively new sculpting medium. Ng’s budding talent and potential as a artist was not lost on Georgette Chen. During frequent visits to her place, the pair chatted about art aesthetics and Ng’s eye was often drawn to the ceramic pieces on display there. Noting his keen interest and talent in working with clay, Chen encouraged Ng to further his studies in sculpture arts and work with renowned sculptors to realize his potential. She mentioned two places he should touch base with — the Potteries in Stoke-on-Trent in England, and St Ives, where the studio of ceramic artist Bernard Leach was located. In 1961, Ng won the Gold Medal in the Tagore Centenary Open Painting Competition. After completing his studies at the academy in 1962, he took up Chen’s advice and went to study at The Potteries in Stoke-on-Trent in England. He undertook research on pottery

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design at the North Staffordshire College of Technology/Stoke-on-Trent College of Art between 1962 and 1963. In 1964, he studied at the Farnham School of Art in Surrey, deepening his knowledge of ceramics and sculpture. On graduating from Farnham, he worked with the Carrigaline Pottery in County Cork, designing tiles, hollowware, and tableware. The commercial industry began to take notice of Ng’s talent when his commercial designs were exhibited at the Arts and Crafts Centre of Britain and at selected spring fairs. His designer products garnered a positive response in the local market and he received good publicity in the Irish press. In 1966, he received a diploma from the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers (MSIAD, now known as the Chartered Society of Designers). In the late 1960s, Ng returned to Singapore to pursue his passion for artistic sculpting. With his father’s support, he set up a workshop and began his ceramic practice, teaching pottery making. He designed a series of works for sale using slip casting and press moulding, but this venture met with little success. He then decided to look for a job and with the help of fellow artist Vincent Hoisington, he joined the International Planned Parenthood Federation in 1968, where he worked as a visual aids officer for a year. However, sculpting was never far from Ng’s mind and he spent whatever time he could on sculpting individual pieces. On 4 September 1970, he staged his first solo exhibition at the lecture hall of the National Library. The five-day exhibition was officially opened by minister of state for labour, Sia Kah Hui, and jointly sponsored by the Singapore Art Society, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, and the Society of Chinese Artists. Ng’s works were met with critical acclaim during the exhibition and, from then on, sculpting became his full-time passion and career.

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As the years progressed, he became known throughout Asia and Australia for his sculpting talent. Ng has exhibited his pieces at numerous art events in Singapore, Japan, Australia, Taiwan, and Korea. His commissioned works can be found at the Garden Hotel, Pulau Ayer Chawan, Plaza Singapura, Orchard Road, Fort Canning Park, Changi International Airport, and the Singapore Art Museum. One of Ng’s most notable international achievements was a three-metre sculpture piece for the 1988 Seoul Olympics. A replica of an earlier piece entitled, “Portrait”, Ng completed it in under a month to meet the tight time frame imposed by his client, the Paris Arts Centre. In 1981, his contributions to the local art community and remarkable achievements were recognized by the Singapore Government, which awarded him the Cultural Medallion. He went on to receive numerous other awards, including the ASEAN Cultural Award for Visual Arts (Sculpture) in 1990, the Pingat Apad Award in 1991, an honorary doctorate from the National University of Singapore in 1988, and the Public Service Star at the National Day Awards in 1999. On 16 February 2001, Ng was honoured with the Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award at a dinner ceremony held at the Singapore Art Museum. He was presented with a commemorative Montblanc pen and a cheque for E15,000 (S$23,800) to be given to an arts project of his choice. This award was given to Ng in acknowledgement of his generous donation of a total of 1,000 of his paintings, drawings, sculptures, machettes, and ceramics to the National University of Singapore in 1997 and 1998. Ng had decided to part with these items so they might be put to good use in an education institution for the education of aspiring artists. Ng’s health took a turn for the worse in 1995 when he was diagnosed with kidney

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problems. However, few knew of his condition until 1998, after he had a heart bypass operation. His health deteriorated over the next two years and he passed away from pneumonia on 4 November 2001 at Studio 106, a kampung house at 106 Joo Chiat Place, located directly opposite his residence at unit 127. G. Uma Devi R E F E R E N C E S Koh, T.T.B. (ed.). Singapore: The Encyclopaedia. Singapore: Editions Didier Millet in association with the National Heritage Board, 2006. Singapore Art Society. Contemporary Singapore Artists. Singapore, 1989. Tay, Marie Ann. “The Sculptor Who Went to the Olympics”. Singapore Tatler, pp. 89–91. T. K., Sabapathy. Ng Eng Teng: Art and Thoughts. Singapore: NUS Museums, 1998. The Straits Times. “Portrait of An Artist: A Legacy Sculpted in Stone”. Singapore, 6 November 2001. ———. “Pioneer Sculptor Gets Arts Patron Award”. Singapore, 21 February 2001.

Ng Keng Siang ( , Huang Qingxiang, 1908–67) Architect, Singapore

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g Keng Siang was the most prominent of Singapore’s first generation of locally born, university educated architects. He ran an extremely successful practice, and had a career spanning pre- and post-war periods. Ng secured major residential, commercial, and civic commissions from the local business community, which saw in him an alternative to expatriate architects. By competently executing these high-profile projects, he deepened the credibility of local architects vis-à-vis Europeans, in the eyes of the public, clients, authorities, and a younger generation

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of architects. His most famous works were Asia Insurance Building, then Southeast Asia’s tallest structure, and the Nanyang University, the first overseas Chinese university. In recognition of his stature, Ng was elected founding president of the Society of Malayan Architects. In 1958, he launched a new career as hotelier of the Biltmore Hotel, before passing away less than a decade later from liver cancer. Born in 1908 in Singapore, Ng was the second son of Ng Siak Khuan, the Teochew proprietor of Poh Kong Chye jewellers. After attending the elite Anglo-Chinese School, where he nurtured a penchant for drawing, he chose to work as an architectural apprentice with S. Y. Wong & Co., rather than joining the family business. With the support of his father, and savings from his own work at Chinatown night markets, he studied at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London, which provided an education steeped in the classical tradition. Ng excelled at Bartlett, where he won the Alfred Bossom and Arthur Davis medals in 1935. After graduating, he also pursued post-graduate studies at Columbia University in New York. On his return to Singapore in 1938, he joined the premier architectural firm, Swan & Maclaren, alongside other newly returned Singaporeans such as Robert Kan and Koh Cheng Yam. Ng registered with the Board of Architects in Singapore in 1939 and went on to become the first Singapore member of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Soon after registering, Ng launched his own firm. In just a few years he had the biggest one-man local firm in town. Ng was ambitious and had a strong entrepreneurial streak. Rather than remaining within the confines of an established European practice, he leveraged his academic and professional credentials to strike out boldly on his own, cultivate his own clientele, and

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actively pursue projects. His commercial success derived in part from his sociable personality. Architectural historian Seow Eu Jin, a personal acquaintance, described him as “tolerant in most matters (with) an amiable toothy smile”, More strategically, he “entertained lavishly, maintained wide social and professional contacts… by the early 1950s he could count amongst his clients the high and mighty of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce” (Chow). Ng’s designs were eclectic. His pre-war projects were mainly individual houses for affluent members of the Chinese community, as well as shophouses and speculative housing for property developers. Many of these bore vernacular English elements, and could be described as fairly traditional. In this period, he steadily built up his credibility with the business community and was rewarded with higher profile jobs after World War II. His Ngee Ann Building in Orchard Road was among the firsthigh rise private apartment blocks in Malaya. The project was noteworthy for promoting the idea that flats could be desirable homes for the middle and even upper-middle classes. Indeed, some of Singapore’s most prominent architects, such as Lim Chong Keat and William Lim, lived and worked there. In contrast to the stylistically modernist Ngee Ann Building, other projects, such as Framroz Aerated Water Factory or the Anglo-Chinese School clock tower, contained aesthetic flourishes that harked back to the prewar art deco trend. Even more at variance were Ng’s civic projects for the Chinese community, including the Teochew Association, and the Nanyang University, which were essentially modern buildings, capped with Chinese roofs and related ornaments. These projects pointed to Ng’s pragmatic and non-dogmatic approach to design. Ng’s stylistic diversity led some to consider that, notwithstanding his successful career, “he never attained the ranks of the

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‘mainstream modernists’. He was an architect in transition, caught somewhere between the modified Classicism of the earlier part of the 20th century and the Modern Movement” (Edwards and Keys). In the post-war period, when younger architects were pushing for more modern and progressive design, Ng’s reticence towards modern architecture seemed conservative. Nonetheless Ng’s firm was a prolific practice that was responsible for the design of many important public buildings. When he passed away, The Straits Times hailed him for producing some of the most imposing landmarks of Singapore. Ng spent much of his time meeting and negotiating with clients, lawyers, and building authorities, thus leaving much of the firm’s design work to his draughtsmen.This may help to explain his firm’s diversity in architectural expression. It also signals another important aspect of his career — as a local architect who often contested the colonial building authorities over regulatory matters. Indeed, Ng was most proud of the Asia Insurance Building, in large part because of the regulatory battles he fought and won against the colonial authorities. This included securing permission for the building to rise above the Cathay Building, which was hitherto the island’s highest structure. Alfred Wong, a leading architect from a younger generation, later eulogized Ng as the “first Singapore architect to prove his mettle… one of the few bold architects who dared to stand up against authority”. Towards the end of his professional career, Ng began to assume a more prominent role in wider professional matters. In 1958, a group of local architects set up the Society of Malayan Architects (SMA), following their unsuccessful bid to take over the Europeandominated Institute of Architects of Malaya. As the doyen of the local architectural fraternity, Ng was elected the first president of this body,

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a precursor of today’s Singapore Institute of Architects. During his term of office, Ng called on the Singapore Government to establish a university-level architecture school. SMA also called for the formal recognition of the Board of Architects. SMA was subsequently recognized as the sole body representing the profession in Singapore, and Ng was nominated a member of the board. Around the time of his retirement from practice, Ng was appointed a juror for the high-profile Singapore Conference Hall design competition, which is considered one of the most important modern architectural projects in Singapore. In his personal life, Ng was a man of his times and class. He raised two sons and a daughter with his wife Sheila at the house he designed in Pasir Panjang. Beyond his urbane lifestyle, Ng enjoyed rural pleasures, such as visits to the seaside with his family. He was also a gun club member and used to hunt flying foxes in Malaysia. In cultural matters, he had a foot in both the east and the west. On the one hand, he was an avowed Anglophile, famous for always being immaculately turned out in his bow tie, blazer, and fedora hat. But he could also be very traditional, for example, in matters of filial piety. He made sure to honour his stepmother appropriately, and, likewise, expected suitable deference from his children. Ng’s prolific career endowed his country with some of its best known landmarks. The Nanyang University Administrative Building is now a national monument of Singapore, while the Asia Insurance Building was the first local skyscraper to be gazetted for conservation. Other works of national importance include the Singapore Badminton Hall and the Lim Bo Seng Memorial. Beyond these icons, Ng’s key contribution to Singapore’s architecture was to demonstrate to the public, government, peers, and a younger generation, that emerging local-born architects could be as qualified

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and capable as established expatriates. In this, he laid the foundation for the next stage in Singapore’s architectural history. Dinesh Naidu R E F E R E N C E S Chow, Fong Leng. “Ng Keng Siang (1908–1967): Singapore’s Pioneer Architect”. Elective study, University of Singapore, 1978/79. Edwards, Norman and Peter Keys. Singapore: A Guide to Buildings, Streets, Places. Singapore: Times Books International, 1988. Huang, Lucy. “Our Proudest Buildings Are This Man’s Creations”. In The Straits Times, 4 October 1959, p. 6. Seow, Eu Jin. “Architectural Development in Singapore”. Ph.D. thesis, University of Melbourne, 1973. Wong, Alfred. “The Life and Times of Ng Keng Siang”. In SIAJ: Journal of the Singapore Institute of Architects, no. 22 (March 1968): 10.

Ng Teng Fong ( , Huang Tingfang, 1928–2010) Real estate tycoon, Singapore

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g Teng Fong was a China-born real estate tycoon, founder of Far East Organization, and Singapore’s richest man at the time of his death. ), Ng Teng Fong was born in Putian ( in China’s Fujian Province in 1928. He was the eldest of 11 children. In 1934, the Ng family moved to Singapore and his father set up a soya sauce factory and grocery store in Weld Road. With little formal education, Ng worked at his parents’ factory and as a bicycle repairman for a while. As the eldest son, he was expected to carry on the family business, but Ng had other ideas. In the 1950s, he ventured into business for himself, opening a provision store. Unfortunately, his business was a failure. Undeterred, Ng decided to enter the

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property market. In 1960 he established Far East Organization, the company that would be his flagship in years to come. Even though it was a fledgling outfit, Ng selected a grandiosesounding name as he was inspired by two other highly successful business empires of that time, Shaw Organisation and Cathay Organisation. In 1962, Ng managed to scrape together enough money — reputedly with the help of billionaire Eliya Thamby — to develop a medium-sized housing estate in Jalan Pacheli (between Li Hwan and Tai Hwan Gardens). Each of the 72 single-storey terrace houses sold for $20,000. Two years later, Ng ventured into a smaller housing project — 35 terrace and semi-detached houses at Jalan Tua Kong in the Siglap area, and in 1969, he developed Watten Estate at Bukit Timah. By this time he had made a small fortune and he also built himself a large house in Watten Estate which he named ‘Ng’s Mansion’. By the 1980s, as chairman of Far East Organization, Ng had become the largest private landowner and developer in Singapore. Through Lucky Realty, the nucleus of Far East Organization, he owned and developed one-fifth of all private property development in Singapore. His presence was so strong in Orchard Road that he was nicknamed ‘The King of Orchard Road’. His first Orchard Road venture was Forum Singapura Hotel, which was built in 1963 for $5.5 million. Ng went on to develop Hilton Hotel, Lucky Plaza (1978), Far East Plaza (1983), Far East Shopping Centre (1974), Orchard Shopping Centre, Claymore Plaza (1984) and Orchard Plaza. Ng’s other nickname was ‘Lucky’, earned on account of the role luck played in his early days as a developer. One of his companies was Lucky Realty, and he named the streets at the Bedok estate he developed Lucky Heights and Lucky View, not to mention Lucky Plaza in

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Orchard Road. His stable of horses was also named Lucky Stables. A quiet, reclusive man, Ng made headline news in 1980 when he priced the apartments in Lucky Plaza at more than $500 per square foot, literally doubling the prices of apartments overnight. The following year, he was in the news again when the shop units in his Far East Plaza were sold within two hours of release, setting a new market record for Singapore property. Ng was not only an aggressive builder but an innovative one as well. His complexes featured at number of firsts. For example, his Far East Shopping Centre was the first mall to feature an atrium and external escalators while Lucky Plaza was the first with external bubblelifts. Ng made his first foray into the Hong Kong property market in 1970, establishing a number of companies that would become part of his Sino Group. In the mid-1970s, he bought a piece of reclaimed land in Tsim Sha Tsui East, anticipating that this wasteland would soon become a thriving retail and commercial district. Ng’s instincts proved right and in the early 1980s, when the Hong Kong property market crashed, he moved more aggressively to acquire more land. In many ways, Ng’s successes in Singapore helped fund his Hong Kong ventures. By 1994, it was estimated that Ng and his family owned about HK$60 billion worth of property in Hong Kong, twice the value of the properties in Ng’s listed Sino Land. Among Ng’s well-known developments in Hong Kong are the Conrad Hong Kong and Royal Pacific hotels, Central Plaza in Wanchai and The Centrium in Central. Ng’s rise in the business world has not always been smooth sailing. In the early 1970s, he and his brother Ng Boon Siang were charged with misrepresentation over share dealings in connection with Forum Singapura Hotel, of which they were directors. Ng was made to

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pay two fines and contribute an undisclosed sum to charity. He was also forced to buy out minority shareholders at more than twice the market value of their shares. During this time, a local bank withdrew credit facilities to Ng and he nearly went bankrupt. However, he was able to arrange new lines of credit with the Moscow Narodny Bank and continue building his company. In the 1990s, Ng gradually relinquished control over day-to-day operations of his companies to his two eldest sons: Robert Ng Chee Siong and Philip Ng Chee Tat. Robert was placed in charge of the Sino Group in Hong Kong and Philip in charge of the Far East Organization in Singapore. Even so, he continued to keep a close eye on business and flew into Hong Kong weekly to confer with his son Robert. In 1995, Ng was once again in the news with his takeover battle with Malaysian tycoon Quek Leng Chan for control over Yeo Hiap Seng, a well-known beverage manufacturer and bottler which also possessed a large land bank. Ng won. A frugal man who worked 18-hour days, Ng was nevertheless prepared to splurge on his two hobbies — horses and luxury cars. In January 1993, he donated $1 million to help establish the Yeoh Ghim Seng Professorship in Surgery at the National University of Singapore. In May 2011, Ng’s family donated S$125 million towards the building of what was to be the Jurong General Hospital.The Government decided to rename the hospital the Ng Teng Fong Hospital in his memory. This caused a huge public furore as the donation constituted only a tenth of the hospital’s construction cost. Although a prominent figure in business circles, Ng guarded his privacy jealously. He shunned personal interviews and was very seldom photographed. He died on 2 February 2010 after suffering a cerebral haemorrhage following a fall at home. His funeral was

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attended by the most important business leaders and politicians on the island, and as a mark of his accomplishments, his cortege passed by Far East Plaza and Lucky Plaza. At the time of his death, Forbes magazine estimated that he was worth S$11.3 billion, making him the wealthiest person in Singapore. He was survived by his wife Tan Kim Choo and seven children. An eighth child — their eldest — had been given away at birth as the Ngs were then too poor to support themselves. Kevin Y.L.Tan R E F E R E N C E S “Failure did not deter Ng Teng Fong”. The Straits Times, 12 July 1996, p. 2. Melanie Chew. Leaders of Singapore. Singapore: Resource Press, 1996, pp. 225–27. “Over 500 bid farewell to Ng Teng Fong”. The Straits Times, 7 February 2010. “The down-to-earth style of Ng Teng Fong”. Sunday Times, 29 March 1981, p. 9. “Will Ng make the right moves again?” Business Times, 10 November 1987, p. 2. Wong Kim Hoh. “The king of Orchard Road”. The Straits Times, 3 February 2010.

Ngan Ching Wen ( ,Yan Qingwen, 1932–2011) Community leader, social activist, entrepreneur, philanthropist, Malaysia

N

gan was significant in the Chinese Malaysian movement for democracy and human rights in the 1990s, and was a strong advocate of vernacular education, an entrepreneurial industrialist, and a philanthropist. His childhood encounters in the Anti Japanese War with Japanese atrocities, teenage resistance of injustice in vernacular education, and experience of being

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discriminated against in his early twenties had moulded his character which upheld justice; he later became a philanthropist. Ngan Ching Wen’s town of dialect origin is Gutian in northern Fujian, China. He was one of the central figures in the human rights movement supported by the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall in the late 1990s. He was also one of the Chung Ling student activists in 1955, protesting against the school being converted to a “conforming school”. He pursued his university education at the Nanyang University in Singapore and after graduation, studied law at the National University of Singapore. He was chairman of the 5th World Foochow Organization in 1998, chairman of the Gutian Association in Sitiawan from 1973, chairman of the Sitiawan Nan Hwa Secondary School’s board of governors from 1973, chairman of the Chinese Resource Centre for four years, president of the KL and Selangor Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry for four years (after serving as deputy president for four years), deputy president of the Associated Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Malaysia for four years (before that, he was secretary general for ten years), president of the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall from 1991 to 1994, president of Malaysia-China Chamber of Commerce for eight years, committee member of the Malaysia National Economic Consultative Committee for four years, and adviser to China’s economic development committee. Ngan Ching Wen was born in 1932 in Air Tawar, Perak, the second child of Ngan Piew ) and Yu Sok Moi ( ). In Kong ( 1910, Ngan Piew Kong took his passage via sea to Malaya and later lived with his family in a rubber plantation in Air Tawar, which was then a newly opened settlement.There was no water and electricity supply and the only access to town was a mud path. The means of transport

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then was the bicycle and bullock cart. Ngan’s father worked for the British who owned the rubber plantation. His duties included land clearing, rubber planting, and weeding using the axe and hoe. Ngan’s mother was a full-time housewife. Ngan had two brothers and three sisters. Ngan’s primary school education at Min ) in Air Tawar was Te Primary School ( interrupted by the Japanese invasion of Malaya during the Second World War. When school resumed in 1946, he repeated standard four at the age of fourteen. After completing standard six, he joined Nan Hwa Secondary School ) at Sitiawan and studied for two ( years before entering Chung Ling Secondary ) in Penang, the school School ( which many young ethnic Chinese throughout Southeast Asia aspired to enter at that time. During the Japanese Occupation, the Ngan family lived by the jungle, planting rice and vegetables, as well as rearing poultry for self-subsistence. Some of his father’s friends were members of the Malayan People’s AntiJapanese Army (MPAJA) who used the jungle as their hideout. As such the Ngan family’s house became the meeting and resting place of the MPAJA. Little Ngan was then a great admirer of the MPAJA members who dared fight the armed Japanese troops. The boy inevitably had to help his father in cultivating rice and vegetables which later led him into the oil palm industry in 1968. Ngan’s childhood experience during the Japanese Occupation led him to develop courage in resisting injustice. After the Japanese were defeated in 1945, the British returned to Malaya. Not long after that, the MPAJA, which was in close alliance with the British during the Japanese Occupation, fell out with the latter. A state of emergency was declared in 1948. Ngan’s father was detained in 1949 due to his support of the

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MPAJA. He was released a year later. Ngan’s teenage experience also contributed to his strong character in resisting injustice. While at Chung Ling Secondary School, Ngan, much older than his classmates, was a hostel resident. In 1955, during Ngan’s third school term in senior three, was involved in the student boycott of classes in protest against the education policy. The boycott was led by hostel residents who were able to meet and plan frequently. The education policy was aimed at converting the Chinese secondary schools’ medium of instruction from Chinese to English. Ethnic Chinese educationists as well as the local ethnic Chinese community also protested against the policy. The Chung Ling protest eventually spread to Chinese secondary schools throughout Malaya. Ngan’s experience in Chung Ling was a microcosm of the history of Malaya and Chinese education in Malaya under British colonial rule. As the people of Malaya were fighting for freedom from British colonial rule, the Malayan Communist Party was one of the major forces fighting against the British. Chinese schools then were perceived by many as a hotbed of communism for the youths. For his part in the Chung Ling student boycott of classes, Ngan was detained for more than ten days and then expelled from school and banished from Penang. He was unable to finish his final term in Senior Three and was not awarded the graduation certificate. The Chung Ling experience inculcated in Ngan a spirit of democracy, a deep love for the mother-tongue education, the will to uphold justice and the daring to oppose suppression. While studying at Chung Ling in Senior Three, Ngan had sat for the High School Examination in the middle of the year 1955. He was awarded the High School Examination Certificate and taught at Min Te primary school for less than a

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year. In 1957, he enrolled in an Englishmedium school and sat for the Cambridge Examination. In 1958 he studied at the Nanyang University in Singapore majoring in economics and graduated in 1960. An international company then employed him as an accountant at a salary of $150 a month. The going rate for University of Malaya graduates were $500 for the same job. Both Ngan and his father were greatly annoyed at the discrimination. In 1962, he left the job to study law at the University of Malaya (later renamed the University of Singapore and then the National University of Singapore). He graduated in 1966 and was called to the Bar in December the same year. Together with a Nanyang University friend, he set up legal firms at Ipoh and Sitiawan in 1967. In 1968, Ngan ventured into the oil palm plantation business. He started by forming a joint partnership with about thirty friends and bought a piece of one-thousand-acre land for oil palm planting in Teluk Intan. At the initial stage, Ngan worked at the plantation during weekends. In 1973, he terminated his legal practice to go full force into the corporate sector and property construction. Since 1992, he has been investing in China, initially in the manufacture of cellophane tapes, property development, and infrastructure construction in cities such as Shanghai, Shenyang, Chengdu, Guiyang, and Kunming. He later invested in land development in the western region of China. While serving in the Chinese Resource Centre (Malaysia) as governor, he proposed the setting up of an endowment fund of RM100,000 for the operation of the centre. The establishment of the centre was reflective of ethnic Chinese Malaysian entrepreneurs’ concern for academic and scholarship development in the ethnic Chinese community in a nation where the government inclined

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towards promoting Malay scholarship. While he was president of the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall (SCAH), he encouraged young professionals to work together in promoting human rights and resistance to injustice in society. It was during this period that SCAH worked jointly with other NGOs regardless of ethnicity. Ngan’s support for Chinese education can be seen from his strong financial support for Nan Hwa Secondary School in Sitiawan, his concern with its ability to attract students and the advancement of its students in pursuing higher education overseas and succeeding in the job market. He was also one of the motivators who initiated the Revival Movement of Chinese independent secondary schools in 1972. While serving at the Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry at the state and the national levels, he supported the government’s efforts in promoting joint ventures between Malay and Chinese entrepreneurs. Being an entrepreneur, developer, and industrialist, Ngan was adept at capturing the China market after the Malayan Communist Party and the Malaysian Government signed a peace pact on 2 December 1989, ending all travel restrictions to China. The Government of China appointed him adviser to China’s Economic Development Committee in acknowledgement of his capabilities. Ngan was a philanthropist who contributed generously to charity. In recognition of his contribution and service to society and nation in his many capacities, the King of Malaysia conferred on him the titles of “JSM” and “Tan Sri”. Ngan worked closely with his associate, Tan Sri Lim Guan Teik, in social activities and investments. One of Ngan’s significant investments in China was the RMB50million road connecting Gutian, his town of

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) in 1995–96 dialect origin, to Shuikou ( which the locals have dubbed the “lifeline”. His biggest donation projects include the building of the RMB960,000 tar road ) with Kunshan ( connecting Jixiang ( ), the construction of the Biaokunlou ( ) building at the Kunshan ( ) Primary ) building at School, the Xuemeilou ( ) Primary School (both in the Wushan ( remembrance of his parents) and the cement ). road connecting Kunshan to Kunbian ( The total sum he donated amounted to more than RMB2 million. Besides being an industrialist and philanthropist, Ngan was reputedly a social activist. In 1998, he led NGOs in submitting a memorandum to the Indonesian Embassy in protest of discrimination against ethnic Chinese women, condemning it as an act of serious violation of human rights. In 1999, the year of Malaysian general elections, he led and strongly supported the movement called ) appealing to the then caretaker Suqiu ( government under the leadership of Dr Mahathir to eliminate injustice in the country. As an entrepreneur he knew that getting involved in such activities would expose himself to political persecution, but he was nonetheless ready to face the consequences. In 2000, Ngan openly seconded the protest against the closing of Damansara Primary School ( ) and in 2002, he strongly supported the movement against monopolizing of the Chinese media in Malaysia. Ngan’s other significant contributions included initiating the Revival Movement of Chinese independent secondary schools, and redeveloping the Sitiawan Nan Hwa Secondary School. It was Ngan who signed the letter inviting the Perak Chinese School Committees’ Association to discuss and take steps to revive the shrinking student enrolment in Chinese independent secondary schools

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throughout Malaysia in the 1970s. Later the Revival Movement was formed and led by Foo ), an entrepreneur in Ipoh. Wan Thot ( When Ngan became chairman of the Nan Hwa Secondary School’s board of governors, there were only three students enrolled. Under his leadership, the school was rebuilt and reformed with a view to gaining the ethnic Chinese community’s confidence in sending their children to study in an independent school. Today Nan Hwa Secondary School is one of the most outstanding independent schools in Malaysia. Ngan died of pneumonia on 1 March 2011. Chia Oai Peng R E F E R E N C E S Tan, Liok Ee. The Politics of Chinese Education in Malaya, 1945–1961. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1997. 、 》。

《 ：

、 ，1975，

130–32。

Ngeow Sze Chan ( , Rao Shiquan, 1915–2002) Chinese physician, philanthropist, Malaysia

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geow Sze Chan was born in Chayang, Guangdong, China, the second child of the Ngeow family in Yangtao Village. ). His His given name was Chucan ( father ran a small business together with other brothers, and his mother was a housewife. Ngeow Sze Chuan started his early childhood education in a private institution taught by retired scholars. During his primary school education in Chayang, he proved himself to be a hardworking student and was always ranked first in the class. Ngeow’s father’s

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family business was successful throughout his studies in primary and junior secondary education. However, as things went downhill when Ngeow Sze Chan turned 16, the family business went bankrupt. He made a decision to work as an apprentice in Shantou to support his family. Being a young apprentice, he was exposed to the practice of traditional Chinese medicine. This experience enabled him to develop a special interest in traditional Chinese medicine. A major decision was made. He attended the Chinese Medicine Specialist School in Guangzhou with the support of his family in 1933. In 1937, Ngeow graduated from the Research Institute of New China Medical School at the age of 22. The following year, Ngeow left Chayang, to look for better opportunity in Malaya with the hope to practise Chinese medicine. As he migrated to Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaya (later Malaysia), he worked hard towards becoming the most prominent Chinese physician of this era, i.e. from mid to the late twentieth century. In 1945, he established the Selangor Chinese Medical Society with a few other physicians. Soon after that, he spearheaded a number of activities leading to the establishment of The Central Malaysian Chinese Medical Association, now known as the Malaysian Chinese Medical Association (est. 1948). From 1948 to 1970, Ngeow was contributor and chief editor of the “Medicine Weekly” column for the China Press, a local newspaper. It allowed him to share his medical experience and research findings with the public. Ngeow had contributed to the weekly column for consecutive 1,124 weeks in 12 years. His perseverance in contributing articles despite his busy schedule of consultations and treatment of patients, was evidence of his selfdiscipline and hard work.

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In 1949, the Malaysian Chinese Medical Association raised the standard consultation fee from a mere 40 cent to $2 for each patient. This was a measure to enable physicians to be financially sustainable in order to provide free consultations and medicine for patients of underprivileged groups. In November 1951, 36-year-old Ngeow established Wan Onn Loong Medical Hall Co. in Jalan Tun Tan Siew Sin right in the middle of Kuala Lumpur. This was the base for his wholesale and retail medicine business, as well as his traditional Chinese medicine clinic, providing consultation and treating an average of 100 patients a day. Ngeow initiated the Chinese Medical Free Clinic in Kuala Lumpur in 1954 to provide free consultation and medicine to the poor and needy. During the first few years, there were a total of twenty Chinese physicians who volunteered to provide free consultation services on a daily basis. This community service was generally welcomed by people of all ethnic background. Many people, particularly those from the lower socio-economic group, were touched by this charity work and joined in to raise funds for the project. The Chinese physician’s good deeds and services for the local community are still close to the hearts of those who benefited from their charitable acts. Ngeow was president of the Chinese Medical Free Clinic for more than forty years. The Traditional Chinese Medical Institute of Malaysia (est. 1955) was another project initiated by Ngeow to safeguard the reputation, rights, and professionalism of Chinese physicians. Being a trusted brand name for traditional Chinese medicine, Ngeow had treated patients from all walks of life. His more prestigious patients ranged from top government officials to foreign ambassadors. Even the second prime minister of Malaysia,

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Tun Abdul Razak, consulted his opinion as a Chinese physician. Besides contributing to the well-being of Malaysians, Ngeow was also highly respected for his philanthropic donations to improve the infrastructure of his hometown. As a nostalgic migrant, Ngeow was particularly concerned about the development of Yang Tao, in his native hometown of Yang Tao in the Guangdong Province, which he visited several times. He initiated and accomplished a project to build Yang Tao Primary School and the Golden Anniversary Bridge. Since 1979, he served for many years as voluntary Director of the Chinese Medicine in Tung Shin Hospital. He was granted the position of Honorary Professor by Guangzhou Medical School in the early 1990s. In 1996, Ngeow was awarded the AMN title by the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia for his contribution to the country and the community. Due to his impact on the practice of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in Malaysia, he was widely known in the region as the founder of modern traditional medicine. His demise in 2002 was greatly missed by Chinese physicians of all generations and those who greatly benefited from his philanthropic acts in Malaya (later Malaysia) as well as in Yangtao village in China. Ngeow Yeok Meng R E F E R E N C E S 《

：

》。

：

：

》。

：

，1995。 《 ，1995。 《 ： ， 〈 1995 3 21 。

86

： ，2002。 〉，《

》。

》，

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〈 《

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： 》，1994 11 10 。

， 〈 》，1995 4 17 。

：

〉，

〉，《

Ngiam Tong Dow ( ,Yan Chongtao, 1937– ) Civil servant, Singapore

A

lthough he retired from civil service in 1999, Ngiam Tong Dow has, in his long and distinguished career, served Singapore in a number of capacities — as permanent secretary to various government ministries, and as chairman of various companies. He has also served variously as chairman of the Singapore Telephone Board, the Economic Development Board (EDB), the Telecommunication Authority of Singapore, and the Housing Development Board (HDB) Corporation. He is best remembered for his contributions to the administrative service and his articulation of alternative, sometimes critical, views of the civil service. Ngiam was born in 1937 in Singapore. On completing his formal education at St Andrew’s School, the University of Malaya in Singapore (where he obtained a first-class honours in economics), and Harvard University (where he obtained a master’s in Public Administration), he joined the administrative service in 1959. Once in the administrative service, he quickly rose to become permanent secretary of the Ministry of Communication. From then on, his career progressed steadily as he rose through the ranks and served as permanent secretary of the Ministry of Finance (1972–79 and 1987–99); permanent secretary of the Ministry of Trade and Industry (1987–89), and in the Prime Minister’s Office. Additionally, he was also chairman of the Singapore Telephone Board,

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Telecommunication Authority of Singapore, Sentosa Development Corporation, Singapore Technologies Holdings, Development Bank of Singapore, and the Housing Development Board. While in his current position as chairman of HDB Corporation Private Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the HDB, Ngiam has come out and voiced views critical of the civil service. Indeed, given his many years’ experience in the civil service, he has likely witnessed the bureaucratization of the administrative service. He has openly criticized the PAP’s method of retaining power by placing government scholars in the civil service as a short-term view that will lead the party to atrophy. Ngiam goes as far as to say that the only long-term method of ensuring the PAP’s survival is to allow serious political challenges to emerge from the alternative elite in society. According to him, the prevailing view that Singapore is the PAP ought to be altered to one where the people and the PAP realize that Singapore is larger than the PAP. He warns that the party may have started to buy into its own propaganda, so much so that the Singapore elite in the civil service value intellectualization for its own sake, thereby losing a sense of the pragmatic concerns of the larger world. He predicts that if the Singapore civil service carries on in this manner, it will not be a very effective service.To pre-empt this, he suggests that half the number of President and Overseas Merit scholars should go to the private sector, and the rest be committed to the civil service. All these scholars would in turn be able to serve their bond to Singapore — the country of their birth and the country that gave them these opportunities, and not the government. Ngiam demonstrated his awareness of the current situation for government scholars when he spoke of the bond breaking issue. While he

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

is aware that those on government scholarships would have to pay a financial penalty and be condemned as quitters to break their bonds, he defends these so-called recalcitrant scholars by saying that it takes a certain temperament and mindset to be a civil servant. Since not everyone has the right temperament to be a bureaucrat, those who are not suited for that life should not go into it. To highlight the different mindsets needed, Ngiam cited the differences from his own line work as a permanent secretary and as chairman of HDB Corp: However upright a person is, the mandarin will in time begin to live a gilded life in a gilded cage. As a Permanent Secretary, I never had to worry whether I could pay my staff their wages. It was all provided for in the Budget. As chairman of DBS Bank, I worried about wages only 20 per cent of the time. I now face my greatest business challenge as chairman of HDB Corp, a new start-up spun off from HDB. I spend 90 per cent of my time worrying whether I have enough to pay my staff at the end of the month. It’s a mental switch. Since no official statement has been issued vis-a-vis his vocal criticism of the civil service and the mode in which it is run by the PAP, it may be assumed that his words carry some weight. Indeed, his contributions to Singapore were acknowledged when he was admitted to the Distinguished Service Order in 1999, and awarded the Meritorious Service Medal. Nevertheless, Ngiam continues to be active after his retirement. He serves as an adjunct professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, as well as adjunct professor at the NanyangTechnological University, teaching

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development economics. He continues to make speeches and write articles. In 2006, he authored a book entitled, A Mandarin and the Making of the Public Policy, which recorded his reflections on the subject. The book was well received as it provides rare insights on Singapore’s public policy. In 2009 he published an article criticizing the liberal migration policy of the Singapore Government and favouring a more conservative one. In 2010, he yet again published a collection of his speeches and articles as a book entitled, Dynamics of the Singapore Success. George Yeo, then foreign minister of Singapore, recommended the book as “a valuable source of insight into the Singapore Story”. Ho Khai Leong R E F E R E N C E S National Heritage Board. “Ngiam Tong Dow”. In Singapore: The Encyclopedia, edited by Tommy T. B. Koh et al. Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2006. Tay, S. C., Simon (ed.). A Mandarin and the Making of Public Policy: Reflections by Ngiam Tong Dow. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2006.

Ngô Duû Hieäp ( , Wu Youhe, 1954– ) Community leader,Vietnam

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gô Duû Hieäp ( ) is leader of the Hoa community of Phu Quoc ), Vietnam. (Hoa is the Island ( official appellation for Vietnamese of Chinese ethnicity in Vietnam.) He is consultant to the management committee of the Hainan Association in Ho Chi Minh City, consultant to the management committee of the Hainan Association in Rach Gia city, president of the Phu Quoc Chapter of Sino-Vietnam

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Friendship Association of Kien Giang province, and president of the Mutual Aid Organization of the Chinese. In addition, he has been viceprincipal of the Chinese language centre on the island, currently known as Fuguo Xuexiao ), since assuming (Fuguo School leadership position in 1999. He is also a member of The Vietnam Fatherland Front (Maët traän Tôû quoác Vieät Nam) of Phu Quoc. Hieäp is a second-generation Hainanese born in 1954 in Phu Quoc. His father, Ngô ), arrived in Phu Quoc Hoàng Töôøng ( at the age of seventeen from Wanning County (Hainan) to work in a rubber plantation owned by a Hainanese who originated from Wenchang (Hainan). In the dawn of the founding of the Republic of Vietnam (1955), his father switched to selling daily provisions, naming his small venture,Tân Vinh Phát ( ). Hieäp followed in his father’s footsteps and assisted in his business. During the political turmoil of the mid1970s to early 1980s, about 180 to 200 Hoa, mostly Hainanese, left the island for Australia and America. Like other small businessmen in Phu Quoc who were classified as petit bourgeois, Hieäp closed down the family’s shop and voluntarily moved to the remote countryside. He turned to pepper fields to earn his living, but hardship brought by the price fluctuations of the pepper trade motivated him to seek other means of improving his income. After Sino-Viet relations improved and when the economic reforms allowed freer participation in private commerce, Hieäp revived his late father’s enterprise, Tân Vinh Phát. A better chance arrived in 2005 when he gained new knowledge about doing business using credit from financial institutions such as private ), banks. He met Ðaëng Vaên Thành ( founder of Sacombank (Saigon Commercial Bank), the largest private bank in Vietnam (see Ðaêng Vaên Thành). Thành is a Hainanese and

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honorary chairman of the Hainan NativePlace Association in Ho Chi Minh City whose major functions Hieäp attends. The banker has reportedly expressed confidence in the conservative business style of Hoa businessmen, and readily approved Hieäp’s credit application. With the credit, Hieäp expanded Tân Vinh Phát ) which now spans across the sea to ( Rach Gia. He gives his sons a free hand in the management of the new shop as well as the original shop in Phu Quoc. Four of his five sons assist him in his enterprise while he plays the role of a mentor. His youngest son, however, is one of the twenty-four graduates selected from a thousand in his tertiary cohort to join the military as an officer. Business aside, Hieäp is consultant to the management committees of the Hainan Association in Ho Chi Minh City, and Rach Gia town, and president of the two other associations mentioned earlier. He currently spends most of his time serving his community. According to Hieäp, his membership in The Vietnam Fatherland Front was the result of an invitation by the local government after the two former leaders had passed away, rather than his own initiative.The Vietnam Fatherland Front is an organization which consists of representatives from political organizations, social-political, and social organizations, as well as outstanding individuals representing various social classes and strata, ethnic groups, religions and overseas Vietnamese. Membership of the group does not require affiliation to the Vietnam Communist Party. Hieäp is not a member of the Vietnam Communist Party. The Vietnam Fatherland Front of Phu Quoc has more than twenty members, among whom is an ethnic Khmer representative and Hieäp. The membership offers a seat to a leader from each religion recognized by the state. Each representative serves a five-year term, but each

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

term may be extended for the individual. As member of The Vietnam Fatherland Front of Phu Quoc, Hieäp’s responsibilities are to ensure that policies are accepted and understood and that communal coherence is forged. In 1998, when the official initiative came for the Hoa in Phu Quoc to organize a mutual aid association, the Hoa swiftly formed an administrative committee for its congregation ). The school was partially (lishihui returned to the Hoa the same year, two years after the Hoa community proposed to remanage it. The community appealed to the authority for the school to be returned in its entirety, citing the reason that no other suitable place was available to hold the functions of their Mutual Aid Association. As no other venues were deemed appropriate to house the Mutual Aid meetings, the appeal was granted in 2000 and a Mutual Aid Association was thus founded. The association’s aim is to provide community socio-economic welfare and promote camaraderie to ensure social stability and harmony among the Hoa. So far, the association in Phu Quoc consists of 1,200 members who are Hainanese, with the remaining three per cent are Cantonese and Teochew. The annual fee of 20,000 dong that each member of the association contributes is used to create a fund which serves as a forms of social insurance. The fund is used whenever medical expenses and other form of financial assistance for its members and the community are needed. Mutual aid associations, which render community self-help based on communally raised funds rather than on state subsidies, have been officially welcomed as a proactive solution to economic hardship. Since then — after official recognition in 1996 which confirms that the Hoa are a vigilant, tenacious, and self-reliant group, many mutual aid associations were revived in

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Hoa communities across central and southern Vietnam. Raising funds and ensuring the success of socio-political projects such as aid relief and donations in crisis and disasters are the responsibilities of community leaders as well as those of the mutual aid associations. Hieäp received his primary education ), a Chineseat Kongzi Xuexiao ( medium school in Phu Quoc. Being relatively well educated and very fluent in the Chinese language, he wants to preserve the Chineselanguage education and his ethnic culture in Phu Quoc. Hieäp began his first two years of secondary education at Ming De Xuexiao ( ) in Rach Gia, which was affiliated to the Chaozhou huiguan (native-place association), but he completed his remaining secondary ), education at Zhongni Xuexiao ( managed by the Guangdong and Hainan bang (dialect-based congregation) in Rach Gia. Today, Hieäp still speaks his ethnic language, Hainanese, code-mixing it with Vietnamese at home. He has toured his ancestral hometown in ), Hainan Island, and maintains Wanning ( ties with his six relatives there; his eldest son has also travelled with him in Hainan. At home, Hieäp puts in effort to preserve Hainanese by using it as much as he can, even though he code-switches between Hainanese and Vietnamese when conversing with his wife. He is successful in ensuring that all his five sons understand and speak Hainanese. Although he himself is also highly proficient in speaking and writing Mandarin, only his eldest and second sons have learnt Mandarin through private tuition. Hieäp sees the fulfilment of his community plans as “a duty to his ancestors” to continue their cultural heritage on the island of Phu Quoc. His plan to construct a modern multistoreyed building that houses both the new Hainan native-place association (which has not hitherto existed in Phu Quoc) and

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the mutual aid association under one roof is currently in progress and it has been his biggest challenge to ensure its completion. If his wish comes true, he will consider establishing a bilingual school offering Vietnamese as the first language, and Mandarin as the second, so that students of any ethnic background who is interested in acquiring Mandarin will not have to look for a school elsewhere to learn the language. Grace Chew Chye Lay R E F E R E N C E Private interviews with Ngô Duû Hieäp, in July 2007 and October 2010 on Phu Quoc Island.

Ngô Quoác Tuaán ( , Wu Guojun, 1951– ) Community and business leader,Vietnam

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gô Quoác Tuaán is chairman of Asia Joint Stock Trading-Industrial Company (Công ty Coå phaàn Thöông maïi-Công nghieäp Á Châu) in Can Tho City (Caàn Thô ). He also serves as honorary adviser at the Guangzhao Native-Place Association of Can Tho despite being a Teochew by ancestral origins. He actively promotes Sino-Vietnamese relations through The Vietnam-Can Tho City Union of Friendship Organizations and the Can Tho Chapter of the Vietnamese-Chinese Friendship Association, as vice-president and president respectively. Tuaán is a member of the Vietnam Communist Party, chairman of the ThirteenthTerm Committee for the Association for the Sponsorship of Chinese Language Education in Can Tho (Hoäi Baûo trôï Hoa Vaên Thành phoá Caàn Thô), and honorary chairman of the Shantou City-China Association for

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International Exchange and Foreign Affairs. He led the Teochew delegation from Vietnam at the 15th Teochew International Convention held in Dongguan, Guangdong Province of China.The Teochew International Convention is a thirty-year old institution which started in 1981 and gathers entrepreneurs of Chaozhou and ethnic Chinese of Chaozhou (Teochew) ancestry all over the world to interact during the convention in order to promote friendly relations and participate in China’s economic development. From 1985–94, Tuaán was a management staff at the Economics Bureau of Can Tho city. His bureau developed a joint stock company in 1994 named Asia Joint Stock Trading-Industrial Company, which is the official sole agent for Coca Cola, Tiger and Heineken beers, and Honda motorcycles in the city. Tuaán became its chief executive officer, owning the majority of the company’s stock. He stepped down last year when he turned sixty, the official age for retirement for men, but continues to retain his interest and responsibilities both in business and in other social activities. For more than two decades, he has also been member of the Vietnam Fatherland Front (Maët traän Toå quoác Vieät Nam). Among the plethora of official accolades he has received, his most recent is an award for his exemplary performance in the development of ethnic minorities (2009) by contributing to the peace and friendship among various ethnic minorities, and for his part in encouraging education in the Chinese community. He has other pursuits, such as being the highest honorary adviser of the Ngô (Chinese: Wu) lineage clan of the whole of Vietnam ).The group occasionally meets ( other Ngô clans of the world via international meetings. One of Tuaán’s most fulfilling activities was working towards the establishment of

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Shantou (China) and Can Tho as sister cities. The idea was proposed in 1993, but was materialized only in 2005. Another meaningful project he has organized for the Association for the Sponsorship of Chinese Language Education was the recent construction and expansion of a Chinese-language school which resulted in the establishment of the first new bilingual Chinese school in Can Tho City called Viet-Hoa Private School. The cost for the first phase of the construction was US$320,000, generously donated by 180 groups and individuals. Tuaán himself donated about US$50,000 and was among the major donors. Entrepreneurship is not new to Tuaán, who has learnt the rope of managing resources from his father who used to operate a coal mine in Cà Mau. He was born in 1951 in a large household with twelve children in Sóc Traêng, a city neighbouring Can Tho. Although his father was from Chaozhou, the young Tuaán was sent to study in Minh Vieãn School ), a school established in Saigon by ( the Cantonese Catholics. On graduating from this school, he worked for a Japanese ceramic company called Công ty Ðaàu Söù Thiên Niên from 1969 to 1973. He returned to Cà Mau for fear of being conscripted into the military of the Republic of Vietnam in 1973. Cà Mau at the time was a resistance area of the Communists. Shaped by his circumstances, Tuaán joined the resistance from 1973 to 1975. Such resistance, which spread across the entire country, finally led to military victory and the unification of Vietnam. In the peaceful period that followed after 1975–76, he landed a job in the civil service. It was a long-lasting job which offered him the ideal experience and exposure in international trade and commerce. The organization he joined was the Trading Bureau (Sôû Thöông Maïi) of Can Tho. Tuaán rose through the

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ranks and eventually managed Asia Joint Stock Trading-Industrial Company. He currently juggles several significant social roles: he is chairman of the Association for Sponsorship of Chinese Language Education in Can Tho City and simultaneously serves as honorary adviser to several ethnic Chinese organizations, such as the Guangzhao native-place association/ shrine (see entry on Traàn Ðông Sanh), Fujian native-place association (a small informal group), and the Ngô lineage clan. As chairman of the Association for Sponsorship of Chinese Language Education, he has been involved in the calculations, planning, and execution of the construction of the new Chinese bilingual school. The school was completed at the end of 2010 and began classes in 2011. Despite having channeled substantial time and finance into Chinese-language education and the preservation of ethnic Chinese cultural institutions and their activities in Can Tho, Tuaán has not imposed the studying of Mandarin or any Chinese dialects on his five children. He and his wife, Âu Chi Lan ( , 1950– ), are fluent in both Teochew and Vietnamese, while their children are fluent in English and Vietnamese. His eldest daughter, Mai Yeán, resides in San Francisco, while three other daughters are in Melbourne, and his youngest son, who is studying in high school, is also in Melbourne. His youngest son was born in 1993, the same year the Tiger beer brewery was inaugurated in Tân Thôùi Hieäp, one of the seven administrative divisions in District 12 of Ho Chi Minh City. It was at a meeting with Lee Kuan Yew, the leader of Singapore, where Tiger beer was first brewed, that Tuaán had the inspiration to name his son, Quang Dieäu, “Guangyao” in Vietnamese. Tuaán hopes to continue living and growing his business in Vietnam, tenaciously clinging on to the words of his father who regarded Vietnam as “the land of Buddha —

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where natural water flows and resources are abundant”. Such territorial sentiment is also captured in the terse poem recited by the folks of Can Tho when waxing lyrical about their city: “White rice, pure water of Can Tho; those who come never want to leave.” Tuaán reveals that he has found the driving force of life in the lyrics of the theme song played at Teochew international conventions. The indefatigable spirit of early Chaozhou emigrants who braved rough seas and uncertainties to build their success in new lands has greatly moved him. Grace Chew Chye Lay R E F E R E N C E Private interview with Ngô Quoác Tuaán in October 2010, Can Tho City, Vietnam.

Ngô Thanh Hoa ( , Wu Qinghua, 1930– ) Community leader,Vietnam

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gô Thanh Hoa plays an important part in preserving Chinese-language education and culture in Vietnam. He has been chief of the Hainan Native-Place ) in Ho Chi Minh City Association ( for twenty-five years and under his leadership, the association has achieved financial independence. In the recent five years, Hoa has also assumed greater social and educational responsibility, acting as vice-chairman of The Association for the Sponsorship of Chinese Language Education, while simultaneously holding the chairman post of the Chinese Language Literary and Arts Society, a post he has also had for five years. Besides his involvement in education and the arts, he is widely known

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for his previous professional engagement in the financial sector of Vietnam as the former vicedirector of the earliest bank in Vietnam set up with ethnic Chinese capital, called the VietHoa Bank. Although the bank sank in the mire of debt after a bank panic in 1999, Hoa has been working to clear the bank’s debts since 2007 and continues to dream of reviving the bank one day. Hoa was born inWenchang,Hainan Island, in 1930. At the age of three, he migrated with his grandparents and parents to Nha Trang in Central Vietnam. His family later moved to Ho Chi Minh City, but his paternal grandfather’s home in Nha Trang is still preserved. Hoa is passionate about preserving language education and culture. He has assisted in the establishment of Chineselanguage schools in various Hainanese communities in the southern and western regions of Vietnam namely, Vaên Trung School in Hà Tiên, Trung Ðöùc School in Hoàn Trong, and Phú Quoác School on Phu Quoc Island. He also hopes to employ a Hainanese tutor from Hainan Island one day to teach the younger Hainanese in Ho Chi Minh City the Hainanese language. Besides language education, he has served as chairman of the Chinese Language Literary and Arts Society (Ban Baûo trôï Vaên hoïc Ngheä thuaät Ngöôøi Hoa), located in District 5 of Ho Chi Minh City, since 2009 and will serve it until 2014. He is also vice-chairman of The Association for the Sponsorship of Chinese Language Education, an organization that plans, designs, and implements Chineselanguage courses in Ho Chi Minh City. In his youth, Hoa was idealistic, hotblooded, and courageous and had longed to participate in a revolution. The Vietnamese revolution appeared to be a lifetime’s opportunity for him. He became involved in the

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control of finances as a member of the finance committee of the Central Bureau (Ban Kinh Tài, Trung Öông Cuïc). When the AmericanVietnam War ended, he joined the External Trade Office until 1986, the year private enterprises were allowed to be established in the country. He founded his own credit enterprise, Hôïp Tác Xã Tín Duïng Tân Thành (Tan Thanh Credit Co-operative), in June 1986 and was chief of the cooperative until 1990, when he ventured further to establish the first bank to be founded by the Hoa (ethnic Chinese of Vietnam) called Viet-Hoa ), a Bank, with a partner,Traàn Tuaán Tài ( Hoa of Chaozhou origins. Hoa became vicedirector of the bank and Tài its overall managing director. The Viet-Hoa Bank was a merger of four ethnic Chinese-managed cooperatives which withstood the time when more than eighty other credit cooperatives collapsed. It was inaugurated on 15 August 1992 with a registered capital of US$2 million from ethnic Chinese investors, and grew to become a private bank of credible standing with the support of both Vietnamese and Chinese clients. The bank played an instrumental role in organizing the idle capital of the Chinese community and held stakes in Ho Chi Minh City’s three-storey retail and wholesale market complex, An Dong Plaza, and the Cholon Commercial Centre, both situated in District 5 where the so-called “Chinatown” of Ho Chi Minh City is located. At the end of 1994, it reportedly had a registered capital of US$10 million, a deposit of US$40 million, and a revenue turnover of US$1 billion. Seventy-two per cent of its shares were owned by about thirty shareholders, while state-owned enterprises held the remaining 28per cent or so. Real estate investments, which were then enjoying rapid growth, formed an overwhelmingly large sector into which the bank’s deposits were channelled into. In 1999

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one of the most feared events that could happen to a bank became a reality: A run on the bank forced it to close its doors, and Hoa, the deputy director then, and Tài, the managing director, got into trouble with the law. In 2007 after the legal trouble was cleared, Hoa was allowed to resume work to repay the debts of Viet-Hoa Bank. A plan is now in the pipeline to reopen the bank with six Hoa business partners. It is Hoa’s dream to materialize this while he is still zealous about banking. Besides his job, he has also spent a substantial part of his time doing advisory work at the Hainan Native-Place Association — an activity that has been giving him much sense of fulfilment for the past twenty-five years. Today, he is proud to say that the association does not require donations from worshippers who come to pray at its ancestral shrine or from members for its maintenance. Hoa has helped the association to achieve financial independence by building a nineteen-acre warehouse facility on part of the spacious cemetery ground that the association owns. The warehouse rents out warehousing space to commercial companies. Like other nativeplace associations in the country, the association organizes charity projects such as supporting school-going children through scholarships, and aiding old and poor Hainanese residents through a monthly payout welfare scheme. The youthful looking octagenarian believes in living happily as an ordinary person with a balanced business and social life. With his wife, Döông Vó Trân, currently seventytwo years old, they have nurtured two sons, a daughter and four grandchildren. Hoa’s wife, a Cantonese with ancestral origins in Dongguan (Guangdong Province, China), was a former nurse. Their two sons now live in Hong Kong and the United States respectively, while their daughter lives in Ho Chi Minh City. His

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children all received their education at the Chinese school, Sanmin Xuexiao ( ), which was established and located in the Hainan Native-Place Association. Grace Chew Chye Lay R E F E R E N C E S 〈

（ ）〉， 《 ，2000， 703。

、 》。

：

Private interview with Ngô Thanh Hoa in October 2010 in Ho Chi Minh City.

Ngor, Haing S. ( , Wu Hanrun, 1940–96) Actor, writer, Cambodia

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aing S. Ngor became well known after co-starring in an American movie entitled, The Killing Fields, in 1984. He won the best supporting actor prize at both the Golden Globe and the Oscars awards in 1985. Before the movie, no one had heard of him as an actor. Haing Ngor was born on 22 March 1940 (although Le Hong Phan says it was 1947) in Samrong Yong, Cambodia. He had an ethnic Chinese father who was a petty trader and a Cambodian mother. Ngor came from a big family — he had four brothers and three sisters. One of his younger brothers, Chan Sarun (whose original name was Ngor Hong Srun), is currently minister for agriculture in the Hun Sen government. Ngor went to a Chinese school in his village, attended high school at a French school in Phnom Penh, and eventually received a medical school education, also in the capital of Cambodia. Upon graduation he opened a private clinic and worked at the same time as a medical officer in the government

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army. In 1975 the Khmer Rouge “liberated” Phnom Penh and began implementing its revolutionary policy which was antiintellectuals. Ngor had to hide and work as a manual worker in order to survive. He and his wife, My-Huoy, soon joined the mass exodus from Phnom Penh, but were imprisoned and sent to a concentration camp where he was tortured and forced to work as a labourer. In 1978 his wife died in the camp. According to one source, she died from the lack of medical care. Another source says she died in childbirth. As a doctor Ngor could not help her as the Khmer Rouge would have killed him if his identity was known. He witnessed the genocide of the Pol Pot regime, but he had a strong will to live. In 1978, Vietnam invaded Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge regime collapsed. Haing Ngor and his niece, Ngor Ngim (alias Sophia) escaped to Thailand. They lived in a refugee camp where Ngor worked as a doctor until he moved to the United States in 1980 as a refugee. Ngor’s medical training was not recognized in the United States so he did odd jobs initially and went to school to learn English. He then worked for the Chinatown Service Center, helping refugees from Indochina. In 1982 the director of the movie, The Killing Fields, was looking for a Cambodian who could play the role of Dith Pran, a Cambodian who worked as “guide and interpreter” for New York Times Magazine journalist Sydney Schanberg in the movie. Haing Ngor passed the screen test and was chosen. Although he had never acted in a movie, he played the part very well because it resonated with his life experience. In the movie Dith Pran helped Sydney Schanberg to escape from persecution, but was left behind and imprisoned; he only managed to escape after the fall of the Khmer Rouge in December

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

1978. Ngor’s vivid portrayal of Dith Pran touched many viewers and he became famous overnight. He won three awards for the role in The Killing Fields. Because of the movie people all over the world began to learn about the situation in Pol Pot’s Cambodia. After the release of the movie, Ngor told a reporter from the New York Times: “If I die now, OK! This film will go on for a hundred years.” Ngor’s experiences captivated many who wanted to know more about Cambodia. With the help of co-author Roger Warner, Ngor wrote a book entitled, A Cambodian Odyssey, published in 1987, describing his life in Cambodia before and during the Khmer Rouge period up to the time he received the Oscar award. The book was reissued in 2003 under a new title, Survival in the Killing Fields, about eight years after Ngor met his untimely death in 1996. In the reissued edition, Warner wrote an epilogue about Ngor’s life after he won the Oscar and about his tragic death. After his Oscar win, Ngor received quite a few movie offers. During his short life, he acted in at least ten movies, including Eastern , 1986), a Hong Kong-made Condors ( movie, The Iron Triangle (1989), and Heaven and Earth (1993). Most of the roles he played were minor ones as he was no longer able to surpass his role in The Killing Fields. According to an article published in Baidu Baike, soon after he received his Oscar award, Ngor returned to the Thai-Cambodia border where he built a hospital for refugees. Another source revealed that Ngor was constantly working on behalf of Indochina refugees with a view to rebuilding Cambodia. In 1990 he and Jack Ong (a fellow actor whom he met while filming Iron Triangle) set up The Dr Haing S. Ngor Foundation in California, dedicated to the care of orphans and the development of infrastructure in Cambodia. Ngor was also

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concerned about his native land and the local Chinese community in Cambodia. He used his land in Phnom Penh for the establishment of a Chinese school (Minsheng School). After his death, his relatives in Cambodia donated the land to the school. Ngor died a sudden death in rather mysterious circumstances. On 25 February 1996 he was gunned down as he stepped out of his car behind his apartment on the edge of Chinatown in Los Angeles. There has been much speculation about his death. One theory is that he was killed by Pol Pot or someone in the Khmer Rouge for playing the role in The Killing Fields, Ngor being a well known critic of the Pol Pot regime. However the police were unable to come up with any convincing evidence. Another theory is linked to a gang-related robbery. After conducting their investigations, the police arrested three members of an Asian gang called “Oriental Lazy Boyz”: Tak Sun Tan, Jason Chan, and Indra Lim who had murdered Ngor for money to buy cocaine. One of the trio reportedly shot him when Ngor refused to give up the gold locket because it held the photo of his dead wife. His friends were sceptical: they believed Ngor had a survival instinct and would give up anything, including the locket to save his life. The case was closed and the murderers are now in jail serving their terms. Ngor was buried at Rose Hill Memorial Park in Los Angeles County. His grave stone bears the words: “ Haing S. Ngor, Beloved Brother and Uncle, March 22, 1940–February 25, 1996.” The words reveal that Ngor had a Chinese name that the gravestone was built by his brother(s) and niece, and that he was born in 1940 rather than 1947.

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He was a Buddhist who held U.S. citizenship. His biographical entry can be found in Distinguished Asian Americans. Ngor never remarried after his wife passed away. Lim Boon Hock and Leo Suryadinata R E F E R E N C E S Find A Grave website. “Haing S. Ngor”. (accessed 27 March 2012). Le Hong Phan. “Haing Ngor (1947–1996), Physician, Actor”. In Distinguished Asian Americans: A Biographical Dictionary, edited by Hyung-chan Kim, pp. 264–65. Wesport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1999. Tran, My-Thuan. “Revisiting Haing Ngor’s Murder: ‘Killing Fields’ theory won’t die”. Los Angeles Times, 21 January 2010. (accessed 27 March 2012). Ngor, Haing (with Roger Warner). A Cambodian Odyssey. New York: Macmillan, 1987. Ngor, Haing (with Roger Warner). Survival in the Killing Fields. London: Robinson, 2003. 〉， 。 (accessed 27 March 2012).

Nianlamei ( ; , Xu Jinghua, 1934– ) Writer,Thailand

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ianlamei, better known as Xu Jinghua, was “the most distinguished female writer in Thai-Chinese literary circles in the past 20 years. The beautiful prose that she wrote was sentimental and pleasant, simple and elegant, vivid and lively. It was very difficult in Thai-Chinese literary circles to find another female writer that could be as talented and brilliant as Xu Jinghua”. This is how she is introduced by Phonlachet Kitaworanat (Fang ), the first president of Thailand’s Siruo,

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Chinese Literature Writers Association ( ). Although the path of her life has sometimes twisted and turned, Xu has never given up her faith in writing. In fact, writing literature made her continue to persist in life, and relieved her depression and pain. Xu Jinghua was born on 26 June 1934 in Bangkok. She has had several pen names, ), Xu Xinyi ( ), Li such as Li Hong ( ), and Nianlamei ( ) which, Xun ( also happens to be her Thai name. Her parents ), Guangdong were from Chenghai ( Province, China. Xu’s father was a farmer, and died when she was only seven years old. Her mother was a famous Chinese opera actress in Bangkok, who quit her job in the troupe after her marriage and ran a small business to raise her seven children, including Xu Jinghua. However, it was very difficult for Xu’s mother to finance all her children’s education. Thus, Xu needed to sell fruit at school in order to pay for her education and, despite this, she still had to leave school at the age of fourteen, and become a weaver in a mill. She had to work hard since young to help support the whole family, and her health deteriorated because of the lack of nutrition and rest. Her childhood, as one senior newspaperman pointed out, was more miserable than one could imagine. Despite poverty, Xu was strongly determined to become a writer. To do so, she did her best to self-teach from comic books and opera songs that her mother used to sing. Xu gradually accumulated vocabulary and knowledge in the Chinese language and, finally, was able to read classical Chinese literature 》), The such as The West Chamber (《 》), Romance of the Three Kingdoms (《 and The Dream of the Red Chamber (《 》). Furthermore, she also began to engage with literature, as her work was first published in the youth section of a Chinese newspaper.

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After the publication of her first work, Xu stepped into the literary circles and did her best to keep reading and writing. Her fortitude and patience were rewarded when she received attention from publishers of Chinese newspapers and, hence, joined the newspaper circle. Xu was working with several Chinese newspapers, such as Shijie Ribao 》), Xinzhongyuan (《 (《 》), and Zhonghua Ribao (《 》). While taking up a variety of tasks, from cutting newspaper clippings to news editing, Xu was also keeping up with her writings, in the form of poetry, essays, short stories, and novels. Her works included collections of short stories 》, Flower Street) and entitled Huajie (《 》, Zai Yingzhua Huajiaxia (《 Under the Stand of Eagle Claw Flowers), a collections of essays entitled Changchunteng 》, Ivy), and novels such as Meinanhe (《 》, A Love Song of Liange (《 Chao Phraya River), and Fengyu Yaohuali (《 》, Yaowarat in Rainstorm), which she co-authored. Her works were distinguished as they depict the life of ordinary people in a realistic and down-to-earth manner. Huajie is highly regarded by literary critics, both local and overseas. This collection depicts the life of Chinese from the lower class in Thai society, and discloses their tragic fates and depressive mentality. In writing these stories, Xu envisaged the realistic approach of literature writing, portraying the life of people through their own true feelings, as seen in the short story that bears the same title, “Huajie”, a representative work in the collection. The story describes the little known real life of women working as prostitutes. Although they live in a harsh environment at the bottom rung of society, these women still maintain faith in the goodness of human

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nature. Another short story in this collection, 》, “Tuilese de yanglou” (《 Fading Mansions), was also written from the perspective of people at the bottom stratum of society, and reveals the truth of these poor people living in darkness. They live in a Western-style mansion that most people dream of, but this mansion is fading every day. It is so crowded that its residents have to queue in order to use the toilet. Furthermore, this mansion is filled with loud and harsh noises everywhere, and, worse, the air is dirty and hardly breathable. Xu was good at writing about poor people in the bottom echelon of society, who are suppressed and have no voice. She noted that writing this kind of novel was most difficult, but, despite the difficulty, she kept writing. She used to ask herself why she had to do this, but soon found the answer: “For pleasure, for life; to glorify light, to conquer darkness; to praise good people, to castigate bad people.” She further explained: “Sometimes I wonder if, as I’m a person without power, would my criticism make bad guys become good guys? But no matter what, I must keep writing. As long as I breathe, I must keep writing.” Kornphanat Tungkeunkunt R E F E R E N C E S Salmon, Claudine. “Post War Fiction in Chinese as a Mirror of Political, Social and Cultural Changes in Southeast Asia” in The Symposium on Changing Identities of the Southeast Asian Chinese since World War II. Australian National University, 14–16 June 1985. 《 2008。 《

》。

》。

《 《20 ，2007。

：

： 》。

，

，1990。 ： 》。

，1990。 ：

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Nio Joe Lan (Arif, Junus Nur, 1904–72) Writer, editor, Indonesia

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, Liang Youlan,

io Joe Lan was a prolific feature writer and editor of several magazines. His writings in magazines and periodicals were usually about the culture and religious practices of the Chinese in the Netherlands Indies. He has also written books on Chinese history and Chinese civilization, and retold some Chinese classics such as Hua Mu Lan and Feng Shen in Malay and Dutch. Although Nio Joe Lan’s father came from Meixian in China and was thus of Hakka origin, Nio’s name was written according to the Fujian pronunciation. Born in 1904 in Batavia, he was sent to a Dutch Chinese school called the Koningin Wilhelmina School (KWS), a technical school, where he was trained as an airplane technician. However, after his graduation, his father died and his mother was cheated by a Dutch manager of a factory. His family thus became impoverished. To help his mother, Nio accepted a job as journalist at the monthly, Penghibur. At the same time he worked for Keng Po daily, where he was the chief editor from 1928 to 1934. From 1934 he worked for Sin Po daily until it was closed down by the Japanese regime in 1942. By then, he had also contributed articles in Dutch and English languages for Dutch magazines, such as De Indische Gids and Koloniale Studien. Most of his articles were about the customs, celebrations, language, literature, and religions of the Chinese society in the Netherlands Indies. In 1939 he was given the honour to write the history of the Tiong Hoa Hwe Koan for a commemorative volume for the

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organizations 40th anniversary. In 1942, Sin Po was closed down by the Japanese authorities and Nio was taken captive until World War II ended in 1945. His unusually detailed account of his experiences in the prison, and later in the concentration camp, was published in a book entitled, Dalem Tawanan Djepang (In Japanese Captivity). In the book, he described the moment the Japanese came to take him at his home until the time he was heading home by train. He wrote about the Bukit Duri prison where he was initially locked up together with some prominent members of the Chinese community, such as Major Khouw Kim An and Dr Kwa Tjoan Sioe. They were put in cramped cells and everyone received the same bad treatment and poor food. A few days later, the population in the cell increased when the Dutch were picked up and imprisoned as well. Nio noticed that the Dutch were served better food, but his protests against such discrimination were not heard by the Japanese. After eighteen months, the 500 Chinese prisoners of Bukit Duri prison were moved to Serang, Banten, far away from their families in Batavia and the medical services which they had up to then enjoyed. A few months later, they were transfered again to the former Cimahi military camp where 9,000 Dutch, British, American, and Australian prisoners-ofwar were already settled. He wrote about his joy at being settled in a house with a garden instead of in cramped cells. The Dutch ran the place which had inhabitants numbering up to that of a small town. There were several administrative departments, one of which took care of the deceased. However, the food supply was poor and the people had to try to make more money by manufacturing certain goods such as bakiak or wooden sandals. Those who had the opportunity to work in the fields brought back frogs, snails, and leeches which

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were welcomed as additional protein sources. There were attempts to prepare themselves or others for the future, thus tuition for young people were given so that schooling could start immediately when war was over. Others were trying to make good use of their time by studying. A good library and good teachers were available because most Dutch intellectuals were imprisoned at the camp and willingly gave tuition to others. Nio gave lectures and tuition on Chinese history and culture; however, he noticed that some youngsters were not interested in studying and would rather concentrate on doing business to make extra money. All members of the camp received 10 cents daily, with one cent deducted for administrative costs. Ethnic Chinese members were allowed an additional 10 guilders per month from their family, and the Chung Hwa Chung Hui, a social organization in Bandung, donated an additional 10 guilders for each member. Twice a week, the opportunity was given to make music under a certain Mr Goldberg, a famous violinist from the Netherlands who had gone to the Indies to give a concert, but could not return because of the war. Besides classical western music, there was also the opportunity to make Chinese music for which instruments had been improvized. Keroncong music was very popular and the band was just as popular under the Japanese. In May 1945, following the liberation in Europe, food supplies improved; the prisoners received more rice and meat, but their stomachs could not tolerate much meat after having been deprived of it for more than three years. It was only on 22 August 1945 that they received an official announcement that the war was over and that prisoners could go home. In 1946 the publication of Sin Po was resumed and Nio returned to his job as one of the editors, but in 1948, he was appointed

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chief editor of a new magazine, Pantjawarna, a post he held until 1956. After his retirement, Nio enrolled at the IKIP (Teacher’s Training College) to study history. After his graduation, he taught the history of China at the college. He also wrote books about Chinese history and culture, and Japanese history and literature. One of the last books he wrote was Sastra Indonesia Tionghoa about the literature of the Chinese in Indonesia. The literature was written in colloquial language and Nio observed that it might disappear when Bahasa Indonesia became the official language. Nio’s publication attracted the attention of French sinologist, Claudine Salmon, who initiated an extensive research on the literature of Chinese Indonesians.The research resulted in a catalogue of literary publications in the language which has consequently become a reference for numerous researchers in the field. Nio continued writing in Bahasa Indonesia. After 1965, he stopped writing about the Chinese, but switched his attention to the Dutch during the VOC and colonial period. A characteristic of Nio’s works is the absence of politics.Although he worked for the Sin Po, a major political media, he concentrated only on cultural issues in his works, which makes them valuable until today. He died in 1972 in Jakarta. Myra Sidharta R E F E R E N C E S Hadi Nur Arif (deceased) and Surjadi Nusaputra — son and nephew of Nio Joe Lan. Nio, Joe Lan. Dalem Tawanan Djepang. Lotus Co., 1946. Salmon, Claudine. Literature in Malay by the Chinese of Indonesia. Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de I’homme, 1981. Private conversations.

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Nubla, Ralph ( , Gao Zuru, 1908–2001) Civic leader, philanthropist, Philippines

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alph Nubla was a civic leader and an outstanding pillar of the Chinese community. He was one of the former presidents of the Federation of FilipinoChinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, who was accorded the monicker, the “Grand Old Man of the Federation”. Nubla distinguished himself by accepting the cudgels of the leadership of the federation in a period of crisis: the turbulent years leading to, and during, the declaration of martial rule by former President Ferdinand E. Marcos. He was a pioneer in leading the influential group to reach out to mainstream society and actively participate in nation building efforts as citizens of the country. Nubla was a third-generation Chinese in the Philippines, born on 23 October 1908. ), was born in His father, Gao Ran ( 1857, in Shishi in Fujian, China. In 1872, at the age of fifteen, Gao Ran migrated to the ), Philippines to join his father, Gao Hui ( who had migrated there earlier. Gao Ran was intelligent and well educated. He started as a clerk on arrival in the Philippines, and eight years later, started his own business with a small cigarette factory in Salazar Street in Binondo, Manila, which eventually expanded into cigar and cigarette manufacturing and real estate. These became Nubla’s flagship businesses, and having become an industry leader, he was appointed president of the Philippine Cigar and Cigarettes Manufacturing Association from 1960 to the 1970s. Nubla’s businesses were varied and included the Philippine Bank of Communications (PBCom), of which he was chairman and later chairman emeritus.

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PBCom came under full Filipino ownership in 1974, when a group of industrialists led by Nubla bought the majority of the bank’s outstanding shares. His own son, Ralph Nubla Jr., now serves as chairman. Apart from succeeding his father in business, Nubla was influenced by Gao in civic leadership as well. Gao had three wives, twelve sons, and six daughters, and Nubla was the ninth among the sons. He was fluent in both Spanish and Tagalog, and was a champion of his Chinese compatriots, often arguing on their behalf when they found themselves facing the court, and especially in keeping the poor Chinese workers from abuse. He was thus elected head of the Workers Association when it was formed in 1899, and to which he contributed for six years, using it as a vantage point to promote the interests of Chinese immigrants. In 1911, he rendered financial support to Sun Yat Sen’s ) Xin Hai revolution ( ), and ( was duly recognized. Nubla was distinguished in his leadership as president of the Federation of FilipinoChinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry from 1966 to 1970. He was called upon again to lead the group in 1980, during a period of political instability,restiveness,and uncertainties, brought about by mass protests against the martial rule regime of Marcos. Before and after his tenure as president of the federation, Nubla had already served the federation in various capacities — as head of various committees and, later, as honorary president and chairman emeritus. He distinguished himself in 1972, when martial law was declared, by meeting with then President Marcos and his key officers to ensure that the community would be protected and a stable business climate would be established. He was a strong pillar behind the federation presidents who served after him during martial law, namely Antonio Roxas Chua, Yao Shiong Shio, and Leonardo

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Ty. When all five Chinese-language dailies ceased publication during this period, Nubla negotiated for the resumption of at least one of them. He succeeded in working out the merger between the Great China Press ( ) and Kong Li Po ( ) to become ) in 1973, the United Daily News ( the first Chinese-language daily to resume publication during martial law, and which is still in print today. Nubla served as chairman of the newspaper’s board. He also pioneered the expansion of the role of the federation from that of a parochial business group to a more socially relevant organization. He exerted efforts to establish better rapport with Filipino leaders from all walks of life, and led the federation to participate more actively in events and activities of mainstream society. He exhorted its constituents to do so, saying: “It is not enough that one assumes Filipino citizenship by merely swearing to an oath of allegiance; that oath must pass the test of integrity and loyalty to the country.” Among his tasks as chamber leader was to bring the ethnic Chinese community into meaningful participation in nation building, and this meant making sure that the group takes the lead in abiding by the law and not taking short cuts. However, Nubla was not popular among civil society groups and leaders of protest movements because of his unswerving support to Marcos, but he was, in fact, left with no choice because the community was especially vulnerable to political pressures. He exhorted the community to place themselves safely within the ambit of the political situation, no matter how difficult it was. Faced with the large-scale inequity between the more well off Chinese-Filipino community and the impoverished sector of the mainstream society, Nubla involved the federation in more socio-civic activities. The federation was called upon to lead in various

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welfare projects and social development activities, with the barrio schoolbuilding programme being a flagship project. Through “Operation Barrio School”, access to education was brought to inaccessible rural areas in particular. On top of its assistance to education, free-medical missions, and charity clinics, relief for victims of calamities were among the federation’s projects to ameliorate the condition of the less fortunate in society. It was during his time with the organization that it began to play an active role as a dynamic partner of the government, which involved among other things, various promotion activities to entice foreign investors to tie up with Filipino businessmen for the development of the country’s growing economy. Nubla led the federation officers in a Southeast Asia Investment Exploration, during which they visited seven countries and ten cities to solicit foreign investments. As a compassionate and benevolent patriarch, Nubla was able to fulfil this role as a civic leader despite the demands of his own growing business conglomerate. As a philanthropist-tycoon, Nubla was conferred the President Merit Medal by the president of the Republic of the Philippines in 1968. The award was in recognition of his humanitarian services rendered in the rescue and amelioration of the plight of the victims of the Ruby Tower disaster, a multistorey residential building that collapsed completely in a 7.2 magnitude earthquake on 2 August 1968. On 13 April 1984, he was conferred the Noble Knighthood of St Sylvester by His Holiness Pope John Paul II for “helping the Church for so many years in a variety of ways, without fanfare or publicity, without pomp and circumstances”. In 1983, he was named by the City of Manila as one of its Outstanding Citizens, and on 25 September 1985, he was recognized as the Knight Grand

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Officer of Rizal by the Order of the Knights of Rizal. Nubla died on 4 March 2001. His wife, Felicidad Chan Nubla (Chan Le Sieng, Zeng Lisheng), was a nursing school graduate who served as a lieutenant in the United States Armed Forces in the Far East (USAFFE). She served in Camp Spencer, the same one in which Marcos served as deputy camp commander. She and Nubla nurtured that friendship, and it was this close relationship which served Nubla in good stead and helped him pave the way for the peaceful existence of the Chinese community despite the challenges of Marcos’ martial rule. Ang Chak Chi R E F E R E N C E S Chinese Commercial News. “The new helmsman of the Federation — Ralph Nubla”. 6 November 1966. Reprinted from an article in the same paper titled, “Flashbacks in History”, dated 22 March 2006. Go, Bon Juan. “Ralph Nubla’s father Gao Ran”, In World News, Rong He supplement no. 1107, 8 February 2009. 《 》 ， 1988， 1–4。

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Nyau Tze Lim ( , Rao Zilin, 1901–64) Businessman, community leader, Brunei

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yau Tze Lim was one of the Chinese leaders the older generation of Chinese in the 1950s in Kuala Belait District, Brunei, would be familiar with. He settled down in Kuala Belait in 1929, after moving from Miri, Sarawak. In the 35 years that he spent in Brunei, until his death in 1964, his contributions to the Chinese education, community and social welfare were much

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noted and recognised by the various social sectors. Nyau was born in 1901 in Dapu County ), Guangdong province, China. He ( was educated in his hometown when young, and when he was older, he studied Classical Literature under a notable village teacher, Zhi ). Due to Nyau’s intelligence and Long ( diligence, he excelled in Sinology, writing and calligraphy. During his adolescence, China was in a political turmoil and its citizens were having a hard time getting by, which induced him to seek livelihood abroad, having decided to sail southwards. He left his hometown at age nineteen for Singapore, to learn the ropes of doing business. After having saved a sum of money, he went back home three years later to get married. His wife, Yu Ya Cui ( ), was no doubt a good wife. She was an earnest and disciplined, hardworking and thrifty in managing the household. When Nyau was 23, he and his wife set sail to the south again, stopping over at Singapore before going to Miri, to work in a trading company. In 1929, they decided to settle down in Kuala ), Belait, and set up a company, Heng Yi ( dealing in general merchandise. Later, Ren ), a shop selling eastern and western An ( medicines, was established. Their business expanded to the capital of Brunei, with the establishment of a medical hall, Yong An ), in 1962. ( Nyau was one of the pioneers in Chinese education in Brunei as well. In 1931, two years after having arrived in Kuala Belait, he was one of the seven to have established a Chinese school, Chung Hua Middle School, and was one of the drivers for the expansion of the school, and a new extension was completed in November 1933. When Japan surrendered in August 1945, the Chinese in Brunei from all walks of life were involved in the school

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

restoration. Reorganizing the Board of Directors was the top priority then, and Nyau was unanimously nominated as the Chairman of the Board.This was the most difficult period in the development of Chung Hua Middle School, and Nyau was instrumental in helping to raise fund for the restoration. He was at the helm of the Board of Directors until 1954. And was re-elected again in 1960-61, at that time, the size of Chung Hua School had increased to around 1,000 students, becoming the largest Chinese school in Kuala Belait then. Nyau was officially recognized as a community leader when he was elected the Chairman of the Organizing Committee to form the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in 1951, in both Kuala Belait and Seria. Nyau was very active in the project, involving himself in all aspects, from looking for the right location, design of its architecture, drafting of the constitution, to the application for registration. The Chamber was effectively established under his stewardship and leadership, and was inaugurated on 28 April 1957. Nyau was elected as the Chairman in the second term, in 1958. He was again elected for the same position in 1964 for a 1-year term. Besides vigorously pushing for education and commerce, Nyau also initiated the organization of the Hakka Association in 1960, and held important positions in the Association. In recognition of his contributions over the past decades, the Brunei Government appointed him as a legislative member of the Kuala Belait District in 1964. In the eyes of his children, Nyau was one who valued education and knowledge, and placed public welfare before personal ones. In the words of his fourth son, Zong Guang ): “Father always told me and my siblings ( that his wealth was only enough for basic sustenance and the education of his children.

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He emphasized that education and knowledge are the real, inexhaustible wealth that we should try to attain.” Zong Guang added: “Father was charitable and public-spirited, he was an enthusiastic sponsor for public welfare, charity and educational causes, even to the extent of putting public welfare before his own, and as a result, he had in a way neglected his own business, causing it to stay stagnated for over 30 years.” Nyau Tze Lim and his wife have five sons and three daughters. The eldest son, Huo ) and second son, Kan Guang Guang ( ) inherited their father’s business. Huo ( Guang takes care of the business and at the same time practices Chinese medicine, mainly ) medical hall in acupuncture at Yong An ( the capital, Bandar Seri Begawan; and Kan Guang is in charge of the business of Ren An ) medical hall in Kuala Belait. He is also ( vigorously involved in community and welfare activities, holding long-term management positions in the chamber of commerce in Kuala Belait, Chung Hua school in Kuala ) Belait, and clan associations of Dabu ( ). Nyau’s fourth son, Zong and Hakka ( ) is equally well-versed in martial Guang ( arts and Chinese medicine, being active by nature, he has been participating and playing a leading role in the fundraising activities for Chinese schools in Kuala Belait and Bandar Seri Begawan. He graduated from National ), Taiwan, Zhengzhi University ( majoring in Chinese studies, having excels in prose and poem writing. The youngest son ) has migrated to Australia Dian Guang ( and is presently operating and heading a private school in Sydney. Their eldest and second daughters have settled down in Canada and Australia respectively. Niew Shong Tong

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R E F E R E N C E S 《 《

》，1990 4 1 。 75

》，2006。

Interview with Nyau Chun Kong (Zong Guang) (fourth son of Nyau Tze Lim), March 1990.

Nyoo Cheong Seng ( ,Yang Zhongsheng, pen name: Monsieur d’AMOUR, 1902–62) Writer, editor, playwright, play director, Indonesia

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yoo Cheong Seng was a prolific writer who had about 200 novels published, some of which have been adapted into plays or movies. He has been credited with renewing the acting method technique for play directing in the 1920s. Nyoo attended a Dutch Chinese School and learned English at a Berlitz Language institute. Born in 1902 in Bangkalan, Madura, he started his career as early as 1919 with a story that he wrote with a friend. Since then, he had written more than 200 novels and hundreds of short stories and poems. His first works were published in Sin Po daily and the monthly magazine, Hoa Po. In 1923 he was appointed editor of Interocean, a monthly magazine for politics and economics, but under his editorship, many literary pieces were translated, such as poems by Shakespeare, Lord Byron, and Tennyson. These poems were published together with Lie Kim Hok’s poems in a special issue of Interocean dedicated to poetry. Nyoo’s activities, however, were not limited only to writing; during his spare time, he joined Soen Thian Gie Hie, a theatre group, as an amateur, but later became more involved as its director. He wrote his first script, Lady Yen Mei, criticizing rich but stingy people. In 1926 he left Interocean and joined the Miss Riboet’s Orion, a theatre group in

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Batavia. Together with TD Tio Jr, he improved the standard of the group by radically changing the acting technique and directing method. The troupe travelled to all the cities of Java and Sumatra and also performed in the Malay Peninsula and in Singapore. In 1932 they left Orion and joined the Moonlight Crystal Follies in Singapore. Back in 1927, he had married a FrenchChinese girl named Tan Kiem Nio. She was born in Sungai Liput, Aceh and had learned dancing to become a dancer in the chorus line, but later learned acting from Nyoo. In 1933, she appeared for the first time using her stage name, Fifi Young. With her stunning beauty and her acting talent, she soon became very popular, especially in Kuala Lumpur, Malaya. Nyoo created special roles for her to bring out the best in her, and each time, she surprised him with her ability. She also proved to be gifted in Indonesian dances as well as Western dances as she performed them with the same grace. In 1933 Nyoo and his wife returned to Batavia and were introduced to a group called Dardanella which was owned by a famous dancer, Dewi Dja. With this group they travelled to several countries in Asia, such as China, Burma, and India, but just before the troupe was to go to Europe, Nyoo and Fifi Young returned to Batavia because of some pressing family matters. Together with Henry L. Duarte, an American from Guam, they established Fifi Young’s Pagoda troupe, which was hailed as a very good group, and enjoyed by the intellectuals of the time. However, their capital was limited and consequently, their repertoire only focused on the works of Nyoo. Popular plays at the time were Timoeriana, which was about Timor L’este; Ida Ayu, the story of a girl from Bali; and Bentan Telani, composed of a dialogue consisting of verses. These plays were later adapted into novels.

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In 1940 Fifi Young was given a role for her first movie, Kris Mataram, by Fred Young; Nyoo wrote the script for this movie, which was a success because she was already a theatre actress, well known for her perfect acting. During the Japanese Occupation, they joined a group called Bintang Soerabaja;in 1945, Nyoo started a new group called Sandiwara Pantjawarna, and became involved with one of the young actresses.Young demanded a divorce. They had five children together, two of whom had died very young.The oldest daughter, Sally, was actually a talented actress in her own right; however, next to her mother, who was always considered the prima donna, Sally could never gain popularity with the public. She married in 1948, and settled in Surakarta afterwards. After his divorce Nyoo went to Makassar where he became a popular figure in the Chinese community. He met Ho Eng Djie, a popular keroncong singer, and wrote a biography about this unusual man. Many other stories he wrote later were the result of his friendship with the Chinese community in Makasar. He later went to Malang and felt very much at home with a group of intellectuals, who had formed a group called Tsing Fung Hsieh. His close friends were Ong Kian Bie, a photographer and owner of Studio Malang, and Tan Liep Poen, a painter, who had often made stage decorations for his plays and had designed covers for his novels in the monthly, Tjerita Romans. His most important meeting, however, was with Huang Lin, a young female teacher whom he met while they were acting together in the play, Malang Mignon. They married and he spent his last years quietly until his death in 1962. Nyoo had contracted a liver disease and needed extra care in his diet and lifestyle; nevertheless, he was still busy writing every evening and produced mainly short stories in diverse magazines. Together with his

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wife, he opened a floral shop and Nyoo would write a special poem for every order. His views on society were very much reflected in his novels and these views changed as time went by. First, he was very much against the liberation of women in the 1920s and 30s. It was a time when women wanted to be free and pursue education. They also wanted to wear short dresses with short sleeves, and moreover, have their hair cut short. Nyoo was of the opinion that women should continue to wear their traditional dress, which was the sarong and kebaya, and that their hair should be dressed in a bun. He also warned women to be careful of immoral men, who would take advantage of women who wanted to be modern, but were not aware of the dangers of modernization. He believed that only women who were brought up with traditional values would be strong enough to ward off the dangers. Immoral men were those who used money to show their power. They were dishonest in business and used tactics to disturb the business of others, such as using blackmailing or sending false reports about them. They behave immorally towards women by seducing young girls and mature women alike. They would try to lure the young girls into sex, but after taking their virginity, would abandon them for another girl. They would also seduce mature women, preferably those married to the rich or influential, so they could boast about their feats. To give examples to his readers, Nyoo wrote three stories entitled, Tengkorak (Skeleton), Algojo (The Executioner), and Kiamat (Doomsday). A new trend that made Nyoo even more anxious was when married women tried to free themselves of their husbands in the 1940s. A new entertainment – ballroom dancing — became popular at the time. The dance itself was already considered a big threat as partners would embrace each other while

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dancing. Dancing also provided the girls with the chance to work in dancing halls, where the work was comparable to prostitution. He saw even more danger when girls became victims of Japanese soldiers during World War II, and then of the allied military forces after the war. In the Fifties, he therefore created the “new” woman — one who could stand up to men with their intelligence and wit. The genre of his novels varied. Although his pen names, Monsieur Amor or Monsieur d’Amour, suggest that he mostly wrote love stories, this was not entirely true. He wrote biographical novels as well as adventure stories, an example of which was Gagaklodra, serialized in the monthly, Liberty. Gagaklodra is a figure often compared with Robin Hood. He is antigovernment and consequently, always being

chased by them.This series was very popular; in 1956, he published a collection of Gagaklodra stories with the title, 22 tahun Gagaklodra (22 Years of Gagaklodra). Myra Sidharta R E F E R E N C E S Kwee, John B. “Chinese Malay Literature of the Peranakan Chinese in Indonesia 1880–1942”. Ph.D. Thesis. University of Auckland, 1978, pp. 142–49. Salmon, Claudine. Literature in Malay by The Chinese of Indonesia. Paris:Editions de La Maisons des Sciences de l’Homme, 1981. Suryadinata, Leo. Eminent Indonesian Chinese: Biographical Sketches. Singapore: Gunung Agung, 1981. Huang Lin (Nyoo’s widow). Private interview.

O Oei Tiong Ham ( , Huang Zhonghan, 1866–1924) Wealthy opium revenue farmer, modern entrepreneur, community leader, Indonesia

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ei Tiong Ham was the wealthiest man of his era in the Netherlands Indies, and was honorary major of the Chinese in Semarang. He made a fortune as an opium revenue farmer before the colonial government nationalized the sale of opium. A modernizer, he expanded his father’s sugar trading business, Kian Gwan, into the Oei Tiong Ham Concern, an international conglomerate which traded

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and warehoused a variety of products. By the time of his death the company had diversified into shipping, banking, and the media. Oei Tiong Ham was born in Semarang on 19 November 1866, the eldest son of Oei Tjie Sien (1835–1900) and Tjan Bien Nio (1839–96). His father, who had migrated there from Fujian province in 1858, was a very successful businessman and the founder of the famous trading company, Kian Gwan. At the age of eight, Oei Tiong Ham commenced a traditional Hokkien schooling in Semarang. He later took lessons in the Malay language and the Romanized script. Notwithstanding his inability to speak Dutch, he had a number of good European friends

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with whom he communicated in Malay or through an interpreter. His immigrant father’s success in sugar trading must have been considerable because Oei Tiong Ham himself was appointed Chinese lieutenant of Semarang in 1886 at the age of twenty. Soon promoted to the rank of captain, he resigned the position in 1902 because of the demands of his rapidly expanding business. He was later appointed an honorary major. He may have benefited from his father’s business success, but he soon broke from his father’s narrowly Chinese lifestyle. His modern orientation was already evident in November 1889 when he successfully submitted a request to the governor general to be permitted to wear European clothes. It was not until 1905 that the Chinese were free to dress in any way they liked without asking for government permission, and he was the first Chinese in Semarang to be seen in a European suit. He was also one of the first to cut off his queue (although this only happened after his father’s death) and was one of the first Chinese to obtain permission to live in the European quarter of Semarang rather than in the Chinese quarter, to which the Chinese were still confined by law. Despite these Western influences in his lifestyle and the increasingly international focus of his business empire, he remained a key member of the Chinese community throughout his life. He contributed generously to the Chinese language THHK (Tiong Hoa Hwe Koan or Chinese Association) schools throughout Central Java, and backed the founding in 1916 of the Semarang secondary school, Hoa Ing Tiong Hak (the ChineseEnglish school designed to enable students to obtain entry into the University of Hong Kong). He also gave generous support to the renovation of the Tay Kak Sie, the major temple of the Chinese community in Semarang.

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Successfully bidding for the opium revenue farms in Semarang, Surakarta, Yogyakarta, and Surabaya in the early 1890s, at a time when many former revenue farmers were in financial trouble, he was the last and greatest of the opium revenue farmers in Java. It made him a fortune, as the last licence he held earned him a profit of 18 million guilders before the colonial government replaced revenue farms with a state-run opium monopoly in 1904. Meanwhile he had turned his business acumen to his father’s Kian Gwan kongsi (company), which he incorporated into NV Handel Maatschappij Kian Gwan in 1893. Taking over the business from his father in 1890, Oei Tiong Ham established branches throughout Java and diversified into other export crops such as rubber, kapok, coffee, tapioca flour, pepper, corn, groundnuts, castoroil seeds, and citronella oil. In 1906 he set up a bank called N.V. Bank Vereeniging Oei Tiong Ham and managed it personally for some time. It operated in Semarang and Surabaya, initially providing trading credit and secured loans, but gradually extending its business to cover all aspects of commercial banking and securities, with a property development and real estate subsidiary. Another subsidiary, N.V. Algemeene Maatschappij tot Exploitatie der Oei Tiong Ham Suikerfabrieken, was his vehicle for the ownership of sugar mills. When sugar prices were in decline before the First World War, he made speculative investments in sugar mills which paid off with huge profits when sugar prices rose after the outbreak of war. He set up offices in strategic locations outside the Netherlands Indies, first by establishing the subsidiary, Kian Gwan Western Agency Ltd, in London in 1910, and then a branch office in Singapore in 1914. When the Tan Kim Tian Steamship Co went into liquidation in 1911, Oei Tiong Ham bought five ships and in 1912

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formed a company called Heap Eng Moh Steamship Co. His business interests also spread to the media to such an extent that, at the time of his death, half of his wealth was in newspapers in Java, in particular, in De Locomotief in Semarang and Java Bode; and Nieuws van den Dag in Batavia. As a businessman, he was quite unlike his father and other typical Chinese businessmen of his time. He did not run his companies as a traditional family business, but used European corporate structures and employed trustworthy and competent Europeans and Chinese from outside the family. In choosing key staff, he did not simply rely on formal qualifications, however. According to his daughter, Koo Hui Lan, he was a profligate gambler in his youth and later backed his hunches as a businessman. It is said that he promoted Tan Tek Peng, a bookkeeper without university qualifications, to head Kian Gwan because he was a “daring gambler”. After paying war profit taxes amounting to 35 million guilders in 1921, Oei Tiong Ham was asked to pay income tax for the same period. Understandably he regarded this as double taxation, and refused to pay it. According to his biographer, Liem Tjwan Ling, it was for this reason that he left Semarang and moved to Singapore. However, according to his youngest son, Oei Tjong Tjay, who was born a few weeks after his father’s death, Oei Tiong Ham moved to Singapore so that he could write his will under British law. He had eight wives and twenty-six children (thirteen sons and thirteen daughters) and wanted to disinherit the daughters and choose which sons were to succeed him on the basis of their ability. This was not permitted under Dutch law. After his death the will was contested by the seventeen disinherited children who claimed that he had only moved to Singapore temporarily and was still domiciled in Java. The dispute

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was ultimately settled in 1939 on terms that gave them each a significant share of the estate. At his death, his wealth was estimated at 200 million guilders. The newspaper, Soerabaiasch Handelsblad, in Surabaya called him the richest man between Shanghai and Australia. He died in Singapore of a sudden heart attack on 2 June 1924. On 6 July 1924 his remains were laid to rest together with those of his parents in Penggiling, Semarang. In accordance with his own wish, the burial ceremony was quiet and without extravagance. Fifty years later, his son, Oei Tjong Ie, arranged for their bones to be excavated and cremated. The ashes were then taken to Singapore where they were cared for and venerated. Charles A. Coppel R E F E R E N C E S Koo, Hui-Lan (Madame Wellington Koo). An Autobiography as told to Mary van Rensselaer Thayer. New York: Dial Press, 1943. Koo, Hui-Lan, with Isabella Taves. No Feast Last Forever. New York: Quadrangle, 1975. Liem, Tjwan Ling. Raja Gula Oei Tiong Ham. Surabaya: Penerbit Lie Tjwan Ling,1979. Rush, James R. Opium to Java: Revenue Farming and Chinese Enterprise in Colonial Indonesia, 1860–1910. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990. Yoshihara, Kunio (ed.). Oei Tiong Ham Concern: The First Business Empire of Southeast Asia. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Oei Tjoe Tat ( , Huang Zida, 1922–96) Lawyer, community leader, political leader, Indonesia

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ei Tjoe Tat was a third-generation Peranakan born in Solo, Java on 26 April 1922 to Oei Ing Wie, a shop

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owner, and Ong Tin Nio, a housewife. Neither his father nor his mother received much education. Oei’s father spoke some Hokkien, but the home language was Low Javanese (ngoko). Although the family members had lost command of the Chinese language, they continued to keep Chinese traditions, such as the celebration of Chinese festivals. Educated at a Dutch Chinese school (HCS), Oei began to learn and speak Dutch, but did not speak it outside the classroom. His interactions were mainly with ordinary Javanese and Peranakan Chinese. After finishing primary school he was sent to Semarang to attend a HBS, a Dutch secondary school. Due to his good results he continued his education at RHS (Jakarta), a law school and graduated in May 1948. The same year he joined a Jakarta law firm where many of his colleagues were indigenous Indonesians. Nevertheless, it would appear that he was more at home with the Peranakan Chinese community. Between 1948 and 1950 he was secretary of Sin Ming Hui (Jakarta), a Chinese social organization, and eventually became its president between 1950 and 1954. In 1948 he was also involved in establishing the Persatuan Tionghoa (PI), a Peranakan Chinese political association which changed its name to Partai Demokrat Tionghoa Indonesia (PDTI) in 1950 and served as one of its commissioners. He became deputy chairman in 1951–54. In the 1950s he was also an executive member of the Indonesian Red Cross (1955–57), the Tiong Hoa Hwe Koan (THHK, Jakarta), and the Union Makes Strong (UMS), a soccer association in Jakarta. It was in the 1950s that Oei began to acquire a sense of national-political awareness. He advocated the dissolution of the PDTI and the establishment of a new inclusive organization for the Chinese in Indonesia. In

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1954 various Chinese organizations, regardless of their political ideologies, came together and formed a new mass organization which came to be known as Baperki. The same year, Oei was elected vice-president of the Baperki central board. Siauw Giok Tjhan, a left-wing Peranakan Chinese, was elected president of Baperki. Soon afterwards, a few Peranakan Chinese intellectuals who held different political views left the organization. Oei, who was influenced by the ideology of democratic socialism, stayed on. Another prominent member, Yap Thiam Hien, also continued to be active in Baperki. As time passed, Baperki moved closer to Soekarno who became the “protector” of the organization.Yap eventually became non-active as he disagreed with Siauw’s policy. Daniel Lev argues that many Baperki leaders believed that the hope of Chinese Indonesians did not lie in the Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI) or other political parties, but in Soekarno as Soekarno was not a racialist. As such Siauw and Oei saw the rise of Soekarno as a solution to the so-called Chinese problem in Indonesia. Oei himself admired Soekarno and served on the executive committee of Partindo which was established in 1958 with the endorsement of Soekarno, who felt that the Partai Nasional Indonesia had lost the “nationalist spirit”. Oei believed that by joining Partindo, an indigenous dominated political party, he would be able to contribute more to the Chinese community and Indonesian people. His admiration for Soekarno drew him closer to the president and he referred to Soekarno as his teacher in politics and followed the latter’s political teachings and advice. He was proud to call himself “President Sukarno’s assistant”. Ong Hok Ham, a leading Indonesian historian of Chinese descent, noted that Oei was “a-political”, but was “honest, brave and correct

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in his behaviour”, an attribute appreciated by President Soekarno. In December 1964 Oei was appointed by President Soekarno as minister without portfolio, attached to the Cabinet Presidium; and from September 1964– 65 he was minister of state. Oei’s association with Soekarno, Partindo, and Baperki led to his detention after the 1965 coup by the new authorities who were critical of Soekarno and his teachings. Oei was not immediately detained. It was only after Soeharto gained political power from Soekarno in March 1966 that he began to lose his freedom. He was initially put under house arrest, and then a few weeks later, made a prisoner, together with leaders of the “Old Order”. Oei was detained for almost ten years before he was put on trial on 9 February 1976 when he was defended by Yap Thiam Hien and other indigenous Indonesian lawyers. Oei held on to his political belief and loyalty to Soekarno. The judge eventually sentenced him to thirteen years of imprisonment, minus the time of his detention. Oei did not appeal against the sentence as he did not think it would change anything. He also refused to ask for a pardon from Soeharto as he felt that he had done nothing wrong. His wife, Kwee Loan Nio, asked for his remission with the support of Adam Malik, then foreign minister, and other respectable individuals. Oei’s trail gained international attention and he was eventually released on 30 December 1977 after being kept in jail for almost twelve years. After his release,Oei reopened his law firm, but had to close it down in 1985 after suffering from a heart attack which resulted in his partial paralysis. He continued to keep in touch with his loyal friends and helped the families of detainees who were in difficulties. From 1992 he underwent a series of operations. In 1995 he published his memoirs entitled, Memoar Oei Tjoe Tat: Pembantu Presiden Soekarno (The

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memoirs of Oei Tjoe Tat: President Soekarno’s assistant). The senior editor of the memoirs was a famous Indonesian novelist, Pramoedya Ananta Toer. The book was soon banned, by the Soeharto government. Oei died of cancer in 1996. Oei Tjoe Tat had married Kwee Loan Nio in 1945. He is survived by three daughters and one son. Leo Suryadinata R E F E R E N C E S Berita Yudha, 31 March 1976. Buku Peringatan Sin Ming Hui 10 Tahun: 1946–1956. Jakarta: SMH, 1956, p. 27. Memoar Oei Tjoe Tat: Pembantu Presiden Soekarno. Jakarta: Hasta Mitra, 1995. Pedoman Kampanje Perdjoangan Badan Permusyawaratan Kewarganegaraan Indonesia (Baperki) dalam Pemilihan Umum. Jakarta: Pengurus Harian Pusat Baperki, 1955, pp. 37–38. Interviews with Oei Tjoe Tat in 1984.

Oey, Abdul Karim (Abdul Karim Oey Tjeng Hien, , Huang Qingxing, 1905–88) Chinese Muslim leader of Muhammadiyah, Indonesia

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bdul Karim Oey (hereafter called, “Oey”) was a well known Chinese Muslim who was active both before and after World War II. He was a Muhammadiyah leader in Bengkulu and Jakarta and he founded the Persatuan Islam Tionghoa Indonesia [Indonesian Union of Chinese Muslims] (PITI). A controversial figure within his ethnic group which is non-Muslim, he was part of the dakwah movement within the Chinese community.

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Oey was a second-generation Chinese born in 1905 in Padang, Sumatra. His father and mother came from Fujian Province in Southern China and had migrated to Indonesia in the mid-nineteenth century. At the age of one, Oey was given to the care of foster parents. When his adoptive father died, he was returned to his natural parents. Oey’s father was a successful merchant and sent Oey to HCS, a Dutch school for Chinese children. Perhaps because of his Dutch education, Oey converted to Adventist Christianity, but he did not practise it. He did not continue his studies after graduating from HCS, but moved instead from Padang to Bintuhan and went into business there. Soon he came to be known as a superior trader and was able to afford a Chevrolet sedan. His work often took him to Jakarta. The young Oey was searching for something in religion. He became a Buddhist and Confucian before being converted to Christianity, but Oey said that Adventist Christianity did not bring him inner peace. He felt that “the light of God began to illuminate my [his] soul” and he began to study Islam. Oey reportedly converted to Islam in 1931 when he was twenty-six.After conversion, Oey continued to study under Fikir Daud. However, after becoming a Muslim (or becoming Malay, as the Sumatrans and Peninsular Malays would say), Oey found that his relationship with his family became distant, but his relationship with native Indonesians became closer, especially with the Sumatrans in his birth place. Oey became a Muslim in Bintuhan where he founded a branch of the Muhammadiyah organization. He had two ideas then — to set up a branch of the Indonesian United Islamic Party (PSII), or of Muhammadiyah. Finally, following the wish of the majority of the community, he established a Muhammadiyah branch and was selected to head it. Oey

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travelled around West Sumatra and Bengkulu, where he met local figures such as Hasan Din, the father of Fatmawati and future fatherin-law of Soekarno. In 1937, Soekarno was exiled to Bengkulu and remained active there. Soekarno once convened a meeting of the Muhammadiyah to select a new consul as the old one was seriously ill and the organization needed a successor. Finally Hasan Din suggested that Oey of Bintuhan be the head. Soekarno agreed. A telegraph was sent to Oey asking him to sell his possessions in Bintuhan and move to Bengkulu. Oey became closely associated with Soekarno in Bengkulu. Finally, Soekarno asked Oey to propose to Hasan Din’s daughter, Fatmawati on his behalf. During the Japanese Occupation, Oey was told to disband his organization. Oey said that the Japanese did not force him to do so and he refused. When Japan surrendered and the Masyumi Party was founded, Oey became the party chief in Bengkulu. When the Dutch initiated military action in 1948, Oey and some other Maysumi figures became guerrillas. Oey still lived in Bengkulu after Indonesia’s independence and served as a Muhammadiyah consul. In 1952, he moved to Jakarta and became a member of Majelis Tanwir Muhammadiyah (a Muhammadiyah board), established from 1952 to 1973. Oey was chosen to sit on the Masyumi Party Council from 1957 to 1960. He was also a member of parliament, representing the Masyumi Party during the same years. When Masyumi debated with the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) in parliament, Oey was assigned to argue against Nungtjik A. R., a former friend from Padang. According to Oey, Nungtjik attacked Masyumi and the Muslims in his speeches, thus Oey responded by attacking the PKI. The vehemence of Oey’s speech startled Nungtjik. After the debate, Nungtjik embraced Oey and

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told him that they had been set up against each other, but Oey did not reply. Oey was a member of parliament for four years. In 1960, Soekarno let him step down honourably from his post with a full pension. This was related to the dissolution of the Masyumi Party which was thought to have been involved in the 1958 rebellion in which regional commanders tried unsuccessfully to set up the Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia (PRRI). After Masyumi disbanded, Oey founded the Organization of Chinese Muslims of Indonesia (PITI) and was selected its chairman. During the New Order period, he introduced new blood into the PITI leadership while he continued to be the chairman. Lt. General Surdirman was put in charge, and seven native Indonesians, including Hamka, the leader of Majelis Ulama Indonesia, one of the biggest Muslim organizations in Indonesia, were selected as advisers. The first vice-chairman together with Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama and the secretary general of PITI, H.Yunan Helmy Nasution and Major Achmad Johansjah respectively, were also native Indonesians. Although PITI was a Chinese Muslim organization, its administration and membership were actually ethnically mixed. Under Oey’s leadership, PITI developed and branches were established. PITI, under Oey, sought permission in 1972 to print the Qur’an and religious magazines in the Chinese language. The request was turned down by the Department of Religious Affairs because the government wanted to expedite the assimilation of the Chinese. That same year, the central committee of PITI was ordered to disband the organization by the attorney general. The term “Chinese” was found to be too exclusive. Ten days after PITI was dissolved, on 12 December 1972, a new organization,

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Pembina Iman Tauhid Islam (Organization for the Promotion of Religious Beliefs), was formed. It was involved in sermonizing and education, and its administrative structure was little changed. Oey remained chairman until 1973 (Tempo, however, reported that he was chairman until 1975); thereafter, he served as honorary chairman. Oey was also known as an entrepreneur. When he moved to Jakarta, he became involved in several companies. In 1952, he and Hasan Din first established PT Mega to import cloves and other commodities. “Mega” was short for “Megawati”, the name of Soekarno’s daughter. According to Oey, the company had received Soekarno’s blessing. Oey served as director of the company until 1981. He also served as director of Bank Central Asia (BCA), the bank of Liem Sioe Liong, from 1955 to 1973, and was simultaneously the first commissioner of the bank. In addition, Oey was director of his factory producing Asli 777 T-shirts from 1962–80. From 1964 to 1973, he was head of the Muhammadiyah Economic Council. He combined his economic activities with religious ones. From 1972 to 1979, he served as director of PT Sumber Bengawan Mas. Oey did not make the pilgrimage to Mecca until 1969, when he went with a group from HUSAMI (Organization of Muslim Businessmen), headed by Sjafruddin Prawiranegara. Two years later, he was chosen by President Soeharto to head the operations committee of the Istiqlal Mosque until 1974. In 1977, Oey became an ordinary member, and later, an advisory committee member (1980) of Bakom PKB central (Committee on the Understanding of National Unity) where he was active in assimilation activities. In 1980, Oey travelled with his wife, two daughters, and a son, all Muslims, to Mecca to complete his umroh (staying in Minna three nights during the hajj). His two daughters married

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indigenous Indonesians. One of them became the daughter-in-law of a PITI leader, Yunan Helmy Nasution. General A.H. Nasution and K.H. Dahlan and Moh. Hatta were the witnesses at the marriage ceremony, while Hamka gave the wedding sermon. Oey’s son, Ali Karim or, Oey Tek Li, married a Chinese woman who later converted to Islam. Oey died in Jakarta on 13 October 1988 at the age of eighty-three. He was an important Muslim figure in Indonesia. As Hamka noted, “He was a Muslim and a son of Indonesia… who was fostered, nurtured and became a true Indonesian nationalist.” Leo Surydinata R E F E R E N C E S Oey, Abdul Karim. Mengabdi Agama, Nusa Dan Bangsa: Sahabat Karib Bung Karno. Jakarta: Gunung Agung, 1982. Suryadinata, Leo. Mencari Identitas Nasional: Dari Tjoe Bou San Sampai Yap Thiam Hien. Jakarta: LP3ES, 1990.

Oey-Gardiner, Mayling ( , Huang Meiling, 1941– ) Demographer, executive director of Insan Hitawasana Sejahtera, professor, Indonesia

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he significance of the work and career of Mayling Oey-Gardiner, usually called Mayling, is shown in the fact that she has a number of “firsts”. When there was an increase in population activities, including studies and scholarships in the 1970s, she was a recipient of the Ford-Rockefeller population research grant. She was the first Indonesian to receive this grant as an individual applicant.The research became the basis of her dissertation and led her into becoming the first Indonesian to earn a Ph.D. in demography in 1982. In

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2001, she was the first woman to be appointed professor at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Indonesia (UI) in its fifty years of existence. In 2004 she was elected chair of the Academic Senate and secretary to the Board of Professors of the Faculty of Economics of UI in 2004–2007 (private e-mail, 9 September 2008). Mayling has an outstanding teaching record at the UI, which started in 1971 with sociology, and later with the addition of population studies. She also taught research methodology at both undergraduate and graduate levels for more than two decades. Although retired since 2006, she has continued teaching at the Faculty of Economics of UI on an intermittent basis. She founded Insan Hitawasana Sejahtera (IHS) with a number of colleagues in 1991, of which she is the executive director until today. IHS is an Indonesian company specializing in the provision of social science research covering a wide range of social, economic, and demographic issues, and consulting services. In addition to management responsibilities, she is also senior researcher, often serving as team leader of research projects undertaken by the company. One recent product of this company is MAPFRAME, a widely used software database prepared for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Nanggru Aceh Darussalam (NAD), which was hit by the tsunami of 26 December 2004. This is a product that continues to be developed. Undoubtedly, Mayling is the pillar of the company and her research output in consultancies, both national and international, is impressive. She has a total of 117 titles to her name. In recent years, her research interests have increasingly targeted policy aspects of equity, with a focus on poverty and gender issues, and on issues related to general access to social services, as well as on delivery of social services through

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participatory approaches in the context of building environments of greater governance. Her work has included both primary (surveybased) data collection and analysis. She has done work not only in Indonesia, but also in Cambodia, Malaysia, Mongolia, the Philippines, Thailand, Timor Leste, and Vanuatu. Mayling’s deep concern with good quality research and capacity building in this area has led to her becoming a member of the committee to select outstanding research proposals for government funding under the auspices of the Minister of Research and Technology. She is currently a member of the Dewan Research Nasional (DRN) for the period 2005–08, and in 2008 she was invited to be a member of the Commission on Social Sciences of the Indonesian Academy of Sciences. Mayling is highly active in civil society organizations (CSO): She was one of two international, non-Ford Foundation board members of the International Fellowship Program of the Ford Foundation; a member of the board of the Indonesian Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS); a founding member as well as a board member of Transparency International-Indonesia. Her concern with women’s issues led to her acceptance as board member of the Koalisi Perempuan (Women’s Coalition). With four other colleagues, she founded the Lotus Foundation in 1997. Born in Sukabumi (West Java), a small town about 120 km south of Jakarta, on 25 February, 1941, she is the fourth child and third daughter of Oei Jang Hwat and Ong Pik Hwa. This was the time of the Japanese Occupation of the Netherlands Indies. Her mother, a journalist who ran a woman’s magazine called Fu Len (Furen in Mandarin, meaning “women”), had a sharp pen and would be called an “activist” today. She was a target of the Japanese occupiers and consequently the

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family had to move around in Java until after Indonesia’s independence. They finally settled down in Jakarta. No doubt, Ong’s activities and ideas left their mark on the mind of her third daughter. Her concern for women’s issues and the importance of education which she wrote about in her magazine were also passed on to girl. As Peranakan Chinese, both Mayling’s parents were Dutch educated, and she herself went to the Dutch Santa Theresia elementary school and then the Santa Ursula Indonesian secondary school, from which she graduated in 1959. This was the time when ethnic Chinese experienced discrimination in getting into state universities. Mayling, therefore, decided to postpone continuing her studies and got a job instead at the affiliation office of the Faculty of Economics of UI — a Ford Foundation project to send Indonesian students to the United States to study economics. At the end of the project she herself was offered a scholarship to study there. Thus began her educational experience in the United States and it happened during the very difficult years in Indonesia before and following the 1965 upheaval. She was accepted at St Xavier’s College in Chicago where she completed her BA in sociology in 1968, then went on to the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. She returned home in 1970 with an MA in sociology and a thesis on population growth patterns. She joined the Population Section of Leknas-LIPI (the National Economic and Social Research Institute of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences), and the Demographic Institute of the Faculty of Economics of the UI. Shortly afterwards she had the opportunity to study at the Harvard School of Public Health, where in 1974, she completed a postgraduate degree (MS) in Population Sciences and also started a proposal for an original study on transmigration. Again

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she was fortunate as she completed the proposal in time to receive a population research grant from the Ford-Rockefeller programme. She is married to Peter Gardiner, an American demographer. Their romance began when they were both studying demography at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. After they had completed their Ph.D, they decided to tie the knot in Jakarta in 1982. They have a son, Conrad Trisna Gardiner, in 1985 when Mayling was forty-four years old. She was very happy and proud to tell people that it was a natural birth. The young man is now completing his undergraduate studies in media and communications at the Swinburn University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. Mayling’s life is a successful combination of marriage, family, and career. In her husband, Peter, she has also found a colleague, with whom she works in the IHS research company they set up in 1991, seventeen years ago. In her own words,“… our skills seem to complement each other. Peter is strong in conceptualizing and designing studies or writing proposals, while my forte lies in implementation and thus, management”. Mely G.Tan R E F E R E N C E Mayling Oey-Gardiner. Private e-mail, 9 September 2008.

Oey Kim Tiang ( , Huang Jinchang, 1903–95) Translator, writer, Indonesia

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ey Kim Tiang had limited formal education but managed to be the greatest translator of Chinese novels, particularly wuxia novels, into Bahasa Indonesia.

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His career spanned over 60 years (1924–88), during which he produced translations of more than 120 titles, including such Chinese classics ), as Romance of the Three Kingdoms ( ) and Outlaws The Journey to the West ( ). His works promoted of the Marsh ( the birth of the cerita silat (wuxia) genre in Indonesia and connected readers to the wealth of Chinese literary traditions. Oey Kim Tiang was born on 9 February 1903 in a Sino-Indonesian family which had lived in Tangerang for more than five generations as labourers and petty traders. Their ancestry was not known anymore, as was common for the Chinese then. His father, Oey Kee Hok, worked as a coconut plantation supervisor and moved from one plantation to another. He once took his wife to Telukpucung, Bekasi, located in the east of Jakarta (West Java) where his wife gave birth to twin sons, Kim Tiang and Kim Siang. The younger twin died when he was three years old. His wife also probably died around then as both were buried in the same place. When Oey Kee Hok was inspecting coconut plantations, the young Kim Tiang would be left to a neighbour’s care as there was no school to go to. This experience probably tempered Oey into a self-motivated, independent individual later. Only much later was Oey enrolled at the new school of Tiong Hoa Hwe Koan (abbrev. THHK; Chinese Association) in Tangerang. While the school of THHK in Batavia (Jakarta) ) as its teaching used Mandarin ( medium, the Tangerang school chose the most common local dialect — the Fujianese dialect ), where most Chinese in of Zhangzhou ( Java had originated. At school, Oey befriended ), a a young teacher, Ong Kim Tiat ( graduate from a school in Nanjing for overseas ). The Chinese, Kay Lam Hak Tong ( two became sworn brothers.

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When Oey graduated from junior high school, Ong, already then a reputed reporter for Sin Po and Siang Po, urged Oey to work rather than continuing his education as Oey was already twenty. Oey was introduced to the editors of the Keng Po press by his maternal uncle and immediately obtained a position in the young press. Oey accepted the job to translate the famous historical novel, Tong ). In this first work, Tjioe Liat Kok ( Oey used the pseudonym, K.T. Jr., in honour of his friend (K.T. stands for Kim Tiat). The work proved very successful and translating became Oey’s main job. Oey translated other short wuxia novels; among them, the greatest recognition was received for Tjit Hiap Ngo Gie Qixia Wuyi), and its sequel, Siauw ( Xiao Wuyi), in 1927–28. In Ngo Gie ( the 1930s, Oey married Lie Soe Nio, and his children, Lan Ing, Hin Gie, Lan Hiang and Hin Lim, were born in quick succession. In 1936–38, he contributed to no less than four dailies, two magazines, and a monthly, using several pseudonyms: For Keng Po, he used the pseudonym, Huang (the Mandarin pronunciation for Oey); and for Sin Po, Boe Beng Tjoe, which means ‘the man with no name’. In Semarang, Goh King Tjoh, the Japanese sound of his name was used with Djim Nay Boe, meaning ‘a side job’. The acronym OKT was extensively used after 1950 as well as H., KT., C.C Huang, and even X. Besides pseudonyms, Oey’s publications for Magic Carpet in early 1950s were anonymous. During the Japanese Occupation, publishing houses closed down. Harder times came after the independence of Indonesia when Oey and his family found their home ransacked one day and had to evacuate. Oey’s library and archive were destroyed and Oey rebuilt his work from scratch. Keng Po, and its sister publication, Star Weekly, resumed publishing in January 1946, but Oey preferred to work from home. It was in this period

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which saw Oey’s best works being produced: ), published See Yoe (Journey to the West in 1952 under the Magic Carpet label; Soei Ho ) appeared in Toan (Outlaws of the Marsh ) Sin Po (1950); and Sie Djin Kwie ( for Star Weekly was published as a graphic novel with the directions of Auwyong Peng Koen and the illustration of Siauw Tik Kwie. Oey rose to prominence and Keng Po began to publish his works in 1956. Wang , 1909–77) Crane-Iron Pentalogy Dulu’s ( ), after Oey’s translation, turned out ( a big success. Oey published 19 wuxia titles using pseudonym, OKT, with Keng Po in the two years before its liquidation. By then, the readership of wuxia novels was not confined to the Chinese, but had spread to any literate. ) and Liang The works of Jin Yong ( ) received instant popularity. Yusheng ( Jin Yong’s 14 books were translated in 1958–72 by Oey and his young relative and friend, Oey An Siok, under the name, Boe Beng Tjoe — the only time Oey had allowed his pseudonym to be used by another person. In 1961, a ban on wuxia novels in news media was issued by the military commander of Jakarta, thus wuxia stories appeared in books. Until 1966, more than fifty titles were published, among which Oey had a fair share. In 1966, the military banned all publications and required the publisher to submit a copy of the proposed book before a long wait for publication approval. This practice virtually stopped the business. However, public demand for reading materials prevailed. In 1968, the publisher Marga Djaja began to publish Oey’s new series. A boom followed and more than 11 titles appeared within four years. In 1972, Marga Djaja collapsed, leaving Si Kasim Tjilik ) and Lentjana Tudjuh Naga ( ) ( unfinished. From then on, Oey withdrew from business despite unfinished translations. He became aware that his readers preferred reading

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the standard Indonesian language which he lacked proficiency in. Oey tried to look for an editor for his manuscripts, but was unsuccessful. Pustaka Jaya, a publishing company headed by Ajip Rosidi, an admirer of Oey’s works, managed to edit and republish Dua Musuh ) in three incomplete Turunan ( volumes in 1996. The only successful one was ), edited San Pek Eng Tay ( by Achmad Setiawan Abadi, published by Yayasan Obor Indonesia in 1990. Actually, Oey completed the text in 1985. In his later years, Oey did not translate many new titles. His last efforts were spent ), the story of translating Boe Tjek Thian ( Empress Wu, but he has to stop in 1988 due to deteriorating health.Nevertheless,he continued to read Chinese classics and new books. On 8 March 1995 he died in Tangerang. Translation was time-consuming; it was only after Oey was satisfied with a story would translation begin. If Oey found an original publication unsatisfactory, he would write his evaluations, sometimes very extensively, on the book covers. In translating, he referred to a note he made of the characters, places, events, and their martial art styles to maintain consistency. One of Oey’s extraordinary results was his translation of classical poems found in the works of Jin Yong and Liang Yusheng, which were mostly ignored by translators due to linguistic difficulties and thus, dismissed as unimportant. Oey would, however, painstakingly translate the poems and prolong publication time; therefore, separately typed pages of translated poems were mostly found glued to the bound texts. Oey preferred to be called a ‘narrator’ rather than a ‘translator’. He explained that he was simply retelling stories that delighted him to the public with his limited capacities. Oey demonstrated excellent mastery of the Melayu Rendah dialect; no less than Ajip Rosidi, a prominent Indonesian writer and poet, even

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lavished praise upon Oey’s translation skills. Quality aside, Oey’s long career and quantity of translations are unparalleled; so are his attitude and his deep dedication and commitment. Oey helped to promote the popularity of modern Chinese novels among the younger SinoIndonesian generation who do not learn the Chinese language. Through his works, Oey also spread traditional values like the family, friendship, solidarity, truth and justice — values fundamental to our humanity but which are threatened by fast-paced urbanization. Sutrisno Murtiyoso R E F E R E N C E S Murtiyoso, Sutrisno. “Oey Kim Tiang Penerjemah Tjersil Terbesar”. In Rimba Hijau, 05/2005, Jakarta, 2005. Salmon Claudine. Literature in Malay by the Chinese of Indonesia. A Provisional Annotated Bibliography. Paris: Editions de la Maison de l’Homme, 1981. Suryadinata, Leo. “Cerita Silat, Kebijakan Pemerintah dan Masyarakat Indonesia”. In Negara dan Etnis Tionghoa, Kasus Indonesia. Jakarta: LP3ES, 2002. Suryadinata, Leo. “Oey Kim Tiang (O.K.T.) Penerjemah Cersil yang Unggul”. In Rimba Hijau, 05/2005, Jakarta, 2005. Suryadinata, Leo. Post-War Kungfu Novels in The Culture of the Chinese Minority in Indonesia. Times Books International, 1997. Oey Hin Lim (Oey Kim Tiang’s son), Interview 2009. Personal papers of the late Oey Kim Tiang.

Oey Tong Pin ( , Huang Dongping, 1923– ) Prolific writer in Chinese, Indonesia

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ey Tong Pin, better known as Huang Dongping, is arguably the most prolific Indonesian Chinese writer in Chinese in the last century. He was first known as a poet and later a novelist. In fact, he is also an essayist and playwright.

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Oey was born in Kota Baru, Kalimantan, on 31 April 1923, into a Hokkien totok family. He studied in a local Chinese primary school, but when he was ten years old, his father, a “bookkeeper”, took the whole family to Jin Men (Fujian) where Tong Ping studied up to the first year of secondary school. When the Sino-Japanese War erupted, the young Tong Ping and his two siblings went to Hong Kong with their mother and lived there for more than two years while his father returned to Indonesia. The boy studied at a school called ). By his own Yu Cai Shu Yuan ( account, it was during his stay in Hong Kong that he was able to read a lot of books and newspapers to enhance his knowledge of Chinese. While in Hong Kong he also learned drawing, especially sketches and caricatures, which made him an illustrator as well. After the death of his mother, he and his siblings were brought back by his father to colonial Indonesia and from then on he began to work to support himself. He did not return to Kalimantan, but went to Pekalongan (Central Java), where he worked for a tea company as a bookkeeper. Later when the tea company went bankrupt he went to join his uncle in Samarinda, Kalimantan, where he again worked as a bookkeeper for Chinese shops. Over there he began to write and send his writings to Chinese newspapers and magazines. His first essay was published in a student magazine. After the Japanese Occupation of Indonesia, he returned to Java, first to Surabaya, and later to Jakarta, with his family. He was still working as a bookkeeper, not for one shop, but often for a couple at a time. He used his free time to continue writing. In 1956, he wrote a long poem entitled, “You, Indonesia!”, extolling the heroic history of Indonesia and the contributions of the overseas Chinese. It was accepted for publication as the lead

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poem by a magazine in Guangdong Province in China called Literary Works Monthly ( ). This long poem brought him fame and attention as a poet among the Chinesespeaking community in Indonesia; he had written it from the perspective of a huaqiao, an overseas Chinese. Poems of this genre were very popular during that period and most of his poems were political in the sense that they were written as commentaries on political events, and carried particular messages. Besides that, they eulogized about the greatness of the motherland (China) and the contributions of the Chinese overseas. He had by then inherited the literary tradition of socialist-realism. From 1956 to 1965, he wrote and published 161 poems in Mainland China and Hong Kong, especially in the well known literary magazines of the People’s Republic of China, including ), People’s Literature the People’s Daily ( ), Poetry Magazine ( ), Literary ( ), Literary Works Monthly Monthly ( ), etc. He had intended to publish ( the poems in book form, but gave up this plan due to the changes in the political situations in Indonesia and China: General Soeharto had come to power after crushing the PKI (Pantai Komunis Indonesia) and Soekarno, and introduced an anti-communist regime, while the Cultural Revolution had broken out in China. However, Oey later photocopied his handwritten manuscripts and made them into a two-volume book for limited circulation among his friends. The photo-copied book ) or “The Wind of was called Qiao Feng ( Chinese Overseas”. During the New Order era in Indonesia, the three pillars of Chinese culture were eradicated: Chinese schools, Chinese newspapers/periodicals, and Chinese social and political organizations.Worse, the public use of the Chinese language was also banned. In such circumstances, Oey changed his strategy. He

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

stopped writing poems as these would have been considered behind the times and it would be difficult to get them published. Instead he concentrated on writing short essays, short stories, and novels. As a matter of fact, prior to the New Order, Oey had started writing short essays and commentaries. During the New Order period, he published his works no longer in the newspapers and magazines of China,but in those of Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and even the United States. His post-Soekarno writings were numerous, but the most successful were his three novels or trilogy. The umbrella title ) or “The Song of the three is Qiao Ge ( of Overseas Chinese”, but each volume has its own title. The first volume was completed at the end of the 1960s after he had done his research for the novel. It was published only in 1973 in Hong Kong after a couple of failed attempts. This first novel, entitled, Qi Zhou ) (Beyond China), deals Yang Wai ( with the history of the Indonesian Chinese communities during the Dutch colonial period, especially the beginning of the 1920s. It tells the various stories of Chinese migrants, such as “progressive teachers”, students, farmers, and small traders. Through his protagonists, Oey attempted to portray the lives of overseas Chinese in colonial Indonesia. In fact, the stories were provided by his own father; these were combined with the author’s own life experiences and observations. The second novel, entitled, Chi Dao Xian Shang ( ) (On the Equator), was published six years later (1979) also in Hong Kong. By his own account, he had a lot of difficulty writing the second novel before it could see the light of day. It also deals with colonial Indonesia beginning in the 1930s, and portrays the overseas Chinese in Indonesia and their struggle for survival in colonial society, their interactions with the local communities, their responses to events

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in China and their struggle against Dutch colonialism.The last volume entitled, Lie Ri Di ) (Under the Heat of the Sun), Xia ( which concluds his stories of the Indonesian Chinese in the Dutch colonial period, was published twenty years after the first novel.This trilogy is considered by many as a masterpiece by Oey; his readers call it the encyclopedia of the Chinese community under Dutch colonial rule as it provides detailed descriptions of various types of Chinese migrants, their living conditions, and life experiences. The first two novels have also been serialized in Chinese newspapers in California (the United States), and received warm responses from the readers. Apart from the trilogy, Oey also wrote one screenplay entitled, Lao Hua Gong ( ) (The Old Chinese Labourer), published in Hong Kong in 1974, and depicting the story of Chinese coolies in the Dutch East Indies; and a ) (Red River), which deals play Hong Xi ( with the 1740 Chinese rebellion in Batavia, and the massacre of the Chinese which turned the river red. It was first serialized in a Chinese daily in the United States in 1984 and was eventually published in 1990 in Hong Kong. In addition, he also published his collection of essays in two volumes: Duan Gao Yi Ji ( ) (Collection of Short Essays One) and ) (Collection of Duan Gao Er Ji ( Short Essays Two), both in Singapore. After the fall of Soeharto, the Indonesian Chinese clan ) decided to publish association of Jinmen ( the entire works of Oey, entitled, Huang Dong ) in ten volumes. The Ping Wen Ji ( last volume was published in 2003 in Jakarta. Oey has since received recognition also from the Singapore Chinese literary community. In 1981 he was invited to participate in the international literature seminar in Singapore. The seminar invited only five leading Chinese authors, namely Bai Xianyong from the United States, Liu Yi Cha from Hong Kong, Ya Xian

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from Taipei, Fang Bei Fang from Malaysia, and Oey. It was considered a great honour. In 1996, he received the Ya Xi An Wen Xue Jiang award , ASEAN Literary Award) from ( the Singapore Society of Literary Studies. Oey eventually became a citizen of Indonesia. However in most of his works which were written prior to his becoming an Indonesian citizen, he tended to write from the perspective of an overseas Chinese, not an Indonesian. Leo Suryadinata R E F E R E N C E S Suryadinata, Leo. Prominent Indonesian Chinese: Biographical Sketches. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. 1995, pp. 40–41. 〈 《

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Ojong, Petrus Kanisius (Auwjong Peng Koen, , Ouyang Bingkun, 1920–80) Journalist, publisher, socio-political activist, Indonesia

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.K. Ojong was a newspaperman, publisher, and public intellectual. He and Jakob Oetama published the largest influential Indonesian-language daily, Kompas, and was the proprietor of Gramedia, a major printing and publishing company which later developed to become the Kompas-Gramedia Group.

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P.K. Ojong, or more correctly, Auwjong Peng Koen, was born in Bukit Tinggi on 25 June 1920. His father, Auwjong Pouw, was a Chinese migrant from Jinmen, southern China, who came to Indonesia before World War II and became a tobacco merchant in Payakumbuh, West Sumatra. After the death of his first wife, Auwjong Pouw married a second wife who gave birth to Peng Koen. Auwjong Pouw was then about fifty years old. It is interesting to note that Auwjong Pouw sent his son to a Dutch School for the Chinese (HCS) rather than a Chinese-medium school in Payakumbuh. The young Peng Koen was also educated at MULO (Dutch secondary school) in Padang (1934–37) and was exposed to Catholicism since many of his teachers were Catholic priests and nuns. It was therefore not surprising that he became a Catholic at a young age. After his graduation from MULO, Ojong wanted to continue his education in a law school, but his father had died when he was still in secondary school and his mother had difficulties in paying for his further education. As a result he went to Java to attend the Dutch Normal School for the Chinese (HCK), which provided almost free education. He graduated in 1940, became a teacher, and later a school principal in Jakarta for four years (1940–44). In August 1945 the Japanese surrendered and newspapers were allowed to resume publication. Ojong, who was then in his mid-twenties came to know the two Peranakan newspapermen, , 1906–66) and Injoo Khoe Woen Sioe ( , 1904–62), both from Keng Beng Goat ( Po, one of the largest Peranakan Chinese newspapers in Jakarta before and after World War II. He then joined Keng Po and worked on its editorial board, and was also staff member of the Star Weekly, the weekly magazine of Keng Po, from 1946–51.

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

During this time, Ojong continued to be interested in a law education and enrolled himself at the Faculty of Law, University of Indonesia (FHUI), where he obtained a Mr (Meester in de Rechten) degree in 1951. Ojong later took over the management of the newspaper from Khoe Woen Sioe, who was influenced by Fabian Socialism. He had discovered that Khoe had his own philosophy and was concerned with the welfare of his staff. Because of this, Khoe was able to gain the loyalty of his staff. On his part, Ojong had gained the confidence of Khoe and from 1951 to 1960, served as chief editor of Star Weekly. It was under his leadership that the Star Weekly became the leading weekly read by both Peranakan Chinese and indigenous Indonesian intellectuals. Ojong was able to get both indigenous and Chinese Indonesian writers to write for the weekly, which became a forum for Indonesian intellectual debates. In the debate on “assimilation” in Star Weekly in 1960,Ong was in favour of assimilation for Chinese Indonesians and opposed to the Baperki integration policy supported by Siauw Giok Tjhan. The assimilation group, known as the “Ten Figures” (Tokoh 10), consisted of many Chinese Catholics and anti-Communist individuals, including Ojong. The division between the assimilation and integration groups, interestingly, coincided with right-wing and left-wing political ideologies respectively. Indonesian politics after 1957 began to move to the left under the leadership of President Soekarno and Keng Po and Star Weekly were considered to be against the state revolutionary ideology. In August 1957 Keng Po was banned by the authorities, but Star Weekly survived for another four years before it was banned in October1961 for being “antirevolution”. It was only after the banning of Star Weekly that Ojong had time to publish

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three books: Perang Pasifik 1941–45 (The Pacific War 1941–45, Jakarta, 1962), PerkaraPerkara Kriminil Jang Termasjur (Well Known Criminal Cases, Jakarta, 1962), and Perang Dunia II (World War II, Jakarta, 1963). After the Star Weekly was banned, Ojong established P.T. Sakawidya, a printing and publishing firm of which he was director between 1961 and 1964. In 1963 he participated in the publication of Intisari, a popular monthly magazine, and eventually became its chief editor. Intisari was different from Star Weekly in that it made a special effort not to publish political commentaries even though many leading writers and intellectuals wrote for the magazine. From the business point of view, Intisari was a success. This does not mean that Ojong was not interested in politics. On the contrary, in 1964 he joined the Partai Katolik (Catholic Party) and served on its Central Board until 1968. In 1964 the government issued a new ruling that all newspapers were required to be affiliated with political parties. The Catholic Party wanted Ojong to be its leader as he had journalistic experience and was successful in running the Intisari. Ojong hesitated for a while, but eventually agreed. He insisted that a foundation should be established for the purpose of its publications. He invited Jakob Oetama, a Javanese who was also a member of the Indonesian Catholic Scholars Association (Ikatan Sarjana Katolik Indonesia) and who was at one time a journalist working for a Catholic magazine, to join him. After putting in much preparation, the daily, Kompas, was eventually published on 28 June 1965. Three months later there was the so-called 30 September Movement (G-30-S), which brought about the fall of the PKI and Soekarno, and the triumph of the army. All left-wing newspapers were banned on 2 October 1965, but Kompas,

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as an anti-Communist paper, was allowed to continue. It developed gradually into a major and respectable daily newspaper read by the educated sector of the public, regardless of their ethnic backgrounds and religious affiliations. Ojong served as general manager of Kompas until 1980. He not only brought about the successes of Kompas and Intisari, but also established branches of Gramedia Bookshop in major cities of Indonesia. In short, he and Jakob Oetama succeeded in making KompasGramedia the largest newspaper and a leading printer/publisher in Indonesia. The KompasGramedia group later diversified its business and went into other sectors as well. From 1967 to 1969, Ojong served as treasurer II of the Newspaper Publishers’ Federation. From 1967 to 1980 he was treasurer of Yayasan Indonesia, a foundation which published Horison, an influential literary magazine. From 1971 to 1980 he was a member of the Legal Aid Institute, Lembaga Bantuan Hukum. And from 1970 to 1980, he served as chairman of the Tarumanegara Foundation, which founded the University of Tarumanegara in Jakarta. Ojong died the evening of 31 May 1980, probably from a heart attack. He had married Catherine Oei Kian Kiat in 1949 and had six children with her. Leo Suryadinata R E F E R E N C E S Ishwara, Helen. P.K. Ojong: Hisup Sederhana Berpikir Mulia. Jakarta: Penerbit Buku Kompas, 2001. Parera, Frans M. “P.K. Ojong: Intelektual yang Menganut Sosialisme Fabian”. Prisma, no. 7 (1985). Suryadinata, Leo. Prominent Indonesian Chinese: Biographical Sketches, pp. 122–23. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1995.

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Ong Beng Seng ( , Wang Mingcheng, 1946– ) Businessman, entrepreneur, property tycoon, Singapore

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usinessman, hotelier, property tycoon, lifestyle entrepreneur, are just some of the labels used to describe Ong Beng Seng, one of Singapore’s most reclusive and media-shy businessmen. Though born in Perak, Malaysia, in 1946, Ong had spent most of his life in Singapore as his family moved here in 1950, when he was four years old. He was educated at Anglo-Chinese School (ACS) where he gained the reputation of being a champion sprinter and long jumper. After ACS, Ong made his way to the United Kingdom for further studies before returning to Singapore to take up a job with Motor & General Underwriters Investments Holdings. By the early 1970s, he had reputedly earned his first fortune selling shipping insurance. He had also married Christina Fu, the daughter of Peter Fu Yun Siak, a well established oil trader and founder/chairman of Kuo International, a large oil trading company. In 1975, Ong took the first step that marked a change in his career by joining Kuo International as its managing director, where he gained the reputation for being a shrewd trader with an eye for business opportunities. In 1980, Ong and his father-in-law made the decision to diversify Kuo International into hotels, with the setting up of Hotel Properties Ltd (HPL), which made its first acquisition in the form of the Hilton Hotel in Singapore in 1982, and then went public with a listing on the Singapore Stock Exchange the same year. He consolidated HPL’s position as a

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

player within the hotel industry in Singapore throughout the 1980s through a series of investments, including purchasing a 50 per cent stake in Singapore’s Four Seasons Hotel in 1984, bringing on board his longtime business ally, Prince Al Waleed of Saudi Arabia. With the depressed property market in the early 1990s, Ong took the opportunity to enter the global property market and acquired not just the fashionable Halkin and Metropolitan hotels in London, but also the Chevron Hotel on the Gold Coast of Australia, in addition to investing in the Canary Wharf development in London. In addition, Ong also diversified into many different businesses, including stockbroking, lifestyle and leisure, charter tours and aircraft leasing, automobiles (Komoco Motors which distributes Hyundai cars and Ferrari cars through its subsidiary Ital Auto), film-making, entertainment (bringing the late Michael Jackson and Simon and Garfunkel to Singapore), and property development. Ever on the lookout for new ventures and industries, he has also teamed up with the Singapore Government in Bioveda Capital, a US$30-million life sciences venture capital fund through HPL and his private investment vehicle, Reef Investments. Among Ong’s more notable investments were his purchases of the master franchises in Asia for Planet Hollywood and the Hard Rock Café chains. From there, he moved on to launch the Hard Rock Hotel chain, beginning with the opening of two new Hard Rock hotels in Pattaya and Bali.Through his wife’s private company, Club 21, which holds the franchise and rights to designer brands such as DKNY, Mui Mui, Guess, Bulgari, Calvin Klein, and Giorgio Armani, the Ongs further diversified their interests into high fashion and other lifestyle ventures,

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earning for Christina Ong the title of “Queen of Bond Street”. Despite his reclusive nature and renowned reluctance to give interviews for which he was nicknamed the “invisible Ong” by the press corps, Ong had to step into the full spotlight of public scrutiny in 1996 when HPL became embroiled in the matter of giving discounts to then Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew and then Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong for their purchases of condominium units in Nassim Jade and Scotts 28, two prestigious developments undertaken by HPL. Explaining the decision to give discounts on the properties as a normal commercial transaction that was above board, Ong was at pains to emphasize that the discounts were offered voluntarily by HPL as routine pre-sale launch offers and not requested by the two political leaders. He was again thrust into the limelight in the late 1990s as the Asian economic crisis hit. Beginning in 1997, Ong and his wife began a rapid shedding of their assets, including HPL’s stakes in Donna Karen Japan, Manhattan’s Hotel Pennsylvania, Four Seasons Hotel in London, Italian fashion house Bulgari, the Virgin Entertainment Group, and stockbroking firm Vickers, which he sold to Singapore Technologies. These divestments sparked off market talk of financial woes linked to the crisis, further fuelled by the sale of his private jet, and rumours spread about his ill health. Reports of worse-than-expected financial results and the bashing of HPL’s share prices on the stock exchange did nothing to help. Seeking to dispel the rumours that were affecting HPL’s share price, Ong was again compelled to meet the press to clarify his divestments of non-core assets, which he described as part of his strategy of defending his home base and ensuring HPL stayed cash-rich to the tune of

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$300 million, ready for economic recovery. His strategy paid off as property prices began to bottom out in Asia and Ong embarked on a shopping spree, buying up properties, companies, and more franchises, including Concorde Hotels & Resorts, Elegant Hotel Holding, the Fitzpatrick Hotel in New York, and shop retail units in various shopping centres in Singapore. He also converted new properties in Thailand into Hard Rock hotels, and teamed up with Club Med to develop a second resort in the Maldives, moves hailed by media as his comeback from the financial crisis. By 2011, HPL’s total portfolio consisted of nineteen hotels in eight countries, luxurious residential projects in Singapore, the Hard Rock Café franchises in Asia, and operations of Häagen-Dazs distribution in Singapore and Malaysia among other business ventures which are said to have a total market value of US$1.8 billion. Ong began the first decade of the twentyfirst century with a leading role in one of the most talked-about corporate sagas in Singapore when he led a consortium headed by his company, 98 Holdings, with partners Temasek Holdings, Standard Chartered Private Equity and GEM Oriental & General, in a head-on clash with renowned Indonesian-Chinese businessman, Oei Hong Leong, for control of NatSteel in 2002. It was a close battle that eventually cost the consortium some $770 million for 50.31 per cent of the shares, and one that further evoked fears that Ong may have overextended himself and rendered his position within HPL vulnerable to a takeover bid by shareholder Quek Leng Chan. It is a bid that has yet to materialize. Ong may, in the end, become better recognized as the man who brought the Formula One (F1) race to Singapore. As early as 1989, he made a proposal to build an F1 racing track which was turned down. When

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the Singapore Government, through the Singapore Tourism Board, began to explore the possibilities of bringing F1 to Singapore as part of an overall strategy to boost tourism, Ong became the best person to clinch the deal with F1 president and CEO, Bernie Ecclestone, his longtime friend of eighteen years, through his privately owned company, Singapore GP. Negotiations took place over the space of one year and, in September 2008, the F1 debuted in Singapore as a night race, another first for F1. Ong and his wife have a daughter and a son. Ivy Maria Lim R E F E R E N C E S Boo, Krist. “ ‘Invisible’ Ong expands empire”. The Straits Times, 13 September 2001. Clarke, Hilary. “Profile: Beng Seng and Christina Ong: Asian Pair Sell West, Buy East”. The Independent (London), 29 March 1998. Fernandez, Warren. “HPL tells how condos were sold”. The Straits Times, 21 May 1996. Hotel Properties Ltd. Corporate website, (first accessed 1 March 2008). Lim, Leonard. “Formula One Deal Signed on Friday Itself”. The Straits Times, 13 May 2007. Ong, Catherine and Serena Ng. “NatSteel Goes to 98 in Photo Finish”. The Business Times Singapore, 11 January 2003.

Ong Boon Pang ( , Wang Wenbang, 1882–1940) Businessman, community leader, Brunei

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ehin Kapitan Ong Boon Pang was a successful businessman, who made significant contributions to the Chinese community, in the education sector, and the city development of Brunei.

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

He started from scratch and later became well-to-do. After establishing his career, he summoned his friends to establish the first Chinese school in Brunei. Charitable by nature, he often helped his fellow countrymen to go back to their homeland to visit their parents. He rallied the Chinese in Brunei, who were few in number at that time, to join forces and form the Overseas Chinese Mutual Help Association. He was its president and one who offered his selfless assistance to the local Chinese in practical matters pertaining to their daily lives. Ong was born in 1882 in the West ) Residence of Lieyu village, Jinmen ( county in the province of Fujian, China. He left Fujian at the age of eighteen and sailed south to Singapore, and then Brunei the following year to seek a livelihood. Brunei then was still undeveloped and sparsely populated, with a total national population of fewer than 20,000 and the Chinese population numbered only a few hundred. There was only one street in the capital city then, with scarce thatch-roofed shops. The majority ethnic group, the Malays, lived in “water villages”, which were formed by wooden houses on stilts by the rivers. Pehin Kapitan Ong started his small business from scratch — plying wooden boat along the river in his wooden boat selling merchandise for many years, until he became a familiar face to every household and villager — a Chinese merchant who sold groceries. After years of striving with tenacity, he finally set up a business, Chop Teck Guan ( ), which dealt in local products. Following that he went into the wholesale and retail businesses, such as distributing imported cigarettes and selling petrol, etc. During the 1930s, the only street in the capital city was always flooded because it was near the river. When the Brunei Government launched the project to fill up the land, Pehin Kapitan

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Ong was one of the contractors engaged. As a result of this project, he managed to amass a considerable fortune. As his businesses flourished, Pehin Kapitan Ong opened five shops in all, including Teck Leong Pawnshop, which still exists today. After having been ensconced in firm financial footing, he set up Boon Pang Cinema in 1939, bringing healthy and quality entertainment to the general public. It was destroyed during the Japanese Occupation, rebuilt in 1953, and subsequently demolished in 1960. There was no Chinese school in Brunei in the early twentieth century. In order to offer Chinese education to Chinese descendants, Pehin Kapitan Ong called on over thirty of his friends to initiate the establishment of a ) School (the Chinese school, Yu Cai ( predecessor of Brunei Chung Hwa Middle School in Bandar Seri Begawan). At the beginning, there was no school building and the cohort of more than twenty students had their classes conducted in makeshift classrooms in a rented shophouse. As the number of students increased, Pehin Kapitan Ong initiated a fund-raising effort in 1937 for the building of a new school. He promised to match each dollar raised by other businesses and this led to more donations pouring in. As a result, a two-storey building named, Chung Hwa School was completed a year later. From then on, the school had permanent premises in Jalan Bendahara. Pehin Kapitan Ong was the chairman or chief manager of the school from 1918 until 1940 when he passed away after having served the school for a total of twenty-two years. In those days, students came from impoverished homes and were unable to pay their school fees. The charitable Pehin Kapitan, who was passionate about education, would sponsor them with his own money.To put the students’ mind at ease and allow them to concentrate

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on their studies, he would even give away free school uniforms during festive seasons. The Brunei Government recognized Pehin Kapitan Ong’s contribution to the development of the city, and his sponsorship of, and donations to education, and assistance to the poor. The Sultan of Brunei thus conferred on him the title of Chinese Pehin Kapitan (Overseas Chinese leader) and appointed him a member of the State Council of Brunei. He was the first Chinese in Brunei to have received such an honour. However, as a result of a frugal lifestyle and overexerting himself over a long period of time, Pehin Kapitan Ong was unfortunately stricken with kidney disease. As his children were still young, he drew a will on his death bed entrusting four close relatives to manage his assets until his sons were grown up and able to take over.They were his second wife,Tay Giok Lian, first son-in-law, Pehin Dato Temenggong ), second son-inLim Cheng Choo ( law,Yap Chong Teck , and brother-in-law, Lim Soo Jin. Pehin Kapitan Ong passed away at the age of fifty-eight on 14 January 1940. His second son, Dato Ong Kim Kee ), took over his father’s businesses. ( Under the influence of his father, the younger Ong also became a successful businessman, who was charitable and zealously involved in social and public welfare, culture and education, the Brunei Chinese community, and Chinese education. Niew Shong Tong R E F E R E N C E S Forbes. “Ong Kim Kee’s family”. July 1993, p. 62. “The Profile of Ong Bong Pang”. In Song Zhuo Ying, The Successful Men of Southeast Asia, p. 133. Singapore: Modern Southeast Asia Publications, 1970. Author’s interview with Dato Ong Kim Kee, the second son of Pehin Kapitan Ong (1991).

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Ong, Charlson Lim (1960– ) Writer, Philippines

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orn on 6 July 1960, Charlson Ong ( ) is a multi-awarded writer who has garnered numerous grants and awards for his fiction, including the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, National Book Award, the Centennial Literary Prize, and the Dr Jose Rizal Award for Excellence in Literature. He has also won prizes from the Philippine Free Press, Graphic, and Asiaweek. He is the recipient of the 2007 Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas (Lifetime Achivement Award) from the Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas or Writers Union of the Philippines, which is the biggest organization of writers in the country. The award is given to living Filipino writers who have done outstanding works in any Philippine language, and have contributed to the development and promotion of Philippine literature. Ong was conferred the award for “his eminently distinctive novels and stories edged with satire and mordant humor, piquant in their examination of the Filipino and Chinese cultures merging in the Philippine ethos”. Ong’s foray as a “professional” writer started in 1986 when he joined the China Post, an English language daily for expatriate readership that is based in Taipei,Taiwan, where he worked for eight months writing editorials and translating front-page foreign news into English. That same year, he wrote a short story, “Another Country”, which won an Asiaweek prize. In October 1987, Ong left for his first trip to China as an interpreter of the Philippine delegation for the launch of the movie, Lahi sa Lahi, Hari sa Hari (a story about the visit of the sultan of Sulu to China in 1417), a joint

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

China-Philippine production. At the time, his father had just had a second heart attack after a first three years previously. His father was hospitalized and recovered just in time for Ong to feel “secure” about his father’s condition and be able to leave for China. After he left, he learned only a week later that his father had had a relapse and was sent to the intenstive cardiac care unit, half conscious. His father died in the hospital at exactly the same time Ong’s plane landed in Manila. Ong wrote about this experience in an essay, “China is in the heart”. He has been writing increasingly more since and has been a regular winner of the Free Press Literary Awards, which are given to the Best Short Story, Poem, and Essay published in the Philippine Free Press. Among his winning entries were “Fixing a flat” that clinched first prize in Fiction in 1992, “Conversion” that also took the first prize in Fiction in 1993, and “A Season of Ten Thousand Noses”, which received an honorable mention in Fiction in 1994. After his first Palanca award in 1985, he proceeded to bag more Palanca awards in 1987, 1989, 1990, and 1992. The Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature is the country’s most prestigious and longest running literary contest. Ong admires authors who write books that inspire. Among them is Vikram Seth, who wrote A Suitable Boy, ably depicting inter- and intrafamily issues and concerns amidst the Hindu-Muslim conflict. His other favourite authors include Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Bernard Malamud, and Maxine Hong Kingston. Like these writers whose works strongly reflect their cultural heritage and who write with a deep sense of affiliation and sensitivity about their subjects (that is, Jewish Americans/Asian Americans), Ong shows the same characteristics when he writes about

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Chinese-Filipino themes in his stories and novels. “I write about the experience because it is what I know best and intimately.” He knows the Tsinoy experience because it is his experience. His first novel, An Embarrassment of Riches, was something he wanted to do for the Philippine Centennial Year in 1998. He started writing it around 1993 to 1994 and when a contest was announced it became an added incentive to finish the novel. Ong says it is a consciously political work and was his personal reflection on the Philippine past and future and place in Southeast Asia. It won the 1998 Philippine Centennial Celebration Literary award for novel in English. The second novel, Banyaga: A Song of War, started out as a screenplay in 2000. Since it was not sold, Ong “novelized” it, prompted by his joining the International Writer’s Programme in Iowa in 2002. Ong calls Banyaga his most important work to date. It is based on the family history Ong grew up with and presents the history of the nation in the last 100 years from the point of view of the Chinese-Filipino community. The book won the Juan C. Laya Award for Best Book of Fiction in a Foreign Language at the National Book Awards in September 2007. From the time he started writing in the early 1980s, Ong has ably managed to lend the distinct Tsinoy voice and sentiment in all his plays, essays, and short stories. In presenting his readers with his “realistic” fiction, he invites them to look, examine, and “feel” the context and milieu of the Chinese-Filipino community from an insider’s perspective. He is recognized by peers and the academe alike. Not content with churning out short stories and novels on his own, he also teaches literature and creative writing at the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the University of the Philippines (UP) in Diliman,

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and is a fellow of the UP Institute of Creative Writing (ICW). As a teacher, he encourages all his students to write, write, and write. Ong has joined several writers’ workshops here and abroad. He was a fellow of the Japan Foundation from 1994 to 1995, during which time he spent a year at the Sophia University. Similarly, he spent four months in the United States as a fellow at the Iowa International Writers’ Program in 2002. In addition to this, Ong has served as co-editor of the Likhaan Book of Poetry and Fiction 1998 and 2000. Aside from his two novels, he has also published three collections of short fiction — Men of the East and Other Stories (1990 and 1999), Woman of Am-Kaw and Other Stories (1993), and Conversion and Other Fictions (1996). Ong’s latest novel, Blue Angel, White Shadow (2010), is a murder-mystery set in Binondo, Manila’s Chinatown. Jayson Vega, a popular book reviewer and blogger reveals that while the ethnicity of Ong’s characters does not take center stage in the novel’s plot, one can still “easily notice the problematic and complicated matters that inextricably tie and plague Filipino and Chinese societies. The corrupt government and police officials and the shady, illegal dealings of a dog fighting syndicate and men living in a dog-eat-dog world are merely glossed over to give way for characters in search for answers, for readers beguiled by the sweep of a compelling story.” These literary opuses are quite a far cry from his university major. Ong had graduated from the University of the Philippines in 1981 with a bachelor of arts degree in psychology. He first tried his hand in the corporate world, joining State Financing — the biggest nonbank financing house at the time — as a money market broker and stayed for about five months before giving it up. It was not his interest. Ong

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then turned to his interest as a film buff and joined the alternative cinema section of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. This later became the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines. He was with the group from 1983 to 1986 doing film programming. From there, he rekindled his passion for writing. As a child in primary school, Ong had enjoyed reading comic books and doing theme writing in class. He often received positive comments from his teachers for his writing and was reading the Manila Times and Free Press literary publications at an early age. He remembers the first novel he read was William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. By high school, Ong already knew he wanted to be a writer, and would write “realistic” fiction. In 1983, Ong tried his hand as a “professional” writer and produced Isang Dakilang Trahedyang Pilipino (A Great Filipino Tragedy), a three-act play that won him third prize at the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Playwriting Contest. It was not a bad start for one considered a beginner. He next wrote Men of the East, a short story that won him his first Palanca award in 1985. From there, the rest, as they say, is history. To make his work as realistic as possible, Ong takes inspiration from everything around him. He is the youngest of three boys born to Conrado and Nenita Ong, both ChineseFilipinos born in Manila. His father was in the hardware business and a kerosene and petroleum trader. His mother, a piano major and teacher, helped run the business. The Ong siblings were raised in the quiet suburb of San Juan and went to Xavier School. They made frequent trips to Chinatown on weekends to visit relatives. These visits proved to be a rich treasure trove of insights, nuances, sentiments, sensibilities, and characterization of Chinese-

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Filipinos, used by Ong as a backdrop and as raw materials for his prize-winning fiction. Andrea Tan R E F E R E N C E S Vega, Jayson B. “Crimes of passion, a book review of Charlson Ong’s Blue Angel, White Shadow”, 2011. Retrieved 25 March 2012 from . Personal Interview, April 2009.

Ong Chiow Huen ( , Wang Chaoqun, 1942– ) Educationist, community leader, Malaysia

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ince 1994, Ong Chiow Huen has been a name closely associated with the United Chinese School Teachers’ or Association of Malaysia (Jiaozong ). Jiaozong works closely with its affiliate, the United Chinese School Committees Association of Malaysia or (Dongzong ) to fight for the continuity of Chinese education and a six-year primary school education for the ethnic Chinese community in Malaysia. Jiaozong (formed in 1951) and Dongzong (set up in 1954) then organized ) Independent the Dong Jiao Zong ( Chinese School Working Committee in 1974 and Chinese Primary School Working Committee in 1994 to oversee the workings and development of Chinese-medium schools. Ong was born in 1942 in Malacca and has five siblings. His China-born father was educated at the Teachers’ Training Institute in China and worked as a teacher in Malaya. Unlike his predecessors in Jiaozong, Ong has

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been described as a leader in Chinese education, with strong political convictions. According to Ong, he has since his early adulthood, under the influence of his father, demonstrated a strong interest and concern for education and politics. Because of this, he was recruited at the early age of twenty-seven by the board of directors of Zhong Ping Chinese Primary School ( ) in Linggi, Seremban, to be school headmaster. This came about when he applied for the post after reading the recruitment advertisement in a newspaper. However, due to his outspoken disposition, he was transferred out of the school in 1970 by the government following a directive issued by the director of the State Education Department. This turned out to be a “blessing in disguise” for Ong. Instead of being demoted, Ong was sent by the director (who happened to be a friend of his) to a bigger school, viz. the Zhenhua Chinese ) in Seremban. In Primary School ( his thirty-four years of education service after graduating from the Raja Melewar Teachers’ Training Institution in 1963, he worked for only six years as a primary schoolteacher. For the remaining twenty-eight years he held the post of principal in four primary schools, with Chong Hwa Primary Chinese School ( ) in Seremban being the last one to which he rendered nineteen years of service as principal, prior to his retirement. During Ong’s service at Jiaozong, there were a number of notable issues which called into question the impartiality of the association and its close affiliation with Dongzong. Ong was implicated in one of the issues as follows: A fifteen-year controversy has been carried by Chinese papers about “the heavy school bag issue” (see Tan 2006) which involves pupils in general needing to carry two bags (of 5–8 kilograms each) to Chinese primary schools because of the excessive homework

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given by their teachers. This jeopardized Chinese primary school pupils’ balanced educational development. In addition, the run of computer classes and the organization of school trips during the holidays by some Chinese primary schools allegedly led to the collection of excessive fees. Ong has been criticized for remaining silent over the “issues” involving corrupt principals, that is, implying that he sided with principals in their “corrupt” behaviour. However a renowned Chinese ), has comeducationist, Li Ya’ao ( mented that Ong’s stance could be regarded as wise. According to Li, the alleged corrupt behaviour of the Chinese primary school principals had its origins grounded in the bigger political and economic policies of corporatism and privatization introduced by Dr Mahathir in the 1980s.Thus, the emergence of parents and committees of ex-chairmen from numerous schools’ Parents Teachers Associations, campaigning in the name of democracy for transparency and quality education in Malaysian Chinese Schools may reflect an era of confusion of thoughts and direction for Chinese education development in Malaysia. Jiaozong, which had been a close affiliate to Dongzong for the past fifty years (that is, since its inception in 1954), seemed to witness a lack of trust in their relationship in 2006– 07. Ong openly expressed his dismay at an announcement made by Dongzong’s chairman on the four-point consensus attained in the draft of the mechanism developed for the administrative governance of, and supervisory operation to be implemented, in primary schools. It was an effort undertaken collectively to resolve the alleged issues mentioned above. According to Ong, such a consensus had been worked out closely by the three organizations, namely Dongzong, Jiaozong, and the Union

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of the school principals, and thus the above announcement made by Dongzong was seen to be most disrespectful. However, during an interview with this writer, Ong expressed the view that any misunderstanding and conflict that arose during the earlier period would have a positive impact on Chinese school education development in Malaysia. According to him, it was obvious that there would be gradual improvement in the governance of Malaysian Chinese primary school education, which will move from a man-ruled system to one that is governed by rules and regulations. During the interview, Ong reiterated the importance and power of politics in securing and safeguarding the continuity of a six-year primary school education in Malaysia. He pointed out that as a result of the absence of the three related organizations to oppose government political decisions, both primary and secondary English-medium schools were phased out in Malaysia in the 1970s and 1980s. He also pointed out that similar happening occur were witnessed in countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, and Myanmar, where Chinese education could survive merely as language teaching institutions instead of a wholesome education system run in the ethnic tongue of the Malaysian Chinese community. The continuity of education by Malaysian Chinese schools is thus necessary to safeguard and impart Chinese values and culture to the younger generation. Ong has expressed no reservations and regret over his dedication to Chinese education development in Malaysia. He is currently holding a number of important positions such as, chairman of Jiaozhong, chairman of Dongjiaozong’s Working Committee for National Chinese Primary School Education ), vice(

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chairman of Dongjiaozong’s wing for National Chinese Independent School Education ( ); and vice-chairman of Centre of Education of ). His Dongjiaozong ( contributions to education and society have been acknowledged, as reflected by the various titles conferred on him, especially those by the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong, and the ruler of the state of Negeri Sembilan in Malaysia. These titles are: PJK (Pingat Jasa Kebaktian), PMC (Pingat Masyarakat Cemerlang), PPN (Pingat Pangkuan Negara), and AMN (Ahli Mangku Negara). However, with globalization and the increasing tendency for Malaysian Chinese parents, especially those in the cities, to pursue an affluent, professional life, he exhorts Malaysian Chinese primary schoolteachers to take up lifelong learning, in particular, to upgrade their academic credentials and professionalism in teaching. He points out that Jiaozong has also drafted plans to emphasize respect for Chinese schoolteachers. This seems to reflect the spirit of the Malaysian contemporary educational policies outlined in the Master Plan for Education Development (Pelan Induk Pembangunan Pendidikan [PIPP]), namely, to enhance teachers’ professional status in society. Tan Ai Mei R E F E R E N C E S 〈 ： 〉，《 》(Merdeka Review)，2006 3 15 。 《

50

(1954–2004)》。 ，2004。 ：2007 （ ）

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，

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Pelan Induk Pembangunan Pendidikan Kementerian Pelajaran Malaysia, 2006. 《 》。 ，2006。

Malaysia.

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Ong Chuan Seng ( , Wang Quansheng, 1886–1956) Educator, supporter of Tongmenghui and KMT, Philippines

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loyal follower of Dr Sun Yat Sen, an enthusiastic fighter of the anti-Japanese campaign, and most importantly, a revolutionary educator of the ChineseFilipino society of his time — this was how Ong was remembered by people whose lives he had touched. He had gone back to China to support the anti-Japanese movement at the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war, but returned to the Philippines eventually to resume his lifetime project of educating the children of the Chinese immigrants in the Philippines. He was the founder of the prominent Chiang Kai Shek High School. A native of Hui’an, Fujian Province, China, Ong was born on 15 September 1886. He had his primary education at Xiamen’s Gulangyu Xunyuan Academy and proceeded to the Fuzhou Legal and Political Institute upon graduation. Ong was enthusiastically involved in revolutionary activities, joining , The Alliance the Tongmenghui ( Association) of China in 1905. When Yuan ) attempted to revive dynastic Shikai ( rule, Ong coordinated with his compatriots in Fujian and advocated the anti-Yuan campaign. Later, he was sent by Sun Yat Sen ) to the Philippines to propagate the (

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revolutionary cause and, at the same time, help in the educational endeavour of the Chinese nationalist government. In 1921, Ong founded the Po Ti School in Benavidez Street in Manila. A reading club was also established, which served as the branch office of the Kuomintang , KMT) party as well. He was an active ( member of the KMT, serving in the executive committee of the Luzon Branch of the party, as well as the national party organization in the Philippines, and helping to solicit donations for revolutionary activities. In 1935, he was a delegate to the 5th National Congress of the KMT and was elected a member of its central committee. He was likewise elected later as a member of the executive committee and the highest committee of National Defense. On 6 June 1939, Ong founded the Chiang Kai Shek High School (now Chiang Kai Shek College, CKSC, ) with the late chairman of the board of trustees, Yu Khe Thai, and other prominent Chinese-community leaders. Founding a new school at that time was fraught with difficulties considering the fact that most of the Chinese in the country at the time were not financially well off. Likewise, discrimination and prejudices against the Chinese abounded and the majority of the Chinese then were low in social and political status. However Ong was able to set up the school by going around houses and shops of the Chinese, soliciting donations, and his determination eventually paid off. His loyalty to the KMT was clearly manifested in his decision to name the new school after then president of the Republic of China — with the permission of Chiang. While managing the school, he was also twice a delegate of the Nanyang Fund-raising ) in Singapore in Committee ( 1941, tasked to raise funds to support war efforts against Japan.When the Pacific War was brought

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to the Philippines the same year, the school was heavily damaged. Fourteen of its teachers and students were martyred for participating in underground activities against the Japanese. Ong then returned to China and engaged himself in the anti-imperialist campaign. In 1942 in Chongqing, he was elected to the legislative council and assigned to Fujian to oversee provincial affairs. He went around to more than forty counties to help the families of overseas Chinese live more stable lives in the midst of political chaos and uncertainties. In 1945, when World War II ended, he was appointed the controller of Fujian and Taiwan. He declined the appointment as he wanted to return to the Philippines to contribute to the education of the country. Ong returned to the Philippines in November 1945 and was reappointed the Principal of the Chiang Kai Shek High School by the board of trustees, with Pao Shih Tien as deputy principal to assist him. The school reopened in December 1945. Ong, with the support of the Chinese community, worked hard to rehabilitate the school and acquired a new site for it in Tondo, Manila. Its student population was close to 1,000 when the school moved to its new site in August 1948. In the meantime, his ties to China and the KMT remained strong. In 1952, he was elected member of the board of the Kuomintang in Taiwan. Despite these continuing ties with the KMT, Ong believed that serving the Chinese community in the Philippines, especially in the field of education, was paramount. He strongly believed the children of overseas Chinese needed guidance to realize their potentials in their adopted country, and that education was fundamental. Despite the difficult situation then, especially the very poor socio-economic condition of the Chinese community and the widespread discrimination suffered by many,

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Ong persisted. He had high expectations of his students, and being a man of discipline, he expected his students to abide by the rules and regulations. He often compared a disciplined life to obeying traffic signs. According to him, when drivers observe road courtesy and maintain proper road behaviour, there would be fewer problems in life. This was a lesson his students would never forget. He wanted them to develop the moral values of propriety, righteousness, honesty, and a sense of shame. Ong walked his talk. He reflected all the values he advocated, and these were imbibed by the people whose lives he touched. Even when he was seriously ill, his heart was still with the school he founded. Through a teacher, he narrated his last will and testament to the CKSC students: “Grab the opportunity now, for time passes and will never return. Whenever your country calls on you, whenever your people call on you, stand up, take the lead and respond to the call of time.” He wanted them to develop life skills to be of service to the country and to make sacrifices for the national interest. Besides the school, Ong was actively involved in different social projects as well, such as helping the poor Chinese, many of whom were still struggling to recover from the ravages of war. He was held in high regard by the Chinese community, and as a result, people generously responded to his requests for funding for education-related concerns. He was also seen as “the mediator” of disputes in the Chinese community and people came to him to get fair and sound opinions and impartial judgment. Ong passed away on 16 March 1956. He had served as principal of Chiang Kai Shek High School for seventeen years without pay. According to him, his children were all grownup and could sufficiently cover his simple daily expenses. He served the school out of his interest and love for education; though thrifty,

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he was generous in helping students who had financial difficulties often providing them with monetary assistance to finish their education. Today CKSC is headed by his daughterin-law, Bee Ching Uy-Ong. The board of trustees chose Uy-Ong to be president not because she is “family”, but because she has thirty years of experience in education, both as a teacher and an administrator. She is a renowned educator and was given the Dr Jose Rizal Awards for Excellence in Education in 2003. Sining Marcos Kotah and Carmelea Ang See R E F E R E N C E S Ang See, Carmelea, “Dedicated to education”. In Tulay Fortnightly, 18 September 2007, pp. 8–9. Brochure： (Special Issue to Commemorate the 50th Death Anniversary of Mr. Ong Chuan Seng), 2006. 《 · ，2001， 510–11。

》。

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Ong Hok Ham (also spelt Onghokham, , Wang Fuhan, 1933–2007) Historian, public intellectual, Indonesia

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ell known for his hedonist lifestyle and numerous press articles, Ong Hok Ham was referred to as a model for Indonesian Chinese. He wrote confidently about Indonesian themes, with an Indonesian voice. He was a public intellectual from the late 1950s, when he wrote on assimilation/ integration in Star Weekly, but political and social pressures made life difficult. In 1966 he had a nervous breakdown and was jailed for six months. Study at Yale University restored his confidence and established his reputation as an expert on nineteenth-century Javanese and

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colonial history. He returned to Indonesia in 1975 for a twenty-six year career as teacher, historian, bon vivant, host, storyteller, and writer in Kompas, Tempo, and Prisma. Ong was born on 1 May 1933 into a minor branch of the great Peranakan Chinese families of Surabaya, the Han, The, Tjoa, and Tan, all interrelated. The first Han arrived in Central Java around 1700, and then spread from Lasem to East Java, playing a major role in the economic development of that area. From the 1870s there was massive wealth from sugar; these were the sugar barons.The kapitan, letnan, and mayor of Surabaya, Malang, and Pasuruan came from these families. The most renowned was Han Hoo Tong, a legendary businessman. Ong’s mother was Han’s granddaughter from a Tan-Han marriage. The Ong lines were more recent. Ong’s paternal grandfather had perhaps been a school teacher in Sumenep, with descendants rising socially through thrift, hard work, and education. In the twentieth century what united them was a thorough adoption of Dutch ways.They spoke Dutch at home, used Dutch names (Lies, Piet, Jan, Klaas, Freddy, Olga; Ong was Hans), and made good use of Dutch schools.These families were key elements of the Indies Rijksburgerij. They were part of a Dutch-Peranakan hybrid class, now vanished. Ong/Hans went to a Dutch school in the final years of Dutch colonialism. His family’s leisured and comfortable life was thrown into disarray by the shock of the Japanese Occupation in 1942. The Dutch people, system, education, and language, which had meant so much to them, were thrust to the far periphery. March 1942 was a period of rampok (looting, pillage) targeted primarily at Chinese businesses. The Ong family, however, survived the Japanese Occupation relatively unscathed, although Ong had the shock of seeing a Japanese officer slap his father’s face in the street.

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Far more shocking was the end of the Japanese Occupation and the proclamation of the Indonesian Republic. For the second time, Ong’s family seemed swept along by events for which they had little sympathy, and over which they had no control.The family fled the great battle of Surabaya in November 1945, but returned later when Surabaya became a Dutch town once again for the remainder of the revolution. Hans/Ong went back to his Dutch education after a brief sojourn in the Chinese school system under the Japanese. By 1950 the Ong family found themselves living in the Indonesian Republic, and having to make decisions about their future. Almost all of Ong’s school friends were headed for Holland or America or elsewhere abroad. Ong was inspired by a history teacher, Brother Rosario, who set alight Ong’s historical imagination, but also inspired him in “civics” classes, where he urged his students to become good citizens of whatever country they found themselves in. Around 1952 Ong’s family resolved to make their future in Indonesia — “after all this is where we were born” — and Ong decided to become an ideal Indonesian citizen. Still, Indonesian was the worst of several languages he knew, and his family sent him to Bandung in 1953–55, to Indonesianize himself at a school there. In 1955 Ong started studying law at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta, with some thoughts of becoming an Indonesian diplomat. But law bored him and he only persevered in this for about eighteen months. Instead he found work as a research assistant with “Bill” Skinner, a Cornell scholar undertaking a large project on the Chinese in Indonesia. Who better to help Skinner than this serious young Peranakan from a great Surabaya family, with a great interest in history, and the skills for archival research in Dutch? This led in turn to Ong writing on the Chinese in Indonesia for P.K.

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Oyong (Auwjang Peng Koen) at Star Weekly in 1958. Like Oyong and his group, Ong became convinced of the need for Indonesian Chinese to “assimilate”, rather than, as Baperki urged, to “integrate”. He was involved in a polemic with Baperki in 1959–60, and was a signatory to the Assimilation Declaration in 1960, and the Assimilation Charter in 1961. But unlike other “assimilationists”, Ong did not replace his Chinese name with an Indonesian one. Having visited the Philippines in January–July 1959, he took the Philippine route, combining the three words of his name into the single word, Onghokham. He couldn’t be bothered to do more — he hated bureaucratic procedures. And, he also thought, “what’s in a name?” He had various names. He was Hans to his family, Hok Ham to some friends, and Ong to others. Names were not important to him, compared with the great defining aspects such as: what one talked about, what viewpoint one took in speaking, and the people one mixed with. His great criticism of the Chinese was their isolation from the mainstream. A name change would not fix that by itself. More was needed. In 1960 Ong returned to the University of Indonesia, to the History Department, his real love. His attention was now turning away from the Chinese in Indonesia to another of his roots — Java.With his American scholar friends, he fell in love with Javanese culture, priyayi and abangan, and frequently visited Javanese towns, cities, courts, and villages. He sought to belong to no fixed group in Jakarta, and tried to mix across a wide social and political spectrum. He was close to Soedjatmoko and his PSI-minded discussion group on the one hand, but was very close on the other to the radical Young Turk nationalists of the GMNI. But his personal stress deepened as Indonesian politics became more ominous, combined with the heavy

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emotional toll of dealing with his increasingly urgent homosexuality. The horrors of late 1965, particularly the mass killings in East Java, brought Ong’s mental stress to a peak. The Indonesia he had wanted to be a part of seemed to be devouring itself; it seemed to him that there was a vast attack on the abangan culture he loved. From January 1966 he was unstable and erratic, and had a nervous breakdown. He was swept up in thousands of arrests in March, and remained in jail until late September, sitting vacantly, staring into space. His release was secured by his good friend and mentor, historian Nugroho Notosusanto. He left for America in September 1968 after finishing his degree with a monumental thesis on the fall of Dutch colonialism in 1942. Ong’s seven years at Yale University were deeply liberating and empowering. His own problems dwindled in the face of the social ferment in America — black power, women’s liberation, gay lib, flower power, counter culture — and everywhere — the issue of Vietnam. He became more relaxed and confident in his sexuality. He learned to cook. Archival research in Holland gave him access to the lifestyles of Europe. By 1975 Ong had completed his dissertation on Madiun in the nineteenth century, and decided confidently to return “home” to Indonesia to embark on a career and a life. The period from 1976–83 was one of re-establishing himself in Indonesia. He wrote prolifically in the three media that would become his hallmark: the daily Kompas, the weekly Tempo, and the academic Prisma. Two dates stand out. During a fellowship to Singapore in 1979 he became too bored to convert his dissertation into a major book, and spent his time eating and drinking. Building his famous Bali-style and simple deconstructedpavilions-house in 1983 confirmed that his lifestyle would take priority over a standard

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academic career. By 1983 (at the age of fifty) he was a Jakarta figure, writing and also written about. He was now happy as an Indonesian in Indonesia, with a self-proclaimed hedonistic lifestyle of dining, hosting, drinking, socializing, and emotional companionship. He was a favourite amongst journalists, foreign correspondents, embassy staff and visiting scholars from many countries. He was famous on campus — a “killer” lecturer, respected and feared. He was also an encyclopaedia of information about Indonesia’s past and present, with an extraordinary range of contacts and interests. He mixed easily across all social levels. What you saw was what you got. His intellectual interests were broad. He wrote on Indonesian history, kings and peasants, traditional Javanese concepts, colonialism, economic history, the role of the Indonesian Chinese, cooking, painting, and sexuality. Some people found him annoying, more found him a source of fascinating ideas. From one perspective he frittered away his intellectual capital on parties, too many interests, and writing for the press rather than major academic works. For the younger critical historians of the twenty-first century, this appears in a much more positive light: a rich tapestry of ideas, a welcome step out of the ivory tower, and into communicating with a broad audience. After a major stroke in 2001, Ong was confined to a wheelchair until his death on 30 August 2007.This was a sorry spectacle of a lion in a cage. But the period also saw a renewed interest in his works, and the publication of collections of his articles. David Reeve R E F E R E N C E S Ong, Hok Ham. Anti Cina, Kapitalisme Cina dan Gerakan Cina, Sejarah Etnis Cina di Indonesia. Depok: Komunitas Bambu, 2008.

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Ong, Hok Ham. Dari Soal Priyayi sampai Nyi Blorong: Refleksi Historis Nusantara. Jakarta: Penerbit Buku Kompas, 2002. Ong, Hok Ham. Runtuhnya Hindia Belanda. Jakarta: PT Gramedia, 1989. Ong, Hok Ham. Sukarno, Orang Kiri, Revolusi & G30S 1965. Depok: Komunitas Bambu, 2009. Ong, Hok Ham. The Thugs, Curtain Thief, and the Sugar Lord. Jakarta: Metafor, 2003. Reeve, David J.J. Rizal, and Wasmi Alhaziri. Onze Ong: Onghokam Dalam Kenangan. Depok: Komunitas Bambu, 2007.

Ong Ka Ting ( , Huang Jiading, 1956– ) Political leader, Malaysia

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ng Ka Ting is the seventh elected president of the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) and former minister in the Malaysian Government. Following major electoral setbacks suffered by the MCA in the 12th Malaysian general elections in 2008, Ong declined to be included in the new cabinet and did not defend his party president’s post held later in the year. Ong was born on 15 November 1956 in Kota Tampan New Village in Lenggong, Perak, and studied at the Kota Tampan National Type Chinese Primary School and the Dato’ Ahmad National Secondary School. He then did his Higher School Certificate at Tunku Abdul Rahman College and attained his bachelor of science (honours) diploma of education degree at the University of Malaya. On graduation, he taught at the Catholic High School in Petaling Jaya which he served between 1981 and 1984. In 1979, while still at the university, Ong joined the MCA at the encouragement of Tan Koon Swan, a senior leader of the party. He started his party career as a speaker at

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motivational camps. On 21 October 1990 Ong won the Pontian parliamentary seat in Johor and retained the constituency in the next two general elections. In the March 2004 elections he won the Tanjong Pia seat which was carved out of the former Pontian constituency, and in March 2008, he won the Kulai seat. In January 1986 he was appointed press secretary to the minister of transport, Datuk Seri Ling Liong Sik. Ong was subsequently promoted to political secretary to Ling. In 1990 he was appointed parliamentary secretary in the Health Ministry and was later moved to the Home Affairs Ministry as parliamentary secretary where he served until May 1995, when he was appointed deputy home affairs minister. In December 1999 he became minister of housing and local government. Back in 1993 Ong had been returned unopposed as Johor MCA Youth chief, and in July 1996 he had won a national vicepresident’s post in the party. In May 2003 he was elected MCA president by the party’s central committee to succeed Ling Liong Sik who retired. He retained his post as president in August 2005 by defeating Datuk Chua Jui Meng. When Ong took over as MCA president it marked a shift in generation. Ong belonged not only to a post-war generation, but was one born after the party was founded in 1949. Equally significant, he went through an education that was national in character, with both Chinese and Malay as mediums of instruction. This background enabled him, to identify with the Chinese-educated and traditional associations within the community, to a greater extent than his predecessors who were mostly English-educated. Ong believes that his childhood background of growing up in poverty in Kota Tampan New Village enabled him to understand the problems and aspirations

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of the Chinese community. It is a theme he frequently comes back to, such as during his election campaign and in a book of speeches entitled, Ong Ka Ting:The Man and His Idea. Ong wanted the party to give more attention to education opportunities and to poverty reduction in both New Villages and urban settings. Concerned at the high dropout rate and keen that education should be a continuing process for all age groups, Ong introduced Lifelong Learning as part of the party programme. His portfolio as minister of housing and local government gave him the opportunity and resources to address problems of New Villages. Ong, as a party member and leader, experienced two major crises in the MCA. The first was the 1983–85 fight between the factions of Tan Koon Swan (see later entry) and Neo Yee Pan while the second was the 2001–03 Ling Liong Sik-Lim Ah Lek power struggle. The first crisis led to the sacking of Tan Koon Swan and several other leaders. Tan’s group returned to the party after a peace deal was brokered by Tun Ghafar Baba, the deputy president of UMNO, and Tan won the party president’s position in 1986, but was soon afterwards charged by the Singapore authorities over the Pan El issue and replaced by Ling Liong Sik. Ong, who served as press secretary, became closely aligned to Ling. When Ling was challenged later by what was called Team B, led by Lim Ah Lek and Chan Kong Choy, Ong was part of Ling’s Team A. When an agreement to end the factional fight was reached in 2003 that led to Ling’s retirement, Ong was appointed party president and Chan Kong Choy, deputy president, with the understanding that Chan should eventually take over. Soon after becoming president, Ong introduced an amendment to the party’s constitution limiting office holders to not

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more than three terms. To him this would reduce debilitating party fights by opening up party positions. Indeed, Ong had declared that he would serve one last term should he win the October 2008 party elections. Ong led MCA into the elections at a time when the party faced several major problems. A number of its senior leaders were accused of corrupt practices, particularly over Port Klang Free Zone’s land acquisition, and of moral indiscretion, and two top party leaders resigned. Furthermore, the party was seen as weak in responding to a number of concerns of the Chinese community, including the incidents during UMNO general assemblies in 2006 and 2007 when UMNO youth leaders displayed an unsheathed kris that was regarded as provocative to non-Malays. Ong came under strong criticisms for the poor performance of the MCA in the 2008 elections. The party won only fifteen parliament seats compared with thirty-one in the 2004 elections. Critics accused Ong of weak leadership and poor selection of candidates. He also alienated supporters of Ling, who made up the former Team A of which Ong himself was a member. Increasingly he was seen as moving towards the former Team B with which Chan Kong Choy was identified. Ong had also become close to Chan. Ong accepted responsibility for MCA’s poor performance and declined to be included in the new cabinet. He did not stand in the 2008 party elections, but instead, backed the successful candidature of Ong Tee Keat. His brother, Ong Ka Chuan, however, failed to win the deputy president’s position. When new party elections took place following a motion of no confidence in Ong Tee Keat, Ong Ka Ting came out of retirement and contested unsuccessfully for the president’s position.

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Ong is married to Datin Seri Wendy Chong Siew Mei, and they have a daughter, Li En, and a son, Xing Yang. Lee Kam Hing R E F E R E N C E S Chin, Ung-Ho. “New Chinese Leadership in Malaysia: The Contest for the MCA and Gerakan Presidency”. In Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs 28, no. 1 (April 2006): 70–87. INSAP. Ong Ka Ting: The Man and His Ideas (compiled by Institute of Strategic Analysis and Policy Research). Petaling Jaya, Selangor: MPH, 2007. 《

》。

：

，2007。 《 ： 》(Political career of Dato’ Seri Ong Ka Ting, Minister of Housing and Local Government, President, Malaysia Chinese Association)。 ： ，2005。 《 ： (Eventful 50 Years: Party Politics in Malaysia)。 ，2007。

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Ong Keng Sen ( , Wang Jingsheng, 1964– ) Theatre director, Singapore

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ng Keng Sen is one of Singapore’s most important theatre directors and certainly its most globally renowned one. As the artistic director of TheatreWorks International, Ong is recognised primarily for his intercultural style of theatre where different traditional Asian genres and disciplines are harnessed for a contemporary framing of original or classical works. Ong’s works have been staged in Asia, Europe and the US, and he is perhaps best known for his groundbreaking Asian-translated trilogy of Shakespeare-inspired works Lear, Desdemona and Search: Hamlet.

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Over the years Ong has garnered a string of awards such as theYoung Artist Award (1993), the Singapore Youth Award (2000), and the nation’s highest cultural honour, the Cultural Medallion Award (2003). Most recently, Ong was awarded the Fukuoka Arts and Culture Prize (2010), the first theatre director and only the third Singaporean (after Tang Da Wu and Dick Lee) to win the award. He is also Adjunct Associate Professor of Theatre Studies at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Ong graduated from the Faculty of Law, NUS, in 1989. A year before, he joined TheatreWorks, which was founded in 1985, while still at university. Upon graduation he began fulltime work with the theatre company and has been associated with it since. Ong obtained an M.A. in Performance Studies from the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, in 1994. A second generation Chinese whose parents immigrated from Xiamen, China, Ong is the youngest of six children born to a businessman father and a housewife mother. His elder brother, Ong Keng Yong, was ASEAN Secretary-General from 2003 to 2007. Ong’s interest in interculturalism may be traced back to his childhood. He communicated with parents in broken Henghua dialect, and was taught by his mother to enjoy Chinese opera at an early age, a genre that would echo in his early work (Ong remembers acting out Cantonese soap operas with his siblings). Nevertheless, he was also given a firm Anglophile education. Studying at the Methodist based Anglo Chinese School (ACS), he soon became an active member of the ACS Literary, Drama and Debating Society. Passing through this society were some of Singapore’s theatre luminaries, including actor-brothers Lim Kay Tong and Lim Kay Siu, directors Ivan Heng

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and Glen Goei, and actors Lim Yu Beng and Adrian Pang. It was this straddling of two different cultural worlds that made him feel both “inside and outside” a culture. He had felt that his parents were from a world that he could never totally be at ease with or understand. Ong recalls,“I was always code switching, like I lived in two different worlds. I went to Methodist schools where we read the New Testament and where a great literature teacher introduced me to the classics. Each day I would go back to our home, with its ancestral altar, and revert to a domestic language, a Chinese dialect I think of as my baby language.” His interest in theatre started young. Ong performed in a school operetta at nine years of age and was involved in a couple of plays a year by the time he was 15. His first stab at serious directing came in 1985 when, at university, he directed Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour. After passing the bar exam, Ong practised law for all of 10 days, if only just to complete his apprenticeship obligation. The law firm Lee & Lee offered him a job which he turned down for a career in theatre. Ong embarked on theatre at a crucial point in Singapore’s artistic trajectory. By the mid-1980s an English-educated middle class had formed, from which several young pioneering directors such as Alvin Tan, William Teo, and Ong himself, trained in western classics but keenly sensitive to national socio-cultural impulses, emerged to express local stories in distinct registers. According to Ong, “Many theatre companies had as their mission statement the promotion of Singaporean expression through our own plays. TheatreWorks, The Necessary Stage and The Third Stage are some examples. This concern was infectious and spread to the audience as well. The fervour in the theatre

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coincided with a nationalistic fervour in the late ‘eighties.’ ” Sharing the mentorship of local theatre doyen Kuo Pao Kun, these artistic directors took different routes. Helming TheatreWorks, Ong desired to take the theatre company away from conventional realism — “still trapped in John Osborne’s kitchen sink”, as he put it — and move towards a more performance-based and allegorical theatre. “This meant going back to popular entertainment, looking at how we identified with what was on TV, with the black-and-white Cantonese movies that were coming from Hong Kong when we were growing up. It meant going back to melodrama, a genre that resembles a kind of magical realism — a genre where magical things happen”. Elsewhere he noted that he was interested in the “process of bastardising Theatre — with a capital T — and impregnating it with popular vaudeville, with melodrama, with storytelling, with Chinese opera”. Ong’s constant search for new artistic interpretations and vocabularies led to his establishment of The Flying Circus Project (FCP) in 1994. It was a series of artistic workshops to which different artists from Asia were invited for collaborative work. According to him, “Since the 90s I began to look at myself actively as an Asian, and not just a Singaporean. However it is also exactly because I am Singaporean that I embrace multiple cultures, coexisting and engaging. The hybrid Asian character of Singapore permeates completely into me — speaking English as first language and being ethnically Chinese. I am the product of a new country with a lack of history and the schizophrenia of being at the crossroads of many different influences.” The first FCP resulted in the staging of Lear in Tokyo, Osaka and Fukuoka by participants from Japan, Thailand, China, Indonesia. The second FCP in 1998 concluded in the staging

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of Desdemona by artists from India, Myanmar and Korea while the third FCP in 2000 saw the staging of The Continuum: Beyond the Killing Fields with artists from Cambodia, Japan and Singapore a year later. With these highly stylised and visually layered works he began to develop an oeuvre that became known as ‘New Asia’ theatre, and soon won critical recognition from the international theatre community. However, it is also because of such works that Ong became a highly polarising figure who, on the one hand attracted high praise for his visionary ability to synthesise distinctive strands of Asian theatrical traditions, while on the other, drawing criticism for producing esoteric, even inaccessible, art that alienated the public. Such criticisms, nevertheless, are blinkered given that Ong has always complemented his more experimental theatre with mainstream work. He has directed highly popular theatre such as kitsch-driven musicals like Fried Rice Paradise and Beauty World (1991 and 1992 respectively), both in collaboration with songwriter Dick Lee. Ong was also behind the commercially successful Private Parts (1992) and Mixed Signals (1997), both by Michael Chiang; and the iconic Lady of Soul and Her Ultimate ‘S’ Machine (1992) by Tan Tarn How. Ong’s more serious local works often bore the hallmarks of his mentor Kuo Pao Kun. Lao Jiu, staged in 1993 in collaboration with Kuo, was about an aspiring puppeteer, and Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral (written by Kuo) in 1993 was an allegorical piece about Admiral Zhenghe. Ong is also credited with pioneering a form of theatre called docu-performance which blends theatre with historical documentation and confrontation between the politics of the present and the past. Such works include 1995’s Broken Birds, which explored Japanese prostitution in Singapore at

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the turn of the century, and Workhorse Afloat in 1997, which focused on the Singaporean middle class’s reliance on Indian construction workers. Throughout his artistic career, Ong has been mindful of the way in which local artists are perceived in Singapore. He is critical of the stereotypical ways in which the Singapore artist is seen as either the embodiment of deviance such as homosexuality or as someone who has naively opted out of materialism and capitalism. His relationship with state institutions has not always been smooth either. Along with lingering criticisms for being too artistically esoteric, he has also been accused of being too globally-oriented in his artistic direction instead of accentuating Singaporean identities. He took the opportunity to respond to such accusations in his acceptance speech for the Fukuoka Prize in 2010 where he remarked, “This recognition comes at a time of great irony as my work was recently penalized with a budget cut from the National Arts Council for being too international.” Terence Chong R E F E R E N C E S Chong, Terence. The Theatre and the State in Singapore: Orthodoxy and Resistance. London and New York: Routledge, 2010. Le Blond, Max. “Drama in Singapore: towards an English language theatre”. In Discharging the canon: cross-cultural readings in literature, ed. Peter Hyland. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1986. Lo, Jacqueline. Staging Nation: English Language Theatre in Malaysia and Singapore. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004. Oon, Clarrisa. “Theatre Life!: A History of Englishlanguage Theatre”. In Singapore through The Straits Times (1958–2000). Singapore: Singapore Press Holdings, 2001. Peterson, William. Theatre and the Politics of Culture in Contemporary Singapore. Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 2001.

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Ong Kim Kee ( , Wang Jinji, 1931–98) Businessman, community leader, Brunei

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ato Paduka Ong Kim Kee is a fine example of those in Brunei who inherited their father’s businesses and carried these to new heights. He inherited the businesses since the 1950s, painstakingly managed and developed them into a ), conglomerate known as Teck Guan Co. ( with over ten subsidiaries dealing in properties, hotels, and commercial trades. It is one of the top commercial corporations in Brunei. Ong hailed from the West Residence ) county in the of Lieyu village, Jinmen ( province of Fujian, China. He was born on 24 June 1931 in Brunei, the second son of Brunei community leader Pehin Kapitan Ong ). He lost his mother at the Boon Pang ( age of two and his father at the age of nine. For his elementary school education, he went to the Chung Hwa School in the capital of Brunei. This school was built with funds raised by his father and others in the late 30s. After World War II, he went to Singapore to continue his middle school education at the Chinese High ).The man who accompanied School ( him to register at the school at the time was ), the current chairman Wee Cho Yaw ( of the United Overseas Bank in Singapore. Ong was awarded his junior middle school certificate in 1948, and stayed in the school to continue his senior middle studies. But in 1951, he was forced to terminate his senior middle three education and return to Brunei to take over his father’s business. At the time, Ong’s father already had a firm footing in the business, but as Ong was still young and inexperienced, he received the guidance of his brother-in-law, who was

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married to his eldest sister, Pehin Dato Lim ), when he took over Cheng Choo ( the helm of Chop Teck Guan, established by his father in 1910. They were in the import and export business, cigarette distributorship, petrol retail, shop rental, and managing the Bong Pang Cinema. With the company’s sound foundation plus Ong’s innate intelligence, excellent ability, and insights, the various businesses of Chop Teck Guan flourished rapidly. Teck Guan Building was constructed in the eighties when Ong’s children returned home after completing their studies abroad. It became the administrative center of Teck Guan Corporation and Dato Ong’s office was at the top level, where he worked daily. It now stands proudly in Jalan Sultan, in the capital city, Bandar Seri Begawan. Besides operating businesses, Ong devoted his efforts to promoting culture and education, as well as Chinese community work. His selfless contribution to two private schools in Brunei — St Andrews School and Chung Hwa Middle School — was manifested in his holding the role of chairman of the board in the two schools for many years and in generous donations to the schools. To service the Chinese community, he offered his time and monetary contributions to The Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Bandar Seri Begawan. He held long-term important positions on its board and helped propel Chinese merchants onto the international platform, as well as improve commerce between Brunei and other countries. He was conferred the title of “Dato Paduka” by the Sultan of Brunei in 1974, in recognition of his contributions towards society and the country. During the early 1990s, as president of the Chamber of Commerce, he conceived the idea of raising funds for a new building and spearheaded donations by contributing a huge sum of money to the fund; the response to the

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fund-raising effort was tremendous and the new building was completed in 1992 under his stewardship. Since the 1950s, Ong had been involved in education, especially towards the development of St Andrew’s School and Chung Hwa Middle School. He held the position of chairman of the board of St Andrew’s School for over thirty years, working untiringly for the good of the school. At the beginning of the 1980s, he donated $150,000 to the construction of Chung Hwa Middle School’s administrative block and staff dormitory. One of its teachers hostels was named “Dato Ong Kim Kee” to commemorate his generous contribution. At the beginning of the 1990s, he organized a large fund-raising dinner with other members of the council to raise funds for the building of the Chamber of Commerce, Bandar Seri Begawan. He took the lead and made an impromptu donation of $500,000 which set off a domino effect — that night, the total amount donated was $1,530,000, which broke the record of any fund-raising efforts made by the Chinese community in a single event. And the Ong’s wish for the Chamber of Commerce to have its own building was fulfilled in 1992. He continued as president for two more years, and from 1995 until his death in 1998, he held the position of honorary president cum adviser. Besides providing his service to Chinese private schools and the community, Ong also participated enthusiastically in the nation’s celebration activities. As an accomplished businessman with outstanding leadership, he was invited to be chairman of the Committee of Chinese Community for the sultan’s birthday celebrations in 1996 and 1997, and was responsible for the planning and arrangements of the celebratory activities. Ong was also a devout Christian. Besides contributing to culture, education,

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and the community, he also offered his help to members of different social strata, including the impoverished and the sick. He maintained a low profile and his philanthropic acts were never propagated. Ill health was perhaps the only thing Ong regretted about his life. Kidney failure had confined him to the dialysis machine from the 1970s and though he had a successful kidney transplant in Australia in the 80s, he again succumbed to illness in 1997 and passed away in February 1998. He is survived by his wife, Doris Kong Siuk Yin, three sons and one daughter. Niew Shong Tong R E F E R E N C E S Forbes. “Ong Kim Kee’s family “. July 1993, p. 62. “The Profile of Ong Boon Pang”. In Song Zhuo Ying, The Successful Men of Southeast Asia, p. 133. Singapore: Modern Southeast Asian Publications, 1970. Some of the information in this article was provided by Dato Ong Kim Kee during an interview with the writer in 1991.

Ong, Lawrence Dy ( , Wang Mingyu, 1956–2001) Social activist, community leader, Philippines

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awrence Dy Ong embodies volunteerism. He had lived his life not for himself, but for the people he served. He has since become the benchmark of what a volunteer ought to be. Throughout his life as a volunteer, he organized over a hundred peer support groups, counselled more than a thousand young Indochinese (including Vietnamese, Cambodian & Laotian) refugees, empowered indigenous peoples, and pushed the volunteerism movement in the country forward.

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Born on 17 October 1956 the third of seven siblings, Lawrence Dy Ong defied the Chinese tradition of following in the footsteps of his parents. Business is the common line of profession or work for Tsinoys (ChineseFilipinos), but Ong chose social development work right after finishing university. He called himself a “Tsinoy subversive” meaning an agent for change, which he embodied in his whole life by serving others. The metaphor, “a human bridge” is used to describe him because he advocated the integration of the Chinese into mainstream Philippine society and was a very vocal antipoverty crusader. He proved that volunteerism and the undying desire to help others can make an enormous difference in the lives of many people. Volunteerism had become, not just a special interest for Ong, but a career. In his writings, he revealed, “perhaps it was time to stop serving the rich who keep getting richer and instead, start serving the poor and the weak that they may not get poorer and weaker”. His father did not approve of Ong’s volunteer work because it could hamper his health, endanger his safety, and according to Ong, “be kidnapped to which he [the elder Ong] had no money to pay for ransom”. (Editor’s note: Kidnapping incidents, where victims were almost always Chinese Filipinos, became common beginning of the 1990s, and reached its height at the end of the 1990s.) Ong sacrificed a lot when he chose the path to leave the comforts of his own home and be separated from his family so as to help the underprivileged, and be active in social outreach projects. His closest sibling, Jocelyn, noted that, “we are humbled that in our bloodline, we have a ‘man for others’ who unselfishly placed other people’s need before his own”. Lawrence Ong believed and proved in his life that giving enriches the self.

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In an unfinished autobiography, he wrote about social consciousness and his own awareness of being poor. “I did not understand the meaning of poverty then. I only knew how to complain for not being like my richer classmates. I was ashamed to be a poor boy who dared not invite his classmates who lived in mansions to come and visit the rundown house which my family had called home.” After university, Ong became a volunteer for the Jesuit Volunteers of the Philippines (JVP), joining its second batch. In May 1981, he was assigned to do social work in Sapak Farms in Compostela, Cebu. Sapak is a rehabilitation centre for juvenile delinquents. His JVP experience opened for him other opportunities he never realized he could possibly do. As he testified, “JVP widened my horizon and pushed me out to the world.” Over the next few years, he became known for being thorough in planning outreach projects for the poor and youth, including finishing tedious bureaucratic paper work. He developed activities, materials, and curriculum for the ABC (adventure-based counselling) programme of the Preparation for American Secondary Schools of the International Catholic Migration Commission at the Philippine Refugee Processing Center in Morong, Bataan, from August 1989–March 1993. He also served as a counsellor and mentor for refugees seeking asylum in the Philippines. Ong joined Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran in 1995 and found a venue that fully supported his ideals and advocacies. Despite it being a struggle to help the poor live a better life and to awaken the social awareness of Tsinoys in the Philippines, Ong never complained. The more people began to share in his vision and work, the more he got motivated and inspired to fulfil his plan of action. One of Ong’s dreams is for Tsinoys to be involved in social development work. He

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believed that there are Tsinoys who want to run for public office or get involved in social development projects, but are hindered due to lack of resources. Ong likens social development work to “building the bridge right in the areas where these are needed most by many people. Integration will not just be lip service. We’ll not only be providing material resources, we’ll also be sending manpower”. He believed that the integration of the Chinese into mainstream Philippine society is not just for one person, but for all members of the Chinese-Filipino community. “It is for both the young and the old. But it is the young who should take the initiative and assume the greater responsibility.” He said that the younger generation must assist the older ones “face, accept and adapt to changing Philippine and global realities.They should build bridges and be bridges not only between and among cultures, but also between and among generations”. Ong stressed that integration is involvement. Before one gets involved in something, immersion must take place. Immersion is a means of exposing the self to the realities of life that can nurture one’s self and from which one learns how to take care and show concern for others. “Immersion without moving toward involvement is meaningless and that awareness without advancing toward action is useless,” said Ong. These ideals were carried out in his work as vice-president for development of Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran. He motivated volunteers by example. The word, volunteerism, took on a new depth in meaning. Where people used to volunteer only when they had free time, Ong took volunteerism to a higher level. To him, volunteering is a commitment much like that which one gives to a job. Serving is not done because one has nothing else to do. The poor and marginalized need help, and they need it on a constant basis.

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As well, Ong brought to the fore the form of “help” that should be extended to the poor. Non-profit organizations know that it is best to equip the marginalized with skills and knowledge so they can help themselves. Instead of donating food to the Aeta community in Bataan, Ong sourced donations for a water buffalo for the community to use on their farms. Such are the types of projects that Ong initiated and which the Kaisa continues to emulate. Ong’s ultimate goal, which his family and Kaisa undertook on his death, was to aid social development workers such as himself. Throughout his years of work in urban and rural poor communities, he found that social workers themselves were in much need of help themselves. Their own families sometimes do not have enough money to eat three times a day. Their homes are sometimes as decrepit as those they try to help. The Lawrence Trust Fund for Volunteer Workers was set up using Ong’s life savings, as well as donations from his schoolmates from Xavier School. Each year, a hard-working volunteer worker is given a cash reward to be used at the volunteer’s discretion. In Ong’s vision, he wanted social development workers to have personal money in their pockets so they can continue to serve their communities freely. But, true to the spirit of volunteerism that Ong espoused, all the awardees have thus far put their reward money into their community service. Sam Walter, a close friend and co-worker in their ABC Program which later became Adventure-Based Counseling, Inc., their group’s corporate name, always called Ong “the great leader”. True to Ong’s humble nature, he disliked being called such and maintained the lowest profile possible, despite holding leadership positions in various non-profit organizations and projects.

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In his short but fruitful life, Ong had contributed a great deal to the ChineseFilipino communities and serving the poor. He defied many misconceptions, traditions, and stereotypes, choosing to serve others more than attending to his own needs because he had always envisioned that social change could happen. He was the kind of Tsinoy who only had the best interests of his people and made sincere efforts on their behalf without expecting any reward or recognition — truly a genuine man for others. He could have done so much more had he lived longer. A prototype of a book on Lawrence Ong, Bridge-Builder in Our Midst (2001), containing articles and essays written by him and others who wrote about him, was shown to Ong three days before he died. Humble as he was, his only words were, “I do not deserve this.” Ong passed away on 13 July 2001 of liver cancer. He was forty-four. Arvin Tiong Ello R E F E R E N C E Kaisa Research Division (ed.). Bridge-Builder in Our Midst. Intramuros, Manila: Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran, Inc., 2001.

Ong, Omar Yoke Lin ( , Weng Yulin, 1917–2010) Political leader, diplomat, Malaysia

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ng Yoke Lin was born on 23 July 1917, and attended the Pudu Girls’ English School, and later theVictoria Institution (VI) in Kuala Lumpur. His contemporaries in school were DatoYahya bin Dato Abdul Razak, Yacob Latiff, and Singapore’s Lee Siew Choh. Ong passed the London University Matriculation in 1935 and trained as a chartered

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accountant. He had intended to read law, but his studies were disrupted by World War Two. After the war he started a business which became Syarikat Ong Yoke Lin Berhad, the main distributor of Carrier air-conditioners. Over the years, his business grew and he entered into other ventures. One of these, OYL Industries Sdn. Bhd., was subsequently listed on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange. In later years he held positions in many corporations, some of which he had significant shares in. He was chairman of the board of directors of Maju Jaya Industries Sdn. Bhd., Syarikat Ong Yoke Lin Sdn. Bhd., Kemuncak Sdn. Bhd., OYL Industries Sdn. Bhd., Raza Sdn. Bhd., and Malayan Flour Mill Bhd. He was also chairman of the board of directors of Asian International Merchant Bankers Bhd. Ong was one of the founding members of the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA) in 1949. In 1955 he became chairman of Selangor MCA when, with the backing of Tan Siew Sin, he defeated the incumbent, Lee Hau Shik. He retained the position in party elections in 1957. Ong and Tan belonged to the MCA faction which was trusted by Tunku Abdul Rahman, the leader then of UMNO. In the 1959 MCA-UMNO dispute, Tunku knew that he could rely on the Ong-Tan faction against Lim Chong Eu, who was then MCA president. When Lim was forced to leave the MCA, the Ong-Tan faction dominated the party and Ong became a vice-president of the MCA. Ong played an important part in the forging of the UMNO-MCA alliance to contest the first Kuala Lumpur municipal elections in early 1952. This was when he brought Dato Yahya bin Dato Razak, a former classmate in Victoria Institution and then chairman of UMNO Selangor, to meet Lee Hau Shik, chairman of Selangor MCA. In the meeting Lee and Dato Yahya agreed to

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field a single slate of candidates against those of the Independence of Malaya Party (IMP). The IMP under Dato Onn Jaafar had been favoured to win the elections. In the end the alliance candidates won nine of the twelve seats contested.This victory encouraged the alliance to form a national-based and more formalized Alliance Party which today is the Barisan Nasional. Later, Ong was made a member of the Alliance National Executive Committee, a position he held from 1952 until 1962. In the historic 1952 Kuala Lumpur municipal elections Ong stood in the Petaling ward which he won and retained in 1954. He became the majority leader in the Kuala Lumpur municipal council and in 1954 was nominated to the Selangor state legislative council and the federal legislative council. In the first federal elections in August 1955 Ong contested successfully in the Kuala Lumpur Barat constituency. He was fielded as a candidate again in the 1959 federal elections and won the Ulu Selangor constituency. In 1955, following Alliance’s sweep of the federal elections and the forming of the first pre-independence cabinet, Ong was appointed minister for post and telecommunications. In a reshuffle the following year he was made minister for transport. Ong became minister of labour and social welfare in the first cabinet after independence and in 1959 was made minister of health and welfare. Then in June 1962, Ong left to become ambassador to the United States and concurrent permanent representative to the United Nations. It was a critical period for Ong to be in the United Nations as Malaysia was embroiled in the Konfrontasi conflict with Indonesia, and the Sabah dispute with the Philippines. While in the United States, he was appointed Malaysia’s first high commissioner to Canada in 1966 and the following year,

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became Malaysia’s first ambassador to Brazil concurrently. In the ten years he was away on ambassadorial duties, Ong enjoyed the status of minister without portfolio. He ended his diplomatic career in November 1972 and in February the following year, was appointed to the Malaysian Senate where he was elected president. He held the position until December 1980. Ong played a major role in the independence movement of Malaya and in the formation of Malaysia. He took part in 1955 in drawing up the Alliance Manifesto for the first federal elections and in the drafting of the Alliance submission to the Reid Constitutional Commission. In April 1957, he was a member of the Alliance Party’s delegation to London to finalize constitutional and other arrangements for the transfer of power from London to Kuala Lumpur. When the proposal for forming Malaysia was made in 1961,Ong led a Malayan delegation to a meeting in Kuching of the Solidarity Consultative Committee, which included representatives from Sabah and Sarawak, to discuss transitional details. In September 1963 he was one of the signatories of the agreement establishing Malaysia. As a senior member of the Malaysian Government, Ong led or was part of many delegations to overseas conferences and held elected posts in international organizations. As minister of labour and social welfare he led the Malayan delegation to the 4th Asian Regional Conference of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in New Delhi in November 1957 and in June the following year headed the Malayan delegation to the 42nd session of the International Labour Conference in Geneva. In May 1960 he led a delegation to the World Health Assembly in Geneva and in 1961 was elected vice-chairman of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.

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Ong was active in various social and public organizations. During the Malayan Emergency (1948–60), he was chief officer of the Kuala Lumpur Home Guards. Later, between 1959 and 1962, he was chairman of the Malaysian Red Crescent Society, as well as the St John’s Ambulance Brigade. In 1991 he became president of the Malaysian Heart Foundation. He was also active in the Malaysian Muslim Welfare Organisation (Perkim) of which he was vice-president. Ong passed away at the age of ninetythree on 1 July 2010 and was buried at the Heroes’ Tomb (Makam Pahlawan) in the National Mosque in Kuala Lumpur. In his lifetime, Ong received many awards from the Malaysian and overseas governments. He was conferred the Pingat Mangku Negara in 1959, which carries the title “Tan Sri”, and in 1979 received the nation’s highest award, the Seri Setia Mahkota, which comes with the title “Tun”. Ong converted to Islam in 1961. He was married to Toh Puan Datuk Hajjah Dr Aishah Ong and they have two sons: Abdul Rahim Ong and Ariffin Omar Ong. Lee Kam Hing R E F E R E N C E S Crouch, Harold A. Government and Society in Malaysia, pp. 13–31. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1996. Lee, Kam Hing. “The Bumiputra Policy: Chinese Views and Perspectives”. Kajian Malaysia XXI, nos. l & 2 (2003). Lee, Kam Hing and Heng Pek Koon. “The Chinese in the Malaysian Political System”. In The Chinese in Malaysia, edited by Lee Kam Hing and Tan Chee-Beng, pp. 194– 227. Shah Alam, Selangor: Oxford University Press, 2000. Means, Gordon P. Malaysian Politics. London: University of London Press Ltd., 1970. ———. Malaysian Politics: The Second Generation,

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pp. 209, 212, 256, 257. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1991. The Star. “Tun Omar Yoke-Lin Ong The Last Independence Fighter” (1999 interview), and “First Step to Independence”. 2 April 2001. The Victoria Institution web page. (accessed March 2012).

Ong Pang Boon ( , Wang Bangwen, 1929– ) Politician, member of parliament, cabinet minister, Singapore

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ng Pang Boon was a member of parliament for the Telok Ayer constituency from 1959 to 1984 and a cabinet minister of home affairs (1959–63), education (1963–70), labour (1970–81), environment (1981–84), and communications (1983–84). Beginning his political career as the organizing secretary of the People’s Action Party (PAP) in 1956, he rose to become the party’s assistant secretary general in 1963 and held that post until 1981 when he relinquished it and became the first vice-chairman. He left the cabinet in 1984, retired from politics in 1988, and served as a director in the Hong Leong business group from 1985 to 2005. His political career is best symbolized by his role as a bridge between the Chinesespeaking community and the predominantly English-educated PAP leadership, as well as in embedding the bilingual policy of learning Mandarin in the school curriculum as a compulsory examination subject. Ong’s grandfather and father had migrated from China to British Malaya and he was born in Kuala Lumpur on 28 March 1929. He began his education in Chinese-medium schools, attending the Ming Chung Public School (1935–38) and the Confucian Middle School (1939–41). He switched language

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stream after the Japanese Occupation to study at the Methodist Boys’ School (1947–49) in Kuala Lumpur and later joined the University of Malaya in Singapore (1950–54), graduating with a Bachelor of Arts honours degree in geography. It was this bilingual background which facilitated his later role as a PAP political vanguard who could connect with the Chinese-speaking community. His political awakening was triggered by the brutalities of the Japanese Occupation, but blossomed during the post-war Malayan Union controversy when he attended political rallies and read politicized news reports. At the University of Malaya, he kept company with a number of prominent student activists and became the treasurer of the University Socialist Club. During the Fajar trials, he was active in raising funds for the accused students, and was a witness for the defence, in the course of which he was introduced to lawyer Lee Kuan Yew. Eventually he was persuaded by some members of the club to join the PAP in 1955. During the 1955 general elections, he took the plunge by becoming Lee’s election agent in the Tanjong Pagar constituency. In 1956, he resigned from his job at the Federal and Colonial Building Society, took a hefty pay cut, and was appointed the full-time organizing secretary of the PAP to manage the activities of party branches. He was elected as a councillor and appointed deputy mayor of the city council from December 1957 to April 1959. He entered the legislative assembly as a member for Telok Ayer constituency through the 1959 general elections, a parliamentary seat which he defended until 1988. After the PAP’s electoral victory and Singapore’s attainment of self-government in 1959, Ong became the minister of home affairs and immediately spearheaded a PAP campaign against “yellow culture”, withdrawing permits for some publications and striptease shows,

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and cracking down on prostitution, gambling dens, jukeboxes, and secret societies. After the PAP leftists had split from the party and fought against the merger to form Malaysia, Ong emerged at the forefront of denouncing his former comrades as treacherous communists who were out to wreck national security. He ordered the disbandment of public meetings held by trade unions to discuss the merger bill. His home affairs portfolio also made him one of the three Singapore representatives in the Internal Security Council based in Kuala Lumpur, the other two being Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Keng Swee. It was under the auspices of this council that Operation Cold Store was launched in February 1963 to detain without trial many key Barisan Sosialis leaders, thus emasculating the political opposition and changing permanently the political landscape of Singapore. Years later, Ong confessed that it was an unpleasant task to sign detention orders against people he knew, but he claimed collective responsibility. In the cabinet reshuffle after the September 1963 general elections, Ong became the minister of education, a post he held until 1970. At the time, one of the government’s priorities was to reorganize Nanyang University. About half a year after the government had struck a six-point agreement through the Nantah Liaison Committee, Ong invited Wang Gungwu to head a curriculum review committee in January 1965, and spelt out in a speech at the sixth Nantah convocation in March 1965 that its degrees would only be recognized after the university had completed ridding the campus of anti-national, communist elements, and revamping the curriculum and teaching standards. However, this round of university reform was aborted amidst the political storm unleashed by the publication of the Wang Gungwu Report in September 1965.

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Apart from Nantah, he played a key role in forging the PAP’s controversial second language policy by laying down the requirement in 1965 that all students take a second language, and making second language a compulsory examination subject from 1968. On his eventual departure from cabinet, Lee Kuan Yew praised him for having carried out the politically difficult task of putting in place PAP’s policy on bilingualism, premised on English as the first language and a mother tongue as the second. As the education minister, Ong also repeatedly emphasized the importance of technical education and the need to change people’s attitude towards bluecollar jobs. Ong was appointed minister of labour in 1971, and later made minister of the environment in 1981. During these years when the threat of leftism in Singapore had receded and the global hippie movement and antiVietnam War protests had peaked, he became a cultural gatekeeper, expressing concern about decadent Westernization while supporting Asian values. Insistence on the teaching of Mandarin as a second language in English schools was to him an important measure in providing a Chinese cultural shield against the perceived Western drug-taking culture. In launching the annual Speak Mandarin Campaign in 1983, he made a passionate appeal to improve the standard of Chinese and remove all obstacles and discrimination against its learning. He contended that the essence of the PAP’s bilingual policy was to enable Singaporeans to preserve their cultural roots through knowledge of their mother tongue. He spoke as a veteran political leader who had lived through turbulent times and was infused with the traditional cultural attributes of selflessness, dedication and discipline, and thus in a position to dictate and pass on lessons he had learned to the younger generation.

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Ironically, given Lee Kuan Yew’s obsession with the rejuvenation of party leadership, Ong had come under threat of being rendered obsolete and replaced by the young. Lee launched his crusade of party renewal barely five years after the birth of the republic. In 1970 he dispatched Ong for a year of sabbatical leave so that he could try out some new leaders. At the 1971 National Day Rally, Lee signalled that Ong would only be a transitory bridge in leadership and would not get to succeed him. In 1980, Lee made his passing-the-baton speech at the PAP’s 25th anniversary rally, laying out his second line of leadership. Ong was asked to leave the cabinet in 1984 and he ended his backbencher life in 1988. By then, the entire first-generation PAP leaders with ministerial experience had stepped down, with the exception of Lee who stayed on first as the prime minister, and later as senior minister, and subsequently minister mentor. The phasing out of Ong had been unmistakable. When he returned from his sabbatical leave in 1971, he was put in charge of the less important labour portfolio. In 1981, he was pushed further away into the ministry of environment. As he later hinted, the centre of gravity for labour affairs even in the 1970s was less with the ministry of labour and more with Devan Nair, who was then in charge of the National Trades Union Congress. It was Lee and Nair who executed a separate exercise in labour union leadership renewal, with Ong hardly in the picture. When the closure of Nanyang University took place in 1980, Ong was said to have harboured objections, but he was apparently neither formally consulted nor involved. Lee would later single out his own separate pool of Nantah graduate members of parliament for giving him the political support, without mentioning Ong.

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Confronted by such marginalization, Ong openly voiced his unhappiness and criticized the policies of the incoming secondgeneration PAP cabinet leaders. He fired his first salvo in October 1980 at a 25th anniversary dinner of the PAP’s Bukit Panjang branch, during which the most promising of PAP’s second-generation leaders, Goh Chok Tong and Tony Tan, were present. He condemned Singapore society as a parvenu society in which the unsuccessful were forgotten and neglected, and political old guards on retirement regarded as losers, with their contributions buried and forgotten. In August 1984, he registered displeasure against the arbitrary appointment of political successors because he believed they would fail in the absence of grass roots support. He also warned that successive generations of monarchs in China had promoted aspects of Confucianism that were advantageous to their feudal rule and he praised the democratic one-man-one-vote system of the West as being the best suited for multiracial Singapore. He urged Singaporeans to articulate their opinions courageously and point out mistakes in the government so that those in power would serve the people and the nation and not abuse the power entrusted to them. Therefore, towards the end of his political life, he appeared to have come full circle by embracing the discourse of Western liberal democracy as a bulwark against traditional Confucian authoritarianism. Lee Kuan Yew acknowledged Ong’s displeasure in his December 1984 public letter of appreciation by taking note of the latter’s misgivings over the method and speed of leadership self-renewal, and the impact this was having on the morale of the PAP old guard. In 1990, two years after his complete departure from the political arena, Ong was awarded the Order of Nila Utama (First Class), the third

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most important national honour, in recognition of all his contributions. Ong Pang Boon is married to Chan Choy Siong and they have one son and two daughters. Huang Jianli R E F E R E N C E S Chew, Melanie. “Interview with Ong Pang Boon”. Leaders of Singapore. Singapore: Resource Press, 1996. Hong, Lysa and Huang Jianli. The Scripting of a National History: Singapore and Its Pasts. Singapore: NUS Press, in conjunction with Hong Kong University Press, 2008. Ministry of Culture. Biographical Notes on the President, Prime Minister and Ministers, 1981. Singapore: Ministry of Culture, Publicity Division, 1981. National Library Board and National Archives Singapore. Singapore: The First Ten Years of Independence, 1965 to 1975. Singapore: National Library Board and National Archives Singapore, 2007. National University of Singapore, Central Library. “Press Clippings: Personalities”. Vol. 3. Sai Siew Min and Huang Jianli. “The “Chinese-educated” Political Vanguards: Ong Pang Boon, Lee Khoon Choy & Jek Yeun Thong”. In Lee’s Lieutenants: Singapore’s Old Guards, edited by Lam Peng Er and Kevin Y.L. Tan. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1999.

Ong Poh Lim ( , Wang Baolin, 1923–2003) Badminton champion, Singapore and Malaysia

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ng Poh Lim, a badminton giant who played in Singapore immediately after the Second World War, was a sparkling talent who helped to embellish a golden age of sport. Together with Wong Peng Soon, a multiple All England champion, Ong was in the forefront of Malaya’s dominance of the Thomas Cup. He featured strongly in three successful campaigns in 1949, 1952, and 1955.

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Ong was the only Malayan player to win all his matches at these tournaments, playing singles in 1949, and both singles and doubles in the later tournaments. Best known as a formidable doubles player, he was also capable of beating anyone at singles, and was credited as well with inventing and perfecting the backhand flick serve known as the “crocodile serve”, a tactic now routinely used in doubles contests. Born in Sarawak in 1923, Ong had visited Singapore looking for the opportunity to improve his attacking game in 1940. He was the singles and doubles champion of Sarawak at the age of sixteen and brimming with confidence. The following year, when Wong Peng Soon successfully defended his Malaya national title, Ong won the Leong Sim Nam Plate trophy for first round losers. He was on his way to success. Eight months after the war, he returned to Singapore and, in 1947, the twenty-four year old Ong was selected to represent Singapore in the Malayan Championships in both singles and doubles matches. He was seen as a player who had shown remarkable improvement and was a candidate for representation in the new international competition to be inaugurated in England in 1949 — the Thomas Cup. Ong played for Fraser and Neave, the strongest commercial house team in 1947 and also represented, first, the Marigold Badminton party, and then later the Bournemouth Badminton party. By October 1947 he was a leading contender for the Singapore Open title — Wong Peng Soon’s most serious rival. Although he was unable to overcome his more experienced opponent,he found himself ranked number two nationally. In February 1948 Ong played the finest game of his blossoming career when he defeated Wong in the Marrieds vs Singles competition at the Clerical Union Hall in Rangoon Road.

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A persistent knee injury hampered his progress, but he found himself in the squad that would make sporting history at the beginning of the following year. In May a team was sent to the China National Games in Shanghai and swept the board taking all the singles games. Trial matches for the Thomas Cup between the north and south of Malaya revealed that Ong’s speed around the court had not diminished. Once in the United Kingdom, Ong did not play in the first rounds of the Thomas Cup. He was sent to Balmoral in Belfast, where he won his first badminton title when he beat Selangor’s Lim Kee Fong in the All-Ireland Open men’s singles. When Wong Peng Soon was injured prior to the Thomas Cup final against Denmark in Preston, Ong was brought in as third singles, winning his game comfortably against Poul Holm, and helping to secure a famous victory. Back in Singapore, the news immediately prompted the Legislative Council to initiate plans to construct a purpose built badminton hall, one required for the defence of the Cup in 1952. Ong did not make many headlines with his singles play in 1949 and 1950, a period when Wong Peng Soon was the dominant force, but he did establish himself as an exceptional doubles player. He won his first colony title partnering L.M. Pennefather in 1949 in a mixed doubles match. Later in the year he established a most famous badminton doubles partnership with Ismail bin Marjan. Together they were Malaya and Singapore champions. In 1951, after struggling to raise enough money to pay for their passage, they made their entry into the All-England Championships — the premier badminton event dating back to 1899. The doubles pair was able to follow Wong Peng Soon to England, where they quickly impressed critics by winning a lead-up tournament in Surrey. In the All-England Championships themselves,

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Ong and Marjan emerged runners-up behind the Choong brothers, Eddy and David. The singles title narrowly eluded Ong, who could not overcome Wong Peng Soon in the final — going down 15-18, 18-14, 15-7. Together with Marjan, he won the French title in April and also gained revenge against Wong by taking the singles. After returning home a crisis developed over claims that the three players (and also Cheong Hock Leng) had contravened regulations governing their amateur status. The group refused to provide financial statements and challenged Lim Chuan Geok, the president of the SBA, calling his style of leadership dictatorial. They were suspended “indefinitely”, but two days later the ban was lifted after intervention by Malcolm Macdonald, the governor general of Malaya. Some observers considered the Ong and Marjan team to be invincible. At one time they swept the Singapore Open titles for four consecutive years. Their partnership helped Malaya retain the Thomas Cup in 1952, but not at the new hall which was too slippery. As the defending champion, Malaya had been seeded straight into the final to play the winners of the inter-zone semi-finals and final. India defeated Denmark and then lost to the United States which became Malaya’s challengers at the Happy World stadium. It was Ong and Marjan who gave Malaya a secure 3-1 lead on the first evening, dropping only 9 points to Mitchell and Loveday, the American pair. It fell to Ong himself to deliver the killer blow by defeating Williams and thus earning the decisive fifth point the following day. The final match score was 7-2. In 1952 Ong was voted Sportsman of the Year, securing more than half the votes cast by readers of the Singapore Free Press. He was a regular representative for Singapore in the Interstate Foong Seong Cup and won

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numerous national and international titles. He held the Singapore Open singles title four times (1952–55), taking the title in 1953 in a match against Omar Ibrahim that lasted only 15 minutes. Ong held the doubles title seven times (1950–56). He made history by sweeping the singles, doubles, and mixed doubles titles over three consecutive years, from 1952 to 1954. He was a winning doubles finalist at the All-England Championships partnering Ooi Teik Hock of Penang in 1954, and this success heralded a series of invitations to play exhibitions around the world. In the second defence of the Thomas Cup staged at the Singapore Badminton Hall in Guillemard Road in 1955, Ong played doubles with Ooi. He scored the championship point for Malaya when he defeated Ole Jensen in the singles. An ankle injury in June 1955 temporarily halted his run of successes, but he still played in the All-England championships in 1956. Ong retired from top-level badminton after 1958, keeping mostly to the veterans’ circuit and exhibition games. However, he played such an impressive doubles game with George Yap in the 1960 Malayan Open that he was selected to be part of the Thomas Cup squad for the following year. He was thirty-eight years old at the time. Although still competitively active, Ong turned his attention to coaching. In November 1962 he was offered a lucrative coaching role in the Philippines. After Singapore’s independence in 1965, Minister of Education Ong Pang Boon appealed for former champions to dedicate time to coaching the new generation. He obliged by combining local duties with international stints around the world. Ong was inducted into the Singapore Sports Council (SSC) Sports Museum Hall of Fame in 1986. In 1997 he received a Meritorious Service Award from

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the International Badminton Federation for his significant contributions to the sport. He was inducted into the World Badminton Hall of Fame in 1998, and the Olympic Council of Malaysia’s Hall of Fame in 2004. Ong Poh Lin passed away in April 2003. Nick Aplin R E F E R E N C E S Olympic Council of Malaysia website. Hall of Fame. At

(accessed February 2012). Ong, K. K. We Were Great: Thomas Cup Badminton. Petaling Jaya, Selangor: Federal Publications, 1984. Singapore Sports Council web site. Hall of Fame.

(accessed February 2012). Tay, C. K. “Badminton legend dies”. The Straits Times, 18 April 2003. Tan, C. T. Upholding the Legacy: Singapore Badminton. Singapore: Asiapac Publication, 2002. Tan, Joanna Hwang Soo. “Ong Poh Lim”. Written on 24 May 2010, National Library Board Singapore. (accessed February 2012).

Ong Soon Hock ( , Wang Shunfu, 1934– ) Scientist, Malaysia

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ng Soon Hock was born on 18 September 1934 in Malacca. He has been associated with research in the chemistry of free radicals, which culminated in the publication of an academic book entitled, The Chemistry of Free Radicals. Free radicals are now known to implicate human health and diseases including the ageing process. He was also known both locally and internationally for his work on palm oil, particularly for his efforts in countering the anti-palm oil campaign

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conducted in the United States of America. This effort resulted in the American Soybean Association calling for a truce in 1989. Besides his contributions to the advancement of the chemistry of free radicals and applications of scientific research for the Malaysian palm oil industry, he has also been instrumental in creating awareness of intellectual property and in the promotion of inventiveness among Malaysians at all levels. Dr Ong comes from a humble background and was an orphan at an early age. He grew up with his paternal grandmother in a small rubber plantation in Malacca. Later he was admitted to St Francis’ Institution, a boarding school in Malacca, and completed his preuniversity education at St John’s Institution, Kuala Lumpur. He benefited much from his education in these schools and went to the University of Malaya (UM) in 1954, from which he graduated with first class honours in chemistry. He won the memorial gold medal in chemistry in 1958 on the recommendation of Lord Todd, the Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, University of Cambridge, who was the external examiner. Then he pursued his post-graduate research at the University of London’s King’s College under the supervision of Professor D.H. Hey FRS, a pioneer in free radical chemistry, and Dr J.I.G. Cadogan, now known as Sir John Cadogan. He continued his postgraduate training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a FulbrightHays fellow. A few years later, he spent a year at the Dyson Perrins Laboratory, University of Oxford, as a visiting professor working in collaboration with Professor W.A. Waters FRS, another pioneer in free radical chemistry. At an early age, Dr Ong was fascinated with how things work in nature. In fact, in his first essay on ambition, he had wanted to be a scientific farmer. It is this fascination with science that led him to study chemistry,

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physics, and mathematics, although this was not a popular combination, due to the heavy load in practical work. His urge to understand chemical reactions resulted in him spending a few years of free radical research under the guidance of Professor Rayson Huang. He was a member of the professor’s research team and co-authored with Professor Huang and Dr S.H. Goh the book entitled, The Chemistry of Free Radicals. After publication of this volume, he decided to focus on the chemistry and technology of palm oil, in view of its relevance to Malaysia. His venture into this new area proved highly fruitful. His research was rewarded with fourteen patents, including the technology of producing palm biodiesel and tocotrienols, a new potent anti-oxidant. The development of palm biodiesel research, initiated in 1981, has created international interest in renewable energy and produced the desired economic effect of supporting the price of crude palm oil. For his academic research and contributions to the Malaysian palm oil industry, he has been bestowed several honours including being made fellow at the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) and a member of the distinguished science alumni of the National University of Singapore receiving the Federation of Asian Chemical Society (FACS) award, the First ASEAN Achievement Award for research and development, and being invited to the Kaufmann Memorial Lecture in 1988 in recognition of his contributions to Lipid Chemistry. Locally he also received several honours, including being made senior fellow at the Academy of Sciences Malaysia (ASM), emeritus professor University Sains Malaysia (USM), and winning the MSA Golden Jubilee Award in Oil Palm Research 2005. The Government of Malaysia also recognized his contributions by bestowing on

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him the title of Tan Sri Datuk, and giving him the first National Science Award. He sits on several boards and committees, especially those for higher education and those related to the science and technology of palm oil. He has also been active in scientific non-government organizations. He founded the Malaysian Invention and Design society (MINDS), The Malaysian Oil Scientists’ and Technologists’ Association (MOSTA), and the Malaysian Senior Scientists’ Association (MSSA). Furthermore, he has nurtured the Confederation of Scientific and Technological Associations in Malaysia (COSTAM) and initiated a number of scientific activities, the main ones being:

•

•

Profil Tokoh-Tokoh Gemilang. Malaysia: University Malaya, 1999.

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•

The Malaysian Science and Technology Congress (MSTC) where research scientists and technologists are encouraged to present their results annually. The International, Invention, Innovation, and Technology Exhibition (ITEX), an annual event for inventors. The Journal of Science and Technology in the Tropics (JOSTT) which focuses on research related to problems of the Tropics.

For his contribution to the above activities, he was recognized as follows: •

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Winning the TWNSO Prize on Public Understanding of Science 1990, an award given for his role in promoting public interest in innovations and inventions. Presented with the Honorary Medal and Certificate from the Cosmonautics Federation of Russia. Receiving the IFIA Grand Gold Medal & Certificate for his Altruistic Promotion of Inventors from the president of the International Federation of Inventors’ Associations.

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Getting the Senior Citizens Golden Years’ Award 2007.

He is married to Lily Leong Lai Han and they have two sons and two daughters. Their eldest son is Reader in Nephrology at the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom, and his youngest daughter is with the Victoria Hospital at the Queens University of Belfast, as head of medical bacteriology. His two other children are in the corporate world. Tan Chong Tin R E F E R E N C E S Huang, R.L., Goh S.H and Ong, S.H. The Chemistry of Free Radicals. London: Edward Arnold, 1973.

Star Metro. “Prominent Senior Citizens Honoured”. 27 November 2007. The Sun. “A Man for all Seasons”. 20 September 1999.

Ong Teck Mong, Timothy ( , Wang Dewang, 1953– ) Businessman, regional figure, Brunei

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ato Paduka Timothy Ong Teck Mong is a third-generation member of a leading Brunei Chinese family from Fujian province whose origins in Brunei date from the beginning of the last century. Ong is the eldest son of Dato Paduka Ong Kim Kee (1931–98) and the grandson of Pehin Kapitan Ong Boon Pang (1882–1940), both Brunei business and community leaders in their time. His maternal grandfather, Dato Paduka Kong En Choi, was considered the most senior ethnic Chinese civil servant in colonial Brunei. Dato Ong was born in November 1953 in what was then Brunei Town (Bandar Seri

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Begawan today) and received his primary and most of his secondary education at an Englishmedium missionary school, St Andrew’s. In stark contrast to Ong’s father and grandfather’s rootedness in Chinese education, Ong and his siblings were all English educated. This was attributable to the influence of his Englishspeaking mother, Doris Kong Suik Yin, in the formative years of his life. At St Andrew’s School, Ong was the top student every year right through to his final year. In 1970, when he was sixteen years old, his parents sent him to one of Australia’s most prestigious schools, Geelong Grammar School, to complete his education. In his final year, he was awarded School Colours for academic achievement, and the ANZ Bank Prize for being the top student in economics. From Geelong Grammar School Ong went to the Australian National University (ANU) where he began studying law and economics and then switched to political science, graduating with a B.A. (Hons) in 1976. At the ANU, he spent most of his time on student politics and was a student activist. In his second year at university, he was elected a co-national director of the Overseas Student Service, a body representing all foreign students studying in Australia. In 1977 Ong returned to Brunei to help his father manage Chop Teck Guan, the family-owned conglomerate. His father was in poor health at the time. His first business initiative was to build the Sheraton Hotel, Brunei’s first international hotel. After the successful completion of the hotel in 1981, he took a year off to study in the United Kingdom at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where he obtained a Master of Science degree with distinction in International Relations in 1982.

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Ong has often described himself as a “reluctant entrepreneur” whose first love was politics. In fact, his initial entry into business was mainly motivated by filial loyalty. In a speech to a business conference in 1995 he acknowledged that, “Throughout the world but especially in the Confucian cultures, family loyalty and its associated values constitute a significant recruiting agent for the entrepreneurial class.” Despite his initial reluctance, Ong eventually took to business and is today regarded as one of Brunei’s leading businessmen. He has built a number of leading businesses outside of the family business, including National Insurance — Brunei’s largest general insurance company. He is also a board member of a number of leading local and regional bodies, including Baiduri Bank, Prudential Asia’s Advisory Board, and the Asian Institute of Management. In 2000 Ong bought an ailing regional business publication — Asia Inc magazine — that had been started by the Thai Chinese media magnate, Sondhi Limthongkul, with the aim of turning it around and making it a leading Asian publication. He was, however, unsuccessful in his efforts and publication of the magazine ceased in 2008. Nevertheless, the magazine’s conferencing arm, Asia Inc Forum, has become a regional leader in convening and organizing high-level business meetings. Of business failure, Ong frequently says, “Failure can be a great teacher. Success does not lie in never failing but in rising every time you fall.” In the mid-1990s, Ong became a leading figure in theAsia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC). He was appointed by the Brunei Government to represent Brunei in the APEC Eminent Persons Group (1994 –96) which developed the APEC vision of Open Regionalism. He was also chairman of the APEC Business Advisory Board when

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Brunei hosted the APEC Summit in 2000 and has frequently been invited to speak at various international conferences and forums, including the World Economic Forum, the APEC CEO Summit, and the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council. Since 2000, he has been invited to advise the annual APEC CEO Summit which brings together government and business leaders from across the Asia Pacific. In recognition of Ong’s contribution to regionalism, the Government of Chile bestowed him Chile’s highest civilian award, The Grand Cross of the Order of Bernado O’Higgins. In 2005, Ong was appointed by the Sultan of Brunei to act as chairman of the Brunei Economic Development Board (BEDB), reporting to Prince Mohamed Bolkiah, the Sultan’s brother and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade.This appointment was a rare honour for a Brunei citizen of Chinese descent. Under Ong’s leadership, the BEDB undertook a number of trail-blazing initiatives, including developing Brunei’s first petrochemical industry, pioneering largescale social housing for Brunei citizens, and creating Brunei’s first technology incubator. His appointment as BEDB chairman ended in 2010, following a reorganization in government which saw the BEDB being transferred to the Prime Minister’s Office. Ong was conferred the title of Dato Paduka by the Sultan of Brunei in 2006 in recognition of his public service. As a Brunei Chinese who has achieved considerable success, he is thankful for the opportunities that Brunei has presented him and is committed to an open, successful, and inclusive Brunei. Like his forebears, Ong has pursued a business career while seeking to contribute to society. Also, reflecting the transformations within the Asia Pacific and the growing

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interconnectedness of the region, he has made his mark regionally, beyond the shores of Brunei. Ong is a Christian and has two sons and a daughter. Hoon Chang Yau R E F E R E N C E S Asia Inc Forum. “Dato Paduka Timothy Ong Teck Mong”. (accessed May 2012). Brunei Resources. “Mr Timothy Ong”. (accessed May 2012). Ong, Timothy Teck Mong. “Modern Brunei: Some Important Issues”. Southeast Asian Affairs, 1983, pp. 71–84. The information for this entry was obtained by the author through email and phone interviews with Dato Paduka Timothy Ong in April and May 2012.

Ong Teng Cheong ( , Wang Dingchang, 1936–2005) Architect, civil servant, politician, Singapore

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ng Teng Cheong, who was born in 1936 in Singapore, is most well known for being Singapore’s first directly elected president. Although the presidency in Singapore was then largely a ceremonial position, Ong exerted his own personal touch during his tenure as nominal head of state, and had, at times, spoken out against the prime minister. Under the amended Constitution of Singapore of January 1991, he had power to veto appointments in the civil service and the use of government reserves, veto the government’s budget and appointments to public office, examine the administration’s enforcement of the Internal Security Act and religious harmony laws, and look into

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investigations of corruption. He sometimes went beyond the powers stipulated for his office as laid out in the amended Constitution. The first instance of this occurred in 1993 when he had a dispute with the government over access of information regarding Singapore’s financial reserves. In that incident, Ong displayed a great deal of courage in calling for government transparency and accountability in the way in which it spent Singapore’s financial reserves. He was, in fact, instrumental to prompting this type of public accountability in the publication of the White Paper on the Determination and Safeguarding of the Protection of the Reserves of the Government. While the government of the time may have felt that Ong was unreasonable for demanding access to Singapore’s financial reserves information, the incident and the resultant White Paper demonstrates his firm dedication to his duties as president. In fact, this “clash” between Ong and the government proved the observers of the presidential election wrong when they had earlier speculated that Ong, as former chairman of the People’s Action Party (PAP), secretary-general of the National Trades Union Congress, and PAP Member of Parliament, would continue to remain a PAP loyalist and stay in line with the government’s plans. The fracas over access of information regarding Singapore’s financial reserves demonstrated that he was his own man who wanted to do his best by the citizens, rather than a man staunchly loyal to the ways of the ruling party. Despite numerous government attempts to delay the financial reports, Ong finally received them and the White Paper was published. His adamant stand in calling for an audit of all the properties that the government owns and information about the reserves clearly shows that he felt the expenditure of these reserves ought to benefit the people, and that there

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ought to be some form of transparency as to the government spending of these reserves. An inkling of this aspect of his character may be gleaned from an incident that occurred in January 1986 when he was still secretary general of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC). Instead of quelling a strike in the shipping industry and informing the cabinet or the government as leaders of the ruling party felt he should have done, Ong sanctioned the strike. It was the first strike in over ten years and the government was taken aback when it occurred. Despite the corporate and cabinet backlash against his decision, Ong firmly stuck by his decision, claiming that the cabinet or the government would have stopped him from going ahead with the strike.The shipping strike in 1986 clearly marks Ong as a man who is determined to put his commitment to public interest over his loyalty to the ruling party. Despite his coming to points with the government, it was his penchant for serving the public that brought him to the attention of the Lee Kuan Yew government. As a resident of Seletar Hills in the 1960s, he took a keen interest in grassroots activities and constantly involved himself with bettering the lives of the people, using his training in architecture for the residents’ benefits. This soon led to his appointment as chairman of the Residents’ Association. This appointment and his personable nature towards ordinary citizens brought him to the notice of then Member of Parliament for Jalan Kayu, Hwang Soo Jin. In turn, Hwang introduced Ong to then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who wasted no time in fielding Ong as a PAP candidate in the 1972 general election in the Kim Keat constituency, which he won and held until the 1991 elections. Despite the requests of several senior government officials that he take up full ministerial duties on top of his responsibilities as a Member of Parliament, Ong declined because

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his young brother was dying of cancer. After his brother’s death, however, he was appointed senior minister of state for communications in 1975, acting minister for culture in 1977, minister for communications in 1978, and minister for labour in 1981. In 1983, Ong was appointed minister without portfolio, after taking over as secretary-general of the National Trade Union Congress. In January 1985 and November 1990, he was appointed deputy prime minister, in which post he remained until August 1993, when he contested in the elected presidency. In his positions as minister from 1977–93, Ong served as chairman of three crucial review committees, namely, the Moral Education Committee (1979), Advisory Council on Art and Culture (1989), and the Chinese Language Review Committee (1992). Under the auspices of his patronage and guidance, these committees were instrumental to the formation of the National Arts Council, the construction of the Esplanade, and the revised syllabus for the teaching of Chinese language in schools. Indeed, as chairman of these committees, Ong garnered much support and respect from the Chinese-speaking community, as well as the artistic community. Ong’s sympathy with the Chinesespeaking community was, in fact, central to the government’s revision of its policies towards Chinese-educated citizens. He stated that Chinese-educated Singaporeans, whom he dubbed the “silent majority”, felt neglected by the government’s emphasis on the English language, and as such, voted against the PAP. Taking seriously any votes against it, the PAP government soon refocused its efforts on wooing this “silent majority” of Chineseeducated Singaporeans. However, Ong’s concern for the betterment of the lives of ordinary Singaporeans extended beyond that of the Chinese community. Indeed, he was most concerned with improving the transportation

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system as well. This concern was manifested during his tenure in parliament when he persevered in arguing for the creation of a Mass Rapid Transport (MRT) system similar to the London Underground. Despite opposition from his Cabinet colleagues owing to the large capital that would have to be pumped into the construction of this project, Ong, as minister for communications, constantly advocated the benefits of the MRT system as a new dimension in urban mobility. In August 1993, he stepped down from his seat as a Member of Parliament and contested in the country’s first popularly elected presidency. This, however, did not put an end to his public spiritedness and his genuine concern for Singaporeans. On winning the presidential election against Chua Kim Yeoh, he stated explicitly that his previous long association with the PAP would not prevent him from acting independently as his first loyalty was to the people of Singapore. He was true to his word for he was opposed to the PAP government’s interpretation of the powers of the president. While the PAP government saw it as a major constitutional and political change in Singapore’s history, where the president would work alongside the government, he believed he should act independently from the government. This disagreement led Ong to refer the matter to a High Court tribunal chaired by the chief justice. However, he accepted the final decision which ruled in favour of the government and stated that he would not contest a second term in office. His intimation that his tenure as president was marked by problems from the government drew swift censure from the PAP leaders. His response that his powers made him accountable only to the people who had voted him into the presidency once again demonstrated his loyalty to ordinary Singaporeans. In response to Ong’s tenure and his constant call for the

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financial accountability of the government to him as president and thence the people, the government limited his powers by decreeing that a presidential veto can be overridden with a two-third majority in Parliament. After retiring from politics,Ong continued to devote himself to the less fortunate in society by promoting the arts and culture. When he passed away on 8 February 2002 after a battle with lymphoma, his contributions to the people were acknowledged by a wide outpouring of grief. His legacy, however, lives on in the MRT system that is constantly used by many Singaporeans daily, as well as the vibrant arts scene that currently marks Singapore. Ho Khai Leong R E F E R E N C E S Constitution of the Republic of Singapore, 1999 revision. (accessed 6 October 2007). “ ‘I had a job to do whether the government liked it or not,’ says ex-president Ong”. Asia Week Magazine. (accessed 6 October 2007). Tan, Kevin, Yew Lee and Lam Peng Er (eds.). Managing Political Change in Singapore: The Elected Presidency. Singapore: Routledge, 1997.

Ong Tjoe Kim ( , Wang Ziqin, 1911–2009) Businessman, founder of the Metro group of department stores, Singapore and Indonesia

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ng Tjoe Kim was born in 1911 in the Fujian province in China. Like many born in China in the beginning of the twentieth century, Ong Tjoe Kim sought to make his fortune in Southeast Asia (then known as the Far East). Consequently, he left

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the land of his birth in his teens so as to join his father in the Dutch East Indies (present day Indonesia). On his arrival in Batavia (present day Jakarta), he found employment with a textile wholesaler. He remained in this job for two years, after which he joined a retail company. A Channel News Asia account of his early years states that prior to his arrival in Singapore, Ong worked as an odd job labourer in Surabaya in Indonesia for 25 rupiah a day. An account by the National Library Board of Singapore states that Ong joined Aurora Department Store after leaving his job at the textile wholesaler in Batavia and that Ong became the company’s director at Aurora after 25 years. A Channel News Asia report of Ong’s achievements following his death claimed that he spent 25 years working in Toko Dezon before he was made manager of seven branches of the store in Indonesia. While it is unclear whether Ong spent 25 years working for Toko Dezon or Aurora Department Store in Indonesia, one thing is certain — Ong’s hard work and perseverance enabled him to rise quickly through the ranks of the retail business. It is also certain that he spent these 25 years learning the ropes of the retail trade and saving enough money to set up a shop of his own. Ong finally ventured out on his own in 1952 when he was sure he had accumulated sufficient funds. In 1953, he opened his first store in Surabaya as a joint partnership. This store was named ‘Metro’.The unusual name of the store stemmed from Ong’s love for films produced by Hollywood’s Metro-GoldwynMayer (MGM) studios. The first Metro store was so successful that a second Indonesian one was opened in 1955. However, the mid 1950s was a particularly turbulent time for Indonesia, and Ong’s plans to further expand Metro were curtailed.The reason for this lay in the anti-Chinese, pro-nationalist (that is, pro-

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indigenous Indonesian) sentiments running high in the country. Unable to conduct proper business dealings and negotiations in the volatile Indonesian socio-political climate, the joint partnership that Ong held with his business associate was dissolved. As a result, Ong moved his business to Singapore where he opened his first Metro store at 72 High Street in 1957. Although the first store was a simple two-storey shophouse at the current site of the Treasury Building, Ong considered High Street an excellent location. His rationale was that High Street was a more ‘up market’ site than Chinatown.The clientele Metro attracted gave credence to his opinion. Metro’s customers of the late 1950s and early 1960s were mainly affluent housewives from Indonesia and Singapore. Indeed, many of Metro’s early patrons were Ong’s Indonesian friends, most of whom bought items in bulk.This contrasted with the clientele of Robinsons and Tangs who were mostly expatriates and locals respectively. Business was brisk for Metro and the store was expanded to the shophouse next door in 1961. At this time, Metro’s logo was (pronounced Mei Luo) in written as Chinese calligraphy by Ong’s brother. It was meant to be a double pun reflecting both the store’s name as well as the wares it sold. On the one hand, ‘Mei Luo’ sounded like a Chinese transliteration of ‘Metro’. On the other, the Chinese name also indicated the many lifestyle items available at the store, for it alluded to the or ‘beautiful textiles/ phrase clothes’. Ong was a very innovative businessman. He was the first in Singapore to utilise the pulling power of celebrities and stars to his Metro stores. Indeed, he was the first in Singapore to invite stars of the day to open his new stores, organise store promotions (such as sales), have shop-floor staff dress in uniforms, and have customers served with drinks. This

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method of impressing the notion that ‘the customer is king’ proved very popular, and many people flocked to his stores. By 1965, Metro was firmly established as a popular retailer and became one of the first to set up a department store in the fashionable shopping district at Orchard Road. Originally at Liat Towers and named Metrotex, it soon moved to Holiday Inn Shopping Complex at Scotts Road in 1973 and was subsequently renamed Metro Orchard. In 1973, Metro was listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange. Already well known for its uniformed sales staff, the store’s logo evolved around this time to include a frame in red around the Chinese calligraphy characters so as to mimic the words on an ancient Chinese seal. This eventually led to the distinctive logo designed by Landor Associates in 1982 featuring the red frame around a calligraphic capital letter M. When Metro was at its peak, it had five stores in shopping centres in Orchard Road. In 1979, Ong cofounded a luxury watch retailer known as The Hour Glass, which carried brands like Rolex and Piaget. However, The Hour Glass was eventually sold in 1987. Through Metro, Ong brought local and regional designers to the notice of Singaporeans with in-house labels like Marissa and Ananas. Throughout much of the late 1970s and 1980s, Ong expanded the business and more Metro department stores sprang up in Singapore and Indonesia. Outlets were opened in suburban areas of Singapore, but these eventually closed in the late 1980s. However, Metro has once more set up shop in the suburban areas in the late 1990s and in 2002. At present count, there are three Metro department stores in Singapore. The company has also expanded to retail and commercial holdings in China and Malaysia. Through Metrobilt, an early subsidiary of Metro Holdings, Ong was able to distribute building

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and construction materials. He also attempted to branch out into the hospitality industry by building a grand hotel in Cairns in Australia and launching Sun Cruises in the 1990s. However, the Asian financial crisis of 2000 led to the folding of Sun Cruises. Metro Holdings has also diversified to become a key property investor in China. Since Ong Tjoe Kim’s death on 11 August 2009, Metro Holdings has been helmed by his son Ong Jopie. Sharon Loo R E F E R E N C E S Channel News Asia. Metro founder Ong Tjoe Kim passes away, 11 August 2009. (accessed 15 December 2010). Isabel Ong. “Metro”. Infopedia, National Library Board, Singapore, 16 April 2009. (accessed 15 December 2010). Metro. “Brand Story: Evolution of Brand’s Visual Identity”. Singapore: Metro Singapore Limited. (accessed 15 December 2010). Metro. “Corporate Profile”. Singapore: Metro Singapore Limited. (accessed 15 December 2010). National Heritage Board. Singapore: The Encyclopaedia. Singapore and Kuala Lumpur: Editions Didier Miller, 2006, p. 394.

Ongpin, Roman ( , Wang Yibin, 1847-1912) Businessman, community leader, Philippines

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he name, Ongpin, conjures up images of the bustling main road in the middle of Chinatown. It is named after a person of historical significance, Roman Ongpin, the patriarch of the Ongpin family. The family has been in the Philippines for seven generations.

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Though proud of their Chinese origins, they nevertheless consider themselves totally Filipino. , Ong Yak Pin) Simón Ongpin ( emigrated from Fujian to Manila in the 1830s or 1840s. He was a candlemaker. He took the name, Simón, on conversion to the Catholic faith, which many Chinese immigrants did to avoid persecution by the Spanish authorities. Simón Ongpin married a Chinese mestiza, Sinforosa Uymaico Tambensiang. Go Bon Juan’s 2007 article mentions that a marker in the Cementerio de Chinos (Chinese cemetery) states that Ong Yak Pin, a capitan de Chino, is one of the patron-founders of that cemetery.The marker says that because of Ong Yak Pin’s patronage, his daughter, Raymunda, and her husband, Doroteo Ricafort, and their own descendants would be granted burial in the Cementerio de Chinos. Simón Ongpin and Tambensiang had five known children, two of whom died in infancy, and another two either died young, or had no children. Only Roman Ongpin, who was born in 1847 had children. Therefore, all the Ongpins we know of are descendants of Roman Ongpin, who was the first nationally prominent member of the family, and the one who shortened Ong Yak Pin to Ongpin and adopted it as the family name. Ongpin diversified out of the candle business and became a merchant. He sold dry goods, or “hardware”, which, in the late nineteenth century meant anything from soap to clothes to carriage supplies, construction materials — everything in fact that wasn’t perishable. When he was twenty-two, Ongpin married Pascuala Domingo. They had sixteen children, nine of whom lived to adulthood. Four of these were girls, and five, boys. According to his daughter, Celedonia, Ongpin was extremely strict as a parent, and refused to

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allow suitors to visit his daughters. As a result, none of the girls ever married except her, and only because she eloped at the age of thirty, fourteen years after her father died. In 1883, at the age of thirty-five, Ongpin established what we would today call a department store, which he named El 82. The name commemorated the landmark year 1882, in which a cholera epidemic swept across the Philippines, decimating its population. Rather than to commemorate the disaster, family oral tradition stated that he chose the name to symbolize the rebirth of the nation from the disaster. Cleverly, 82 was also the establishment’s telephone number. El 82 delivered goods and supplies to customers by horse-drawn cart, cash on delivery. The business prospered, and Ongpin became a rich man and prominent citizen. He became a civic leader in various associations of Binondo, then the city’s central business district, and pioneered the use of fixed prices and European-style double entry accounting, the forerunner of today’s balance sheets. Previously, the only sort of financial information was endof-day cash accounting. Proper balance sheets and fixed prices helped to stabilize commerce and create a more rational market more familiar in European capitals. One of the retail lines that El 82 carried exclusively was art supplies such as paint, canvas, brushes, easels, and framing materials. This was probably influenced by the fact that Ongpin’s wife, Pascuala Domingo, was a descendant of the first eminent Filipino painter, Damian Domingo, himself a Chinese mestizo. Because El 82 was the only place in Manila which sold these supplies, many of the artists of the time became his friends. As a result, Ongpin was drawn into the circle of their friends, the ilustrados (enlightened ones).These were young Filipinos who came from the middle class, had studied abroad, and acquired the liberal

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and romantic ideals of the west. The ilustrados would become the inspiration, though not the core, of the Filipino reform and revolutionary movement. Jose Rizal’s novels, Noli Me Tangere (1887) and El Filibusterismo (1891), exposed the abuses of the clergy, leading to the founding in 1892, of the katipunan, a secret society that would become a revolutionary movement. It is not certain whether Roman Ongpin was a member of the katipunan, but he certainly was among its supporters and financiers. Ongpin was arrested twice, once during the Spanish period, when one of El 82’s delivery carts was found to be carrying rifles hidden in stacks of lumber, and bullets concealed in cans of paint. He was arrested again and jailed for seven months during the American Occupation, when he was caught sending supplies to Aguinaldo, accompanied by a note which he had signed in his own name. Because of this, according to his daughter, Celedonia, Ongpin detested Americans, admonishing his children never to buy any American goods and refusing to carry them in his store. What is certain is that Ongpin was an ardent patriot who insisted that his children spoke Tagalog (Spanish was their first language, and they no longer spoke Hokkien), always wore barong tagalog, and flew the Filipino flag from the windows of El 82 every 12 June, even when the Americans had declared this a subversive act. On 17 September 1915, Calle Sacrista was renamed Ongpin Street. Roman Ongpin’s memory is further perpetuated in history by his monument built at Plaza de Binondo. It is often said that the first generation starts the fortune, the second builds it, and the third dissipates it. And so it came to pass with the Ongpins. Of Ongpin’s sons, only one, Constancio, was at all business minded. Although the youngest son, he came to run

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the family business, El 82, which at some point had moved to Calle San Jacinto (now Tomas Pinpin). He apparently did this pretty well until the store was destroyed in a fire in the 1930s. Another of Ongpin’s sons, Alfonso, became obsessed with art. An avid collector, he cultivated the relationships with the prominent artists of the time which his father had begun. Many of them gave him paintings in payment for art supplies, or just out of friendship. He ran Manila’s arguably first art gallery, which he called, simply, Arte. In his later years, Alfonso Ongpin became the foremost authenticator and historian of the classical age of Filipino art, and is considered the father of Filipino art history. He developed his own methods for cleaning and restoring paintings which had deteriorated due to their exposure to tropical conditions. It became known as “el proceso Ongpin” (the Ongpin process). Alfonso Ongpin was the beginning of the ongoing Ongpin involvement with art. His granddaughter, Cynthia Ongpin Valdes, has published books on Chinese ceramics, Philippine pottery, and jade, while his granddaughter, Deanna Ongpin Recto, taught humanities at the University of the Philippines and then served for many years in the Philippine mission to the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). She was also artistic director and vice-president of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. A great-granddaughter, Mia Ongpin Herbosa has become a painter of note, with successful solo exhibitions such as a show at the Alliance Francaise de Manille, the centrepiece of which was her portrait of Alfonso T. Ongpin. Mia Ongpin Herbosa’s mother, Elaine Ongpin Herbosa has herself become a painter. Stephen Ongpin has been an art historian and dealer in London since the 1980s, specializing in

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Renaissance Italian and Flemish masters. Lisa Ongpin Periquet majored in art history and has been researching Alfonso T. Ongpin since the 1980s and is close to publishing a book. Simon Ongpin was a well known producer in the Filipino film industry in the 1980s and 1990s, although he has since moved to the United States. Alfonso Ongpin’s generation grew up wealthy and died as ordinary people, leaving their children nothing that could be called a family fortune. But in some ways, that was a good lesson. His children’s generation had to start from scratch. His son, Luis, started out as an accountant and ended up owning his own stock brokerage firm. The family name came into prominence again when Luis Ongpin’s son, Roberto Ongpin, known in business as “RVO”, agreed to join the government of President Ferdinand E. Marcos as trade and industry minister in 1979. He had a spectacular career in the private sector, becoming managing partner at SyCip, Gorres, and Velayo at age thirty-three, and helping to build the regional dominance of that firm. Quite a few businessmen were surprised that he agreed to give up his privatesector success, but in exchange for doing this, he shrewdly convinced President Marcos to grant him and other economic managers unprecedented powers. Roberto Ongpin’s brother, Jaime Ongpin, who was chief executive officer of Benguet Corp., one of the five largest Filipino companies, awkwardly became one of the pioneers of the growing business and middleclass opposition to Marcos in 1981. Jaime Ongpin was the first businessman to speak out against Marcos when the government announced plans to bail out the failing private corporations of the president’s cronies using public funds. As the Filipino business elite began to turn against Marcos, especially after

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the assassination of Benigno Aquino in 1983, they formed a political movement which they called Manindigan! (Stand!), and elected Jaime Ongpin as a leader and bridge to the political opposition. Despite philosophical and political differences, Jaime and Roberto Ongpin recognized these in a professional manner. They stayed in contact with each other privately throughout this whole period of political turmoil, and, in fact, served as important conduits of information between the Marcos and anti-Marcos camps. In 1986, when Marcos fled the Philippines and Corazon C. Aquino became president, she insisted that Jaime Ongpin take on the post of finance minister. He declined several times, but she told him, “you made me do this [run for president], so you must support me now”. During the early period of the Aquino regime, Jaime and Roberto Ongpin would meet almost nightly to discuss the country’s finances. Roberto Ongpin was instrumental in helping the Philippines recover its financial footing after the fall of Marcos. Jaime Ongpin served in the Aquino cabinet from February 1986 until August 1987, when an attempted coup d’etat and cabinet infighting made Aquino reorganize her cabinet and accept his resignation. On 7 December 1987, Jaime Ongpin was found dead in an apparent suicide. His family found a note, never disclosed to the public, about his deep disappointment with how events had turned out after the fall of Marcos. Some of the more prominent younger Ongpins include Jaime’s son, Raphael Alphonso Ongpin, an actor, television news reporter, host, and news presenter. Eric Ongpin Recto joined the government as finance undersecretary. A sixth-generation Ongpin, Damian Domingo Ongpin Mapa,

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was appointed one of the first commissioners of the new commission on Information and Communications Technology. Carmelea Ang See R E F E R E N C E S Bignotia, Carmela. “Roman Ongpin: The Man Behind the Famous Street”. Tsinoy.com, 17 January 2007. Retrieved May 2008 from . Manuel, E. Arsenio. Dictionary of Philippine Biography Volume 1. Quezon City: Filipiniana, 1995. Quirino, Carlos. Who’s who in Philippine History. Manila: Tahanan Books, 1995. Valdes, Cynthia Ongpin. At My Grandfather’s Knee: A Portrait of Alfonso T. Ongpin. Muntinlupa City : Mission View Pub, 2006. Written information provided by Raphael Alfonso S. G. Ongpin.

Onn Siew Siong ( , Wen Ruixiang, 1938– ) Entrepreneur, community leader, Brunei

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ehin Dato Paduka Onn Siew Siong is an entrepreneur, as well as a leader in the business and educational fields in Brunei. He has served the government closely, and contributed extensively to charity as well. Onn even quit the construction business in 1997 to focus on serving the country and people, while remaining a director of many companies. He began his education at Chung Hua School, Tutong, Brunei Darussalam, an ), and elementary school ( graduated from here five years later. Instead of furthering his education, he decided to halt his studies, and assist his father through the financial crisis they were facing, devoting himself to the management of his father’s shop for more than twenty years.

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In 1972 Onn joined the Belait Chinese Chamber of Commerce (CCC) as a public relations secretary. Due to his relentless efforts and the high regard of his fellow members, he was elected chairman of the chamber in 1987 and has retained this role until the present day. “The Chinese Chamber of Commerce is geared towards increasing the country’s economy,” said Onn in his office, after he retained his position as president of the chamber. According to him, through the CCC, relations between the Chinese community and the government will be strengthened and it will always support and cooperate actively in festivities held in the country. Besides business involvements, Onn has been very enthusiastic in contributing to society since 1962. He has involved himself actively in national events, one example of which is his being a member of the sultan birthday’s celebration committee for many years. His contributions to society are recognized by both the sultan and members of the public, and have won him titles and awards from the sultan over the years. In 1987 Onn was even appointed counsellor of the Seria Council by the sultan. He still serves in that position until today. In 1996 he was bestowed the title of Pehin for his relentless efforts and service to society. From 1982 to 2004, he received six awards from the sultan. His other appointments in associations include being vice-president of the Chinese Charitable Association, Tutong and chairman of the Amateur Basketball Association, Tutong. Like his father, Onn is also an educator and servitor to society. In 1983 he became ), chairman of Chung Hua School ( Tutong, and remained as such for twenty-five years until he declined the role in 2008. He has been chairman twenty-two times consecutively by then, far surpassing his father’s record. In 1963, at the age of twenty-five, Onn was even

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appointed a member of the Examination Information Committee in Seria, in charge of handling examination affairs for nine years. Being a prominent figure in the local Chinese community, Onn was appointed Chinese marriage registrar for Tutong and Kuala Belait Districts by the sultan to assist the government in handling customs of Chinese marriages. He took on this role for more than fifteen years. Although without a high education qualification, Onn was able to connect with Brunei’s community, and not just with its Chinese members, but also its local Malay ones. He is fluent in Malay and also has great knowledge of the Bruneian Malay culture, which have gain him a lot of support from the Malay community. Onn is also well respected by the elderly as he frequently visits old folks home. He has said that the older generation should not be neglected or forgotten because, without them, the younger generation would not have existed. He has further reiterated that one should not forget what the elderly have done and should always appreciate them. The least one could do is to give them a sense of happiness while they are still here, he believes. Each lunar new year, he contributes generously to old folks home. For his loyal service to the country, Onn has been awarded the SMB, PSB, PJK, etc. He is currently a member of the Belait District Government, chairman of the Belait Chinese Chamber of Commerce, chairman of the Chung Hua School, Tutong and Belait, as well as Tutong district’s Chinese registrar of marriage, and a Brunei Chinese Land Inheritance witness, etc. Pehin Onn has six children: four boys and two girls. All his children are highly educated and have a career of their own. Onn Chee Seng and Onn Chee Lee are both businessmen running their own businesses. Daughter Onn

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Pui Li is working as a bank officer. His other two sons, Onn Hung Ghee and Onn Hung Zheng, are both barristers who graduated from England. His other daughter, Onn Fei Wen, is a specialist doctor working for the Brunei Government. Yu Chin Chai R E F E R E N C E S Hjh Saemah Zulkefli. Borneo Bulletin, 18 February 2005. ———. “CCC can help boost economy, says Pehin Onn”. Borneo Bulletin, 9 January 2007. Kon, James. “Pehin Onn receives Marriage Registrar appointment”. Borneo Bulletin, 5 January 2007. Personal Interview with Pehin Onn.

Ophat Hanvanich (Lim Eow, , Lin Yao, 1917– ) Artist,Thailand

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phat Hanvanich is the most renowned Chinese painter in Thailand. His art is recognized in many parts of the world, including Thailand, China, Southeast Asia, and even Europe. He has devoted his life to Chinese painting, spending a large part of his time drawing and teaching Chinese art to both Chinese and non-Chinese in Thailand. Many of his students have become masters in Chinese art themselves. Ophat, also known as Lim Eow in Chinese, was born in Ban Pong District, Ratburi Province, on 2 November 1917. His real name in Chinese is Lin Rongyao ). His ancestry can be traced to ( Jiexi County, Guangdong Province. He was interested in Chinese painting as a child and started learning Chinese calligraphy and painting at the age of seven. When he turned eleven, he enrolled at Peiing School in

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Bangkok. During his years at this school, he started receiving proper education in Chinese ). painting under Liu Changchao ( Ophat’s father sent him to Jieyang City in China to continue his studies when he was fourteen years old. There he studied Chinese ). After he painting with Ye Buqiong ( entered secondary school in 1934, he was ), a famous apprenticed to Sun Peigu ( painter in the region, for three years. When he returned to Thailand in 1937, he gave up the chance to take over his family business so as to devote his time fully to Chinese calligraphy and painting. Ophat’s first exhibition was held in 1975 in Bangkok. He then went on to hold exhibitions in Penang, Ipoh, and Singapore the same year. Since then, he has held numerous exhibitions in many parts of the world, including the United States, Norway, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, China, and Hong Kong. In 1992 he held an exhibition in the Chinese Art Gallery in Beijing, which is the national art museum and gallery of China. Many of his exhibitions in Thailand were also graced by Princess Sirindhorn, who was the guest-ofhonour for the opening ceremony of several of his exhibitions. Ophat’s paintings have received recognition internationally and have won many awards in international competitions. He participated in the International Painting Competition in Belgium, and an art exhibition organized by the Académie Européenne des Arts of Belgium, in 1988 and 1990 respectively. On both occasions, he won gold medals. He also participated in the International Chinese Calligraphy and Painting Exhibition held in Beijing in 1998 and won the silver medal in the overseas category with a Chinese painting titled, “The Unity of the Country and the Integrity of the Territory” ( ).

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Ophat’s teachers, Liu Changchao and Sun Peigu, were renowned for their paintings of flowers and birds that focused on portraying the essence of the subjects, but not the details. Ophat paints not only flower and birds, but also scenery and portraits. It is evident that he was greatly influenced by his teachers, as he was noted to be especially adept in painting peacocks. However, he constantly surpassed what was taught by his teachers. In the long process of accepting and digesting the theory of traditional Chinese painting, he took advantage of his location in Thailand and studied Western realist painting and was influenced by Zhao Shao’ang ), a famous painter of the Lingnan ( school of painting. As a result, his works are an integration of Western and Chinese art styles, demonstrating his international perspective on art and open-minded attitude. Portraits account for a large proportion of his work. He has utilized both Western and Chinese drawing and colouring techniques, making his portraits vivid and full of details. With the support and encouragement of his friends, he has published collections of his art works since 1975. To date, he had published nine volumes of his art work. Another major contribution of Ophat is his role as Chinese art instructor and promoter in Thailand. In order to introduce Chinese painting to more people in Thailand, he has taught Chinese painting classes. His students are mainly adults who come from various countries, such as Japan, South Korea, Britain, the United States, Thailand, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Finland, and others. Because of the multinational character of his classes, some have even nicknamed them the “United Nations of Art”. His students would have held exhibitions of their artworks occasionally. Besides conducting classes, Ophat was also invited by a broadcast station to demonstrate Chinese calligraphy writing on air in 1979.

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Though he is now bound to a wheelchair, Ophat has not retired and held another exhibition, “Eternal Painting — Lin Yao’s Painting Exhibition at his 90’s” ( ). This was opened on 10 October 2007 at the Guan Shan Yue ) in Shenzhen City. Gallery ( About 100 pieces of his work were exhibited, reflecting the close communication between China and foreign countries, as well as the intimate relations, between people. The centrepiece of this exhibition was a Chinese painting, “Wealthy Scene of Pine in the Wind and Shadow of Crane” ( ), indicating the eternity and prosperity of China. He had spent a total of four months painting this artwork. Ophat’s fame in art is indubitable judging from the posts he has held in various art associations. He was nominated as chairman of the Thai Chinese Art Association ( ) in 1988 and became permanent honorary chairman of the association the same year. He was presented with the highest degree in art by Suan Dusit Rajabhat University in 1999. The following year, he was invited by the Ministry of Culture of China, Ministry of Education of Thailand, Chinese Embassy in Thailand, and Thai Art Association, to be director of the Chinese Painting Exhibition Committee for the “Chinese Culture Year” event. Currently, he is a member of the Académie Européenne des Arts of Belgium, honorary consultant of Shi Tao Art Society of Guangxi, China ), consultant to the ( Public International Calligraphy and Painting Association of Japan ( ), member of the Hong Kong Chinese ), and permanent Art Club ( honorary chairman of the Thai Chinese Art Association. Goh Yu Mei

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R E F E R E N C E S ‘Chinese Paintings; Opas Harnvanich, master of the ancient art of Chinese brush painting, is showcasing his works during the “Honorary Chinese Brush Painting Exhibition” at the Hall of Fame of Siam Paragon. The show runs daily from 10am–10pm during Feb 11–25‘. Announcement in the paper, 9 February 2007, p. R7. 〈

〉， 。 (accessed 5 Apr 2011).

Ouw Tjoei Lan (Mrs Lie Tjian Tjoen, ; Ou Cuilan, 1889–1965) Social worker, community leader, Indonesia

O

,

uw Tjoei Lan, the maiden name of the wife of Lie Tjian Tjoen, was a well known social worker who founded the Ati Soetji orphanage. She worked hard to save young girls from being forced to become prostitutes. Ouw Tjoei Lan was born in 1889, the third daughter of Ouw Seng Hoe, a Chinese Kapitan in Majalengka near Cirebon, West Java. The senior Ouw was a rich landowner and sugar magnate who had his own sugar factory located on his estate. He hired a Dutch governess for his children so that they could master the Dutch language. When the young Tjoei Lan reached the age of twelve, she did not have to go into confinement as was the tradition in those days; instead, she was sent to Bogor to live with a Dutch family so that she could be familiar with the customs and culture of the Dutch. She returned to her family when she was fifteen years old to prepare herself to become a good Peranakan housewife and daughter-in-law when she married in the future. Her father was a well known philanthropist who had food prepared daily for the poor and

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disabled of the town. All his children were assigned different tasks to help him to serve the poor: Her eldest sister was in charge of the white cloth to shroud the deceased Muslim, and caskets for the deceased Chinese. Her second brother was asked to distribute clothing to the poor for the celebration of the Idul Fitri. Ouw Tjoei Lan herself was in charge of the food for the poor; food for the blind had to be thoroughly supervised and fish had to be made safe for eating by removing the bones. Once, when her father saw that there was a bone on a piece of fish that she had overlooked, he was furious and caned her. Ouw Tjoei Lan not only remembered this incident well, but it served as an important lesson for her future work with less fortunate children and women. A marriage had been arranged for her to become the wife of Lie Tjian Tjoen, son of Lie Tjoe Hong, a Chinese major from Batavia. The wedding took place in 1906, when she was seventeen years old. After that, she became known as Mrs. Lie Tjian Tjoen. She moved to Batavia and lived in an environment entirely different from life on the spacious sugar plantation. The house in the heart of Batavia was crowded and she gave birth to three children in the first five years. She related her situation to Van Walsum, her former tutor in Bogor, who came up with the idea that she should join the Ati Soetji organization, formed by Hindeloopen Labberton, Dr Zigman, and Soetan Toemenggoeng. This organization was formed to help girls from economically troubled homes who had taken “the wrong path”. After her husband was appointed Chinese kapitan, they moved into their own house in Kramat, but there, she was confronted with a new problem. One day, she found a foundling on the front porch of her house. She took care of it, but soon more babies were abandoned at her home. A well known nurse,

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Sister Gunning, from the Central Hospital, would sometimes ask her to take care of some children left by their parents in the hospital. The Lie house soon became too small for her own family plus the orphans, so she had to find a solution. In 1914, a new governor general, Van Limburgh Stirum, was appointed. His former appointment was in China where he and his wife saw poverty and the effort that some people had put in to help children by setting up orphanages.With the help and encouragement of Mrs van Limburgh Stirum, Ouw Tjoei Lan decided to set up an orphanage in Batavia. Her friends and relatives helped her to raise a startup capital of 700 guilders, which she used to rent a house in 1914. Built for the Chinese community, although the official name of the orphanage was Ati Soetji (pure heart), it became known as Po Liang Kiok (Bao Liang Ju, ), meaning “shelter for the preservation of the good”. Po Liang Kiok was an institution established long ago and could be found in Hong Kong, the Malay Peninsula, and the Netherlands Indies. While the orphanage kept growing, she was confronted with a new problem. The economic situation in China had worsened after World War I and economic recession loomed in the 1920s. Girls continued to be smuggled into the Netherlands Indies under the pretext of finding them jobs as domestic helpers or teachers, but were in fact sold into prostitution. Ouw was immediately involved in the effort to save these girls by putting them in the orphanage. From the saved ones, she heard how they were mistreated and where they were hidden. She offered her help to join the police raids, immediately winning praise from the public and mass media for her deeds; however, her life was often threatened by the pimps.

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In February 1937, an international conference on women trafficking was held in Bandung by the League of Nations. Ouw was a member of the delegation of the Netherlands Indies, representing Po Liang Kiok. In her address, she suggested training the girls to become members of the police force, to involve them in the fight against the slave trade of women. She also appealed to the countries involved to prohibit or prevent the trading of girls. However, after the conference, the numbers of girls brought into the Indies increased because war broke out in July 1937 in China. Ouw had to open a special house in 1939 to accommodate the girls. This brought further problems; pimps threatened her even more and tried to access the house to persuade the girls to run away. The Chinese Malay press was in favour of her work, but the Chinese community leaders preferred not to get involved. It was later found that Immigration officers had taken bribes from prominent business people to allow the entry of the girls into the country. Only one person, H.H. Kan, a member of the Volksraad (People’s Council), had once brought it up at a meeting of the Council. In spite of these problems, she remained much involved in the Ati Soetji orphanage. From the moment the children entered the orphanage, they received good health care and were well fed. Regular health and dental check-ups were provided. In 1929, the orphanage was moved into a building in the Kebon Sirih area, which was spacious enough for it to have its elementary school which was also open to the public. After graduation, the orphans were usually sent to a vocational school; only the very bright ones had the opportunity to continue their education in a secondary school; tertiary education was not available then. When the girls had reached a

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suitable age for marriage, a suitable husband would be found for them and a wedding would be arranged with Ouw as the mother of the bride. She was also a committee member of the Fu Nü Hui, an organization for women, and the Tiong Hwa Li Hak Hau (Zhonghua Nü Xuexiao), a girls’ school. Her exemplary work had attracted the attention of the colonial government and in 1937, both she and her husband were awarded the Ridder tot de Orde van Oranje Nassau (Knight of the Order of Oranje Nassau). During the Japanese Occupation, she had to close down the house for girls, but most of them could either work in the Ati Soetji orphanage, or found jobs in households or hospitals. Ati Soetji received subsidies in the form of rice and other necessities. After the Japanese Occupation, her work with Ati Soetji continued as before. In 1964, Ati Soetji celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of

its founding. Ouw Tjoei Lan passed away the following year. Myra Sidharta R E F E R E N C E S Anonymous. “Wanita yang tak terlupakan”. Manuscript, no year (personal collection). Anonymous. “Riwajat Singkat Ati Soetji”. Manuscript no year (personal collection). Boekoe Peringatan Ati Soetji 35 tahun. Jakarta 1949. Reviews published in Fu Len magazine and Maandblad Istri. Personal interviews in 1990 with: (1) Ir Lie Soen Keng, eldest son of Mr and Mrs Lie; (2) Tjoa Ma Tjoen (Mrs), member of the Ati Soetji Foundation and head of the orphanage; and (3) Dr Kho Tjok Khing, psychiatrist, chairman of Ati Soetji Foundation. (All interviewees have passed away).

P Paik Wan ( , Bo Yuan, 1914–2009) Religious master, artist, Malaysia

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aik Wan was an eminent Malaysian Buddhist monk and an artist in Chinese painting and calligraphy. He was born in ), Fujian Province, in Fu’an County ( 1914. In 1947, he was dispatched from Gushan ) to take up the post of supervisor of Kek (

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Lok Si, Penang; he resided in Malaya till he died. Other than preaching the dharma and performing religious duties in Singapore and Malaysia, Paik Wan also aspired to perfecting his skills in Chinese painting and calligraphy, as well as meditation. Because of his outstanding contributions as an artist, he stood out from other monks. Compared with other artists, his was unique in blending the elements and attainment of Buddhist meditation in his artistic works. In 1994, Paik Wan organized his first solo calligraphy and art exhibition,

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which raised RM500,000 in donation for the welfare society led by the wife of the former prime minister, Tun Dr Mahathir. Apart from this, the National Art Gallery in Malaysia had also especially organized an exhibition entitled “Xinqing Anxiang: Bo Yuan Shangren de ： Chanyi Shijie” ( )” (The Peace and Lucidity of the Heart: Venerable Master Bo Yuan’s World of Zen Art) for him. This was the first solo Chinese calligraphy and wash painting art exhibition organized by the National Art Gallery for a Chinese monk. Paik Wan’s original name is Li Defu ) and he was born into a Buddhist ( family. His father had passed away thirty-three days before he was born, and when he was six, his mother remarried. Paik Wan went to a private school and started to learn the art of calligraphy at the age of eleven. He lived in a village near the sea and because he saw fish being killed every day, he became a vegetarian after he started going to school.The thought of becoming a monk came to him when he was nineteen; he had always felt blessed that he was born a human and that life was impermanent as evidenced by the early demise of his father. Later he took the tonsure and became a monk at Shifeng Guanghua Temple ( ) in Fu’an County under Master Jing ); he was given the religious Sheng ( ), and was also called name Shengguang ( Paik Wan (Bo Yuan). “Bo” was the common name given to all the disciples of the same master while “Yuan” means “completeness, wholeness”. Master Jingsheng was an erudite monk who regularly exchanged views with scholars regarding Chinese calligraphy and painting. This had a profound influence on Paik Wan and sparked his passion in Chinese calligraphy and painting. At the age of twenty-two, Paik Wan was ordained under Master Xu Yun (

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) at Gushan Yongquan Temple ( ) in Fuzhou. Subsequently he moved to a meditation hall and studied at the Shigu ). Soon Buddhist Institute ( afterwards, he became the receptionist monk at the Gushan Yongquan Temple. Paik Wan had followed Master Xu Yun for two years before the master went to Nanhua Temple ) in Guangdong Province. He once ( said that every time Master Xu Yun passed by him, he would have felt a sense of remorse thinking that he did not practise Buddhism well and was thus ashamed to face the master. He was most impressed by Master Xu Yun’s awe-inspiring charisma and said only Master Xu Yun truly deserved the description in the sutra, “walk like a wind, sit like a bell, stand like a pine, sleep like a bow”. To him, Master Xu Yun was the initiator of modern Humanistic Buddhism. Master Xu Yun was the initiator of modern Humanistic Buddhism. He protected the Buddhist monasteries, united the Buddhists and fought for their rights and benefits during the period of Republic on China. He was also a Zen Buddhist master of no equal in his time. Unusual encounters such as this made Paik Wan into one of the few important learned monks in Malaya during the early days. Most importantly, Xu Yun was well-known for his Zen practice and his experiences in meditation. Besides emphasising the application of Buddhist teachings to daily life, Paik Wan also encouraged devotees to blend Zen with the art of calligraphy and painting. He may be said to have demonstrated the Zen influence in certain artistic styles and features. At the same time, there were two contributory factors behind Paik Wan’s blossoming into an outstanding artist in Chinese painting and calligraphy. Firstly, he was exposed to a lot of stone carved calligraphy in the area near Fuzhou’s Gushan Yongquan Temple. He mentioned in his book Songtaosheng li hua

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qianchen ( ) (Reminiscing the Past amidst the Soughing of the Wind in the Pines) that when he was staying in Gushan before 1947 the whole mountain was full of green pines and bizarre looking rocks. He was nurtured by the wonderful works of famed artists who had inscribed beautiful compositions of calligraphic art, phrases, and meanings on the stone slabs in past dynasties. He had not only seen, but also noted down all the writings. More importantly, he was acquainted with a Shandong man called Jia ) at Yongquan Temple despite Mengyu ( their vast difference in age. A student of Liang ), Jia was a knowledgeable Qichao ( scholar as well as an excellent artist. Under the guidance of Jia, Paik Wan made tremendous progress in his calligraphy. As for his paintings, Paik Wan inherited the artistic skills of Miao ), who was a good friend Zixuan ( of Master Xu Yun. Dr Gu Zhengmei ( ), a Buddhist scholar, wrote in the preface to Xinqing Anxiang: Bo Yuan Shangren de Chanyi Shijie art compilation, “To himself personally, Venerable Master’s creative works in calligraphy and painting could be perceived as the milestones of his progress in meditation practice. But in China’s history of calligraphy and painting, it is something most precious: firstly because Venerable Master could very well be the last zen monk in China who is able to create zen calligraphy and painting using the heart of great freedom; secondly, artistic creations of such a high calibre as reflected in Venerable Master’s works are not commonly found in every generation.” Paik Wan’s art has reached a stage where all elements are unified, integrated, and harmonized, forming a unique style of its own. As a learned Mahayana monk who migrated to Malaysia in the early years when Chinese society there consisted mostly of labour immigrants, Paik Wan played an

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important role and contributed tremendously to the local Buddhist community. In 1961, Paik Wan was invited to give dharma talks in Kuala Lumpur. The following year, he built ) in Petaling Jaya to Hubin Jingshe ( spread the dharma. He also acted as mentor and adviser to many Buddhist associations. Among other roles, he was the seventh vice-president of the Malaysian Buddhist Association and continued to serve as its adviser after his term was over. It is also worth mentioning that he was invited by Radio Televisyen Malaysia to host the talk programme, Nanyang Buddhism, from 1969 to 1976. The talk was most relevant to daily life and covered topics such as “ignorance and wisdom”, “undesirable outcomes of greed”, “what is a peaceful human world”, etc. We can generally conclude that Paik Wan’s Buddhist ideology is focused on promoting dharma in daily life and Humanistic Buddhism. This is reflected in his series of articles ) published in Nanyang Buddhism ( entitled “Songtaosheng li hua qianchen” and “Wutaishan shang yi xingzhe” ( ) (A monk on Wutaishan), as well as couplets he has written in temples in Singapore and Malaysia. So far, there is no publication of Paik Wan’s collected works that represents his thoughts. Another article by him was “Shuishi ) shenshang de bahen” ( (Scars of the sleeping lion), but it has also not been published. One prominent publication is the calligraphy and art compilation, Xinqing Anxiang: Bo Yuan Shangren de Chanyi Shijie. Paik Wan has contributed much to the cultural and educational circles in Malaysia. Not only does he propagate the dharma, but he also promotes Chinese culture. Since 1980, Paik Wan has continuously been a judge and adviser for calligraphy and art competitions, thereby raising the general interest in these fields locally. In 1991 and 1992 respectively, his works in calligraphy were selected to be

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inscribed and erected in the shenmo beilin ) and shisheng beilin ( ) ( (both are forests of stelae commemorating great calligraphers and poet-sages since ancient times) in China. The current venerable seniors in Malaysian cultural and educational circles such as Sim Mow Yu ), Ren Yunong ( ), Chen ( ), and the late Lim Lian Geok Leishi ( ) were acquaintances of his. ( Owing to his valuable contributions to calligraphy and art, and his role as one of the few learned Buddhist monks who came to Malaya in the early years, Paik Wan’s interactions with the cultural and educational circles, as well as his personal life experiences, are indeed worth noting. Wong Wun Bin R E F E R E N C E S 《 ： ，2000。 〈 》2010

： 34 。

》。

：

：

〉，《 ， 122–40。

Palanca, Ellen Huang ( , Huang Shuxiu, 1944– ) Academic, Philippines

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n her forty years in the academe, Ellen Palanca has taught countless students who have all gone on to make their marks in their respective fields. Palanca has been involved in government policy research, the results of which have a bearing on government economic policies. Born on 21 July 1944, Ellen Huang Palanca may well have been born to teach. Having spent nearly four decades in the

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academe, she does not foresee retirement yet. Soft spoken, mild mannered, and always poised, Huang, with her lithe frame and agile mind, is still as active, excited, and energetic as ever. “I enjoy both teaching and learning. Learning new things and ideas is what I like doing, and since teaching propagates learning, I have involved myself in teaching. I would have felt stagnant in any other job,” she says. Her home environment also goaded her into teaching. Being the second of seven siblings, she experienced the satisfaction of teaching very early on. “I helped my younger siblings with their school work. I found out that I could explain well and I felt good when they understood what I taught them. There was satisfaction in being able to help someone understand something he found confusing.” Furthermore, Palanca’s disciplined household is a merry mix of intellectuals and musicians. Her father, George Huang, hailed from Xiamen, in Fujian, China. In his youth (prewar time), he was a writer for a couple of Chinese newspapers in Manila, and taught in a Chinese high school in Cebu. He went into business, but continued to love reading. His being a bookworm meant that there were always a lot of books to read in the house. Her mother, Yu Chun Kheng, was born in the Philippines; her parents also hailed from Xiamen. She loves to play the piano and taught many of her children how to play it when they were small. Elder sister, Sofia, now a retired computer analyst, was a maths major and one of the pioneer computer science students in the country. Another sister, Rita, has taught at the Ateneo de Manila University and is now the vice-president for the New York-based United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia. Another sister, Lydia, also based in New York, is in the real estate business. Her brother,

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Winfred, is an electronics engineer and plays the violin very well. Another brother, Alfred, is an industrialist and businessman. Youngest sister Molly Vivian is a concert pianist based in New York. Palanca is married to businessman Albert Palanca. Teaching was evidently the career choice of Palanca, and she prepared for it well. During her grade school and high school years spent at Grace Christian High School, she was consistently top of the class, “My favorite subject was always Math. I like the analysis that goes with doing Math,” she says. She also remembers and admires her high school math and geometry teacher who had such enthusiasm to teach. At the University of the Philippines (U.P.) where she chose to major in economics, Palanca was a member of the Phi Kappa Phi Honors Society. She then took her master’s degree in economics at Ateneo before obtaining her doctorate at U.P. While taking her master’s, she was invited by the Ateneo Department of Economics to teach. “And I have been teaching since then.” “In teaching, you give a lot of your time and get only a small pay in return. But if you can overlook the monetary returns, the fulfillment you get out of teaching and being involved in education is invaluable.” Palanca advises fellow educators that “teaching is a responsibility. It is not enough to teach, you have to constantly keep updated and do research in your field for more insight and be less bookish.You owe that to yourself and your students”. Palanca teaches higher economics and Chinese studies courses, and also research courses for thesis writers. Belonging to both the Economics Department and the Chinese Studies Program, Palanca developed early in the 1990s a course on modern Chinese economy, combining Chinese studies with economics.

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“I am glad to have the opportunity to make people aware of and understand China and Asia. Filipinos, including Chinese Filipinos, do not know their neighboring countries. They are more familiar with Western countries, particularly the United States. With the emergence of China as a formidable economic power, understanding China and its role in Asia is very important,” she adds. She spent time in China in the 1980s as a visiting economics professor at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and the Xiamen University in China. Her solid economics background has trained her well to be competent in analysis and research. This she also drills in her students. “Economics is a subject that requires analytical thinking. It also requires a good math background,” she says. “We want the students to be able to apply what they learn in making sound economic policies in the future,” she adds. Some of her students are now in government, one of the popular ones being former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who attended Palanca’s classes when she was taking up her master’s degree in economics at Ateneo. Palanca has contributed to the institution building of the university she is in. She was chair of the Economics Department for six years and now does much administrative work related to Chinese Studies for her university. She has been director of the Chinese Studies Program for over a decade and recently also undertook the directorship of the newly established Confucius Institute at the Ateneo de Manila University. Under her guidance, a new undergraduate programme, the bachelor of arts in Chinese Studies, was drawn up and offered at the university starting the school year 2008–09. This four year undergraduate course with three tracks

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— business, humanities, or social science — is the first and only such programme in the country. Students have the option to crossenrol in the Jesuit-run Beijing Center or the Sun Yat Sen University in Guangzhou for one school year. Palanca has also been involved in government policy research and other external commitments. She has done research for the Philippine Institute for Development Studies. Under the National Economic Development Authority, the institute does extensive research, the results of which have a bearing on the current economic policies of the government. She was also part of a joint ASEAN-China research team organized in 2001 to study ASEANChina relations and foster closer economic ties with China in preparation for the ASEANChina Free Trade Agreement negotiations. Palanca represented the Philippines in the team which comprised of one representative from each ASEAN country and six representatives from China. On top of all these responsibilities, she was for nine years president (and is still on the board) of the Philippine Association for Chinese Studies, a non-political, nonprofit association of professionals and scholars affiliated with universities, media, and business, who are interested in issues concerning China and the Chinese. Since 1974,she has authored and published significant papers which were included in economics books, journals, and encyclopaedia, and presented to audiences in ASEAN, Europe, the United States, China, Japan, and Korea. She has also served as consultant, resource person, and moderator for various seminars, symposia, and research projects on ASEAN, China, trade, education, and related issues. As an educator and member of the academe, she is a firm advocate of quality education. To date, the paper she considers

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closest to her heart is her dissertation on Inheritance, Wealth, Income, Education and Occupation: Transfer of Status Across Family Generations, which she submitted to the School of Economics, University of the Philippines, in 1981. The dissertation affirms the role of education and educational achievement as something of an ‘equalizer’ between rich and poor families of varying socio-economic status. Education allows poor families the opportunity to elevate their socio-economic status and uplift the quality of their lives. To balance her busy load of teaching, doing consultancy, research work, and other commitments, Palanca looks forward to spending time with her family. “We like to do things together.We take walks, shop, and watch movies together. And with our son, when he was still living here, we always cook together during weekends.” Her son, Clinton, currently doing postgraduate studies at the University of Oxford, is an accomplished writer and book publisher. Mother and son spearheaded the production of the coffee table book, Chinese Filipinos, published in 2003 by the Jesuit Communications Foundation, Inc. “The book,” as described by Edgar Wickberg in the book’s foreword, is “about Philippine versions of Chineseness…, or the Chineseness of the Chinese Filipinos.” Andrea Tan R E F E R E N C E S Pe, Grace Co. “Unsung Heroes of Our Minds: Caroline Hau, Willie Laohoo; Ellen Palanca; Richard Chu; Jocelyn Tan”. Tulay Monthly, vol. 3, no. 7, 30 December 1990, p. 11. Tan, Andrea. “The Rewards of Teaching (Ellen Huang Palanca)”. Tulay Fortnightly, vol. 14, no. 8, 25 September 2001, p. 12. Personal interview, July 2009.

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Pan Shou ( ; Pan Kuo-chu, , Pan Guoqu, 1911–99) Calligrapher, poet, educator, Singapore

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an Shou, whose other name is Pan ), also known as Kuo-chu ( ), Xu Zhou ( ), was Xu Zhi ( Singapore’s pre-eminent Chinese classical poet and calligrapher. He had also been a newspaper editor, an educator, and a bank manager. He was also founding secretary general of the Nanyang University, the first Chinese university outside China.Through an extensive repertoire of poetry and calligraphic works, he made significant contributions to Singapore’s cultural and literary landscape. His calligraphic works can be found in the collections of heads of state, foreign dignitaries, museums in Singapore and China, and private collectors. Pan was born on 26 January to a Qing dynasty scholar in the turbulent year of 1911 in Nan An, Fujian Province in China when Sun Yat Sen overthrew the Manchu dynasty. When he was seventeen, he won first prize for his entry in a national essay competition held in conjunction with a Campaign For Anti-Drug Use Movement. The selection committee consisted of prominent members such as Cai Yuan Pei, former president of the Peking University, and well known scholar Wu Lien-Teh, a Penang-born medical scientist. Despite discontinuing his education at eighteen and not having a university degree, he was a tutor at the Westminster school in Quanzhou, indicating his early interest in education. When he arrived in Singapore in 1929 at the age of nineteen, he had already received rigorous training in both the Chinese classics and the brush.

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Pan landed a job as the feature editor of the Lat Pau (Le Bao) in 1930. Published from 1837 to 1932, it was Singapore’s first Chineselanguage daily. Barely a year into his job, however, an opening for a principal at Chung Cheng Primary School caught his eye. Urged by Chinese teacher-friends in Indonesia who sought to teach in Singapore, he went for the interview and caught the attention of a member of the board of governors, Lee Kong Chian. He was a mere twenty-year-old when he became the principal of Chung Cheng School. His career in education brought him back to China for a teaching stint in Shanghai in 1931, where again, he witnessed the tensions between the Nationalists and Communists. However, his father’s illness brought him to his hometown in Fujian. On his father’s death, Pan returned to Singapore to teach at Chinese High School soon after student protests led to its reorganization under Lee Kong Chian’s chairmanship. In 1934, he became principal of Tao Nan Primary School, nurturing it into a premier institution. During this time he met Tan Kah Kee, the founder of Tao Nan and Chinese High Schools. In 1940, he began a two-year principalship in Zhong Hua Secondary School, in Muar, Malaysia, before the outbreak of World War II. The war years saw Pan flee with his family, travelling first to Bombay, then to China. He returned after the war, and set up a business in trading paper and publishing. He also worked closely with Tan Kah Kee, Lee Kong Chian, and Tan Lark Sye to rebuild the local Chinese community, particularly through the Hokkien Huay Kuan, and drafted many speeches and articles for them. As early as 1953, rubber tycoon and community leader Tan Lark Sye came up with

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plans for a Chinese university that took the form of the Nanyang University (alias Nantah). The discussions involving Tan Lark Sye, Lee Kong Chian, and other prominent Chinese businessmen invariably drew in Pan. He was credited with designing the three-ringed logo, which was originally drawn by his daughter, Xiao Fen. The three rings represent the three races — Malays, Chinese, and Indians, with the star in the centre reflecting the university’s role in serving the three groups. When Nantah’s first vice-chancellor, Lin Yutang, resigned suddenly because of differences with Tan Lark Sye, Pan was asked to become secretary general and take on the mantle as de facto vice-chancellor. This he did in May 1955 and remained in the post until he retired in January 1960. In less than a year, Pan laid the foundations for the university, recruiting academics and organizing funding activities, in time for its opening on 15 March 1956. Unfortunately, the Nanyang University Commission, set up jointly by the Singapore Government and Nanyang University to review the academic standard of Nanyang Univeristy which was chaired by Stanley Lewis Prescott, criticized Pan Shou’s lack of academic qualifications and the overall standard of Nantah. As a result of the Commission’s report, the degree of Nantah was not recognized by the Government of Singapore. Pan also paid a price personally. His citizenship was retracted in 1958 and he resigned from Nantah in January 1960. In 1980s, he applied for his citizenship with the name Pan Kuo-chu which he had used for a few decades, but gave this up finally when he was not successful. Eventually, with the help of his friends and high-level officials, he used the name Pan Shou in a fresh application and was conferred citizenship in April 1983.

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After leaving Nantah, he devoted himself to calligraphy and poetry. This hobby which ultimately became his passion gained him worldwide recognition. He had practised calligraphy since he was eight, beginning with kaishu which was the regular script used by great Tang calligraphers. It was only in his last twenty-five years that he began to focus on the xingshu script. Influenced by He Shaoji, a noted Qing dynasty scholar and calligrapher Qi Gong, Pan’s skills are especially valued because he composed his own poetry, which were masterful in their own right. There are a total of four collections of poetic works of Pan Shou, including Poems from Overseas (1970), Pan Shou Nanyuan Poetry Collection (1980), and An Anthology of Poems (1997).Also some 1,177 of his poems have been published in an anthology called A Collection of Pan Shou’s Poems (2004). Pan Shou’s prolific output of calligraphic works is evident everywhere in Singapore. His calligraphic pieces are in public and private collections here and abroad. The name of the Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts (MICA) in Chinese was done by him, and used when the ministry moved to its revamped premises at the old Hill Street Police Station in late 1999. The Chinese characters for the Chinese Heritage Centre and Nanyang Technological University, on the masthead of Chinese daily Lianhe Zaobao, were also the works of Pan Shou. His unique, personal style evolved from his mastery of the ancient scripts, making him the most celebrated calligrapher in Singapore. His calligraphic works have been published in a three-volume collection titled, Calligraphy by Pan Shou (1982). The National Museum of Singapore also held two exhibitions of Pan Shou’s works — “Pan Shou Guxi Shuji” (1984) and “Pan Shou 80” (1991).

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A Collection of Chinese Calligraphy by Pan Shou was published in 2000. Pan had also been the honorary adviser to the Chinese Calligraphy Society of Singapore since 1977. Pan was awarded gold medal at the Salon Artists Francais in 1985 and The Singapore Cultural Medallion for excellence in calligraphy in 1987. His other awards include the French decoration, “Officier des Art et des Lettres” from the French Government (1991), The Meritorious Service Medal, PGJ, Republic of Singapore (1994), and the ASEAN Cultural Medal at ASEAN’s 30th anniversary in Jakarta, in recognition of his untiring and outstanding service in promoting art and culture in this region (1997). The National Arts Council and the National Heritage Board jointly organized the “Pan Shou Exhibition” to commemorate his winning the award of Meritorious Service Medal at the National Museum Art Gallery from 19 May to 18 July 1995. Pan Shou received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from the Nanyang Technological University on 26 August 1998, and at this ceremony, he called for the university to be renamed Nanyang University. He married his first wife, Chen Er Fen, in 1933 when she was twenty, despite objections from his parents, who had an arranged marriage prepared for him. They had been childhood sweethearts when he was studying at Pei Yuan High School and she at the sister school, Pei Ying High School, in their hometown in Quanzhou. She died at age twenty-four of cancer in 1937, a few months after arriving in Singapore. She bore him two children — Soo Yeng and Xiao Fen. Pan Shou’s second wife, Chen Boon Hwee, is the elder sister of Chen Er Fen. Pan married her at his first wife’s request prior to her death to ensure the children would continue to be cared for. Boon Hwee

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was a Chinese teacher in Singapore when he married her. The National Parks Board of Singapore has also named an orchid hybrid after Pan, who died of pneumonia in February 1999 at the age of eighty-eight. Zhou Zhao Cheng R E F E R E N C E S Cultural and Academic Society of Singapore. The Collection of Pan Shou’s Poems.《 》。 ： ，2004。 The Straits Times. “Bidding Pan Shou a Final Farewell”. 27 February 1999. ———. “The Legacy of Pan Shou”. 25 February 1999. ———. “Remembering Pan Shou: Poet, Philosopher, Scholar, Gentleman”. 18 August 1999. ———. “Rename NTU, says Pan Shou”. 27 August 1998. Tan Siah Kwee (ed.). Three Articles on Pan Shou. The Chinese Calligraphy Society of Singapore, 2004. 《 》。 ： ，2004。

Pangestu, Mari (Mari Cecelia Pang Hui Lan, , Feng Huilan, 1956– ) Economist, Minister of Trade, Indonesia

M

ari Elka Pangestu, Minister of Trade in the Cabinet of President Susilo Bambang Yudoyono (SBY) of the Republic of Indonesia, from 2004 until now. Mari Elka Pangestu, usually called Mari, has a number of firsts. At the University of California, Davis, she was the first Indonesian woman and the first ethnic Chinese woman from Indonesia to earn a Ph.D. in Economics (in 1986). On return to Indonesia she was the first ethnic Chinese woman to have a Ph.D. in economics. Today, she is the first ethnic

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Chinese woman to be appointed a cabinet minister (Minister of Trade, 2004– ) and in a strategic position at that. In fact, in all previous cabinets there has never been a woman in that kind of key position. Together with Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Minister of Finance (who was also Acting Coordinating Minister of Economic Affairs), and Miranda S. Gultom, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Indonesia in SBY first cabinet, she formed a formidable trio of highly educated, relatively young (between 40’s and 60’s) women, who have shown to be confident, firm and fearless in their decision making and actions. All three have a Ph.D. from abroad and Miranda is also a Professor of Economics at the University of Indonesia. Since she became a cabinet minister, due to the drastic measures the government has taken discontinuing fuel subsidy, plunging the country into a spiralling price hike of basic (rice, cooking oil, sugar) and other commodities, she is often shown on TV inspecting prices in traditional markets. She is also active in promoting locally based industry, including local fashion, and local ethnic food. Hence, she has become a familiar face on TV, but at the same time she is also exposed to criticism on a number of policies her office has taken. Prior to becoming a cabinet minister, Mari was a member of the Governing Board of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and a lecturer at the University of Indonesia (UI). Her fields of specialization are international trade and finance with a regional focus on China, ASEAN and the Asia Pacific. Due to her knowledge and her writings on these topics, she is on the international lecture and seminar circuit. Besides teaching International Economics at the UI, she was also an Adjunct Professor at the Australian-Japan Research Centre of the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

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She was an active participant in international and regional forums, including the World Economic Forum, and Global Leaders for Tomorrow (1999–2003). As Chair of the G33, she was a very prominent figure at the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiation forums. She was the Program Coordinator in the Trade Forum of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC), a private networking organization comprising of 23 member economies in the Asia Pacific region. From 2002–04, she was the cocoordinator of the Task Force on Poverty and Development for the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Project established by the UN Secretary General. At various times, she has been a consultant to the World Bank, the United Nations, Asian Development Bank. She was also commissioner in a number of national companies. Aside from activities in her profession, Mari has been active in cultural organizations, such as Sejati, Nature Conservancy. Born on 23 October 1956 in Jakarta, Mari is the third and youngest child of 3 siblings. Her father was the well-known Yusuf Elka Pangestu (Y. Pang Lay Kim ), who was a professor of economics (business administration) at the UI, Airlangga University in Surabaya, Nanyang University (Singapore), and the University of Singapore. He was also a banker in the private sector. Her mother, Evi Elka Pangestu (Antonia Evi Njo Ging Hwa) was an assistant pharmacist (Asisten Apoteker). Her father’s father, Pang Lie Lie was a Hokchia (from Fujian), who was a barber by profession (in Bandung). His wife, Tan Pie Pie, was the daughter of a guard (centeng) of a rice mill in Dauan in Karawang, West Java. Mari’s oldest brother Y.A. Pang Tik Yang (Tikki Elka), has a Ph.D. in microbiology from the Australian National University in

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Canberra, was a professor at the University of Malaya, and presently works as Director of Research Administration at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. Her second brother, F.X. Pang Tik Ping (Pingki Elka) has studied to be a town planner at the University of Sydney and works as a real estate developer. Regarding her education, Mari was a globe-trotter from the time she was a toddler. Her pre-school was in Berkeley, California, where her father was studying at the time, followed by the Catholic Tarakanita primary school in Jakarta until 4th grade, then the Hughes primary school in Canberra, Australia, continuing high school at St Margaret Anglican School in Singapore, and Telopea Park High in Canberra, Australia, studied for her B. Ec and M.Ec still in Canberra at the ANU, and finally earned her Ph.D. in International Trade at UC, Davis. She also had the privilege to be an Eisenhower scholar. Hence, over the years, Mari has lived in Jakarta, Berkeley, Jakarta, Canberra, Singapore, Davis, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Houston, Shanghai, probably in that order, before finally returning to Jakarta again in 2004. Mari is married to Adi Harsono (Hong Pei Cai), who has a degree in nuclear physics and works at oil and gas related industry. He has been stationed in Africa, Australia, the Middle East, Malaysia, Indonesia, USA, China, and is taking an active role in the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce. They have two sons, Raymond Bima Harsono, age 17, and Alexander Arya Harsono, age 14. Raymond is now studying at Geelong Grammar School in Melbourne and Arya is at the Jakarta International School. With the reshuffle of the Cabinet of SBY in October 2011, Mari Pangestu was relieved of her post as Minister of Trade and given the newly created post of Minister of Tourism

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and Creative Economy. She was installed on 19 October 2011. Mely G.Tan R E F E R E N C E Material compiled by Mari Pangestu’s personal secretary, Melanie Widjaja (7 October 2008); The information for the material, particularly on family background, was provided by Mari’s husband Adi Harsono and her second brother Pingky Elka.

Pangestu, Prajogo (Phang Djun Phen, 1944– ) Businessman, Indonesia

, Peng Yunpeng,

P

rajogo made his fortune as a timber baron in the 1970s and 1980s, during the heydays of timber export from Indonesia under Suharto’s developmentalist state. He then diversified into pulp and paper production and petrochemicals, and in 1996, became one of the top 10 billionaires in Indonesia with assets worth US$2.2 billion. While Prajogo’s businesses suffered when the Asian financial crisis hit Indonesia, he has since bounced back with a dominant position in the petrochemical industry and forays into the energy sector. In 2010, Forbes placed Prajogo Pangestu as the 40th richest person in Indonesia, with total assets estimated at US$455 million. Prajogo Pangestu was born on 13 May 1944 in Sungai Betung, a village in what is now the district of Bengkayang in the province of West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Of Hakka origins, his grandfather hailed from Lufeng in the province of Guangdong, China, and Prajogo was the second generation to be born in Indonesia. As the son of a rubbertapper and part-time tailor, family finances did not allow him to receive formal education

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till he was nine, when he entered the Chinese Elementary School in the town of Bengkayang and graduated in three years. Thereafter, with support from a cousin and through working part-time, Prajogo completed his secondary education at the Nan Hua Middle School in Singkawang in 1960. Through these schools, Prajogo received a modern Chinese education in his formative years. After graduation, Prajogo operated a small retail business before moving to Jakarta in 1965 to work with his cousin in the gold business. Subsequently, he struck out on his own and dabbled in inter-island trade, buying rice, kerosene and other commodities and shipping them back to his home province. In March 1970, Prajogo joined Burhan Uray’s (Huang ) Djajanti Group, a significant Shuang’an player in the timber industry, which was then burgeoning under Suharto’s developmentalist state policies. In the Djajanti Group, Prajogo held important portfolios in finance and sales, and was subsequently appointed by Burhan as general manager of PT Nusantara Plywood in Surabaya in 1976. By the time Prajogo left the Djajanti Group in 1977, he had mastered the workings of the timber industry, which he launched into with the purchase of CV Pacific Lumber Company, renaming it the PT Barito Pacific Timber Company. Having established his own flagship timber company, Prajogo took up a forest concession in Muaratewe, Central Kalimantan, before expanding towards the Maluku islands. There, Prajogo gained massive forest concessions starting with the island of Mangole. When the Indonesian government decided in 1980 to reduce and eventually prohibit the export of unprocessed timber by 1985, Prajogo expanded into the downstream industry of plywood production, setting up plywood factories on Mangole, Taliabu and Seram. In addition, his

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extensive concessions began to extend towards Ternate and Halmahera in Maluku, as well as the provinces of Central Kalimantan and East Kalimantan. By the late 1980s, the Barito Pacific Group, which had 29 companies in its fold, had become the largest forest concessionaire and largest plywood exporter in Indonesia. Having become eminently successful in the timber industry, Prajogo diversified into other lucrative projects. In 1990, he entered the pulp and paper industry by first taking up a plantation forest concession in Lampung, South Sumatra, to develop soft-wood plantations. This supplied pulp for his paper mill, the PT Tanjung Enim Lestari Pulp and Paper, of which former President Suharto’s eldest daughter, Siti Hardijanti Rukmana, was a partner. In May of the same year, he founded Bank Andromeda together with Henry Pribadi (Lin Yunhao) of the Napan Group and Bambang Trihatmodjo (second son of Suharto) of PT Bimantara. In December, Prajogo ventured into the petrochemical industry with Henry Pribadi, setting up a petrochemical plant, the PT Chandra Asri, in West Java, in which Bambang Trihatmodjo also had a stake. The company produces ethylene, polyethylene and propylene, raw materials for the production of plastics. In 1991, Prajogo started another petrochemical venture, the PT Tri Polyta, to engage in the production and sale of polypropylene resins. Prajogo also extended his investments into the hospitality industry, collaborating with the Kuok brothers of Malaysia to build the Rasa Sentosa hotel on Sentosa island, Singapore’s premium tourist spot. Together with Liem Soei Liong’s Salim Group, he developed Bintan island in the Riau Archipelago into a tourist destination. By 1991, the Barito Pacific Group had expanded into a conglomerate with 120 subsidiaries, and in 1996, Prajogo Pangestu

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had become one of the top 10 billionaires in Indonesia with assets worth US$2.2 billion. However, when the Asian financial crisis of 1997–98 hit Indonesia, Prajogo’s companies, with high exposure to foreign debt, were among the worst affected. Bank Andromeda was liquidated in 1997, and Prajogo’s companies underwent massive debt restructuring. But the timber baron bounced back in 2007, acquiring a majority stake in PT Chandra Asri and then PT Tri Polyta (in 2008), thus consolidating his holdings in the petrochemical industry. In 2010, the Business Competition Supervisory Commission approved the merger of these two entities into a new US$1.5 billion petrochemical company named Chandra Asri Petrochemical. With the additional acquisition of a stake in Star Energy, which owns the Wayang Windu geothermal power plant, Barito Pacific is set to transform its core business from forestry products to petrochemicals and energy. More recently, through the PT Transpacific Railway Infrastructure, Prajogo has also moved into the rail transport sector in South Sumatra. By the end of 2010, Forbes listed Prajogo Pangestu as the 40th richest person in Indonesia with assets worth US$455 million. Apart from his reputation in business, Prajogo Pangestu has also been recognized for his philanthropy in both Indonesia and China. In China, he established the Peng Rui-an Education and Welfare Foundation (named after his father) in 1994 to help overseas Chinese returnees from the Greater Singkawang Region (which includes Singkawang and the districts of Bengkayang and Sambas) and their children by providing scholarships to help with the expenses of studying in China. With the liberalization of Chinese-language education in the post-Suharto era, Prajogo also contributed to the revival of Chineselanguage instruction through sponsoring

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students to study at the Xin Ya College in Jakarta and universities in China. Besides giving generously to educational causes, he also made contributions to help victims of large-scale natural disasters, such as the China floods of 1998, the SARS epidemic of 2003, and the tsunami that hit Aceh in late 2004. Less well known is Prajogo’s links with hometown associations related to his home province of West Kalimantan. These function somewhat like the clan associations among Chinese overseas communities, except that they are based on places of origin within Indonesia rather than China. As the most successful Chinese businessman to have originated from West Kalimantan, Prajogo is accorded prominent honorary positions in the Bengkayang Hometown Association and the Greater Singkawang Region Hometown Association, to which he has made substantial contributions. Hui Yew-Foong R E F E R E N C E S Pura, Raphael. “Timber Tycoon Confronts His Critics — Prajogo Insists His Ties to the Suharto Family Are Strictly Business”. The Asian Wall Street Journal, 27 August 1993. Suryadinata, Leo. Prominent Indonesian Chinese: Biographical Sketches. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1995. The Jakarta Post. 2 June 2009, 26 March 2010, 25 October, 2010, 3 December 2010. 〈 》，1992 ，04 ， 28–38。 〈 、 》。

，

， 《

：

〉，《

〉， ： ，2006。

Interview, Zeng Xiangpeng (Chairman, Peng Ruian Education and Welfare Foundation), Guangzhou, 30 August 2005.

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Pao Shih Tien ( , Bao Shitian, 1909–2002) Educator, Philippines

P

ao Shih Tien spent sixty years of his life as an educator–principal, mentor, teacher, and disciplinarian at the Chiang Kai ). In recognition of his Shek College ( lifetime achievement in the field of education, he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award in the 2001 Dr Jose P. Rizal Awards for Excellence, organized by The Manila Times and Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran. Pao obtained his doctorate in education from the University of Santo Tomas (UST) in 1955. He was conferred honorary doctorate degrees in educational management by the China Academy in June 1976, and the De La Salle University in January 2000. Born in Jingshan, in Hubei, China on 12 March 1909, Pao came to the Philippines in 1931. While studying at the UST, he worked as a journalist with the New China Herald and later the Sun Yat Sen Times from 1931–41. On graduating from UST in 1935, he returned to China in the hope of serving his country, but the 7 July 1937 Marco Polo Bridge incident occurred, signalling the start of the Sino-Japanese war. He joined the resistance movement and due to grave danger, was forced to return to the Philippines in 1939, where he started his career as an educator and devoted the rest of his life to being a pillar of the Chiang Kai Shek College. Pao helped the Chiang Kai Shek High School’s founder, the late Wong Chun Seng, to establish the school in 1939, and was Wong’s assistant principal and able right hand, as well as acting principal in his absence. He would later serve the school in various other capacities, from 1945 to

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1965. Most importantly, he took charge of the reconstruction and re-establishment of the school, badly damaged during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines and by the American bombing of Manila during liberation in particular. After obtaining his doctorate degree in education in March 1955, he immediately opened the Huaqiao Normal School in June as a professional unit at the Chiang Kai Shek High School to train school teachers. Pao served as the first dean of the school. In 1959, he became principal of the high school. He then worked hard to elevate the high school into becoming the Chiang Kai Shek College in 1965 and was its president from 1965 to 1979, and chairman and chairman emeritus from 1983 until his death in 2002 at the age of ninety-five. As president of Chiang Kai Shek College, Pao instituted a lot of innovations not just to hone the physical and mental discipline of the students, but also to instil in them moral discipline. He led many students in participating in healthy academic and nonacademic competitions with other schools, and established harmonious and active relations with the school’s alumni, especially when they had to be tapped for the construction of the new high school building. He expanded the Normal and the Business Schools and raised their standards of excellence. In 1965, he integrated the kindergarten and elementary and high schools with the Normal and Business Schools for them to be recognized as a full fledged Chiang Kai Shek College. Pao also served in various capacities in different academic and professional organizations, such as the Philippine-China Cultural Association, the Philippine National Historical Society, the Boy Scouts of China in the Philippines, the General Association of Chinese Schools in the Philippines, the

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Committee on Educational and Cultural Affairs in the Philippine-China Friendship Association, and the Jose Rizal-Sun Yat Sen Society. His expertise was recognized by the Ministry of Education in Taiwan, which invited him to serve as adviser from 1979 to 1990. He published The Constitutional Development in the Republic of China in 1952 and An Appraisal: The Constitution of the Republic of China with Recommendations and Proposed Amendments in 1955 to introduce the constitutional foundations of the Chinese Republic built on the framework of Dr Sun Yat Sen’s “Three Principles of the People”. Pao attended countless national and international conferences on education and culture and his expertise and opinions on the problems of Chinese language education in the Philippines were sought after, especially during the deliberations on the Filipinization of Chinese schools at the 1970 Constitutional Convention. He wrote extensively on the subject of the Filipinization of Chinese schools and asked the various school administrators to prepare for the inevitability of the measure being adopted in the new Philippine Constitution. He argued with Philippine officials that Chinese schools played a crucial role in helping the government educate generations of schoolchildren who contribute significantly to the development of the country. The Filipinization of Chinese schools was adopted in the 1971 Philippine Constitution and all the Chinese schools were given five years, or up to 1976, to fulfil the implementing guidelines. Pao then rallied the various school administrators to improve the Chineselanguage teaching curriculum in order to compensate for the reduction in teaching hours under the provisions of the Filipinization process. However, pushing for reforms is never

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easy and in later years, Dr Pao acknowledged that they could have done more to raise the quality of Chinese-language teaching in spite of the challenges. On his retirement, with the help of students and alumni, the Shih Tien Educational ) was established Trust Fund ( to promote Chinese culture in the Philippines. Through this, books, dictionaries, and well known works on Chinese history and culture were donated to libraries of major universities. The trust fund also organized lectures and forums and published books on Chinese language and culture. Dr Pao’s alma mater, UST, was a focal point and beneficiary of these activities. On 9 March 2008, his family, friends, colleagues, officers, and alumni of Chiang Kai Shek College gathered at the Kaisa Heritage Center to commemorate his 100th birth anniversary. Through the efforts of his son, Frank Pao, and daughter, Fragrance Pao-Han, a seminar room at the centre was named Dr Pao Shih Tien Memorial Hall and dedicated in his honour as a tribute to his whole life’s vocation and dedication to quality education for future generations. Today generations of outstanding alumni of Chiang Kai Shek College who shine in various fields of endeavour and have made significant impact in mainstream Philippine society, are living testaments to Pao Shih Tien’s lifetime achievement in education. Dr Pao passed away on 25 August 2002. Ang Chak Chi R E F E R E N C E S Chang Kai Shek College. “ ”. Prepared by the college for the Dr Jose Rizal Awards for Excellence, Lifetime Achievement Awards on 19 June 2002. Manila Times. “Dr Pao Shi Tien: An Institution in the Academe”. 19 June 2002; also in Tulay Fortnightly, Chinese-Filipino Digest, 18 June 2002.

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Paua, Jose Ignacio ( , Liu Hengfu, 1872–1926) Revolutionary leader, army general, mayor, Philippines

G

eneral Jose Ignacio Paua was the only pure blooded Chinese general who supported the Katipuneros (Philippine revolutionaries) in the fight against the Spaniards and later joined General Emilio Aguinaldo’s army in the short-lived civil war against the American colonizers. Renowned historian Teodoro F. Agoncillo said Jose Ignacio Paua was “More Filipino than many Filipinos.” General Emilio Aguinaldo, the first president of the Philippine Republic said: “Through his unselfishness and heroism, General Paua had earned the gratitude of the Filipino nation to whose freedom and welfare he dedicated his life. He loved the Philippines as his own country.” Another historian, Dr Luis C. Dery, wrote: “The ferocity with which he contested every inch of soil lost to the American troops could also show his total transformation from Chinese to Filipino in heart and in deed.” Truly, Paua deserves to be considered a hero of the Philippine Revolution and the pride of the Chinese-Filipino community. Paua was born on 29 April 1872 in the impoverished village of Lao-nain in Fujian Province, China. In 1890, he accompanied his uncle to seek his fortune in the Philippines. The period marked the increasing bankruptcy of the Qing Dynasty of China, which brought untold suffering to impoverished peasants, especially those in the southern region. Paua served first as an apprentice blacksmith in Jaboneros Street, Binondo, a job he held for many years until he became an expert. His skills as a blacksmith stood him in good stead during the revolution and he

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became an expert in many kinds of weaponry. Accompanied by his friend, Pantaleon Garcia, Paua attended meetings and fiestas in Cavite where he met General Aguinaldo, Artemio Ricarte and other revolutionary leaders. Aguinaldo admired Paua greatly for his knowledge of firearm’s manufacturing, and his deep sympathy towards the cause of the Filipinos. At the outbreak of the revolution in 1896, Paua quickly joined the army. Aware of the acute shortage of arms, he suggested to Aguinaldo to set up an ammunition factory in Imus, Cavite. With the help of his fellow Chinese blacksmiths, he finished the arsenal in two days’ time. Under his skilful supervision, old cannons and broken Mausers captured from the enemy were repaired; large bamboo cannons taped with wires were manufactured, numerous paltiks (crude firearms) were made, and thousands of cartridges were filled up with home-made gunpowder. Not only did he manage the factory but he also taught the Filipinos how to melt metals, including church bells, for the manufacture of the much-needed arms and bullets for the revolutionary army. Aside from his own participation, Paua promised the support of his fellow Chinese in the Filipinos’ fight for freedom. In spite of his being a Chinese, he never hesitated risking his life for his adopted country. Teodoro Gonzales, a patriot-lawyer, said this of Paua in his unpublished memoir:“It was a strange sight in camp to see him — a dashing officer with a colonel’s uniform but having a pigtail. His soldiers were Tagalogs, all veteran fighters; yet they were devoted to him and were proud to serve under his battle standard, notwithstanding the fact that he was a Chinaman.” Paua’s valour was proven time and again in the battlefield, and he was thus promoted time and again by Aguinaldo, eventually to full

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general on 26 September 1898. He received his first baptism of fire in the Battle of Binakayan on 10 November 1896, which was personally directed by Governor General Ramon Blanco as an all-out offensive. Paua reportedly “fought like a wild cat. He and valiant bolomen grappled with the attacking riflemen. Several times, he stopped the bayonet charges of the enemy at the left flank of Gen. Aguinaldo’s entrenched position.” Despite their superior arms and number, “Governor Blanco sadly returned to Manila, with his tattered battle colors, shattered forces, and shiploads of wounded”. Candido Tirona and many brave patriots died gloriously in that fierce battle.Two days after the Battle of Binakayan, Paua was promoted from lieutenant of the infantry to captain. He continued to prove himself again and again in other attacks on Spanish garrisons, and confrontations in Zapote, Perez Dasmariñas, Salitran, Imus, among others. On 12 June 1898, Aguinaldo proclaimed Philippine independence in Kawit, Cavite, and raised its flag for the first time. Paua cut off his queue (braid), saying: “Now that you are free from your foreign master, I am also freed from my queue.” Later, tasked with raising funds for the empty coffers of the newly established republic, Paua raised a staggering 386,000 pesos in Bicolandia alone, mostly from the Chinese. It was the largest cash sum ever collected by any fiscal agent of the republic. When the Filipino-American war broke out, Paua was again at the forefront of the battle. Taught in the rigid discipline of martial arts, he trained his men well. Among the very few battles won against the superior fire power of the Americans were those led by Paua. He eventually became the scourge of the American troops, who greatly feared his attacks. University of the Philippines historian, Professor Luis Dery, wrote: “The ferocity with which he contested every inch of Philippine

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soil lost to the American troops showed his total transformation from Chinese to Filipino — in heart and in deed.” After the war, Paua retired in Albay and was once elected mayor of Manito, Albay. He told his wife and children: “I want to live long enough to see the independence of our beloved country and to behold the Filipino flag fly proudly and alone in our skies.” His dream was not realized however, for he lost his life to cancer on 24 May 1926 in Manila. On Independence Day, 12 June 1989, Paua was fittingly honoured when Kaisa Para Sa Kaunlaran, Inc., an organization of young Chinese Filipinos, and the Lam-an Lao-Na Family Association, in cooperation with the National Historical Institute, unveiled a ninefoot monument of this hero in Silang, Cavite, a suburb south of Manila. The same monument was later erected at Legaspi City in the Bicol region, in remembrance of Paua’s bravery in winning the battles against the enemy in Legaspi. Funds for both monuments were raised from all sectors of the Chinese-Filipino community as a tribute to this unknown and hitherto unsung hero of the Philippine revolution. Carmelea Ang See R E F E R E N C E S Alvarez, Santiago V. The Katipunan and the Revolution: Memoirs of a General. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1992. Cristobal, Adrian. The Tragedy of the Revolution. Makati: Studio 5 Publishing Inc., 1997. National Historical Institute. Historical Markers, Region I-IV and CAR. Manila: Republic of the Philippines, Department of Education, Culture and Sports, National Historical Institute, 1993. Saulo, Alfredo and Esteban A. de Ocampo. History of Cavite: The Mother Ground of the Philippine Revolution, Independence Flag and National Anthem. Trece Martires: Provincial Government of Cavite, 1985.

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See, Teresita Ang and Go Bon Juan. A Chinese General in the Philippine Revolution: Jose Ignacio Paua. Manila: Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran, 1996.

Pedro, Cecilio ( , Shi Dongfang, 1953– ) Entrepreneur, philanthropist, Philippines

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r Cecilio Pedro is best known as the man behind Lamoiyan Corporation, which created Hapee toothpaste, one of the most recognized brands in the Philippines and one of the country’s greatest success stories. His primary goal as an entrepreneur is to encourage more businessmen to be socially responsible — to help people and to give back to the community. He is a fine example of how a businessman can compete against multinational conglomerates by introducing a local brand that is not only more affordable, but of a quality equal to its competitors. His position as owner of one of the most successful companies in the Philippines has given him the opportunity to implement many sociocorporate activities that have benefited the country’s poor. Born on 17 July 1953, Pedro was conferred an honorary doctorate degree on Management Science/Doctor of Philosophy in Technology Management by the Technological University of the Philippines at the age of fifty-three. ) who His father was Shi Liangrui ( ), Fujian, at the age came from Jinjing ( ), of 13. His mother was Xu Meimei ( a trained nurse from Xiamen. His father and ) came to older brother Shi Cixiang ( the Philippines together and started the Birch Tree Company, the leading distributor of milk products in the Philippines until the 1980s. He started out running Aluminum Containers, Inc. in the 1970s. His company

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supplied collapsible aluminum toothpaste tubes to toothpaste giants Colgate-Palmolive, Procter and Gamble, and the Philippine Refining Company, now called Unilever. Business went well until 1985, when plastic laminated toothpaste tubes, still being used today, were introduced locally. Toothpaste manufacturers found that customers preferred the new plastic tube more than the old aluminum ones, which mean that Aluminum Containers, Inc. was critically affected. It seemed at the time that Pedro’s only recourse was to close shop, which would have resulted in massive financial losses for him and his associates, not to mention the jobs of the company’s many employees. Instead, taking inspiration from William Colgate, Pedro refitted the factory with equipment and went on to manufacture the very product for which he had been supplying tubes previously. Two years later, Hapee and Kutitap toothpastes had become household names, having captured a significant portion of the Philippine market and providing stiff competition for big foreign brands names. Along with the change of product came a change of company name — Aluminum Containers, Inc. became “Lamoiyan Corporation”, named after Pedro’s late grandmother, the first in their family to have converted to Christianity. Pedro, a devout Christian, believed that the multinational company’s phasing out of aluminum toothpaste containers was a direct message from God for him to go into toothpaste manufacturing. The recipe for Hapee toothpaste’s success was simple, but risky. Aside from producing quality toothpaste able to compete with the international giants which, back then, not only dominated, but “were” the market, Pedro’s toothpastes were 30 per cent below his competitors’ prices. This tactic quickly made Hapee the third best-selling toothpaste in the

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

country, next to international heavyweights Close Up and Colgate. When the latter responded with a 20 per cent price cut of their own, Pedro began diversifying his products, coming up with items such as flavoured toothpaste for children. It was three years before Colgate could respond, but this period was enough for Lamoiyan to capture a big share of the market. When Hapee entered the market in 1988, the big toothpaste makers made up 99 per cent of the market. Today, the figure has dropped to 65 per cent. Aside from Hapee and Kutitap toothpastes, Lamoiyan has other products such as Hapee Kiddie Toothgels, Dazz Dishwashing Paste, and All-Purpose Kitchen Cleaner, Fresher feminine wash, and Gumtect, a special, gum-formula toothpaste. Pedro’s company’s dedication to product quality and social corporate responsibility is just like his entrepreneurial achievement, if not more impressive. Lamoiyan’s many achievements include being named the Most Outstanding Toothpaste Manufacturer by the Consumer’s Union of the Philippines for seven years; winning the Philippine Marketing Association’s Agora Award for Marketing Company of the Year; earning the 1993 Apolinario Mabini Rehabilitation Award for the Employer of theYear; and attaining the Most Outstanding Program for Equal Employment, awarded by the Personnel Management Association of the Philippines the same year; as well as a citation from the Catholic Mass Media Council for Best Outdoor Advertising for the Hapee Singing Christmas Tree. Lamoiyan’s latest success was garnering the Big Bird Award as the 2007 Asian Licensee of the Year. The company even caught the attention of Harvard University, which, after inviting Pedro to speak at a conference of Asian business leaders, later conducted a case study on how a local entrepreneur was able to penetrate a market dominated by multinationals.

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Pedro himself has received many awards as well. He was among 1991’s Ten Outstanding Young Men Awardees in the field of Business Entrepreneurship. He was an Entrepreneur of the Year finalist in the award of the same name given by the Entrepreneur of the Year Foundation in 2003; the same year he received the Aurelio Periquet Award for Business Leadership, and was named Most Outstanding Chinese Filipino in Business and Entrepreneurship by the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce. He has also won the Most Outstanding Manilan Award in the field of Entrepreneurship and Humanitarian Service, the highest honour the City of Manila can bestow on its citizens. Lamoiyan’s goodwill extends not only to its employees, but to everyone it deals with, including customers, suppliers, and dealers. The company believes that forging a trusting relationship with these parties is one of the keys to the success of its products. The company also holds regular free dental missions to urban poor and rural areas around the country. In some areas, adults, including even the elderly, would see a dentist for the first time in their lives. Personally, Pedro’s Christianity plays a big part in his social activities. He has been chairman of the Board of the Deaf Evangelistic Alliance Foundation (DEAF), Inc., which has been helping the hearing impaired by providing them with education, skills training, and employment since 1992. In fact, 30 per cent of Lamoiyan’s workforce are hearing impaired. Pedro often quips that his factory floors “are the quietest in the country”. To bridge the communication gap, the company’s managers are required to learn sign language. DEAF has been recognized by the Department of Education for its work in providing education and alleviating the conditions of the hearing impaired. Pedro is also treasurer of the Asian

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Theological Seminary, which trains evangelistic ministers; and is a member of the Chinatown Development Board, a body which seeks to restore Manila’s Chinatown to its former glory. As part of Pedro’s Christian advocacy, Lamoiyan holds Bible studies and prayer meetings for its employees and sponsors advocacies such as tree plantings and dental missions. The company holds as its motto: “To make a difference for the Glory of God”. Pedro’s various socio-civic activities have earned him the label of “social entrepreneur”. He was given the 2004 Socially Responsible Entrepreneur of theYear Award by international accounting and auditing firm Ernst & Young. That same year, Lamoiyan set aside P100 million for business expansion outside the Philippines. Lamoiyan hopes to reach other Asian countries, particularly Vietnam, China, and Indonesia. With such foresight and endeavours, it should not take long for Pedro to realize his vision of having “A Lamoiyan product in every home”. Yvette Natalie U.Tan R E F E R E N C E S Lamoiyan Corporation official website . Manila Standard Today. “Lamoiyan CEO gets honorary degree from TUP”. 6 April 2006. Retrieved June 2009 from . Marcelo, Pepper. “We can do it, says David of the Philippines”. Buzzword Media. Retrieved June 2009 from . University of Michigan website. “ASEAN Panel Integration for Effective Competition”. ASEAN Business Conference: Asia Rising, the Force Driving Global Growth. Retrieved June 2009 from . Valdez, Katrina Mennen A. “Chinatown makeover set to begin.” The Manila Times, 22 January 2008. Retrieved June 2009 from .

Peng Eng Lee ( , Fang Yongli, 1958– ) Police commissioner, poet, Brunei

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r Peng Eng Lee, now retired, was a law enforcer who played a critical role in the development of the police force of Brunei, contributing immersely to the firm security of society. He was also involved in arts and literature, having had his poetry published, and also participated in the country’s censorship panel. Peng received his primary education (Primary 1–5) at Chung Hwa Middle School, Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB). He then transferred to a government school, followed by the Sultan Omar Ali Saiffudin (SOAS) College (BSB) for two years, and then the Brunei Preparatory School for one year after which completed his primary education. He started his secondary education at Berakas English School (Forms 1–2), and completed it at St George’s School (Forms 3–5). Peng attended the Cosmopolitan College in Toronto, Canada, and obtained his High School (Honours) diploma in 1978. In 1981, he was awarded a bachelor of science degree with a major in chemistry, by the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. He next received a certificate in criminal justice education from the University of Virginia in the United States in 1990. A year later, Peng obtained a masters in business administration from Chadwick University in Alabama, the United States, and followed this up with a doctorate degree in business administration from Kensington University in California,the United States, two years later. In the same year (1993),

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

the Association of European Correspondence Schools awarded him a certificate in distance education. Peng qualified for a master of science degree in training from the University of Leicester, the United Kingdom in 1996. In 2003, he obtained a postgraduate certificate of business administration from the HeriotWatt University, in the United Kingdom. On 2 December 1996, he was accepted as a fellow of the Chartered Management Institute in the United Kingdom. After obtaining his BSc degree from the University of Saskatchewan in 1981, he had in fact returned to Brunei Darussalam and worked in several jobs such as, bank officer, assistant manager in a bottling plant, contract soil chemist, and secondary school teacher for almost two years. In 1983 he began a stable job in the Royal Brunei Police Force (RBPF) as a probationary assistant superintendent of police, and served the force for more than twenty-five years, retiring as a senior assistant commissioner of police on 30 December 2008. During his tenure with the Brunei Police Force, he took time to attain the various educational qualifications just mentioned. Peng was sent to the Singapore Police Academy in July 1984 to attend the Basic Police Cadet Course, completing it on 9 March 1985. Over the years in RBPF, he completed two important and prestigious trainings — graduating from the Federal Investigation Bureau (FBI) National Academy in Quantico, the United States, in September 1990; and graduating from the United Kingdom Police Staff College in May 1996. Other positions he held in RBPF included, officer-in-charge of criminal records and fingerprints; head of Interpol liaison office; officer-in-charge of criminal intelligence, head of training, head of personnel and administration, deputy director of the Administration and Finance Department, director of the Administration

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and Finance Department, director of the Criminal Investigation Department (2003– 08), etc. Peng was also an authority in the RBPF Gambling Suppression Branch and is an experienced gambling expert. He had prepared expert reports and testified in courts on several big gambling cases regarding 4-Digit lottery, Katam-katam, jim rummy, card games, etc. Peng served as head of Interpol Liaison between 1991 and 1996, and was quite active in ASEANAPOL (ASEAN Chiefs of Police Organisation), fostering relations between RBPF and international and regional police forces, especially in ensuring bilateral cooperation in law enforcement work. In October 1993 he represented RBPF in attending the ICPO-Interpol for National Central Bureau Officers held at the Interpol Headquarters in Lyons, France, for the purpose of upgrading international requests for RBPF services and assistance to and from Interpol member countries. Peng was also appointed the focal point for transnational crimes and counterterrorism for Brunei. He also served as the co-secretary of the Brunei National Committee on transnational crimes. He attended numerous international meetings, seminars, training sessions, and symposiums on the area of transnational crimes and counterterrorism. He also actively represented Brunei in several vital forums such as ASEAN Senior Officers Meeting on Trans-national Crimes and ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Trans-National Crimes (ASEAN SOMTC and ASEAN AMMTC), ASEAN Regional Forum on Counter-Terrorism (ARF), and Asia-Pacific Economic Countries CounterTerrorism Task Force (APEC CTTF). While he was head of training in RBPF, Peng had vast experience in organizing several important local training sessions and courses in law enforcement. He always believed that

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private entities are also important in fighting crimes hand in hand with the police, especially for sophisticated crimes such as commercial crimes, money laundering, and bank frauds. Thus, with the cooperation of the Brunei Darussalam Association of Banks, the first ever two-day Joint Economic Bank Fraud Symposium was jointly organized in Brunei in January 1995, with police officers and bank officers from ASEAN countries invited to attend. Peng has spoken locally and internationally on law enforcement issues, a highlight being his invitation as a speaker (police training in ASEANAPOL) for the 1st Asia-Pacific Conference on Police Education and Training, jointly organized by the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Philippines Public Safety College, in November 1998. Peng was an avid advocate of community policing and was once directed to take charge of a project on enhancing cooperation between the police and the public, especially in the area of information providing and crime prevention. After conducting some study tours overseas, he submitted a paper on the idea of a Neighbourhood Police Watch Group (Pengawasan Kejiranan Polis). On 28 April 1989, Peng chose his own village, Kampong Madang, to launch the first pioneer project. Over the years, the country has received a lot of benefits from the Neighbourhood Police Scheme, and, it has now spread to almost all the kampongs in the country. To face the challenge of globalization and absolute accountability to the public, Peng formed a Crime Scene Unit within the CID in 2005, within a pressing timeframe with and limited number of staff. It allows for the processing and securing of crime scenes, especially for major crimes such as murder, robbery, rape, and kidnapping, with the

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highest integrity and professionalism. With the assistance of the Singapore Police Force, the Crime Scene Unit has progressed well in the last two years, during which it was equipped with proper laboratory set-up, modern equipments and trained personnel. Peng was basically a ground man and was always personally involved in the investigation of major crime cases.This boosted morale among the CID personnel, as direct supervision and orders are essential in investigating this kind of big cases. As director of CID for more than five years, he has solved, with other CID personnel, all big cases, such as murder and gang robbery. This was a great success for the RBPF, and given firm assurance to the public. In his leisure, Peng likes to jog and read books. In the 1990s, several English poems written by him were published in the United States. He has published a poetry collection titled The Untold Tales of the Dusk in association with the Southern Poetry Association, the United States. Two of his poems, titled, “The Untold Tales of Dusk” and “An Endless Journey”, were selected to be included in the anthology Under the Canopy and Other Poems, published by CFBT (Brunei) Education Sdn. Bhd. The sultan also appointed Peng a board member of the Censoring of Films and Public Entertainment Panel for two years from 1 January 2009. During his career as a police officer, Peng was awarded several medals, such as the Police General Service Medal, Police 75th Jubilee Medal, Brunei Independent Medal (March 1997), Brunei Silver Jubilee Medal, Meritorious Service Medal (PJK, July 1994), The Most Blessed Order of Setia Negara Brunei, 4th Class (PSB, July 2000), The Most Honourable Order of Seri Paduka Mahkota Brunei, 3rd Class (SMB, July 2005), etc. Yu Chin Chai

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

R E F E R E N C E S ASEAN Regional Forum. (accessed February 2012). Brudirect. “Police Commisioner Retires”. 1 April 2001. Brudirect. “The Position of Police Legal Department Explained”. 4 September 2003. Personal Interview.

Phaichit Uwatthanakun (U Chu-liang, ,Yu Ziliang, 1899–1974) Community leader, businessman, philanthropist, Thailand

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haichit Uwatthanakunbt, better known as U Chu-liang, was a Chinese community leader in Thailand who supported the anti-Japanese movement during the Second World War. He was involved in various fundraising activities and the establishment of newspapers in support of the Chinese war effort. His influence was not restricted to Thailand, but extended to Singapore and Malaysia as well. Aside from his success in business, he was also noted for his philanthropic acts, especially in the health-care sector. In 1961 he donated a hospital to the Society for the Prevention of Tuberculosis in Thailand, and in 1962 he sponsored the establishment of a nursing home for the Red Cross Society of Thailand. U Chu-liang was born on 15 April 1899 to a family of scholars in Raoping, Guangdong. When he was nineteen years old, he set off for Thailand alone and found a job in a relative’s dye factory. Later he went on to set up his own business, the Yu Yuan Ji Paint and Dye Co., in Bangkok Chinatown with fellow townsmen. As his business thrived, he set up the De Ji Sewing Machine Co.

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During the Second World War, he expanded his business out of Thailand, setting up a paper card factory in Penang. After the war, he ventured into many industries, both in and out of Thailand. In Thailand, he set up the Bangkok Metropolitan Bank (with Uthen Taechaphaibun and several others), Bara Windsor & Co., Ltd., and many others, and eventually formed one of the biggest Chinese consortia in Thailand. His business ventures in Thailand included warehouses, insurance, fabrics, and others. Outside Thailand he established the Nanyang Insurance Co. Ltd. in Singapore, and branches of the Bangkok Metropolitan Bank and Nanyang Insurance Co. Ltd. in Hong Kong. In the 1930s he was one of the leaders of the Chinese community in Thailand, especially among the Teochews, and was one of the founders of the Teochew Association of Thailand. He was also an active supporter of the anti-Japanese movement and was vicechairperson of the Association for the Promotion of the Sale of Municipal Bonds in Thailand. In this role, he urged fellow Chinese in Thailand to donate in support of the Chinese war effort against Japan. In addition, together with fellow founders of the Teochew Association, he set up the Zhong Guo Bao and Zhong Yuan Bao as mouthpieces for the anti-Japanese movement in Thailand. Shortly after the wartime Thai government entered into a formal alliance with Japan, U Chu-liang was stranded in Penang during a business trip. During his stay in Penang, he spent approximately S$7,000 to provide relief for some 400 students and refugees from Thailand. Apart from that, he also tried to arrange for transportation for those who wished to return Thailand. As a result, he was arrested by the Japanese military forces, who claimed he was a central figure in one of the anti-Japanese movements in Penang. He was eventually released at the conclusion of the war.

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After the war, besides managing his businesses, U Chu-liang performed many philanthropic acts. During the famine which broke out in China just after the war ended, he donated rice to refugees, and also helped to establish a company in Chaozhou that sold rice at a low price. He was also generous in his donations to schools and educational institutions, both in and outside Thailand. In Thailand, he helped found Chung Hwa School before the outbreak of the Second World War. Later, he donated 10 million baht in 1960 to set up a foundation in his name to provide scholarships for students of all levels. In 1966 he donated a piece of land (approximately 64,000 sq. m.) for the building of a school. In his homeland, he set up two primary schools (one girls’ school), a secondary school, and a library. He even refurbished his ancestors’ house as a kindergarten. He participated in the founding of Han Chiang High School in Penang, which was initiated by Lim Lien Teng. He also donated generously to Chung Ling High School in Penang and to Nanyang University in Singapore. U Chu-liang was also recognized for his generosity in the health-care sector. In 1949 he invested 6 million baht to build a hospital that specialized in the prevention of tuberculosis. This hospital also provided free medical services to the poor. In 1961 he donated this hospital, together with X-ray facilities and two mobile medical stations, worth up to 600 thousand baht, to the Society for the Prevention of Tuberculosis in Thailand. In 1959 he had toured Europe to study medical facilities there for the prevention of tuberculosis. During this trip, he noticed that Europeans were concerned about both the prevention of diseases and the recovery of the sick. Hence nursing homes

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were common in Europe. Noting this, he thought it best for Thailand to learn from Europe. When he returned to Thailand, he put in 10 million baht to build a modern nursing home with state-of-the-art facilities in Bang Pu. This nursing home consisted of fifteen buildings, and covered an area of 60 rai (96,000 sq. m.). On its completion in 1962, he donated this nursing home to the Thailand Red Cross Society. King Bhumibol of Thailand honoured the opening ceremony of the nursing home with his presence and even bestowed on the nursing home its official name. Several years later, U Chu-liang developed a piece of land (approximately 136,000 sq. m.) near the nursing home into a recreation park. In recognition of his contribution to Thai society, King Bhumibol awarded him the Most Illustrious Order of Chulachomklao in 1962 after he donated the nursing home. He was also awarded the Knight Commander (Second Class) of the Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant, Knight Grand Cross (First Class), and Knight Commander (Second Class) of the Most Noble Order of the Crown of Thailand, on other occasions. U Chu-liang died of heart attack on 14 July 1974 at the age of seventy-five. Goh Yu Mei R E F E R E N C E S 〈

： 《 1967， 6–7。 〈 》。

：

〈

〉， 》。

：

，

〉， 《 ，1950， 101。 〉，《 》。

：

，

1979， 19。

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

Phan Thieåu Vân ( , Pan Shaoyun, 1940– ) Community and business leader,Vietnam

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han Thieåu Vân belongs to a rare breed of Chinese community leaders in Vietnam. In a position normally dominated by men, she stands out as the female leader of the Hainanese community in Danang, a city in the central part of Vietnam. She is overall in charge of the activities of the Hainan NativePlace Association (huiguan), maintaining continuity in the association’s religious and social functions, and ensuring its connections with the local community, with Hainanese in Vietnam, and with Hainanese diasporic communities in the United States. She is also responsible for the financial independence of the association that she helms. A successful entrepreneur, she has expanded her banquet and restaurant business for at least three decades. She is currently a member of the Fatherland Front of Vietnam, Danang, and representative of Chinese women in the Women’s Executive Committee of Hai Chau district, Danang (Ban Chaáp hành Hoäi Phuï nöõ, Quaän Haûi Châu). Vân’s restaurant, Kim Ðô, is currently built on the land owned by her father, Phan ), who was born in Chánh Hoàng ( ) of Hainan Island Wenchang district ( (China). Vân herself was born in 1940 in Tuy Hòa (Khánh Hòa province, Vietnam) where her father first established his Chinese medical hall. She was schooled in Danang where her father, also managed a Chinese medicinal shop called Teá Sanh Ðöôøng. The shop used to stand on the current site of the restaurant owned by her now. Most part of the land where the restaurant now stands was nationalized in 1976.

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Only a small part of it was used by her family who operated a food business on it. During what was called the Subsidy Period, from 1976 to late 1986, her family food business had to be jointly operated with a state-owned food and beverage cooperative in the planned economy, which rationed stamps for the purchase of goods and services. The partnership saw a new vice-manager and an accountant being dispatched to her restaurant from the local government office. In 1994, approximately eight years after the ratification of economic reforms in 1986,Vân bought the other parts of the land — in front of and behind the restaurant which used to belong to her family — from the government. The economic reforms refer to the new economic policies which allowed privately-owned enterprises to be involved in the production of goods and services. These reforms were initiated to give the socialist economy a market orientation. In the past, Vân’s father had provided shelter to migrants from Hainan Island, and the Guangxi Province of China at the back of his Chinese medicinal shop in Danang. ), was among Vân’s husband, Lâm Phöôùc ( the migrants who had taken shelter in the compound of his shop. Phöôùc left his village ), located in the called Ganlan Cun ( Wenchang district of Hainan, at the age twelve. He resided for about seven years in Hong Kong before coming to Danang. In 1997, those who had been living in Vietnam from before 1975 until 1997 could apply for Vietnamese citizenship. Phöôùc became a Vietnamese citizen then.Vân’s father, however, left Vietnam for the United States of America in 1983. The site where his first shop and family home used to be in Tuy Hòa was given to the local government after he had left for the United States. He passed away in California in 2001, leaving behind his

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wife, who is currently ninety-five years old, and nine children — seven of whom reside in California and two in Danang. Vân received her education at TruôΩng ), the only ChineseThoï Nhân ( medium school in Danang, which at the time also ran a secondary education programme.The school used to employ Taiwanese teachers and was renowned in the Chinese communities of Vietnam for its educational standard. As she had received a formal Chinese education, Vân has made sure her sons also acquire Mandarin. Even when Sino-Vietnamese relations were tumultuous and Mandarin learning and speaking invited suspicion and marginalization, she engaged a friend, a Chinese language teacher, to teach the language to Lâm Kieän ) (1970– ), her oldest son who is the ( second eldest among her five children. Kieän is currently the best Mandarin speaker among his siblings. He is married to Huyønh Queá ), whose sister, Huyønh Queá Hà Vaên ( ), is first deputy president of Sacombank ( (Ngân hàng Sài Gòn Thöông Tín; Saigon Commercial Bank). In Danang, the two clan associations there are the Five Bang Association (Hoäi Quán Nguõ Bang), housing the Temple of the Heavenly ), and Hainan Native-Place Mother ( Association (Hoäi Quán Haûi Nam), whose main deity are the 107 Hainanese heroes of Central ). The Five Vietnam, Trieäu ÖÙng Töû ( Bang Association of Danang was formed by five main Chinese dialect groups (Fujian, Teochew, Cantonese, Hainanese, and Hakka) due to their small population, while the Hainanese also has an association of their own besides being part of the Five Bang Association. An ancient belief, unique to the Hainanese of the central part of Vietnam, has it that on 16 July 1851, officers Tôn Thaát Thieåu and Pha Xích killed 107 Hainanese on board three suspicious ships on the Isle of Chiem Du in Quaûng Ngaõi province (the province

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in the central region of Vietnam); one of the Hainanese on board escaped. Emperor Töï Ñöùc then entrusted the Department of Justice to investigate the matter. When the truth of the officers’ greed which caused the massacre of the Hainanese was disclosed, death sentences were passed and the emperor ordered the building of a temple to commemorate the Hainanese killed. Vân has been the leader of Hainan NativePlace Association from 2006 to the present. She was also treasurer of the Five Bang Association from 1976 to 2004. As a leader, she has thought of a way to ensure the economic sustenance of the Hainan Native-Place Association and the continuity of its roles. In recent years, she successfully negotiated for repossession of a plot of land, formerly belonging to the Hainan Native-Place Association and nationalized in 1976. She has converted the land, located across Trieäu ÖÙng Töû where the Hainan Native-Place Association is located into a public car park which leases out garage space to car owners for a monthly fee of 500,000 dong. Revenue from the lease helps to support the operations of the Hainan Native-Place Association. In her private business, Vân owns several restaurants in Danang: King Palace, Queen Palace, and Kim Ðô. Another restaurant she owns is located in the city next to Danang, called Kim Ðô Làng Quê. King Palace has a western-style interior and its waiters serve in western uniforms; Queen Palace has a Chamstyle interior and its core business is wedding banquets while Kim Ðô and Kim Ðô Làng Quê serve Chinese and local Central Vietnamese dishes. A beer garden restaurant, which serves a variety of Asian popular dishes in a French villa and garden next to her Kim Ðô restaurant is her most recent business venture. Most of Vân’s restaurants cater to international and domestic tourists, as well as corporate clients. Vân has seven siblings residing in the United States and two in Danang. She spends

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time organizing activities for the Hainanese in Danang as well as maintaining ties with other Hainanese community leaders in other parts of Vietnam and in the United States. ), like Her brother, Phan ÖÙng Bình ( her, also assists in the operation of the two clan and native-place associations in Danang. Part of his time is devoted to balancing the books of the Five Bang Association. In 2008, the Hainan Native-Place Association of Danang organized the 40th anniversary of its establishment and gathered every Hainanese clan leader in Vietnam to celebrate at its premises. It was a rare and memorable event which helped to forge relations of all the Hainanese leaders in Vietnam. It is likely that Vân will continue her community leadership as she has the assistance of her five children (one daughter and four sons) in the management of her business, thus allowing her to devote attention to community services. Grace Chew Chye Lay R E F E R E N C E S Chew, Chye Lay, Grace. “The Linkages of NativePlace Associations in Hoi An, Vietnam”. CHC Bulletin, Singapore: Chinese Heritage Centre, June 2004, pp. 28–35. Private interview with Lâm Kieän and Phan ÖÙng Bình in October 2010, Danang.

Phan Xích Long (

, Pan Chilong; Phan Phát Sanh, , year of birth/death unknown) Early nationalist leader,Vietnam

P

han Xích Long was a Vietnamese nationalist leader who led the peasant movement against the French during the second decade of the twentieth century and later became a legend.

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Phan Xích Long was the nickname of ), alias, Laïc ( ). He Phan Phát Sanh ( was the son of Phan Núi, a Chinese police agent in Chôï Lôùn. The year of birth of Phan is unknown, but he emerged in the 1910s. When he was young, Phan had aspirations to be a hero who went after villains and brought justice to the world. Since birds of the same feather flock together, he was able to organize his own group of people with similar aspirations, and to become their “big brother”. According to David Marr, before becoming a secret society leader, Phan was a mystic who travelled from Vietnam to Siam as a fortuneteller.When he was away travelling, his associates installed an elderly man as a “living Buddha” in a village near Chôï Lôùn. Soon peasants and trades-people came to his residence to make offerings. In mid-1912 the “living Buddha” died and Phan’s associates claimed that the last words of the “living Buddha” were to make Phan the emperor. From that time onwards, “Big brother” Phan Phát Sanh began to call himself Phan Xích Long, which means “red dragon” or Hoàng Long, which also means red dragon. He acquired a yellow hat and yellow headscarf, put them on, and called himself a son of the Vietnamese king, Hàm Nghi, born in the palace of the empress. He soon named himself “emperor”. Expensive accoutrements were made for the “emperor”, including a medallion with the inscription, “Phan Xích Long Hoàng ñeá” ( ). With his “brothers”, he established a secret society akin to a Heaven ) with the purpose and Earth Society ( of pursuing a revolution against the French to restore the Vietnamese kingdom. The aim of this Heaven and Earth Society was similar to the nationalistic, anti-Manchu/ Qing dynasty Heaven and Earth societies found in China at the beginning of the Qing (Manchu) dynasty. In southern Vietnam, Heaven and Earth societies had members who

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were ethnic Hoa as well as Vietnamese, and they made the French occupiers the target of their struggle. In essence, therefore, Heaven and Earth societies in southern Vietnam at the beginning of the twentieth century, such as that started by Phan, were fighting for the independence of Vietnam. This society made guns and bombs for armed struggle, and leaflets for distribution all over Saigon, Chôï Lôùn, and Bình Tây, to call on the people to revolt on 28 March 1913. It was said that Phan was in charge of the final attack plan which depended on a number of bombs, but the bombs failed to explode. The uprising was soon put down and Phan was arrested in Phan Thieát. In all 111 persons were arrested and put to trial from 5–12 November 1913. After the upper courts heard the cases, fifty-four were acquitted; and six of them received life sentences of hard labour, including Phan. (However, according to Nguyeãn Vaên Huy, Phan was actually sentenced to death on charges of terrorism and was under detention in Chí Hòa jail in Saigon awaiting the day of reckoning. But it seems that this assertion is incorrect. Had Phan been sentenced to death, his followers would not have waited three years to stage a jailbreak.) The capture and eventual sentences of Phan and his associates were earthshaking news to the underworld at the time. At the trial, Phan bravely told the court that he was rising against the French because they imposed heavy taxes; the bombs he placed were to cow the French into reducing taxes. He told he had learnt to make bombs in Thailand and thought nothing of death and even looked forward to a death sentence for his country. In fact, since 1885 there had already been peasant uprisings against the French colonial government. In the twentieth century, the Vietnamese, including those of Chinese

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descent, continued to organize themselves to overthrow the French. The failure of the 1913 uprising did not deter them and the subsequent 1916 uprising involved more areas and took place during the German-French war. It therefore posed a more serious threat than that of 1913. Not surprisingly, the French colonial government was harsher towards the rebels in this uprising. In March 1916, taking advantage of the German invasion of France, a number of young colleagues in Saigon from Phan’s Heaven and Earth Society organized a major jailbreak to release their “big brother”. The rescuers wore the black-coloured bà ba traditional tunic top and white-coloured pants, so as to recognize each other. They carried swords and machetes as weapons, and wore amulets on their chest. Some amulets were burned and dipped into water, and as they regarded the water as holy, they drank it, believing from then on they would be invincible to sword or bullets. They sneaked near the jail in small junk boats and began their operation at 3 am. Their swords and machetes were, however, no match for French guns. Six were shot dead in the operation, and fifty-one of the rescuers were arrested and sentenced to death. On 22 February 1916, the French executed thirtyeight of these, and, on 16 March 1916, another thirteen. All the dead bodies were buried in a common grave in a field called the Common Training Ground that belonged to the church in Hieàn Vöông Street, Chôï Lôùn. The contemporaries of these fifty-seven people were honoured as heroes and stories about their fate were passed on orally among the people and patriots. These stories have served to inspire works of many operas, songs, and drama plays of the south. Phan Thò Yeán Tuyeát

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R E F E R E N C E S Phan, Thöù Lang. Sài Gòn vang bóng. HCMC Publishers, 2001, pp. 188, 195–97. Marr, David G. Vietnamese Anticolonialism, 1885–1925. Berkeley: California University Press, 1971. Nguyeãn, Vaên Huy. Ngöôøi Hoa taïi Vieät Nam. Paris: NBC Publisher, 1993. Smith, R. B. “The Development of Opposition to French Rule in Southern Vietnam 1880–1940”. Past and Present, no. 54 (Feb. 1972): 94–129. Sôn Nam. Mieàn Nam ñaàu theá kyû XX: Thiên ñòa hoäi và cuoäc Minh Tân. Saigon: Phù-Sa Publisher, 1974.

Phat, David (Sy Kong Huot, , Xu Guangfa, 1946– ) Economist, writer, politician, Cambodia

D

avid Phat is an economist specializing in studying the Cambodian economy. He is widely known for his bilingual book, Assessment of Cambodian Economy 》), the first book on (《 the macroeconomy of Cambodia, published in 2000, and one that he had started working on since 1998. The second edition of this book that was published in July 2007 was enhanced with more data and updated information on Cambodian’s economic zones and rural development. Phat hopes that this book that provides a holistic picture on investment in Cambodia will, in turn, attract foreign investors to his country. In his book, he stresses that Cambodia has a liberal investment climate because companies can be wholly foreign-owned, taxes are low, and profits can be transferred out of the country without restrictions. This book was originally written in English, and was then translated into Chinese and Khmer languages. The Chinese version of the book has been reproduced in

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chapters by the local daily newspaper, the Commercial News, and the English version has been running in the local bi-weekly, the Mekong News and Business Advertisement. Sale of his book has since exceeded 12,000 copies, and it can be found in many bookstores and libraries worldwide. Besides the above mentioned book on the Cambodian economy, Phat has also written a book entitled, Cambodia’s Retrospect, which is about his experiences during the Khmer Rouge regime. This book has yet to be published because the genocide trial of the four top Khmer Rouge leaders for war crimes — Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, leng Sary, and leng Thirith — are still ongoing. During the Khmer Rouge regime, Phat’s relatives and friends, who numbered as many as seventy, lost their lives. Phat was born on 26 February 1946 in Kampot Province, to Sy Seng Yuoh alias Phat Kuy (father), and Heng Yoat Sieu (mother). His father, who was born in Hainan Province, Qiong San Prefecture, migrated to Cambodia in 1938, and married a second time after the migration, leaving his first wife and a son still living in China. Besides keeping communication ties with his immediate family, David Phat also maintains contacts with his uncle and a cousin who are also living in Hainan. During an interview with David Phat in June 2008, his own mother was said to be ninety years old while his father had passed away, at the age of 102 years. Phat is married to Diep Sieu Khin, alias Stefanie Diep Phat, and they have two sons. All his family members are now U.S. citizens. Both his sons are working in the United States, the elder as a shift mechanic, and the second, an application engineer. Phat himself is fluent in Khmer, Chinese, English, and Vietnamese, and speaks many Chinese dialects too.

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Phat had gone to high school in Phnom Penh and between 1968 and 1971, worked as a manager at Khmer Honsa Airlines. Later, between 1971 and 1973, he was employed by Amtraco, an American company. He feels that he was lucky to have been employed by these companies because they helped him and his wife to evacuate from Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge came to power in April 1975. In 1973, he took up a diploma course in economics at the Chung Shing University in Taiwan and returned to Cambodia after his graduation in late 1974.After experiencing five of the hardest years under the Khmer Rouge regime, his first migration was in 1979 when he crossed the Cambodia-Vietnam border to unite with his sister in Vietnam. Between 1980 and 1988, he worked as an English teacher at Song Be High School, a former province of Dong Nam Bo region in SouthVietnam.When the political situation continued to worsen in the region, he made his second migration to the Philippines in 1988. There, he found a job as an assistant teacher in the English language at the International Catholic Migration Commission, Philippines Refugee Camp. In 1989 he chanced upon an opportunity to migrate successfully to the United States with his family. Phat’s career has been diverse, having changed from an academic career to a business one after he settled down in the United States. He worked at Chinatown Express, a well known Chinese restaurant in Los Angeles, from 1990 to 1996. Then between 1996 and 2001, he returned to Cambodia to work as an operation manager at the KT Pacific Group, a company owned by his cousin, Okhna Kong Triv, who is a politician, as well as a well known entrepreneur in Cambodia. In October 2001, he returned to Los Angeles to live with his family and found a job as a case manager cum job developer at the United Vietnamese

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Community Council, where he stayed for three years. In May 2005, he was invited to return to the KT Group to assume the general manager position, a role he has kept to this day. During this time he has seen the company developing from a small family business in the early 1990s to a large group enterprise. On 12 February 2007, in recognition of his knowledge in business and contributions to the economic development of Cambodia, the Government of Cambodia issued a royal decree to appoint him adviser to Samdesh, the president of the senate, and he was conferred a rank equivalent to under secretary of state. Phat also received the title of His Excellency (H.E) from then on. Lim Boon Hock R E F E R E N C E S Phat, David（徐光发）。Assessment of Cambodian Economy 《 》。 ：《 》， 2007。 Interview, June 2008.

Pho Chaeng ( , Pujing, 1901–86) Religious leader,Thailand

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ho Chaeng Mahathera ( , Master Pujing) was the monk dean general of Mahayana Buddhists in Thailand. He was also the chairperson of the Mahayana Commission of Thailand (Khana kammakan song chinnikai), and abbot of both Wat Mangkon Kamalawat and Wat BhomanKhunaram. His monastic name is Nengchi or Pujing.Throughout his life, he devoted himself to the promotion of Chinese Buddhist doctrines and made tremendous contributions. Through his efforts, Chinese Buddhism flourished in

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Thailand. Chinese Buddhist monks could be ordained in Thailand and many Chinese Buddhist temples were built. Pho Chaeng Mahathera enjoyed deep influence not only in Thailand, but also throughout Asia. Pho Chaeng Mahathera was born on 16 June 1901 in Jieyang, Guangdong, into a gentry family whose surname was Huang. His father died when he was still very young, and he was raised by his mother, who was a devout Buddhist. Under the influence of his mother, he became interested in Buddhism and started studying various Buddhist scriptures. He admired Thailand as a flourishing Buddhist country and relocated to Thailand in 1927. He became a Theravada Buddhist monk in a temple at Phraphutthabat, Saraburi Province. During his six-year stay in Thailand, he devoted himself to the study and teaching of Buddhist doctrines. In 1934, he returned to China and was formally ordained in Huiju Temple on Baohua Mountain in Longtan, Jiangsu. During his two-year stay in Huiju Temple, he studied Buddhist doctrines diligently. After he returned to Thailand in 1936, he established the Lihua Monastery to promote Mahayana Buddhist learning in Thailand. Many were attracted to study Buddhism under him. During the course of teaching, he felt the need to further his own studies in Buddhism. Hence he returned to China again in 1941. During this visit, he travelled to the northwestern region of China, where he studied Vajrayana Buddhism. When he returned to Thailand in 1947, he was bestowed a piece of land in Tha Maka, Kanchanaburi, by the king of Thailand to build a Vajrayana Buddhist temple,Wat Pho Yen.This became the first legal Chinese Vajrayana temple in Thailand, and was completed in 1950.While Wat Pho Yen was still under construction, Pho Chaeng Mahathera also founded the Pho Yen Hospital, Pho Yen Villa, Pho Tong Sutra

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Depository, and the Sangha College at the same time. The following year, he headed to China for the third time and became the nineteenth great master of the Qianhua branch of the Ritsu School in China. He returned to Thailand in 1950 and was given the title, Left Monastic Director of the Chinese monks. In addition, he was also named abbot of Wat Pho Yen and given the religious authority to ordain monks by Thailand’s Supreme Patriarch, who is the chief Buddhist monk in the country. He was the first Chinese Mahayana monk to be given such authority in Thailand. In the following years, he was bestowed monastic titles seven times by King Bhumibol of Thailand, and was given more responsibilities within the Thai Mahayana community. In 1951 he was promoted to Right Monastic Director of the Chinese monks. Two years later, he was named abbot of Wat Mangkon Kamalawat. That same year, he became the first chairperson of the newly formed Mahayana Commission of Thailand, which manages Chinese Buddhist temples in Thailand. In 1964 he became the patriarch of the Chinese monks in Thailand. Pho Chaeng Mahathera was celebrated widely for his efforts in promoting Chinese Buddhism. He founded and refurbished several Chinese Buddhist temples, including Wat Pho Yen, Wat Mangkon Kamalawat, and Wat Bhoman-Khunaram, which is often regarded as the most beautiful Chinese Buddhist temple in Thailand. Pho Chaeng Mahathera started preparations for the construction of the temple with bureaucrats, Chinese businessmen, and other Buddhists in Thailand from 1959. The temple was officially opened on 12 March 1964 after the first stage of construction was completed. It was finally completed after ten years. The total cost of this temple, which covers an area of 20 rai (32,000 sq. m.), was

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more than 30 million baht. In 1971, Wat Bhoman-Khunaram was also bestowed the honour to have the royal initials of the Thai king above its entrance. Pho Chaeng Mahathera was also concerned about the quality of Chinese monks in Thailand. After gaining the religious authority to ordain monks, he was especially particular about the behaviour of Chinese monks and therefore set guidelines for the proper behaviour expected of them. In addition, he collected various Buddhist scriptures, and republished them in Chinese, English, and Thai to promote Chinese Buddhism in Thailand. He established numerous monastic colleges, for example, the Sangha College in 1947, and a monastic school within Wat BhomanKhunaram in 1966. Many of his disciples have become admirable figures within the Chinese Mahayana community. Under his leadership, there was much development within the Chinese monastic community. Firstly, Chinese monks were able to be ordained in Thailand, instead of having to travel to China for ordination. Secondly, the Mahayana Commission of Thailand was formed as a centralized institution to manage all Chinese Buddhist temples in Thailand. Thirdly, the kathin ceremony was revived in the Chinese monastic community. After Pho Chaeng became abbot of Wat Pho Yen and Wat Mangkorn Kamalawat, he tried to revive the kathin ceremony — the ceremony of offering new robes to Buddhist monks at the conclusion of the Buddhist Lent — in the Chinese monastic community. Because of his efforts, both Thai and Chinese Buddhists, including high-ranking officials in the Thai government, could make donations during the kathin ceremony in Thailand’s Chinese monastic community. Pho Chaeng Mahathera was regarded as the most eminent monk among Southeast

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Asian Chinese. He was invited to give speeches or host Buddhist ceremonies in various countries, such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and Laos, and was well received when he led a delegation to China. He passed away on 25 September 1986 at the age of eighty-five. Many prominent members of the Thai Buddhist community, including the Thai Supreme Patriarch, graced his funeral. Goh Yu Mei R E F E R E N C E S Yan Jiu. Teachings of Master Pujing (Saratthathammahayan khong phra khanachanchin thammasamathiwat [pho chaeng)]. Bangkok: Rungnakorn Press, 1970. (accessed March 2011). 〉， 》。

〈

《 ，1967，

：

58–59。 》。

《

：

，1971.

Phoa Keng Hek ( , Pan Jinghe, 1857–1937) Community leader, founding president of Tiong Hoa Hwe Koan, Indonesia

T

he establishment of Tiong Hoa Hwe ), the first Koan (THHK modern Chinese organization in Indonesia, marked the beginning of Chinese cultural nationalism in the Dutch East Indies in the early twentieth century. It was this movement that forced the Dutch colonial government to introduce the HCS or Dutch School for the Chinese in order to win over the Peranakan Chinese.The founding president of this organization was Phoa Keng Hek, son of a wealthy kapitan.

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Phoa was born in Bogor in 1857 and received his education at a traditional Hokkien school and a Dutch mission school (in Cianjur) where he came to know a fellow student, Lie Kim Hok. Phoa continued his education at the Primary School for Europeans (ELS, Bogor) and was thus able to speak and write Dutch. After marrying the daughter of a lieutenant he settled down in Jakarta and was engaged in the business of dealing in agricultural products. Because of his good command of Dutch, he was able to move in Dutch circles. At the same time he was able to communicate with the local Chinese community and, being outspoken, became the spokesman of the local Chinese. Up to the end of the nineteenth century officers appointed by the Dutch were considered leaders by the Chinese in the community. These appointments were determined by their influence (derived mainly from wealth) in the Chinese community. Authority was vested in them by the Dutch and their function was primarily to administer the Chinese. However, by the end of the nineteenth century, a reform movement had emerged in China and Chinese nationalism was on the rise.The discrimination against ethnic Chinese in the Dutch East Indies (for example, “zoning” and the “pass system” targeting the Chinese) had also led to discontent within the Chinese community. Hence those descendants of officers and big businessmen who were exposed to modern education and political change in both China and the region started to lead a pan-Chinese movement in Java. In 1900 Phoa and other ethnic-conscious Peranakan such as Lie Kim Hok, Tan Kim San, and a totok, Lie Hin Liam, established the THHK, the first pan-Chinese association in Indonesia. Phoa served as its president up to 1923. He was not only the founding president, but also the longest serving president of the THHK.

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The THHK was first established in Batavia (Jakarta) and initially aimed at promoting Confucianism, but soon developed into an organization promoting modern Chinese education in the Dutch East Indies. Phoa and his THHK group wanted reform in outdated Indonesian Chinese customs using the teachings of Confucius, especially regarding burial practices. To understand Confucianism, it was important to know the Chinese language, hence the THHK established its own schools, first in Jakarta, and later in Java and all over Indonesia. As Phoa also recognized the importance of English, the THHK offered classes for English instead of Dutch as a foreign language.The choice of Mandarin (rather than a dialect) and English for the THHK schools is significant. Phoa in a newspaper article (1907) stated: The Chinese in the Indies have opened their eyes. They know that the Chinese and English languages are widely used outside the Indies. It is not surprising that nowadays the Indies Chinese are more interested in teaching their children the two languages than the Dutch language, although they are still under Dutch rule. Moreover, the Chinese realize that if they are literate in Chinese and English, they can just take a two or three days voyage (Java-Singapore) into a wider world where they can move freely. With the knowledge [of these two languages], the Chinese here feel that the Indies is too small for them, because they are only allowed to live in a certain part of the town. If they wish to travel from one town to another, they have to obtain passes.

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I don’t have to elaborate on this because it has been widely discussed in the newspapers. It was reported that Phoa got the help of Lim Boon Keng in Singapore in finding an English school teacher for the THHK. To promote Confucianism, Phoa also personally invited Kang Youwei to visit Java in 1903 and treated Kang as an important guest. He was host to the leader of a Qing imperial mission in 1907 as well. However it was also reported that in 1911 he got in touch with the Chinese revolutionaries and supported the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912. However many of the Dutch-appointed “officers” were reportedly opposed to the revolutionaries and only accepted the ROC long after its establishment. Phoa was also concerned with local issues and two examples illustrating this were mentioned in the local newspapers and widely known to the Indonesian Chinese communities. One was his effort to eradicate gambling, and the other, his success in breaking the robbers’ syndicate. In 1904 Phoa leased a piece of private land in Bekasi (West Java) and in 1905 succeeded in securing the annual licence for operating a gambling house in Bekasi (in the Jakarta suburb). After getting the licence, he paid all the gambling taxes to the government out of his own pocket, but refused to operate the gambling house. He was sued by the local officer for breach of contract. Phoa argued that there was no stipulation that the licence holder had to operate the gambling house, and that he was doing society a good service by closing it down. He even urged the government to stop issuing gambling licences. The colonial government was unable to make him open the gambling house and so Bekasi had no gambling house, at least for a year.

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At one time there were a lot of robberies in the Bekasi area.The government was unable to resolve the problem as no one was able to produce evidence that could lead to the arrest of the culprits. Apparently the robbers were collaborating with a local government officer in the robberies. The victims who wanted to get their stolen goods back had to pay 200 guilders to an agent, a sum which many of the victims could not afford. Phoa eventually collaborated with one victim and set a trap for the agent. He asked the victim to pay the agent with banknotes printed with certain serial numbers. The notes were traceable, which led to the capture of the ringleader who turned out to be a high-ranking local officer (asisten demang). Once the syndicate was dissolved, the robberies ceased. Phoa was well known for his writings in the local newspaper. He was critical of the Dutch discriminatory policy against the Chinese and published a number of articles in Perniagaan (a major Peranakan newspaper in Jakarta) on this matter using Hoa Djin (or ) huaren which means “Chinese person”, as his pen-name (1900s). In 1937 Phoa received a knighthood from the Netherlands Crown, shortly before passing away in Jakarta. Leo Suryadinata R E F E R E N C E S Kwee, Tek Hoay. “Atsal Moelanja Pergerakan Tionghoa di Java”. Moestika Romans 7, no. 80 (August 1936): 776– 78; 9, no. 98 (February 1938): 85–88. Phoa, Kian Sioe. “Phoa Keng Hek Sia”. In Mingguan Sadar VIII, no. 20 (19 August 1956): 40–45. Suryadinata, Leo. Peranakan Chinese Politics in Java 1917–1942, pp. 1–20. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1980, 2nd edition. ——— (ed.). Political Thinking of the Indonesian Chinese 1900–1995, a source book, pp. 3–10. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1997.

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Williams, Lea E. Overseas Chinese Nationalism: The Genesis of the Pan-Chinese Movement in Indonesia 1900–1916, pp. 136–42. Illinois, Glencoe: The Free Press.

Phonlachet Kitaworanat ( , Fang Siruo, 1932–99) Newspaperman, writer, entrepreneur,Thailand

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honlachet Kitaworanat, better known as Fang Siruo among the Chinese-speaking community, made major contributions to Thai-Chinese literature and the Chinese press, and was president of Thailand’s Chinese Literature Writers Association ( ) and director of the Chinese newspaper 》). Xinzhongyuan (《 Fang was born in Bangkok, Thailand, in ), 1932. His ancestors were from Puning ( Guangdong Province, China. He did not receive any formal education at all, having enrolled only in an evening school to study Chinese language for three years, but he was passionate about learning and was talented in writing. He worked as a street vendor, a construction worker and, finally, a newspaperman — the ideal career he was longing for. Fang started his newspaper work with the Chinese newspaper, Mangu Xinwen (《 》, Bangkok News). Because of the company’s lack of personnel and capital, he had to do almost everything. This means that he not only wrote all news releases, but was also responsible for the editing of the news section, and Mangu Gongyuan (《 》, Bangkok Public Park), a supplement on literature and art. As a dexterous and humble writer, Fang sometimes made fun of himself, as he could write everything he was asked to. His job included, but was not limited to, editorials, film reviews, essays, short stories, novels, and poetry. Later, Fang decided to

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give Mangu Xinwen a new section on fiction, 》), which soon became a “Xiaoshuo” (《 readers’ paradise to lovers of Chinese literature in Thailand. When Fang took charge of this “Xiashuo” section, he appealed to his literary friends to publish their work there, especially their short stories. Many of his friends responded, and more than a hundred short stories were published in the section over a short period of time. That is why many of Fang’s literary friends attribute their success in creating short stories to Fang’s encouragement. The running of a newspaper, as well as literary and artistic creation, was Fang’s favourite occupation. He was smart, flexible, and creative, as demonstrated by his enthusiasm in encouraging his literary friends to join his ), project of writing Jielong Xiaoshuo ( literally meaning “connecting dragon novel”, which was written in turn by several writers — each author, having completed his chapter, would announce the plot of his chapter of the next author. The first such novel was Pobishe 》, The crooked Waizhuan (《 biography of a wealthy man who went bankrupt), which was started by Fang Siruo himself and completed by his literary friends ), Li Xu ( ), such as Ni Changyou ( ), and Shen Yiwen ( ). It Yi Fei ( was well received by many readers. After its success, Fang and his wife, Pusadi Kitaworanat ), who was also a prominent (He Yun, Thai-Chinese journalist, began to run their own Chinese weekly newspaper, Huafeng Zhoubao 》), and again, invited their (《 friends to create another novel in the form of the Jielong Xiaoshuo. The new novel, Fengyu 》, Yaowarat in Yaohuali (《 Rainstorm), was first serialized from 1963 to 1964 in HuafengZhoubao, then printed in book form in 1983 by a publisher in Hong Kong. The nine authors who participated in it were

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Yi Fei, Yi She, Li Xu, Shen Yiwen, Li Hong , real name “Xu Jinghua”, ), ( Hong Ying, Bailing, Chen Qiong, and Fang Siruo (using the pen name Nai Fang, meaning Mr Fang). Yaowarat was a flourishing typical Chinatown in Bangkok, where a large number of ethnic Chinese of every class lived. Stories in the novel were set here, when two men of Chinese origin from southern Thailand, Li Jun and Ya Fu, came to earn a living in Bangkok. Li Jun was a soft-hearted intellectual who dreamed of being a Chinese newspaper man, while Ya Fu was a funny, less educated man who seemed to understand life better than Li Jun. They rented a cheap room in a small apartment owned by a greedy Chinese landlady in Yaowarat Road. In the same building, they made new friends and struggled on with their lives. The novel was very successful, and has become a classic in Sino-Thai literature. However, Fang’s Huafeng Zhoubao was unfortunately closed by the Thai authorities as it was considered to have been pro-People’s Republic of China, and during that period, the Thai authorities were still suspicious of Beijing. Fang was prohibited from running a newspaper again. As a result, he had to give up literature and move into business In fact, the ban of Huafeng Zhoubao was a blessing in disguise for Fang. The real estate company that he established, Happy Land Group, later became very well known in Thailand, and contributed extensively to the development of the Bangkapi area of Bangkok. Although Fang Siruo was a wealthy businessman, he never forgot where he came from. After the normalization of relations between Thailand and China in 1975, he returned to his lifelong love for literature. He took over the Chinese newspaper, Xinzhongyuan, and became its director in 1985. Under his supervision, the supplementary page on “literature and art” was vivid and dramatic.

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More importantly, Fang called on the literary circle to establish Thailand’s Chinese Literature Writers Association with himself as its first president. In the “Foreword” of Thailand’s Chinese Literary Magazine (《 》) Fang wrote: “We are an old ox pulling an old cart on rough and muddy roads. We keep moving forward … regardless of the dead end; or whether there is a way out or not. We will continue our writing, and raise our standards.Thus, we have to do our best for our generation.” This remarkable quotation reflects Fang’s spirit of fortitude in promoting Chinese literature in Thailand. Kornphanat Tungkeunkunt R E F E R E N C E S 〈 17 。

〉，《

《 2008。

》。 《

《

》。 》。

》，2010 ：

：

1 ，

，1983。 ：

，1990。

Phraya Ratsadanupradit (Khaw Sim Bee na Ranong, , Xu Xinmei, 1857–1913) Businessman, governor of Ranong,Thailand

B

orn in the southern Thai province of Ranong in 1856, Phraya Ratsadanupraditmahitsoraphakdi or Khaw Sim Bee was the youngest son of the Fujian-born merchant Khaw Soo Cheang. His father had immigrated to Penang in the early 1820s and, after a period on that island, established himself in trading between Penang and such centres on the west coast of southern Siam as Phang Nga, Takua Pa, and Ranong. That trade saw cloth and other imported goods

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exchanged for products such as black pepper, tin, copra, and bird’s nests. Khaw Soo Cheang invested in the mining sector in Ranong and also went into the business of transporting Chinese coolies from Penang to work in the province’s tin mines. In 1844 he secured the tax farm on tin in Ranong and was created of Luang Rattanasetthi. Not least in recognition of the revenues that he had transmitted to the Bangkok state, Khaw Soo Cheang was named governor of Ranong as Phra Ratthanasetthi in 1854. He was awarded the title Phraya Rattanasetthi in 1862 and died in 1882 as Phraya Damrongsucharitmahitphakdi. Among his elder sons, one would serve as governor of Lang Suan, and another would succeed him as governor of Ranong. Some sources report that Khaw Sim Bee lacked any formal education and was, though multilingual, illiterate. At age twenty-five he became deputy governor of Ranong, serving under his brother Khaw Sim Kong, and was created Luang Siriraklohawisai. Four years later, in 1885, he became governor of Kraburi as Phra Atsadongkotthitraksa. During a tour of the South in 1890/91, King Chulalongkorn noted the contrast between the poor state of administration in Trang and Khaw Sim Bee’s achievements in Kraburi. He decided to appoint Khaw Sim Bee governor of Trang, with the title Phraya Ratsadanupraditmahitsoraphakdi. Phraya Ratsada or Khaw Sim Bee made a great success of his work in Trang. Taking an active, developmentalist approach to government and to the economy of this centre of black pepper cultivation and node of Chinese settlement, he integrated the newly elected village headmen more fully into provincial administration, promoted the agricultural sector, and built roads. These latter included a seventy-kilometre road from Trang across the mountains in the centre of southern

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Siam to Phatthalung Province on the east coast of the peninsula. In 1893/94, he moved the province’s seat of government or mueang from Khuan Thani to Kantang, on the Trang River some twelve kilometres from the sea. He laid out a well planned mueang at this new site and developed Kantang as an important port in Penang’s commercial and social hinterland on the Andaman coast of Siam. Trang’s emergence as a model of administration for other Siamese provinces led King Chulalongkorn to promote Phraya Ratsada to the post of superintendentcommissioner of Phuket Circle in 1900. Under the thetsaphiban system introduced by interior minister Prince Damrong Rachanuphap starting in 1893, Siam’s administrative circles, or monthon, grouped several provinces together as a means of furthering the Bangkok state’s and its representatives’ penetration, control, and administration of them. Phuket Circle included the provinces of Satun, Trang, Krabi, Phang Nga, Phuket, Takua Pa, and Ranong — the entirety that is, of the west coast of southern Siam from the border with Malaya to that with Burma. In his new position, Phraya Ratsada introduced and energetically pursued policies similar to those that his developmentalist vision had brought to Trang. These policies fell in the areas of education, public health, local administration, and road building. They included the promotion of agriculture, commerce, and mining. And they saw Phraya Ratsada follow the example of his father in Ranong in bringing public order to a society made volatile by the presence of large numbers of immigrant Chinese mine workers and by the activities of “secret societies” among them. In 1896/97, Phraya Ratsada joined King Chulalongkorn’s party on a trip to Java in the Netherlands East Indies. He subsequently made a second trip there, this one devoted

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to studying the construction of roads in mountainous terrain. At the latest by the time of the latter trip, Phraya Ratsada had grown interested in the possibility of introducing Pará rubber to southern Siam and in its potential contribution to the economy of Phuket Circle. Aware of the rapid spread of rubber cultivation in Malaya during 1895–1900 and able by 1901–02 to arrange the licit export of planting materials to Siam, Phraya Ratsada introduced the new crop to Trang. In keeping with his customary developmentalist approach and working with his nephew and successor as Trang governor, Penang Free School alumnus Phraya Sunthorn (Khaw Joo Keat), he established a government demonstration plantation, made planting materials available to cultivators, and introduced further incentives to stimulate adoption of the new crop. His work helped make Trang and neighbouring parts of Phuket Circle one of the three principal areas in which Siam’s smallholderdominated rubber economy emerged in the first years of the twentieth century. The other two were Narathiwat Province, adjacent to the Malay state of Kelantan, and the Betong area of Yala Province, abutting Kedah and Perak at the southernmost point of Siamese territory. One must understand Phraya Ratsada’s role in the transmission of rubber from Malaya to the west coast of southern Siam in the context of his own and, more broadly, the Khaw family’s leading position from the 1890s up until at least the time of the First World War in diverse sectors of the economy of that coast. These sectors included tin mining and smelting; tax farming; shipping and the trade in manufactured imports and primary exports; and provisioning tin mines with opium, labourers, and other supplies. The family’s enterprises dominated the economy of Siam’s Andaman coast. Other Penang concerns active there effectively operated under the umbrella

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of Khaw interests.Throughout Phraya Ratsada’s long years of distinguished service to Siam, Penang remained in many ways at the centre of his activities; he maintained a large Italianate residence, named Chakrabong House after a son of King Chulalongkorn, in George Town. Bangkok’s reliance on Phraya Ratsada and other members of the Khaw family to bring order, modern administration, and prosperity to the west coast of peninsular Siam succeeded in three important regards. That reliance consolidated Siam’s hold on that coast, blocked its informal colonization by Britain, and made it an important source of Siamese state revenue. At the same time, this policy reinforced the social and commercial linkages that tied the coast to Penang and, that, along with the infrastructure and prosperity that Phraya Ratsada helped foster in Phuket Circle, made it very much a place apart from the rest of Siam. In 1911 King Wachirawut appointed Phraya Ratsada to his Privy Council. This honour recognized not only his long service to Bangkok and his success in consolidating administration on the west coast of peninsular Siam but also the important contribution of Phuket Circle under Phraya Ratsada’s administration to the Siamese fisc. In late February 1913, a member of the staff of the Trang hospital shot Phraya Ratsada and his nephew Khaw Joo Keat on the docks in Kantang. Taken to Penang, Phraya Ratsada died on 10 April and his nephew less than a month later. Phraya Ratsada was buried alongside his father’s tomb in Ranong on 1 June 1913. On 1 July 1915, King Wachirawut bestowed the surname “na Ranong” on Khaw Yu Ngee, a grandson of Khaw Soo Cheang who at the time held the title of Phraya Rattanasetthi and served as governor of Ranong. The Thai branch of the Khaw

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family has used that surname ever since. Its many distinguished members have included Kittirat na Ranong, a former managing director of the Securities Exchange of Thailand who became minister of commerce and deputy prime minister in the government of Yingluck Shinawatra in August 2011. Although he was murdered before the surname’s bestowal, Phraya Ratsada is known in Thailand as Khaw Sim Bee na Ranong. Following the end of Siam’s absolute monarchy in 1932, and despite both his close association with the ancien régime and his Chinese ethnicity, the country’s new rulers in the People’s Party invoked Phraya Ratsada’s developmentalism with approval. In April 1951, during the second premiership of Field Marshal Po. Phibunsongkhram, five days of celebrations marked the dedication of a memorial honouring Phraya Ratsada in Trang. Featuring a statue of Phraya Ratsada, the monument was built in a pleasant park on the outskirts of the provincial centre at Thap Thiang, to which the mueang moved from Kantang just three or four years after Phraya Ratsada’s demise. Standing on the same road to Phatthulung Province that Phraya Ratsada built during his term of service as Trang’s governor, the monument symbolizes the Bangkok state’s recognition of Khaw Sim Bee as an important figure in Thailand’s national history. Serving as Trang’s provincial monument, it is the site of an official ceremony to honour his legacy on 10 April of every year. Michael J. Montesano R E F E R E N C E S Cushman, Jennifer W. Family and State: The Formation of a Sino-Thai Tin-Mining Dynasty, 1797–1932. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1991. Daruni Kaewmuang. “The Condition and Significance of Mueang Trang, 1809/10-1897/98” (Thana lae

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khwamsamkhan khong mueang trang pho. so. 23522440). Master’s thesis, Chulalongkorn University, 1983. ———. “Phraya Ratsadanupraditmahitsoraphakdi (Khaw Sim Bee na Ranong): Leader in the Administration of the Thai Provinces of the West Coast, 1901/02-1913/14” (Phraya Ratsadanupraditmahitsoraphakdi [Kho Sim Bi na Ranong]: phu nam kanpokkhrong hua mueang thai fang tawantok pho. so. 2444-2456). Master’s thesis, Sinakharinwirot University, Prasanmit Campus, 1983. Landon, Kenneth P. The Chinese in Thailand. London: Oxford University Press, 1941. Trang Province. “The History of Provincial Administration: Trang Province” (Prawattisat mahatthai suan phumiphak changwat trang). Trang: Provincial Office, 1985. Wirat Thiraphanmethi. Phraya Ratsadanupradit (Kho Sim Bee na Ranong): The Ministry of the Interior’s Sparkling Diamond (Phraya Ratsadanupradit [Kho Sim Bi na Ranong]: phet namnueng khong krasuang mahatthai). Bangkok: Mahachulalongkon ratchawitthayalai, n. d.

Pitt Chin Hui ( , Bi Junhui, 1906–81) Lay Buddhist, educator, philanthropist, Singapore

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itt Chin Hui was a devotee of Buddhism, a lay practitioner who was very interested in research and cultural work. She translated Buddhist scriptures, gave Buddhism talks on radio, and wrote bilingual Buddhism textbooks for both primary and secondary ) regarded levels. Ven. Siong Khye ( the founding of Maha Bodhi School ( ) and the World Fellowship of Buddhists Regional Centre in Singapore as the two gems of her contributions. He also commended her on her display of exemplary patience, determination, and resilience, which were keys to her many accomplishments in life. Pitt was born on 23 September 1906 to ), Pitt a wealthy family in Hua County ( ) in Guangdong, China.This birth Village ( date is verified by Pitt’s nephew, Pitt Kuan Wah, and the “year” is as stated in her oral history

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records as well. The “1900” indicated in her autobiography could have been a typographical error. Her original name was a more feminine ), but she did not want “Pitt Xiuying” ( to be a girl, and being the youngest in the family, as well as pampered and spoilt, she just changed it to the more masculine one she was known by. Her father passed away when she was one and her mother, Feng Qingkui ( ), who was not willing to continue living in the village, left and joined a relative who was doing business in Penang. She returned later to fetch Pitt when the young girl was five so that she could receive a desired education. Pitt’s mother was illiterate, and having realized the importance of education, arranged for a bilingual education for Pitt in Penang. In 1925, Pitt started teaching English at the Fujian ). Two years later, Girls’ School ( her mother sent her to the Foreign Language Department of the Zhongshan University ) in Guangzhou where she furthered ( her studies and attended classes in the Chinese Language Department occasionally as well. However, she had to terminate her studies and return to Penang to take care of her mother who became seriously ill. After her mother’s recovery, Pitt returned to Fujian Girls’ School as an English teacher again. In 1932, she chanced upon lectures by ) and his disciple, Ven. Ven. Taixu ( ), at the Khek Lok Si Chee Hong ( ) in Penang. She realized that Temple ( Buddhism was not based on superstition,but was a doctrine that appealed to those who sought freedom from suffering. She then became a disciple of Ven. Chee Hong after Ven. Taixu had left, and studied Buddhism and Chinese culture under him at the Bodhi Institute ( ). Pitt later became one of the founders of the Maha Bodhi Primary School ( ) in Penang, teaching English and Buddhism in the afternoon, while retaining her teaching

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position at Fujian Girls’ School, where she conducted English classes in the morning. During the Japanese Occupation in the early 1940s, Pitt was the secretary (English) of the Rescue and Welfare Society, and escaped tragedy as the Japanese respected the Buddhists. In 1944, she went to Leng Feng Bodhi ) in Singapore with Institute ( her teacher Ven. Chee Hong, and returned to Penang the following year after the Japanese had surrendered, and resumed her teaching at the Maha Bodhi Primary School. Pitt returned to Singapore in 1946 to lecture at Fah Si Lam ). It was then that Ven. Chee Temple ( Hong encouraged her to stay in Singapore to establish a school like the Maha Bodhi Primary School in Penang. He felt that there was a need to promote education of the Buddhist way on this heavily populated piece of land. After much hard work, Pitt was finally able to rent a shophouse at 743 Geylang Road as a temporary site, and the first Buddhist school in Singapore, Maha Bodhi School, was officially founded on 12 January 1948.Though a founder of the school, Pitt was not its first principal. Sister Wong Loon Soo ( ) was. Pitt herself taught in the morning and went around collecting monthly or yearly sponsorships in the afternoon. As finance was a problem, she also set up a night school and the fees collected were used to help pay for the school’s expenses. As enrolment picked up after the board of directors was established in 1949, expansion was inevitable, and thus in 1950, the board decided to transfer the management of the school to the Singapore Buddhist Federation, and expansion was made possible with the financial assistance from ). This philanthropist Aw Boon Haw ( was the same year when Wong returned to Penang and Pitt took over as principal. Maha Bodhi became a government-aided school in 1957 and continued to grow in scale. In 1969,

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due to Pitt’s bilingual background, the Ministry of Education requested the school to conduct English classes, and so in 1970, Maha Bodhi School became the first government-aided school to provide a bilingual education. The academic performance of its pupils excelled over the years, and Maha Bodhi, together ), has since with Mee Toh School ( become renowned Buddhist schools. Pitt retired in 1971 and took up the appointment of honorary principal-cum-supervisor. In addition to Maha Bodhi, she also co-founded the Singapore Vocational Girls’ Secondary ) — which School ( later became Pei Dao Secondary School ) — where she was a member ( of the school management committee. Pitt was involved in the development of another Buddhist school, the first and only Buddhist secondary school in Singapore, Manjusri ), and was a Secondary School ( member of its school-building committee. She was very active in Buddhist studies and activities. In December 1959, she started the task of translating the Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva Sutra from Chinese to English for the Englisheducated. Back in 1950, she had represented the Singapore Buddhist Federation, together with Ven. Kong Hiap, at the World Fellowship of Buddhists inaugural meeting in Colombo. On their return, she suggested to the Singapore Buddhist Federation that it set up an English section, incorporating a Singapore World Fellowship of Buddhists Regional Centre, but was rejected. The Regional Centre was set up two years later as an independent unit, with Pitt appointed honorary president, and H.G. Abeyratne, honorable secretary. The centre was active in promoting international Buddhist activities and charity works in Singapore. Pitt was also head of education for the Singapore Buddhist Federation, consultant for the National

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University of Singapore Buddhist Society among other roles she took on. She contributed to charity mainly through her leadership at the Regional Centre, raising funds for various charities and welfare organizations such as the Association for the Deaf, Singapore Anti-Tuberculosis Association, ), Thong Chai Medical Institution ( ), Chung Hwa Medical Institution ( St Andrew’s Children’s Hospital, etc. Children and old folks’ homes under the Social Welfare Department also benefited from her relentless efforts. She was also a member of the inspection committees of the Social Welfare Department on old folks’ homes, Singapore Anti-Narcotics Association, etc. Some of her other social commitments included being a consultant for Singapore Kwong Wai Siew Peck San Theng ), honorary chairman of ( ), etc. Fa Yun Clan Assocation ( Pitt was recognized for her contributions to charity, education, and culture through various honour and awards, including the prestigious Public Service Star (BBM) by the first president of Singapore,Yusof bin Ishak, in 1964. In 1979, she was appointed justice of the peace by the second president, Dr Benjamin Henry Sheares. Pitt passed away on 28 October 1981 in India at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. She had remained single throughout her life and had a nephew in Singapore, Pitt Kuan Wah, who is director of National Archives of Singapore. Ho Yi Kai R E F E R E N C E S National Archives of Singapore. “Pitt Chin Hui”. Oral history interview, Oral History Centre, Access No. 00087. Ong, Y.D. Buddhism in Singapore — A Short Narrative History. Singapore: Skylark Publications, 2005.

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《 》, pp. 15–18. Maha Bodhi School 40th Anniversary. Singapore: Maha Bodhi School, 1989. 《 》, p. 14. Maha Bodhi School 40th Anniversary, Singapore: Maha Bodhi School, 1989. 〈 》。

〉，《 ：

： ，1993，

148–51。 Interview with Mr Pitt Kuan Wah (

).

Preecha Phisitkasem ( , Xie Huiru, 1913–96) Philanthropist,Thai-Chinese community leader, promoter of Chinese culture,Thailand

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reecha Phisitkasen, better known as Xie Huiru in the Thai Chinese community, was the leader of the Teochew ) and (Chaozhou) Clan Association ( a promoter of Chinese culture. Xie Huiru was born in 1913 in his ancestral Yihu Village, a poor and distant village located in Chao’an City in Guangdong Province of China. He was the fifth child in the family. Because of poverty, Xie did not receive a proper education as a child. He had to help his brothers earn a living, while his sister was sold as a child bride. He had to flee to Thailand when he was only fourteen because he was suspected by the Chinese government at the time (Kuomintang) of being involved in communist activities. After arriving in Thailand, Xie worked as secretary in a rice mill in Khon Kaen Province. He then set up his own agricultural products processing factory, developing business and engaging in international trade. It was not until the end of the 1960s that he moved to Bangkok and became a tycoon, owning more than seventy solely owned enterprises or joint ventures in rice, sugar, liquor, mining, construction, textiles, insurance, export and import, finance,

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cold storage, brick industries, and other fields. His companies included Tai Lian Co., Ltd.; Tai Lian Stack Co., Ltd.; Tai Lian Insurance Co., Ltd.;Tai Lian Construction Co., Ltd.; Bangkok Metropolitan Rice Mill Co., Ltd.;Yu He Long Local Product Co., Ltd.; Chumphon Sawmill Co., Ltd.; and Chumphon Mining Co., Ltd. In the 1980s Xie handed over most of his business responsibilities to his children in order to engage more fully in philanthropy. He donated 30 million baht in sponsorship to Guo Fengyuan, a Taoist master, to build the Wihan Sian, a combined Buddhist/Taoist structure for antique exhibitions in Thailand. The Wihan Sian projected a glorious image of China and communicated the culture of and the emotions on two sides of the Taiwan Straits. He donated another 30 million baht to build a Buddhist Scriptures Tower to store the Tripitaka of the Tang Dynasty that he bought from China. At the beginning of the summer of 1991, a rare flood disaster struck eastern and central China, while Shantou City was stricken by the typhoon No. 7, leading to tremendous losses. Xie Huiru took the lead in donating HK$1 million and 10,000 bags of rice to the disaster area. Xie sought to provide proper Chinese education to the descendants of Thai Chinese. Hence, he donated 30 million baht to set up the Thai Chinese Culture Central Foundation ) together with ( other Thai Chinese leaders and became its chairman. Later, he set up the Bangkok Oriental Culture Academy ( ) to provide part-time Chinese courses to adults. He donated another 37 million baht to facilitate the opening of the Huachiew Chalermprakiet University to develop Chinese university education in Thailand. Additionally, he donated 5 million baht to both the

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Srinakorn Foundation School in Hatyai and the Huachiew School in Khon Kaen. The Bangkok Oriental Culture Academy was the project to which Xie devoted most of his efforts. His investment in the academy was estimated to be 100 million baht. During the eight years from 1986 to 1994, Xie visited China ten times and donated considerable funds to the public welfare sector, totalling more than 100 million baht. In Shantou City, Xie donated 20 million baht to create the Xie Huiru Chaozhou Folk ), Opera Art Center ( the Chenghai Guye Park, the Chao Shan ), the Xing He Foundation ( Welfare Foundation of Shantou, the Children’s Welfare Fund of Shantou ( ), the Education Foundation of Shantou and the Advanced Vocational School of Shantou. He also sponsored the repair of the “Song Jing” gate on Nan Ao Island. His hometown Chaozhou was the place to which Xie dedicated most of his effort in China, with donations of about 70 million yuan. While many construction projects were named after him, such as Huiru Park ( ), Xie Huiru Library ( ), ), Huiru Road ( Huiru Building ( ), and Huiru Hall ( ), there were also many public welfare organizations not named after him, such as schools, the Yile ), a Thai temple, an education Theater ( fund, a scholarship, and the honorary citizen award fund. The name of Xie Huiru was popular in the Chaozhou and Shantou area and the Guangdong Education Publisher even compiled his story in Chinese textbooks for primary schools. Xie became one of the first directors of the China Population Welfare Foundation ) and its only foreign ( director. He was also invited to be a permanent

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honorary consultant to the Sichuan Provincial Government; honorary chairman of the board of directors and visiting professor of Sichuan Union University; honorary consultant to the Tianjin municipal government; and permanent honorary chairman of the Chinese Culture Promotion Society of Tianjin Province. He had other honorary titles, such as “honorary citizen of Shantou” and “honorary citizen of Chaozhou”. He was also honorary chairman of the Chaozhou Returned Ethnic Chinese Federation, honorary director general of the Children’s Welfare Foundation, honorary director general of the Chaozhou Xinghe Foundation, and permanent honorary chairman of the Chaozhou Folk Opera Art Center, and the Chaozhou Folk Opera ), Development Foundation ( among others. Xie passed away on 12 May 1996. He was survived by three sons and two daughters. Wasana Wongsurawat R E F E R E N C E S 《 ： 384–85。

》。

，1991，

《 ，1967， 85。

： 〈

：

：

· 1995， 207–16。

》。

〉，《 》。

：

，

Puey Ungphakon ( , Huang Peiqian, 1916–99) Leading Thai economist, educator,Thailand

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uey Ungphakon was born on 9 March 1916 in Talat Noi, Bangkok. His father, Nai Sar Ung, was an immigrant from China who worked in the fish market in

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Paknam. Puey’s mother, Nang Soh Cheng, was Thai-Chinese, the eldest daughter of the owner of a cloth store in the Sampheng area. Puey was the fourth of seven children in his family. Puey studied in the French program at Assumption School and after graduating at eighteen became a teacher in the school.In 1934, he decided to further his studies at Thammasat University and successfully graduated with a bachelor’s degree in law and politics in 1937. On graduating from the university, Puey resigned from his position at Assumption School and became an interpreter for a French lecturer at Thammasart University. In 1938, Puey won a government scholarship to further his studies in Britain. He subsequently attained a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of London and was granted the Leverhulme Scholarship to further his studies at the doctoral level. However, the Second World War broke out, and Puey decided to postpone his studies in order to give his full support to the Free Thai movement. When Japanese troops invaded Thailand in December 1941, Prime Minister Field Marshal P. Phibunsongkhkram decided to become an ally of Japan and declare war against the Allied Powers. During that time, a group of Thai people worked against Japan as members of the Free Thai movement both domestically and internationally. Puey joined this movement in Britain and became a captain in the British army. He was then sent for training in guerilla warfare and espionage in India and subsequently sent back to Thailand in September 1943. He and his team attempted to establish a radio station to facilitate communications between the British Army in India and Free Thai agents in Thailand. Unfortunately, Puey ended up being arrested and charged with espionage and treason. It was with the help of Free Thai connections

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within the Thai police department that Puey had the chance to meet Pridi Banomyong, who was the Free Thai leader in Thailand. After the meeting, Free Thai agents managed to communicate with the British Army in India via radio. At the conclusion of the war, Puey married Margaret Smith. In 1946, he resumed his interrupted doctoral studies at the London School of Economics and graduated in 1948. On completion of his studies, he returned to Thailand in 1949. His first position as a civil servant was economist in the Comptroller General’s Office in the Ministry of Finance. His contribution to the post-war recovery of the Thai economy earned him widespread recognition, and he rose rapidly through the ranks of the government’s financial officers. In the early 1950s, Puey became the deputy governor of the Bank of Thailand. He participated in the adjustment of exchange rates between the baht and other currencies, which enhanced the financial stability of Thailand. During his tenure as deputy governor of the Bank of Thailand, Puey clashed seriously with the highest authorities of the military government of the time. He refused to support Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat’s proposal to purchase the Union Bank of Bangkok because of the bank’s violation of the Bank of Thailand’s regulations. Moreover, Puey was in conflict with Police Director General Phao Siyanon on the issue of the employment of banknote printing operators. As a result, he was demoted to the position of consultant in the Ministry of Finance, stationed at the embassy of Thailand in Britain, in 1956. In 1959, Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat called Puey back to serve the government again, offering him the position of minister of finance. Puey refused this position, but took the post of governor of the Bank of Thailand in the end. He was concurrently director of

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the Economy and Finance Bureau, supervising both monetary policy and national finance. It was because of his contribution during his role as governor of Bank in Thailand that he was presented the Magsaysay Award for government service. Puey played an important role in implementing Thailand’s National Economic Development Plan. He also set up the first banknote printing company in Thailand and promulgated the Commercial Banking Act of Thailand in 1962. He also contributed to the expansion Thai banks’ branch networks. In 1964, he became dean of the Faculty of Economics at Thammasat University. In 1971, Puey was invited to give a special lecture at Cambridge University. While he was in Britain, he wrote an open letter to Field Marshal Thanom Kittikhachon, prime minister and leader of the military junta that had seized power nearly a decade earlier, requesting that the military government resign and re-establish the democratic system of government at once. Puey signed the letter with his Free Thai codename, Khem Yenying. The authorities were dissatisfied with the letter, and Puey was obliged to resign from his position as dean of Thammasat’s Faculty of Economics. After the events of 14 October 1973, the military government was driven away and Puey was elected to succeed Sanya Dharmasakti as rector of Thammasat University on 31 January 1975. He was the first Thammasat graduate to become rector of the university. In the era when Puey was rector of Thammasat University, political conditions were severe. Conflicts between the rightists and leftists escalated to a feverish height. Thammasat University was the centre stage of what was perceived to be the ultimate fight for social justice. On 6 October 1976, groups of the rightist militia surrounded Thammasat and later entered the university and violently

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dissolved student demonstrations within the walls of the university. The incident caused massive injuries and deaths. Puey resigned from his position and went into exile in Europe, living there until his death. He died of a haemorrhage in the abdominal cavity on 28 July 1999 in London at the age of eighty-three. He is survived by his three sons, John, Peter, and Giles Ungphakon. Wasana Wongsurawat R E F E R E N C E Pornchompu Rachatha. Puey Ungphakon: Defender of Truth, Beauty and Virtue (Puey Ungphakon: phu yuetman nai khwamching khwam-ngam lae khwamdi). Bangkok: Se-education, 2000.

Pung Kheav Se ( , Fang Qiaosheng, 1946– ) Banker, Cambodia

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ung Kheav Se, who was born in 1946 in Phnom Penh, has transformed himself from a refugee to the founder of the largest bank in Cambodia, the Canadia Bank Public Ltd. Co., which holds a quarter of the nation’s bank deposits. He is also the owner of the Independence Beach Resort Hotel in Sihanouville and the Sorya Shopping Centre in Phnom Penh. In terms of community involvement, he is chairman of both the Cambodian Bankers Association and Cambodia’s Foreign Trade Banks. In the Cambodian political arena, he acts as the economic adviser to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. On 11 November 1991, Pung’s bank was established through a joint venture with Cambodia State bank and was named Canadia Gold and Trust Corporation Limited. Its primary services was offering transactions

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in gold, gold coin manufacture, and granting credit to local merchants. On 19 April 1993 the bank’s name was changed to Canadia Bank Ltd., and it was licensed as a commercial bank with the National Bank of Cambodia and registered with the Ministry of Commerce. On 16 December 2003, it was renamed Canadia Bank PLC (Public Limited Company) and became the largest local bank offering various financial services through its branches within the country and international correspondent banks outside Cambodia. In Phnom Penh today, the building housing Canadia Bank PLC is 118 metres high, and is the only architectural structure that is higher than the Cambodian imperial palace. Pung’s parents migrated from Chao’an, Guangdong, in the 1930s. Like for most new migrants, making a living in a new place was not easy. His father started as a teacher in Cambodia, but when his family grew larger over the years, his salary was barely enough to provide two meals for the family. Soon, he decided to stop teaching and start selling vegetable seeds. With some savings from his small business, he opened a printing shop where his wife was tasked to manage the shop’s daily operations. Pung recalls that he never had a toy in his childhood. Clothes were passed down from the eldest child to the youngest child in his family. By the time he received his brother’s clothes, they were usually too big or too old. He would wear these clothes before passing them to his younger brother. Pung started to help in his father’s business after finishing his secondary school. His father’s business did not last long as the Khmer Rouge seized power in the 1970s. City dwellers were deported to the countryside to become farmers and Pung’s family was not spared — they had to move to the countryside to do three years of collective farming and forced labour under the

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government’s agrarian policy. During the three years of hardship nationwide, many people starved to death, especially elderly people. In the turmoil Pung lost his father and eight relatives and friends. All these made him decide to escape to the refugee camp in Thailand. In 1978 Pung and his surviving family members tried to escape to Thailand, but they were caught by the Vietnamese army and ended up starting a new life in Vietnam. Here he survived working as a gold crafter. In 1980, after a period of eight months inVietnam, Pung and his family made a second attempt to escape to Thailand, and this time they succeeded in making their way to the Thai refugee camp. They were later evacuated by the Canadian Government to seek asylum there. In Canada Pung started a home-based gold craft business and made his name for himself because of his good gold craftsmanship. He was also known to be a person who never failed to deliver goods on time to his customers. As a result, many fellow Cambodians who had migrated to Canada found him to be a reliable person and preferred engaging him to help them remit their savings to their families in Cambodia than going through the local banks there. In 1981 he set up the Eastern Finance Company in Montreal’s Chinatown in Canada. His customers were mainly overseas Chinese migrants from Southeast Asia who had migrated to Canada. Initially his business was in terms of sums remitted, but it gradually grew and by 1989 he had already helped remit an accumulated US$5 million. This remittance service he engaged in later motivated him to set up a bank in Cambodia. In 1988 Pung received a letter from his uncle who had returned to Cambodia from Paris. In the letter his uncle explained that the political and economic situation had improved in Cambodia and that it was time to go back there to start a business. Therefore,

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in 1991 he led his family back to Cambodia. At the time he was not very confident about the Cambodian Government although their policy emphasized on attracting foreign investment, especially from Cambodian returnees. He started to invest in a trust company that could also provide banking services. At the time, there were only five banks in Cambodia. In February 1992, the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) was established in Phnom Penh to ensure the implementation of Agreements on the Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict. UNTAC brought along an international team of approximately 20,000 soldiers and civilian police to carry out its mission. By the time the UNTAC mission in Phnom Penh completed its assignment in September 1993, Pung’s business had grown tremendously because of the huge quantity of deposits the bank had received from the troops when they were stationed in Cambodia. In 1993, because of the rapid growth of his financial business, the governor of the Bank of Cambodia proposed that he transform his trust company into a bank to achieve synergy with the government. At the time, his setup capital was US$1.5 million. Business has flourished and, by 2002, his bank’s total assets had grown to US$174 million. Of this sum, deposits amounted to more than US$150 million, and reserves came up to approximately US$18 million, accounting for 26 per cent and 32 per cent, respectively of the country’s total deposits and reserves. Since its privatization in 1998, the Canadia Bank PLC has become the largest local bank in Cambodia. It offers a wide range of financial services through its head office and its twenty-three branches in Phnom Penh and major cities throughout the country. Pung’s bank was the first commercial bank to use the

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907

smart card and ATM machine in Cambodia. It also became the principal member of MasterCard and VISA card in 2001 and 2003 respectively. This has helped to enhance the country’s image. Lim Boon Hock R E F E R E N C E S Interview with Pung Kheav Se for World Investment News and Far Eastern Economic Review, 28 April 2003. (accessed December 2011). Kok Sap. “Comment: A death to make tragedy for a man in poverty, but an opportunity to make profit for a man in business”. 24 Nov 2010. (accessed December 2011). 〈 ： 〉， ，2009 2 8 。 (accessed December 2011). 、 〈 ： 〉， ，2009 11 3 。 (accessed December 2011).

Pusadi Kitaworanat (Hoh-Ung, , He Yun, 1938– ) Thai-Chinese journalist,Thailand

P

usadi Kitaworanat, also known as He Yun to her Chinese readers, is a renowned female political journalist in Thailand. She made a name for herself among politicians and journalists through her reports and was president of the Thai Journalists’ Association up to 2009. She took over the management of the New Chinese Daily with her husband, Phonlachet Kitaworanat, in December 1985, and became the first female journalist to own a newspaper in Thailand.

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Pusadi was born in 1938, the only daughter of a poor Chinese family in Thailand. She studied four years of Chinese while she was receiving her primary education in a Chinese school. She continued her secondary education in a Thai school while tutoring younger pupils to help supplement her family’s income. After graduating from secondary school, she enrolled in Thammasat University’s Faculty of Commerce. However, with the encouragement of her husband (then a friend), she switched to journalism. During her undergraduate years, she worked as a translator for the university’s public relations department, and had to keep tabs on all Chinese publications in Thailand. Moreover she continued to work as a tutor, as well as night shifts at the Sirinakhon Chinese newspaper. Holding these jobs, she was able to finance her undergraduate studies and support her family. In 1963 she graduated from Thammasat University and started working as a reporter for a newspaper. By now, she has been in the profession for more than forty years and has worked for Thai, English, and Chinese newspapers. Of the newspapers she has worked for, she has worked at the New Chinese Daily for the longest period of time. She has been the editor-in-chief and general manager there since 1985. She also worked for The Nation, an English-language newspaper, for thirteen years. Other newspapers she has worked for include Sing Sian Yit Pao and Tong Hua Daily News. Pusadi started a column titled “Anecdotes ) in 1971, which during Interviews” ( turned out to be very popular. The popularity of this column is often attributed to her timely and truthful reports. In addition to her column, her special interviews also enjoyed much popularity. Many of her special interviews became the talk of the town after publication; some were even reprinted in Chinese newspapers in other

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countries, such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and China. This is a phenomenon rarely seen for a Thai Chinese journalist. In 1988 some of her columns, articles, and special interviews were reprinted in a collection entitled The Life of a Female Journalist: The World in the eyes of a Female Ethnic Chinese Journalist (《 》). This book is the first of a series of books published to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Daily newspaper 》). (《 The success of Pusadi’s career is often thought to be the result of her sensitivity for politics, and her passion for the job. Because of her sensitivity, she is often able to sense an important change in politics even before the change is publicized. This enables her to break news before other reporters and she was thus nicknamed “the news falcon”. Moreover, this sensitivity also enables her to write her reports focusing only on the important aspects. Her passion for the profession is most evident in her working attitude. She perseveres until she has obtained the necessary materials for her reports. For example, she will wait several hours to interview a subject and will also sacrifice her sleep and call ministers in the middle of the night for the latest updates on news. She is nicknamed “Iron Lady”, as she never shows any tiredness despite her busy schedule. Apart from that, she is also praised for her professional ethics. Besides providing the latest, reliable news to readers, Pusadi also acts responsibly towards her sources. She will keep their identities confidential when requested, and does not distort their words. As a result, many important people welcome her to interview them. However, her career has not always been smooth sailing. She was blacklisted by Thanin Kraiwichian government (1976–77) for writing a critique of government personnel. Though

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she was able to keep her job at The Nation, she lost her job at the Chinese newspaper she was working for at the time. In December 1985 she and her husband, Phonlachet Kitaworanat, took over a Chinese newspaper, the New Chinese Daily. He assumed the post of chairperson of the board of directors while Pusadi became editor and general manager. As a shareholder of the New Chinese Daily, she is thus “the First Female Boss in the Chinese Media of Thailand”. Through her husband, she also became involved in Thai Chinese literary circles. Phonlachet Kitaworanat, also known as Pung ), is a prominent ThaiSue Ziak ( Chinese writer and founder of theThai Chinese Writers Association. In 1987 she accompanied him in leading a literary delegation to China. She was also the adviser to the delegation and

later became adviser to Thai Sino-literature 》), a Chinese literary journal in (《 Thailand. She is also active in other cultural activities. She founded the Artists’ Promotion Group in 1990, which organizes events to help raise funds for various charitable causes. Pusadi is currently the editor of the New Chinese Daily, a member of the advisory board of the Thai Journalists’ Association after being its president for years, and an adviser to the Thai Sino-literature. Goh Yu Mei R E F E R E N C E S Bangkok Post. “One of many hats; Multitalented editor at healm of Thai Journalists’ Association”. 9 November 2004, p. 2. 《 》。

：

，1988。

Q Quách Ðàm ( , Guo Yan, , Guo Tan, 1863–1927) Business leader,Vietnam

Q

uách Ðàm (also known as or Guo Tan in Chinese) had the nickname, ). He was probably Thông Hieäp ( born around the year 1863, and was from ) in Guangdong, China. Chao’an ( When he was about seventeen (one source says that he was fourteen), Ðàm followed his

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uncle (father’s younger brother) to Vietnam to seek work. This uncle died young and Ðàm, poor and without anyone to rely on, had to earn his living as a piece-rate labourer helping to carry goods. Later he went on to trade in old goods and while continuing with his piece-rate labour. In the day he worked; when night came, he slept under the awnings of the streets of the old Chôï Lôùn. Often, he was robbed of his savings by gangsters while asleep. Harbouring aspirations to become rich, Ðàm took his suffering in stride and saved his

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earnings. He was quick in seizing opportunities for trading and specialized in meeting shortages of the time as well as providing luxury items such as buffalo skin, fish fins, fish maws, etc. His perseverance, dexterity, and boldness paid off eventually and he saved enough to establish a trading company. Legend has it that Ðàm asked a Chinese fortune-teller to name his company. When asked what the new company dealt in, Ðàm told the fortune-teller that he traded in buffalo skins and fish fins and sold these overseas. The fortune-teller thought for a few moments and then wrote “Thông Hieäp” or Getting Through and Harmonious) ( in Chinese characters in very broad and bold strokes. Indeed the business of Ðàm were like kites that met with good wind, and he became very, very rich. Gradually, he began to expand the scope of his business to include farm produce and food, mainly by buying rice from the south-western provinces and exporting them. At first, the scale of this new business was moderate, but at its peak, Ðàm became the second, if not the largest supplier of rice for the Saigon–Chôï Lôùn region. Almost all the rice godowns (warehouses) in the Bình Ðông area around the Lê Quang Liêm bus station in District 6 today used to belong to Ðàm. Given his strong competitive spirit (especially against French businesses in the same line), his skilful management, and diplomatic and negotiation skills, he even obtained from the French colonial authorities the monopoly to purchase rice for export. Ðàm’s office was located on Quai de Gaudot. At the time, it was not a road, but a little canal called Raïch Caàu Ðöôøng (also known as Raïch Chôï Lôùn or Quai de Gaudot). A geomancer of Chinese origin advised Ðàm to set up his office there and live there for prosperity. Ðàm followed this advice and true to the predictions, was able to earn enough to

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buy the land along the canal and most of the houses on it within a short period of time. He was quickly able to set up factories to polish rice, as well as a fleet of boats to bring farm produce from the rural areas by the river and sea. Ðàm was not lacking in strategy either and was also known to be cunning. He had even for instance, resorted to spreading rumours to manipulate prices of the goods he traded in. As the owner of the house his geomancer wanted him to buy repeatedly refused Ðàm’s request to purchase it. So he had to rent the house his geomancer wanted him to buy at a high price of 300 dong every month. Although he was rich enough to buy any other house in the city, he believed in the geomancer, had refused to move from there. At the peak of his wealth and prosperity, Ðàm had a total of four Chinese and two Vietnamese wives. He also had an opium stall that operated around the clock and he was one of its loyal customers. Many people had to wait for him just to get to meet him. On one occasion, a member of the Neighbouring governing council wanted to sell sugar cane plants to him and had to wait until Ðàm had finished his opium. This degree of servitude was higher than that shown by anybody to the governor of the colonial authorities, which at the time was high and mighty. But even he at times had to go to Ðàm to ask for favours. According to some Chinese sources, Ðàm initiated the establishment of the Chaozhou ) Gongsuo (Teochew Association in South Vietnam, which later became a large clan association. He also helped in shipping the ashes of his clan men who died in Vietnam to Chaozhou, China, for burial. In the 1920s, he was so rich that he began to think about how to further consolidate his legacy. He suggested to the Saigon-Chôï Lôùn City authorities that he could donate the cost of building a market for the city. He made the

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offer of a piece of land in Bình Tây when he heard that a landowner in the city was asking the city to pay a very high price for the land that it had picked to build a new market. Ðàm’s land was bigger than the one to be bought, but it was marshland. He spent a huge sum of money to build the market using cement and iron pillars, but he had a condition when offering the land: that he be allowed to build rows of shophouses around the market for sale, which he did. He also tried persuading the colonial authorities to move its office to the market, but this offer was turned down. However his request to have his statue erected on the front porch of the market was accepted. Ðàm erected a copper statue of himself wearing the clothes of the Manchu Dynasty of China. People interpreted this as evidence that Ðàm missed his home country and wanted to become somebody important back home. The market was commonly referred to as Thong Hiep Market or New Chôï Lôùn. Its most recent name is Bình Tây Market. As he was so rich, in the early 1920s Ðàm was able to play the role of guarantor for many debtors of the Indochina Bank, but those who wanted his service had to pay him a percentage as service fee. However Ðàm could not see the financial crisis coming and many of these debtors went bankrupt. The bank seized and auctioned off Ðàm’s assets and he lost everything. He frequently blamed the fact that the government filled up the canal in front of his home and damaged his geomancy. But according to a French source, Ðàm was a French citizen who died in 1927, after which his son, Quách Khoi, took over the business. Whether he went bankrupt or remained rich, the funeral of Ðàm was the biggest ever up to then in Saigon-Chôï Lôùn. People who sent him off followed the custom of accompanying the hearse to the burial place, and the line was more than a kilometre

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long. His tomb is located near the Giác Lâm Temple and nobody seems to be looking after it now. Phan Thò Yeán Tuyeát R E F E R E N C E S Engelbert, Thomas. “Chinese Politics in Colonial Saigon (1919–1936): The Case of the Guomindang”. In Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies 4 (2010): 97. (accessed August 2011). ThöôÏng Hoàng. Giai Thoaïi veà Các Tæ Phú Sài Gòn Xöa. Treû Publisher, 1998, pp. 15–19. Vöông, Hoàng Seån. Sài Gòn naêm xöa. HCMC Publisher, 1991, pp. 286–91. 〈 〉， ，2009 3 13 。 (accessed August 2011). ， ：

《 ，1989， 43–44。 《 · ，2001， 165。

》。

》。

：

Quách Taán ( , Guo Jin, 1910–92) Poet,Vietnam

Q

uách Taán was one of the four well known poets of the Bàn Thành Quartet, whose other members were Cheá Lan Viên, Hàn Maëc Töû and Yeán Lan, in Bình Ðònh Province in the central region of Vietnam. Taán wrote prolifically under many pseudonyms: Ðaêng Ðaïo, Tröôøng Xuyên, Ðònh Phong, Coå Bàn Nhân, Thi Naïi Thò, and lão giöõ vöôøn (meaning “the garden keeper”). He is well-known for composing poems based on the rules of Chinese Tang poetry, but with a distinguished charm of his own. In the history of modern Vietnamese poetry, he might be the only one who remained faithful to Tang verses

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for life while most of the other poets turned to contemporary poetry and were mostly influenced by Western styles. However he was entirely able to empathize with works by his poet friends, Cheá Lan Viên, Hàn Maëc Töû, and Yeán Lan, who switched from Tang poetry to innovative poetry and became the top modern poets of Vietnamese literature. While firmly following the basic formal principles of Tang poetry, he obtained and applied into his work a new sense of aesthetics. Taán’s Tang-styled works gained acclaim from Vietnamese readers who appreciated fine, non-stereotypical Tang poems. Taán was born on 1 January 1910 in Tröôøng Ðònh Village, Bình Khê District, Bình Ðònh Province to an intellectual family educated in both Chinese and Western studies. His ancestors had migrated from Fujian ) to Bình Ðònh in the province of China ( seventeenth century. The young Taán learned the Chinese script until the age of twelve, after which, he studied in Vietnamese and French at Tröôøng Pháp Vieät, meaning “France Vietnam” School, in Quy Nhôn. After graduating with a French secondary school diploma, he got married and started to work as early as in 1929 to take care of his younger siblings since his parents had both passed away. His wife was Nguyeãn Thò Nhieáp, who had twelve children with him, six of whom are still alive today.Taán worked as a senior clerk in Hue (Hueá), Dalat (Ðà Laït) and Nha Trang respectively from 1930 to 1945. From 1945 onward, he participated in the Vietnamese resistance war against the French and worked as a teacher in Bình Ðònh (1949–53). After 1954 he continued to be an administrative clerk in Quy Nhôn (1955–57), Hue (1957–58), and Nha Trang (1958–65). He retired in 1965 and kept composing poems until the day he passed away on 21 December 1992 in Nha Trang.

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Having begun writing poems since his school days, Taán was proficient in many verse forms. When the Thô Môùi (New Poetry) Movement took place in 1932, he had his first poems publicized in several publications such as An Nam Magazine, Tieåu Thuyeát Thöù Baûy (Saturday Novels),Tieáng Dân (People’s Voice), and Phuï Nöõ Tân Vaên (Women’s New Literature) thanks to the encouragement of Taûn Ðà and Phan Boäi Châu, the two famous poets of Vietnam then. His works were then compiled into a collection entitled, Moät Taám Lòng (One Heart) in 1939, with a foreword written by Taûn Ðà, the representative of Thô Môùi Movement, and an afterword by Hàn Maëc Töû, one of the most innovative poets from Thô Môùi Movement. This collection, which received enthusiastic welcome from the traditional poets, but indifference from the innovative ones, is an anthology of poems written in the Chinese Tang verse forms such as thaát ngôn bát cú (seven-syllabic regulated verse ) and töù tuyeät (four lines ). It primarily conveys the author’s admiration for the scenery of his hometown and the places he had lived in and travelled through, as well as his feelings about the different experiences of his life. The words he used in his verses are easy to grasp and peppered with conversational language and vernaculars of the central region of Vietnam, with very few classic references. His second collection, Mùa Coå Ñieån (Classical Season), was published in 1941, with a foreword by Cheá Lan Viên, another innovative poet. Just from its title, the work appeared to be a challenge to the Vietnamese poetic world at the time. In the late 1930s, the foundation for modernization had been established in new poetry in particular, and in Vietnamese literature in general. After the death in 1939 of Taûn Ðà, the most eminent name in traditional poetry, traditional

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poets almost tolerated being away from the spotlight. Taán, on the contrary, mentioned “season” and honoured traditional poetry with the word “classical”. The collection marked the peak of his career and a milestone in Vietnamese poetry. The publication was described by Hoài Thanh-Hoài Chân, in Thi Nhân Vieät Nam (Vietnamese Poets), as having “closed down an era in Vietnamese poetry”. Mùa Coå Ñieån (1941) consists of twentyone Tang-style verse poems, nineteen of which were written in thaát ngôn bát cú (seven-syllabic regulated verse) and the other two in töù tuyeät (four lines). Despite the need to follow the tight rules of the poetic schemes, the poems are free from the constraints of strict tone patterns, and in the structure of their contents, touching the innermost feelings of love, friendship, loneliness, and nervousness. Though expressed in a verse form that was considered to be restricting and trite in the twentieth century, they are powerful enough to move the reader’s heart through honest sentiments, evoking images and lively language. Verbs in Taán’s poems are varied, and their occasional appearance right in poem titles, such as Thô Veà (Poems Come), Ðêm Thu Nghe Quaï Kêu (Hearing the Crows on Autumn Night), Döôùi Lieãu Chôø Xuân (Waiting for Spring under Willow Trees), and Moäng Thaáy Hàn Maëc Töû (Dreaming about Han Mac Tu) stir up the natural tranquility of Tang poems and bring the scenes from the past right to the present. Under the influence of dialect and spoken language, daily familiarity is enacted and the poems are immediately relieved from expected formality.Yet the unique delicacy and grace in them remain. The most highly regarded pieces in Mùa Coå Ñieån are Ðêm Thu Nghe Quaï Kêu (Hearing the Crows on Autumn Night), and Moäng Thaáy Hàn Maëc Töû (Dreaming about Han Mac Tu), which present the complexity in Taán’s creative style. Mùa Coå Ñieån was reprinted in

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1960, with the addition of thirty Tang verses written from 1945 to 1955. Since 1941, Taán has principally composed in töù tuyeät verse and produced numerous compositions. War and the misery of his family, his people, and his lonely old age are immersed in immense sorrow in these compositions, but they only hint at the range of his poetry. He showed his brilliant mastery of other schemes in works such as, Ðoïng Bóng Chieàu (The Stagnancy of Dusk), which contains 108 poems in thaát ngôn töù tuyeät (seven-syllabic ), written from 1941 to quatrain 1954 and published in 1965; Moäng Ngân Sôn (A Dream about the Silver Mountain), which boasts 135 poems in nguõ ngôn töù tuyeät (five), composed syllabic regular verse from 1947 to 1965 and published in 1966; and Gioït Traêng (A Drop of the Moon), which has a collection of sixty poems in five-syllabic regular verse, written from 1966 to 1972, and printed in 1973 in Paris. All these works represent the poet’s love for his country and people, and his anxiety over all the whirligig happening to them. Other creations in other forms and genres are Traêng Ma Laàu Vieät (The Ghost Moon on the Vietnamese Castle), a fiction published in 1942; a translation piece in 1971, Toá Nhö Thi Trích Dòch (Translation of To Nhu’s poems), and three monographs, Nöôùc Non Bình Ðònh (Scenery of Binh Dinh) published in 1968, Xöù Traàm Höông (Land of Aloe Wood) in 1969, and Ðôûi Bích Khê (Life of Bich Khe) in 1971. Last and not least, a research work entitled, Ðôi Nét veà Hàn Maëc Töû (A Few Points about Han Mac Tu), was published in 1988. Nguyeãn Thò Thanh Xuân R E F E R E N C E S Hoài Thanh-Hoài Chân. Thi nhân Vieät Nam. Saigon: Thieàu Quang Publisher, 1967.

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“Nhà Thô Quách Taán”. 2004. (accessed January 2010). Quách, Taán. Ðôøi Bích Khê. Saigon: Löûa Thiêng Publisher, 1971. Quách, Taán. Ðôi nét veà Hàn Maëc Töû. Paris: Quê Meï Publisher, 1988. “Thö Vieän Quách Taán”. 2011. (accessed January 2010). Vietnamese Dictionary of Literature (new edition). Hanoi: Theá Giôùi Publisher, 2004.

Quek Leng Chan ( , Guo Lingcan, 1941– ) Banker, Malaysia

Q

uek Leng Chan, who was born in 1941 in Malaysia, is married with three children. He qualified as a barristerat-law from Middle Temple in the United Kingdom. He is also a brother of Kwek Leng Hai and Kwek Leng San. His personal lifestory has remained quite private compared with his corporate affairs. Quek was honoured with the title “Tan Sri” from HM Yang di-Pertuan Agong for his contribution to the nation. From its humble beginnings as a trading company in 1963, the Hong Leong Group has grown progressively and tremendously into a diverse range of industries, thanks to Tan Sri Quek, who is the chairman and chief executive officer of Hong Leong Company (Malaysia) Berhad, the ultimate holding company of Guoco, and he sits on the boards of directors of the major public listed companies of the group. He has been the executive chairman of Guoco Group Limited since 1990. The Hong Leong Gorup was named after one of the brothers, Kwek Hong Leong. The Kweks established Hong Leong in Singapore in 1941 and expanded into Malaya. They moved from trading in the 1940s to

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plantation investments and manufacturing in the 1950s, real estate and property development in the 1960s, finance and heavy infrastructural activities in the 1970s. Although it was public listed in 1982, many of the component companies remained privately owned through family ownership of the holding company in which the Quek family of Malaysia (Quek Leng Chan) and the Kweks of Singapore (Kwek Leng Beng) hold significant proportions in a complex interlocking shareholding structure. Hong Leong’s accelerated expansion was through takeovers, mergers, and joint ventures with the state and foreign multinationals. In 1982, Hong Leong purchased the Dao Heng Bank in Hong Kong to integrate its financial initiatives, as well as to exploit its relationship with the Kuwait Investment Office, a shareholder in the bank. The bid for the Malayan United Industries Bank (MUI Bank) in the 1990s was motivated by its large cash reserves, as well as its property assets and the need to incorporate a bank in Malaysia. Hong Leong paid US$370 million to Khoo Kay Peng for MUI Bank and US$250 million for MUI Finance in 1993. Immediately after the acquisition, MUI Bank was changed to Hong Leong Bank, listed on the stock exchange, and raised US$700 million. Hong Leong Credit and the Quek family held 61 per cent equity, with Bumiputra (5.3 per cent) and the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, Chase Manhattan, and Citicorp holding 15 per cent in total. The subsidiary, Hong Leong Finance (Malaysia), also increased its capitalization from US$4 million to US$6 million in 1983 by using shares in a Bumiputera enterprise, Beraya Sdn. Bhd. Its counterpart, Hong Leong Finance (Singapore), similarly increased its capitalization from US$35 million to US$80 million in 1982. Sovran Industries was transformed into Hong Leong Credit Berhad and Fancy Tile Works into Hong Leong Industries Berhad.

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Tan Sri Quek is the chairman of Hong Leong Bank Berhad (HLB) and was appointed to its board of directors on 3 January 1994. He is chairman of the Executive Share Option Scheme Committee and the Executive Committee and Board Credit Committee of HLB. He is also the executive chairman of Hong Leong Industries Berhad, Hong Leong Credit Berhad, Hong Leong Properties Berhad, Hume Industies (Malaysia) Berhad, Hume Cemboard Berhad, Camerlin Group Berhad, Tasek Corporation Berhad and O.Y.L. Industries Bhd., and chairman of HLG Capital Berhad, Hong Leong Finance Berhad, and Hong Leong Assurance Berhad. Quek Leng Chan has been heading Hong Leong Group Malaysia since 1973 and the group now comprises fourteen listed companies involved in a range of industries throughout Asia, with major stakes in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and also the London Stock Exchange, including banking, financial services, semiconductor manufacturing, ceramic tile manufacturing, oil and gas, property development, motorcycle distribution, and hotels and gaming. In February 2006, the group’s Hong Kong listed Guoco Group, through its investment arm, BIL International (now GuocoLeisure Limited), was awarded twenty-five of the eighty-nine casino licences in Britain. BIL is expected to start introducing casinos in selected Thistle Hotels, the luxury hotel chain in the United Kingdom. Quek also owns the Claremont Casino in Mayfair, London and Guoco also has a stake in Galaxy Mega Resort, a flagship development with 269,000 sq ft of gaming space and 1,500 hotel rooms which opened in 2008 in the Cotai peninsula of Macau. GuocoLand Ltd. pumped US$1.3 billion into a property project in Beijing in the run-up to the 2008 Olympic Games and doubled its investment in China to US$5.4 billion to tap the country’s growing

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demands for homes. Quek Leng Chan also has interests in his cousin Kwek Leng Beng’s empire in Singapore. The family businesses are linked via interlocking ownership stakes. With a net worth of US$2.3 billion, he is placed 524th in the Forbes world’s billionaires list. Quek rose to prominence in 2001 when he netted RM11.5 billion by selling his controlling stake in Dao Heng Bank of Hong Kong to the Singapore-run DBS Bank. It was the highest price paid for an Asian bank then especially noteworthy during the post Asian 1997 financial crisis. Quek has emerged as a significant shareholder in oil and gas fabricator Kencana Petroleum Bhd., which was listed in December 2006 by executive chairman Datuk Mokhzani Mahathir. Other acquisitions by Quek in 2007 included a 15.43 per cent stake via Associated Land Sdn. Bhd. in Mesdaq-listed fertility services provider TMC Life Sciences Bhd., and about 10 per cent of Multi-Purpose Holdings Bhd. from gaming firm Magnum Corp Bhd.The Hong Leong Assurance Berhad Group also registered a higher profit in 2007, attributed to a higher contribution from Dao Heng Insurance Co. Ltd., and a higher surplus transfer from the life business. Hong Leong Bank has also agreed to buy 20 per cent of Chengdu Bank for RMB1.95 billion, its first investment in China. Kon Sean, the youngest of Quek’s three children, has been groomed to be an heir to the Hong Leong empire. He is a graduate of the London School of Economics. Besides his role as executive director of Hong Leong Credit, Kon Sean is also on the board of HLG Capital, Hong Leong Assurance, and Camerlin Group Bhd. The Hong Leong Foundation Charity Run pledges an annual RM1 million for the needy and is an event where public participation is encouraged and public awareness of a caring culture is cultivated. The

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Hong Leong Foundation is a charity body set up to cater to old and needy folks. In addition to the charity run, other projects undertaken by the foundation include the annual Student Assistance Programme where the foundation sponsors less fortunate schoolchildren in terms of uniforms, books, examination and school fees subsidies, as well as through an annual scholarship award programme for local undergraduate studies and diploma courses. Quek, via his Hong Leong Group has emerged unscathed from the Asian Financial Crisis 1997, and his Hong Leong Bank Bhd. is the only other Chinese-controlled bank in Malaysia besides the also Chinese-controlled Public Bank, that has been allowed to remain one of the main anchor banks in Malaysia after the national bank merger exercise who also took over EON Bank Bhd. in 2011. Beh Loo See R E F E R E N C E S Far Eastern Economic Review. 8 August 1994. Hong Leong Assurance Annual Report 2007. Hong Leong Malaysia. Annual Report 1994; 1996. International Herald Tribune. 18 November 2007. New Straits Times. 16 April 2008. “Quek Leng Chan”. Wikipedia. (accessed March 2012).

Quek Suan Hiang ( , Guo Quanqiang, 1930– ) Industrialist, educationist, Malaysia

Q

uek Suan Hiang (also known as Quek Chee Hiang) is a well known entrepreneur and leader in the Chinese education movement in Malaysia. He was chairman of the United Chinese

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School Committees Association of Malaysia (UCSCAM) for more than a decade. He worked closely with the United Chinese School Teachers’ Association of Malaysia (UCSTAM) to further develop Chinese education in Malaysia and whilst working with them, established the Dong Jiao Zong Higher ).Although Learning Centre ( Chinese education in Malaysia traditionally faced many unfavourable government policies, Quek was undeterred. He travelled extensively throughout Malaysia to garner support for the continued survival and development of Chinese education. Although Quek’s ancestors hailed from Hainan in China, he was born in Segamat in Johor in 1930. He then attended Pay Fong Chinese Primary School in Malacca, but the outbreak of the Second World War and the Japanese invasion of Malaysia in 1941 curtailed the rest of his education in the country. He and his family consequently fled to China where he completed his secondary school education. He then gained admission into Peking University and studied politics. He eventually married his university classmate, Leung Lai Ming, and returned to Malaysia seven years later. When Quek’s father passed away in 1956, he had to take over the family business in Malaysia. As a result, he settled down in Malaysia and ventured into business. With shrewd business acumen, hard work, and a pioneering spirit, Quek expanded the family business to encompass interests in tin mining, housing development, timber, oil palm, and the sundry goods trade. As a result, he became chairman of Kee Siang (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd. and Suan H. Q. Holdings Sdn. Bhd. Due to his success in business, he became a pivotal figure in the Malaysian Chinese business community, and served in the Malaysian Chinese Chamber of Commerce.

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Through his work with the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and his main business ventures, Quek gained a reputation as a charismatic leader. He also developed an interest in community work outside the sphere of business, and became particularly interested in the state of Chinese education in Malaysia. He was thus elected chairman of the Teachers and Parents Association of Kluang Chung Hwa Chinese Primary School No. 3 in 1973. This marked the beginning of his involvement in the Chinese education movement in Malaysia. From then on, Quek held important posts in various Malaysian Chinese education organization, including being chairman of the board of directors of Kluang Chong Hwa High School (1987 to the present), chairman of the state of Johor Chinese Schools Managers and Teachers’ Association (1988-2005), and chairman of UCSCAM (1993-2005). Although he concurrently held many posts, he was able to contribute a great deal to these different organizations. As board chairman of Kluang Chong Hwa High School for eighteen years, he brought about significant physical development to the school by strengthening the school’s management. He also took the lead to improve the quality of education and implement administration improvement programmes in the school. In so doing, he was able to chart a comprehensive development blueprint for the future of Kluang Chong Hwa High School. As chairman of the state of Johor Chinese Schools Managers and Teachers’ Association, Quek brought stability and development to Chinese education in Johor. He spearheaded various fund-raising campaigns for the construction of a building for the association. He also established a development fund for the association and was behind the setting up of its permanent secretariat office. As a result, the

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association hired a full-time executive secretary to manage its operations.These measures laid a strong foundation for the future development of the association and paved the way for subsequent leaders to further promote Chinese education further in Johor. As chairman of UCSCAM, Quek adopted a pragmatic and moderate approach for the association. Under his leadership, the association was able to make considerable impact in safeguarding mother-tongue education in Chinese primary schools, promoting the further development of independent Chinese secondary schools, and establishing New Era College. These were commendable efforts towards realizing the long-held dream of the Chinese community in Malaysia for a complete system of mother-tongue education. In the 1990s, Malaysia began to have a more open political climate. The Chinese community reaped the benefits of this open environment and enjoyed more freedom in the political, economic, cultural, and educational sectors. For example, the government approved the application by UCSCAM and UCSTAM to establish New Era College and this boosted the confidence of the Chinese community and improved the prospects of Chinese education in the country. However these positive steps forward for Chinese education in Malaysia were marred by dangerous undercurrents hampering the development of Chinese primary schools. TheVision School Project and the policy on the teaching of science and mathematics in English were perceived to be threats to the use of the Chinese language as the medium of instruction in Chinese primary schools. As a consequence, Quek worked closely with UCSCAM and UCSTAM to ensure the continued survival of Chinese primary education in Malaysia. Instead of maintaining an implacable stance on Chinese education, he believed it would

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behove the Chinese community in Malaysia to modify the way in which it campaigned for the rights of Chinese education. Quek proposed that all major Chinese organizations come together and present a unified stand on issues pertaining to Chinese education. Doing so would enable the Chinese community to campaign successfully for the preservation of Chinese education in Malaysia. As one of the major leaders of the Chinese community in Malaysia, Quek had actively campaigned for equal rights for Malaysian Chinese for many years. Against tremendous pressure not to rock the status quo enshrined in the pro-Bumiputra policy in Malaysia, he led a delegation to present a petition to the Malaysian Government in 1999. This petition was from the Chinese community in Malaysia, and sought to convey the voices of the Chinese community to the government. Quek was actively involved in the Chinese education movement in Malaysia for more than thirty years as the board chairman of an independent Chinese secondary school or head of the top Chinese education organization in the country. Although he encountered many setbacks, he continued to press forward

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without complaint. He travelled extensively throughout Malaysia and other countries with a sizeable Chinese diaspora to garner support for Chinese education in Malaysia. While the state of Chinese education in Malaysia is still threatened by many government policies favouring the use of Bahasa Malaysia, Quek is confident of the continuation of Chinese education in the country. At present, he has retired from active involvement in the Chinese education movement. However, he has expressed his willingness to contribute to the movement if he is called to do so. He is currently focused on the development of Hainan University in China. In recognition of his significant contributions to Chinese education in Malaysia, he was presented with the Spirit of Lim Lian Geok Award in 2005. Lew Bon Hoi R E F E R E N C E S 《

》。

：

，2007。 〉，《 》，2004 〈 5 。 (accessed 15 July 2011).

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R Rahardja, Hendra (Tan Tjoe Hin, , Chen Zixing, 1943–2003) Businessman, Indonesia

H

endra Rahardja, founder and owner of Bank Harapan Sentosa of the Harapan Group, and various smaller banks, was one of the most entrepreneurial and venturesome of Sino-Indonesian big towkay in the 1970–80s, although not usually ranked amongst the largest of them. His reputation — and that of his brother, Eddy Tansil — was controversial. He developed extensive overseas branches of his banks in Singapore, Hong Kong, and China (Fujian). However, he ran into severe financial problems in Indonesia in the 1990s and ended up fleeing from justice initially to China, and later to Australia, where he was arrested. For a man who had started his life in Sulawesi in rather unpromising circumstances, Rahardja had come a long way by the end of it. Born in Makassar of Hokcia (Fuqing) background in 1943, he attended a Chinese school, although not to any great effect. His father was a motor-cycle dealer and in his early years in that highly competitive industry Rahardja was spectacularly successful. At first he sold Vespa scooters, then in 1966 he began to deal in Yamahas, becoming known as “The Yamaha King”, initially just importing them and later partially assembling them also. He was soon reportedly selling over 100,000

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units each year, earning US$25 million. He also diversified into forklift trucks and office equipment. Rahardja then formed the Harapan Group in 1974 and moved into real estate, acquiring several big commercial plazas in Jakarta and small banks in Surabaya and Medan. In Singapore he created the Town & City Properties group in 1977, with plans for six big hotels, three of which were actually built (most notably, the Meridien and Nikko) and was reported to have invested US$1,600 million there by the early 1980s, gaining the title “Hotel King”. But an oversupply of hotels resulting from a recession there forced him to sell the three that were built in order to pay off debts. He moved to Hong Kong in 1980 with the establishment of the Unistock Financial Company, which made big investments in Fujian in the 1980s, including an airport and a large commercial complex. Rahardja became famous for his lavish lifestyle (and expensive artistic tastes) and married a second wife, a stylish Chinese lady who was the daughter of a wealthy Singapore businessman, in addition to his Indonesian first wife. He had seven children. He returned to Indonesia in 1987 and went heavily into property development from which he made big profits. But he had earlier been investigated by the Attorney General for tax evasion, although the case against him was dropped after he repaid Rp1,700 million. There were reports that he had close relations with Brigadier General Sudjono Humardhani and General Ali Moertopo, close associates of President Soeharto.

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He fell into serious difficulties in the 1997– 98 Asian Financial Crisis when he received substantial government funds in the form of BLBI credits (Bank Indonesia Liquidity Supplements), much of which was misappropriated. Rahardja was named as a suspect in the misuse of Rp3.6 trillion (approximately US$2 billion at the then prevailing exchange rate) and the government closed the ailing banks, including Harapan Sentosa and Bank Guna, which were later sold for Rp13.5 billion. He fled Indonesia for Hong Kong and never returned. In June 1999 he fled to Australia where he was arrested on the basis of Indonesian charges of suspected involvement in the embezzlement of BLBI funds. He was sentenced to extradition to Indonesia, but that was not immediately carried out pending an appeal process. He died, however, in early 2003 before the appeal could be heard. Meanwhile the Central Jakarta District Court had brought a charge of corruption against him on which he was later found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. “Never before in Indonesian legal history has someone been given such a severe punishment in a graft case”, reported the Jakarta Post. He died in prison in Sydney less than a year later (January 2003). Subsequently the Australian Government seized assets of his to the value of A$634,000 for transfer to the Indonesian Government. This was only a tiny part of his total private fortune which was salted away in Hong Kong, China, the Virgin Islands, and the Cayman Islands, from which such restitution was an unlikely process. The career of his brother, Eddy Tansil (Tan Tjoe Hong, born in February 1934 (1948?) in Ujungpandang) was very similar to Rahardja’s. He had made a promising start building bajaj (three-wheeled taxis) in the 1970s, then Kawasaki motorcycles, without much success. He next moved into beer production which

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did not do well in Indonesia, but did in Fujian when he moved there, becoming known as “the father of Fujian beer”. With that source of funds he ventured into a petrochemicals company in Indonesia, but overexpansion and mismanagement left his company unable to pay its loans. Worse, he borrowed too extensively from the Bank Pembangunan Indonesia in the early 1990s to establish a big petrochemical complex in Cilegon and then misused the funds for other than the stated purpose, for which he was sued in court and sentenced to seventeen years’ jail, with his financial assets seized to pay compensation. It is perhaps no coincidence that their father, Tan Tek Hoat, had also fled from Indonesia to Hong Kong in the 1960s — with funds from his Bank Banteng — becoming similarly a fugitive from justice. Jamie Mackie R E F E R E N C E S Suryadinata, Leo. Prominent Indonesian Chinese: Biographical Sketches. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1995–96. Tempo Online. Apa dan Siapa. 1997. Tempo Online. “Hendra Rahardja Divonis tapi Banding”. 4 October 1999. Jakarta Post. “Court sentences Hendra to life for corruption”. 23 March 2002.

Rattanavan, Bou ( , Chen Ke Wei, 1934– ) and Chen Ke Guang, Chen Ke Qi, and Chen Ke Qun Entrepreneur, Laos

T

he Rattanavan brothers, better known as the Tang brothers among the Chinese in Laos PDR, are well known businessmen in the country. Bou Rattanavan (Chen Ke Wei),

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the eldest of the brothers, moved to Paris in 1975 and together with Bounmy Rattanavan (Chen Ke Guang) established a company that became multinational. Chen (pronounced as “Tang” in Teochew dialect) Ke Wei is the eldest son of Chen Zhong ), who was born in Puning. In Qing ( 1924 when he was only fourteen years old, he left his hometown for Thailand to make a living. In 1941, after he had become familiar with the business climate of the Indochina region, he made a second migration, this time to Pakse, the largest city of Champasak Province in the southern part of Laos where he adopted a Laotian surname, Rattanavan. By the 1960s, the Tang family had already acquired a reputable economic status in the country as the owner of a sawmill, a monosodium glutamate factory, and two rice mills. The family also operated an export and import trading and retail firm. Chen Ke Wei, who was born in 1934, gave up his high school studies in 1952 to help his father in his business so as to generate an income to support his ten siblings. He later married Zhang Xian Tao. In 1975, when Laos turned communist, he brought some of his siblings to Paris where he met up with his ), youngest brother, Chen Ke Guang ( who was studying electronic engineering at INSA Lyon University under a government scholarship. Currently Chen Ke Wei is holding French citizenship. In Paris, Chen Ke Wei noticed a large population of Asians who were mostly migrant labourers and refugees and could see a business opportunity there selling daily necessities and groceries. A year later in 1976, he began running his grocery store at the twelfth arrondissement (District 12) in Paris and in 1981 founded Tang Frères SARL. Even at the time of the official launch of the company in August 1985, it was

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already the largest retailer of Asian products in France. It deals with the wholesale and retail of Asian food and handicraft products. It is the biggest overseas Chinese-owned company not only in France, but also in Europe. In Paris, Chen Ke Wei and his siblings own five shops, three Asian restaurants, one handicrafts shop, and one real estate company. They have also set up an integrated business centre comprising shops, warehouses, and eateries in the suburbs of Paris. In 1987, according to Le Nouvel Economiste, the company’s sales exceeded two billion francs and thus gained international fame. Chen Ke Wei has lived abroad for more than fifty years, but has not forgotten his hometown in Lao PDR and the Chinese language. He has four children, three of whom are helping him in his business. His younger brother, Chen Ke Guang, is the fourth son in the Tang family and is the general manager of Tang Frères SARL in Paris. In 1960, Chen Ke Guang was admitted to a Chinese primary school in Laos and graduated from high school there in 1971. He then won a government scholarship to study in France. In 1976 he obtained a bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering from INSA Lyon, France, after which, he assisted Chen Ke Wei in establishing Tang Frères SARL in Paris. Initially, the company was located in the twelfth arrondissement (District 12), but was later moved to the eleventh arrondissement (District 11), and finally, settled down in the main shopping area in the thirteenth arrondissement (District 13). He is married to Chen Shu Zhen ) and has two children. ( In 1991, Tang Frères SARL became the first Chinese company to become a member ). of the Comité France-Chine ( Since the inclusion of Tang Frères SARL into the committee, Chen Ke Guang has become

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an active representative of the committee in promoting France-China relations. For example, he was one of the members of the team selected to receive then Chinese Premier Jiang Zemin during his official visit to France in 1994. In 1997, he was the only Chinese entrepreneur invited to accompany the president of France, Jacques Chirac, on his official visit to China. In 2001, the French Government awarded Tang Frères SARL with a Medal of Honour for its contribution in promoting good international relations between the two countries. In 2001, Chen Ke Guang invested RMB600 million in Haomen Beer Company in China.The annual production of beer of the company totalled approximately three hundred tonnes and it was employing about 1,500 production workers and 200 salespersons. The same year, he ventured into the media industry and established Tang Media. His company introduced China’s channel to the French market and brought Europe sports channel into the Chinese market. On 13 April 1987 he also played a key role in helping his fellow ethnic Chinese establish a Conseil Pour L’integration Des Communautes D’origine Chinoise En ， France (CICOC, “ ”), which aims at assisting Southeast Asian refugees with problems on job hunting and living in France. Then in 1988, he initiated a movement to seek the French Government’s recognition of the contributions of 15,000 Chinese labourers, who came mostly from Shandong Province in 1916 to render support for the troops in World War I. They were known as the Chinese Labour Corps and were mostly working on road construction in northern France. Apart from Chen Ke Guang, Chen Ke Wei has two other brothers also associated with his business: second brother Peter Chen

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) and third brother David Chen Ke Qi ( ). Peter Chen was alias Chen Ke Qun ( born in Thailand and hence has a Thai name: Sackchai Wongmalasith. In his teenage years, he studied in Laos and Vietnam. In the 1970s, his parents often travelled between Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and Myanmar on business. When war broke out in 1975 among the countries in the Indochina region, his father, Chen Zhong Qing felt that they had to move to a new land in order to live in peace. Chen Ke Qi volunteered to explore the possibilities of settling down in Thailand. Ten years later in 1986, he established his company, Thai Agri Foods Public Co. Ltd., which specializes in canned food and fruit juices. Specifically, his business deals with the processing of canned food, frozen seafood and frozen Chinese delicacies such as dim sum. As his business was very successful after it was set up, and was soon launched on the stock market and became publicly listed. In 1998 he was named by the government as a “Model Entrepreneur” in Thailand. The Tang brothers have always wanted to help in the development of Lao PDR. In 2003, they finally chanced upon an investment opportunity to embark on the construction of the Laos International Trade Exhibition and Convention Center” (ITECC) in Vientiane. Chen Ke Qi was entrusted with full responsibility to oversee the smooth running of the construction project which cost US$7.5 million and took about one year to complete. The building is located in the heart of the capital and is equipped with world-class facilities, such as a telecommunication system and both large and small conference rooms. It is the first of its kind in Lao PDR. On 3 February 2004, Lao deputy prime minister, Somsavat Lengsavad, was invited to inaugurate at the opening ceremony and he praised

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the Tang brothers’ contribution to Laos’ development highly. Chen Ke Qi is a sports and music lover. In sports, he is a bodybuilder and had started training when he was fifteen years old. He insisted on exercising four times a week to keep his body physically fit. In supporting sports events, he once donated a sum of 3,000,000 baht to secondary schools in Thailand for the archery training of students in the hope that through such training, they will be well skilled when it comes to qualifying for the Asian Games. As for his passion for music, on 18 October 1999, he led a choir in singing for guests at the dinner of the International Teochew friendship meeting. Chen Ke Qun, the third brother, is an accountant and entrepreneur. He was educated in Laos and Cambodia before he continued his studies in Australia. In 1969, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in commerce from the University of New South Wales, Sydney and then returned to Laos to help in the Tang family business. His father made him fully responsible for the business in Vientiane. In 1975, during the war in the Indochina region, he brought his parents, two sisters, wife and children, nephews, and nieces to Australia. At the time, as an accountant, he felt that a systematic accounting management system was important for the Tang family business. Hence, in 1978, he started to visit Chen Ke Qi in Thailand to help him work out an accounting system. Following this, he visited France to work out a similar accounting system for his two other brothers’ business there. This has helped to propel the Tang family business to greater heights. Chen Ke Qun had made trips to different parts of the world to seek the best place to establish his business, before finally

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settling down in Hong Kong. He felt that Hong Kong was an important business port that could perform a supporting role for his brothers’ business in France and Thailand. In 1982 he established Tesana Ltd. in Hong Kong. The company exports different kinds of food products such as vermicelli, salted eggs, and canned food to Europe, America, Australia, and Africa. It has become one of the biggest exporters of Hong Kong food products. Lim Boon Hock R E F E R E N C E S 〈 。

〉， ：

《

》 ，1994， 307。

〉， ，2010 9 1 。 (accessed January 2012).

〈

〉， ， 〈 2 0 0 8 1 1 2 4 。 < h t t p : / / s c h o o l . c h a o re n . c o m / html/20081124/info_view_2671.html> (accessed January 2011).

Riady, James Tjahaja (Lie Zen, , Li Bai, 1957– ) Businessman, Indonesia

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ames T. Riady, the son of Mochtar Riady, is the Deputy Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Lippo Group (see entry on Mochtar Riady). He lived in the United States in the 1980s where he managed the investments of Lippo Group in the U.S. and served as the President of Worthen Bank of Arkansas. He returned to Indonesia in 1988 and followed the footsteps of his father in establishing a banking career. He is very well connected in business networks and has established good relationships across the

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spectrum, most notably with former U.S. president Bill Clinton and former Indonesian presidents B.J. Habibie and Abdurrahman Wahid. After the fall of Suharto in 1998, James Riady was appointed as a special envoy of the president to win back foreign capital amidst the financial crisis that swept across Asia. He is currently the Chairman of the Pelita Harapan University in Jakarta and has established private Christian schools catering for different social classes in Indonesia. Born in Indonesia on 7 January 1957, James T. Riady is the son of Mochtar Riady and Suryawai Lidya. Since young, James was groomed by his father to be a businessman. To train him to be independent, his father sent him to Macau for studies when he was only 8 years old. After four years in Macau, James continued his studies in Australia. He graduated in accountancy and economics from the University of Melbourne in 1977. James served an internship with the Irving Trust and Investment Bank in Little Rock, Arkansas in the United States and did a 10-month internship at Stephens Finance Ltd. in Hong Kong before returning to Indonesia in 1979. In Indonesia, he built his reputation as an aggressive young banker at Bank Perniagaan Indonesia (BPI) — the backbone of the Lippo Group, led by his father Mochtar Riady — where he poached three vice presidents from Citibank to join his company. In 1982, James married Aileen Hambali. They gave birth to two sons and two daughters. James and Aileen lived in the United States for several years where he was appointed by his father to look after Lippo Group’s U.S. investment. In 1984, Lippo Group bought $16 million worth of stocks from Worthen Bank of Arkansas. James assumed an increasing authority in the distressed Worthen bank. He negotiated business on his father’s behalf during Worthen’s crisis. When two of the

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principal officers resigned to take responsibility for the bank’s losses, James became the bank’s president. The Riadys sold their investment in Worthen at a loss in the late 1980s. James then moved to Los Angeles, where he bought the Bank of Trade in California, the oldest Chinese-American bank in the region. He renamed it Lippo Bank and concentrated on an Asian American clientele. However, in 1990, The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation had found repeated banking violations at Lippo Bank, issuing three separate cease-anddesist orders against the bank, citing slapdash management and questionable transfers of funds. When he was 30, James returned to Jakarta from the United States. He later became the Chief Executive Officer of Lippo Group. He brought the American “go-getting” style to Lippo Group that differed from Indonesian lowkey business practices. James was criticized on two fronts: Chinese-Indonesians businessmen found him too brash and Americanized, and indigenous businessmen questioned his loyalty to Indonesia given the amount of business his company invested abroad. James was known to have a close relationship with former U.S. President Bill Clinton. He had known Bill Clinton since he was doing an internship in Little Rock, when Clinton was the state attorney-general of Arkansas. Moreover, when James became the president of Worthen Bank of Arkansas, Hillary Clinton served as the bank’s attorney. James was one of the few non-American to be personally invited by Clinton to attend the pre-inaugural economic summit in 1992. The Riady family was also invited to attend the inauguration of Bill Clinton as president of the United States in 1993. After Clinton became president, James had made at least 20 visits to the White House and had met privately with the president three

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times. James also attended the Asian Pacific Economic Conference in Seattle in November 1993, and was on hand for President Clinton’s November 1994 visit to Indonesia. James Riady was a major contributor to the Democratic Party in the 1996 U.S. election campaign. The Republican Party questioned the Lippo Group’s donations suggesting the aim was to influence U.S. government policy. The Riady family and executives of Lippo Group have contributed money the Democratic National Committee since 1991, despite the fact that foreign contributions to U.S. campaigns are against the law. An investigation on the financial scandal of the 1996 presidential campaign was carried out by the United States Senate in 1998. James was indicted and had pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations by himself and his corporation. In 2001, he was ordered to pay a fine of $8.6 million — the largest monetary penalty ever levied in a case of unlawful campaign finance — and was put on probation for two years and was ordered to do 400 hours of community service. In May 1998, following the fall of President Suharto, Indonesia witnessed a massive anti-Chinese violence across its major cities. Many ethnic Chinese business people brought their capital with them in their flight to safer haven overseas. During that time, James Riady stayed put in Indonesia and insisted that he would not leave the country and would not liquidate any big local investments. The then President B.J. Habibie appointed him a “business ambassador” to win back foreign capital and gave Lippo Bank first call on government recapitalization funds in 1999. After two years of low-profile restructuring, James helped to bring Lippo Group to a comeback from the verge of collapse in the beginning of 2000. James also has a reputation as a wheeler-dealer, juggling dozens of Lippo deals at any one time and profiting in the stock

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market — he is considered Indonesia’s most successful businessman at raising funds in the capital market. Besides his business endeavours, James has also contributed to the private education sector in Indonesia. He has a vision to start 10 schools for the upper-class people, 100 schools for the middle-class people, and 1,000 schools for the lower-class people. As a result, Sekolah Pelita Harapan (SPH), which adopts a Christian curriculum, was established by Lippo Group in 1993. James is currently serving as the Chairman of a Christian university, Universitas Pelita Harapan, established by his father. Since converting to Christianity in 1990, James has been an ardent evangelical. His management approach has an evangelical aspect that encourages his employees to attend church retreats and introduce them to the Christian faith. Apparently, many staff of the Lippo Group are also devout Christians and have fervently prayed for the success of the group’s projects. James had planned to quit the family business and enter into Christian ministry. Hoon Chang Yau R E F E R E N C E S “Clinton donor pleads guilty”. CBS News, 20 March 2001. (accessed January 2012). “Family Tied to Democratic Party Funds Built and Indonesian Empire”. The New York Times, 20 October 1996. “How James Riady Makes Himself Indispensable”. BusinessWeek Online, 7 June 1999. (accessed January 2012). “James Riady finds God and seeks Lippo exit”. South China Morning Post, 05 April 2000. “Lobi Riady di Gedung Putih”. Tempo. (accessed January 2012).

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Riady, Mochtar (Lie Mo Tie, , Li Wenzheng, 1929– ) Businessman, banker, Indonesia

M

ochtar Riady, the Chairman and Founder of Lippo Group, is a renowned banker and businessman. He was ranked #14 in GlobeAsia list of 150 Wealthiest Indonesians in 2010 and #38 in Forbes Indonesia 40 Richest List in 2010. His company, Lippo Group, controls over 50 subsidiaries and employs more than 50,000 people. His business empire spans across the Asia-Pacific region, with presence in areas such as financial investments, property and urban development, retail and services, information technology and a variety of industrial activities. The Lippo Group also controls the largest private healthcare and hospital group in Indonesia and sponsors an education foundation that operates schools, universities and a recently inaugurated nanotechnology research institute named after Mochtar Riady himself. Mochtar Riady has received Honorary Doctorate titles from Golden Gate University in San Francisco, California and Southeast University in China. He was also bestowed the status of Honorary Citizen by the cities of Xiamen, Nanjing, Putian and Meizhou in China. Son of a batik trader, Mochtar Riady was born in the city of Malang in East Java on 12 May 1929. His aspiration to become a banker began since he was 10 years old. This ambition emerged from his experience of being awed by the majestic office building of the Nederlandsche Handels Bank (NHB) which he passed by everyday on the way to school. Mochtar was an anti-colonial activist and the president of the East Java Overseas Chinese Student Association during his school days in Java. He supported the Indonesian

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guerillas and participated in anti-Dutch demonstrations. His dream in becoming a banker was derailed in 1947 when he was arrested by the Dutch authorities and exiled to Nanjing, China. There, he took the opportunity to study philosophy at the then Nanjing University (now Southeast University). He fled to Hong Kong because of raging wars in China, and returned to Indonesia in 1950. Upon his return to Indonesia, Mochtar’s pursuit of a career in the banking industry was again postponed. In a relatively deprived environment, his father advised him against entering the banking sector which was then an industry only for the affluent. Following his marriage in 1951, Mochtar lived in the town of Jember in East Java to run a small store belonged to his in-laws. Within three years it became the largest store in town. In 1954, he departed for Jakarta, against his family’s wishes, to pursue his dream of becoming a banker. He was confident that he would realize his ambition despite his lack of experience or business networks in Jakarta. He began to work for a small company in Jakarta’s trading district for 6 months. This job opened up many new opportunities and allowed him to build new business relationships. Later Mochtar opened a small shipping business with an acquaintance. His first foray into banking finally began when a friend informed him that Bank Kemakmuran, a small bank owned by Andi Gappa was in dire financial state. Mochtar convinced Gappa to appoint him as a director of the bank. Without any banking experience and accounting skills, Mochtar learned as he journeyed on. Within a year he managed to turnaround Bank Kemakmuran. He then moved on to Bank Buana in 1964, where he again made his mark by steering the bank through a recession and allowing it to emerge stronger than before.

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In 1971–1975 Mochtar successfully developed the Panin Bank — a new bank from the merger of three other banks — into one of the largest private banks in Indonesia. He was poached by business tycoon Liem Sioe Leong to join Bank Central Asia (BCA). He soon became Liem’s right-hand man in the bank and was given a 17.5% share. He left BCA in 1990 to focus on expanding the Lippo Group that he founded. When Mochtar was appointed to BCA, its assets were merely IDR 12.8 billion, and when he left, its assets were worth IDR 5 trillion. In each bank, Mochtar managed to craft a success story for himself. His outstanding skills and experience in revitalizing ailing banks have earned him the title: “The Magic Man of Bank Marketing”. Many also respect him for continuing his business in Indonesia during the May 1998 anti-Chinese riots, when many wealthy businessmen fled overseas. Lippo Group has become a multinational group of companies spanning the Pacific basin with interests in financial investment, property and infrastructure development, retail, education and media. As Mochtar ages, he began to delegate responsibilities to his sons, James and Stephen, who will inevitably be the successors to the business empire. At the shareholders Annual General Meeting of Lippo Bank on 4 March 2005, Mochtar resigned from his position as the Chief Commissioner of the Bank. His resignation marked the end of the Riady family’s direct involvement in the management of the bank. To create a lasting legacy, Mochtar Riady began to venture into education and health sectors over the past decade or so. Apart from establishing a private Christian university, Pelita Harapan, he has also established dozens of Christian schools, and more recently, an institute of nanotechnology, named after himself. Most of these world-class facilities, together with the Siloam Hospital for upper

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class patients, are housed at Lippo Karawaci — a town located west of Jakarta developed by Lippo Group, where the Riady family resides. Mochtar Riady has a deep conviction to promoted quality education in Indonesia. He believes that education, or more precisely, the development of human resource, is the key to developing a strong nation. He is also committed to philanthropic work in the region, through the development of education and health care. He plans to build one thousand “Schools of Hope” in remote areas of Indonesia to offer free education for the underprivileged. He has financially supported the establishment of Putian University in Fujian, China, and Ma Chung University in Malang, Indonesia. In 2007, Lippo Group donated S$21 million to the National University of Singapore Business School. The funds have been used to build a Mochtar Riady Building to honour the founder of the Group, and to fund two distinguished professorships named after his sons James and Stephen Riady. In 2011, Mochtar Riady donated S$5 million to Singapore Management University to set up the Mochtar Riady Scholarships to support undergraduates from China and Indonesia. Mochtar Riady is regarded as a visionary magnate whose business philosophy and experience have become an inspiration for budding entrepreneurs. He is an avid reader and an active writer. He has authored three books: Searching for Opportunities amidst Crisis (1999), Nanotechnology Management Style (2004) and Ancient Philosophy and Modern Management (2006). Hoon Chang Yau R E F E R E N C E S Biography Tokok-tokoh Terkenal. (accessed January 2012).

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Lee, Han Shih. “Mochtar Riady: The Banker Without a Bank”. The Asia Mag, 17 March 2009. (accessed January 2012). “Mochtar Riady Resigns from Lippo”. Bisnis Indonesia, 5 March 2005. Riady, Mochtar. Mencari Peluang di Tengah Krisis [Searching for Opportunities amidst Crisis]. Jakarta: Universitas Pelita Harapan Press, 1999. Suryadinata, Leo. Prominent Indonesian Chinese: Biographical Sketches. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1995. Interview with Mochtar Riady on 26 June 2009 at Mochtar Riady Institute of Nanotechology.

Robredo, Jesse Manalastas ( , Lin Bingzhi, 1958–2012) Political leader, Philippines

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ose Manalastas Robredo was known for his attempt at steadfastly implementing good governance that stemed from a genuine concern for others. Born on 27 May 1958, he served as secretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Government. He was appointed by President Benigno C. Aquino III because of his success as Mayor of Naga City, as well as his untarnished reputation in the field of governance. In the wake of the Philippines’ People Power Revolution in 1986, Jesse Robredo responded to President Corazon C. Aquino’s call to dedicate oneself to public service. He abandoned his executive position at San Miguel Corporation to head the Bicol River Basin Development Program in Naga, his hometown. In 1988 he won in the elections to become mayor of Naga by a slim margin. He was twenty-nine. Once the queen city of the Bicol region, the Naga that Robredo inherited from his

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predecessor was a dispirited provincial town of 120,000 souls with a 8-million-peso debt. Traffic clogged its tawdry business district and vice syndicates operated at will. City services were fitful at best. Meanwhile, thousands of informal settlers filled Naga’s vacant lands. Under Robredo’s leadership as mayor for three consecutive terms of three years each, Naga blossomed into a model city, regaining such a status after having been downgraded to third class during his first stint as mayor. Naga bested bigger and richer urban centres when it was recognized thrice as the “Most BusinessFriendly City” by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, thus elevating it to the Hall of Fame. Naga is also a winner of the Asian Institute of Management-Ford Foundation Galing Pook Innovations Program Award, and the recipient of the Presidential Gawad Pamana ng Lahi Award of the DILG. It was named “Most Child-Friendly City” in 2006 by the Philippine Council for the Welfare of Children, and received the Galing Pook Foundation’s Award for Continuing Excellence. During Robredo’s incumbency, Naga received more than 150 awards and recognitions in diverse fields of local administration. These include being named Most Cost-Effective City in Asia by the United Kingdom’s Foreign Direct Investment Magazine (2005); being the Public Service Awardee for Local e-Governance from the United Nations Department of Public Administration and Finance (2004); receiving the Women-Friendly City Award from the U.N.-Habitat and the U.N. Development Fund for Women (2004); being chosen Model City for Government Procurement from the World Bank and Procurement Watch (2003); being a CyberCity Awardee for its i-governance initiatives from the United Nations Development Programme (2002);

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and being a Dubai International Awardee for Improving the Living Environment from U.N. Habitat (1998). Naga is also one of only nine areas in the country cited by the United Nations Development Programme as the leading lights in the implementation of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals. It led the Bicol region in achieving the following goals halfway to the 2015 deadline: eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating major diseases, and providing basic amenities. Robredo himself was duly recognized several times for his skills and competence in his work when he was given fourteen major awards including the 2000 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service for being one of the Outstanding Young Men of the Philippines, the 1996 Outstanding Young Persons of the World Award, the 1998 Konrad Adenauer Medal of Excellence as Most Outstanding City Mayor of the Philippines and the first ever “Dangal ng Bayan ” Award of the Civil Service Commission. In March 2008, he was also given an honorary doctor of humanities degree by the Far Eastern University in Manila. This road to success was a constantly painstaking and uphill battle against the city’s long-held traditions of patronage and nepotism. Robredo began with a strike against patronage. He introduced a merit-based system of hiring and promotion reorganizing city employees on the basis of aptitude and competence. He then moved against the local vice lords, ridding Naga of gambling and smut. Next, he relocated public transportation terminals outside the city centre, ending gridlock and spurring new enterprises at the city’s edge. In partnership with businesses, he revitalized Naga’s economy.

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Public revenues rose and by 1990 Naga was a first-class city again. Robredo’s constituents took heart and re-elected him twice. Spurning bodyguards, Robredo moved freely among the people. By enlisting the support and active assistance of Naga’s non-profit organizations and citizens, he improved public services dramatically. He established day-care centres in each of Naga’s twenty-seven districts and added five new high schools. He built a public hospital for low-income citizens. He set up a dependable 24-hour emergency service. He constructed a network of farm-to-market roads and provided clean and reliable water systems in Naga’s rural communities. He launched programmes for youth, farmers, labourers, women, the elderly, and persons with disabilities — drawing thousands into civic action in the process. No civic deed was too small, he told the people, including the simple act of reporting a broken street lamp. He sometimes swept the streets himself. Consistently, Robredo prioritized the needs of the poor. Through his Kaantabay sa Kauswagan (Partners in Development) programme, more than 4,500 once-homeless families moved to home lots of their own. They became part of Naga’s revival. So did a revitalized city government. Applying techniques from business, Robredo raised the standards of performance, productivity, and morale among city employees. As a culture of excellence overtook the culture of mediocrity at City Hall, Naga’s businesses doubled and local revenues rose by 573 per cent. Re-elected without opposition in 1995, Robredo urged the Naga City Council to enact a unique Empowerment Ordinance.This created a People’s Council to institutionalize the participation of non-profit and people’s organizations in all future municipal

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deliberations. When obliged by law to step down after his third term, the popular Robredo made no effort to entrench his family, as is the case with many political dynasties. Contrary to popular belief, Robredo was neither raised nor groomed to be a public servant. Robredo’s paternal grandfather was a Chinese immigrant named Lim Pay Co who arrived in the Philippines at the turn of the 20th century. Lim Pay Co later converted to Christianity and adopted the name, Juan Lim Robredo. Amidst the emergent turbulence in political history during the period of Martial Law in the Philippines, he was never drawn to activism. However, he was neither ignorant of, nor indifferent to, political issues. His father, Jose Lim Robredo, had always encouraged his children to speak their minds and, at mealtimes, when everyone was required to be present, he encouraged lively discussions, including those on politics. Even at a young age the value of simple living and genuine concern for other people’s welfare were instilled in his heart by his parents. His father imparted to him the importance of guarding the integrity and honour of the family. From his mother, a devout Catholic, Robredo learned to pray daily, a habit which he passed on to his children. Since the family lived in an area located both near a business district and also squalor, the young Robredo made friends from both the fairly rich and the poor. These priceless life lessons became the essential foundations in setting the mould for the makings of a remarkable leader. Robredo was a secondary school student at Ateneo de Naga — the only Catholic high school for boys in the city, run by the Society

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of Jesus and highly regarded for its emphasis on personal discipline and academic excellence — when then President Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law in 1972. He entered university in 1974 and obtained undergraduate degrees in Industrial Management Engineering and Mechanical Engineering at the De La Salle University. Robredo was an Edward Mason fellow and holder of a Master’s degree in public administration from John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (1999). He also completed his Master’s in business administration at the University of the Philippines. Robredo died in a plane crash on 18 August 2012 and his body was found on 21 August 2012. Bernadette Bangayan R E F E R E N C E S “Citation for Jesse Robredo, Ramon Magsaysay Award Presentation Ceremonies”. 31 August 2000. Retrieved April 2009 from . Gimpaya, Andy V. “Former Naga City Mayor Jesse Robredo is New DILG Head.” Vox Bikol. 9 July 2010. Retrieved July 2010 from . Keh, Harvey S. “Things I learned from Mayor Jesse Robredo”. Manila Bulletin, 28 December 2008. Pabico, Alecks P. “Naga City’s class act”. Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, 30 May 2008. Retrieved April 2009 from . Pabico, Alecks P. “People Power thrives in Naga City”. Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, 30 April 2007. Retrieved April 2009 from .

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S Sahat Mahakhun (Tia Lan-chan, , Zhang Lanchen, 1895–1961) Community leader, businessman, philanthropist, Thailand

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ahat Mahakhun was a prominent leader of the Chinese community in Thailand. He was elected chairperson of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Thailand for more than ten years, making him one of the most favoured and supported leader in the Chinese community. He arranged a delegation to Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong in 1954, which led to the successful formation of a trade triangle among Thailand, Taiwan, and Japan. He was also noted for his efforts in implementing government policies among the Chinese, as well as protecting the interests of the Chinese community. Sahat was born in Chao’an, Guangdong, in 1895, the second son of Zhang Suixian. His ancestors used to live in Puning, Guangdong, but had moved to Chao’an during the Qing Dynasty. Zhang Suixian was the first in the family to make a living in Thailand. He opened ZhangTong Store in Nakhon Pathom Province, and earned his living by selling construction materials. When he was eighteen years old, Sahat relocated to Thailand to help out in his father’s business. With the aid of his elder brother, he later set up his own construction company, Yuan Lian Tai Co., in Bangkok. He contracted many public projects, such as the building of

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the Central Post Office and many buildings of Chulalongkorn University. In 1931 he established the Eastern Asia Match Factory with fellow businessmen from Chao’an. Later he ventured into other businesses, such as insurance and banking. Before becoming chairperson of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, Sahat was active in the Teo Ann Assistance Society (now the Teo Ann Townsmen’s Association of Thailand). In 1934 he became the eighth chairperson of the society and continued to hold this position in the society, and, later, in the Teo Ann Townsmen’s Association, until 1958, when he stepped down and became the honorary chairperson of the association. When Hiaguang-iam Iamsuri was assassinated in 1939, he was elected the seventeenth chairperson of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Thailand. He was also the chairperson of the board of directors of the Poh Teck Tung Foundation during the same period, and was elected the fourth chairperson of the Teochew Association of Thailand in 1941. Aside from the positions mentioned above, he held positions in other Chinese associations, for example as chairperson of the board of directors of the Tien Hua Hospital of Thailand. In 1947 Sahat was again elected chairperson of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Thailand and remained in this position for fifteen years. This tenure, together with his first appointment in 1939, means he was the first person in history to undertake this position for more than ten years, implying that he was one of the most favoured and

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supported leaders of the Chinese community in Thailand. As a result of his long tenure, many referred to him as “chairperson” only, instead of “chairperson Tia”. During his appointment as chairperson of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Thailand, he was the bridge between the Chinese community and the Thai government. He was supportive of the Thai government and responded to its various policies and appeals. For example, he took on the responsibility of raising funds for various public projects such as, the construction of the Police General Hospital and providing relief for child refugees. At the same time, he fought for the welfare and interests of the Chinese community in Thailand. In 1950, when the Thai Government announced that all foreign residents without valid passes would have to apply for one by the end of the year, Sahat negotiated with the government for the deadline to be pushed to the end of 1951, and eventually to 1953. Moreover, many Chinese associations were able to apply for the necessary permits of residence in Thailand on behalf of their members. He also urged the Thai government to allow Chinese criminals who were to be deported to remain in the country and make a living in Phetchabun Province. Sahat Mahakhun was not only a prominent leader locally, but was also recognized internationally. In 1954 he led a delegation to Taiwan, Japan, and Hong Kong in an effort to establish triangular trade relations for the benefit of Thailand. The delegation achieved great success as a trade triangle was eventually established among Thailand, Taiwan and Japan. Furthermore, as the chairperson of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Thailand and leader of the delegation, he petitioned the government of Hong Kong to relax its regulations on the import of rice from Thailand. In 1959 he was invited by the Committee for International

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Cultural Exchange to visit various industrial facilities in the United States. Aside from the prominent positions mentioned above, Sahat also held many other positions both in the Chinese Nationalist government and in Thailand. A few major examples include being a member of the Committee on Chinese Overseas Matters in the Chinese Nationalist government, a member of United Nations International Children’s Fund in Thailand, member of the board of directors of the Thai Red Cross Society, vicechairperson of the Tuberculosis Association in Thailand, a member of the City Appearance Rectification Committee, and a member of the Board of Trade of Thailand. In recognition of his contributions to Thailand, he was awarded the Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant several times by King Bhumibol of Thailand. The Teo Ann Townsmen’s Association of Thailand has also named its auditorium in memory of him. ), His wife, Huang Longzhao ( was also actively involved in the community. She was once the chairperson of the board of directors of a children’s home in Bangkok. Within the Chinese community, she was an adviser to the women’s committee of the Kwong Siew Association. She was also a prominent businesswoman and was known to have invested in a fabric factory and established a cable factory. Sahat died of illness on 29 July 1961 at the age of sixty-six. When the news of his illness spread, many high-ranking officials in both the Nationalist Chinese government and the Thai government sent their regards to him, or even paid their respects at his wake. After his death, King Bhumibol bestowed on him a golden outer coffin. Many high-ranking officials of the Thai government also attended his funeral. Goh Yu Mei

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R E F E R E N C E S Manager Magazine. March 1986. 〈 ：

〉， 《 ，1965， A245–47。

》。

Salim, Anthony ( , Lin Fengsheng, 1949– ) Businessman, Indonesia

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he youngest son of Indonesian tycoon and top Suharto crony Liem Sioe Liong, Anthony Salim has helmed the Salim Group since the fall of President Suharto in May 1998. Anthony has been credited with saving the group, which long was the country’s largest business conglomerate, through intense negotiations with authorities after the collapse of the rupiah and a run on its flagship bank, Bank Central Asia (BCA), left Salim saddled with more than US$5 billion in debt. To settle it, he gave stakes in 108 companies to the government, which sold them. In 2004, Anthony received a “release and discharge” document saying he had met his obligations. He went on to rebuild Salim, now fully under his control, and in the process, re-established the group as one of the country’s preeminent business firms. When the chaos that engulfed Jakarta in May 1998 helped bring down Suharto’s 32year-old leadership, many people thought the end was near for the mighty Salim Group, an important support pillar of the president. Suharto’s fall deprived the group of a powerful patron and the Asian financial crisis piled Salim with huge debts. BCA was crippled by a massive run, as the president’s exit spawned a sharp backlash against his family and cronies like Liem, Salim’s founder. Several members of the new Cabinet under President B.J. Habibie wanted the Salim Group destroyed. Efforts to

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try to save Salim couldn’t be undertaken by the frail Liem, then nearly 81 years old, and almost completely blind. Days before the Jakarta riots, he had left for California for a scheduled eye surgery. He would never live in Jakarta again. The job of salvaging parts of the business empire he built fell to Anthony who years earlier had been understudying his father and gradually assumed leadership of the conglomerate, which at its peak, controlled some 600 companies. Events proved Liem’s wisdom in grooming Anthony as his successor, although for years, Liem sidestepped questions about his heir apparent. Traditionally, a Chinese business patriarch would make the eldest son his successor. Liem, for all the criticism that he became extremely wealthy due to his close links with Suharto, was wise, and unafraid of breaking from the norm and giving control to his youngest son. Highly intelligent and shrewd, Anthony proved a quick learner in the many businesses undertaken by the group.A master of detail, he proved adept at planning complicated corporate moves, and he changed or ended some partnerships his father had entered. Anthony was born in October 1949 in Kudus, Central Java, where Liem settled after migrating from China in 1938. By his own admission, he was a less-than-mediocre student, often impatient with classroom learning. But from young, his father’s many business ventures intrigued him and he tagged along to factories and meetings. His high school education was interrupted by chaos and the purge of alleged communists after the abortive 30 September 1965 coup that would lead to Sukarno’s downfall,and to the ascendancy of Gen.Suharto. He continued his schooling in Singapore and spent two years at a college in the UK for his tertiary education. Upon graduation in 1971, he returned to Jakarta, eager to get involved in his father’s businesses.

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By 1975, Liem had already built up a strong level of trust in his youngest son. He had Anthony get involved in an important negotiation — getting banker Mochtar Riady on board to run Liem’s BCA. Mochtar Riady had built a reputation for ‘rescuing’ flagging banks, was planning to leave Panin Bank, and BCA at the time was floundering. Liem found the banker receptive to the challenge to building BCA to become the country’s largest private bank. However, Liem shocked and disappointed Mochtar when he sent Anthony — then aged 26 and dressed like a hippie — to conclude the negotiations. “I thought Pak Liem was not serious,” recalled Mochtar. But after the meeting with Anthony the banker emerged with a different view, impressed by this “bright young man.” The 1970s were learning years for Anthony, who during the New Order was careful not to step beyond his father’s shadow. Liem heeded Anthony’s advice — to move to separate ownership from management; to seek good, non-family professionals to manage their businesses, to venture beyond Indonesia in order to hedge its bets (and give some distance — plus assets — away from the Suharto family, though naturally this goal was never publicly stated). Anthony also nudged his father to part ways with Liem’s two brothers, so the ownership of their companies would be more clear-cut. Over time, Anthony would prove to be a consummate deal-maker. He would make it a point to learn from those who Salim chose to partner. Besides Mochtar in banking, his ‘teachers’ included Ciputra, who was a partner with the Salim Group in property, and Sukanto Tanoto of Raja Garuda Mas in the palm oil business. Anthony also engineered the bulk of the Salim drive for a global presence. He and a banker friend, Manuel Pangilinan, started a business in Hong Kong in 1981 that grew into

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diversified First Pacific. By 1983, it bought the Dutch trading company Hagemeyer, followed by Hibernia Bank of San Francisco. First Pacific had a chequered history, performancewise, and was billed by critics as Deal Pacific. After frequent strategy changes, it settled into having just two main, big assets — holdings in Indofood and Philippine Long Distance Telephone — rather than a hodgepodge collection of companies. Of Liem’s three sons, Anthony was most like his father in character. Both father and son had good instincts, which they relied on in conducting business. They were willing to spend top dollar to attract good people and were magnanimous to their patrons and supporters, from Suharto and his family to high ranking military officers, and to nearly anyone who came to their door. Over time, the Salim Group built a reputation of being able to outmaneuver some business rivals, and along the way, created some enmity. Some Indonesian businessmen consider Anthony ruthless, and even more shrewd than his father. “We never willingly set out to hurt others,” Anthony said. For sure, Anthony has intensely pursued strong ambitions and goals. Doing business has been his life, and he has developed a reputation as a workaholic. He has an excellent memory. Liem said of his son: “Anton’s mind is like a computer.” Early on, the son understood what was needed to operate in Suharto’s Indonesia, but added a more international approach and professional touch. In nearly every corporate move Salim made — moves driven by Anthony — the group generated controversy. Its 1989 public offering of PT Indocement Tunggal Prakarsa upset some because the company got a waiver of a Finance Ministry rule in order to sell shares. Asset shuffles in 1992 and 1995 that involved food businesses also stirred controversy, as critics said they benefited Salim’s main owners

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more than minority shareholders. Anthony defended the corporate moves as “creating value” for all shareholders. Anthony sought to diversify in a way that businesses with the Suharto family became a decreasing share of the Salim empire. But to the public, the Salim name was inextricably tied to Suharto’s, and the shareholding of BCA was often cited as proof — Suharto’s children’s (eldest daughter Tutut and eldest son Sigit) ownership of 30 per cent equity. During the aftermath of the 1997 financial crisis, when Anthony led the effort to settle the massive debts to the government, he pursued a strategy of giving up chunks of the Salim empire while striving to secure continued control of its most important pillar, its food business. In the end, the group lost its other two pillars — cement (Indocement) and banking (BCA), but Anthony got majorityownership of Indofood shifted into First Pacific of Hong Kong, in which Salim was the biggest shareholder. In 2004, he became Indofood’s president-director. To those who knew Anthony, his success in sustaining Salim wasn’t a surprise. Although he can be charming and engaging, he is also determined and feisty. At the debt settlement negotiations with IBRA (Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency), Anthony was tough and tenacious. But he won some kudos when compared with some other debt-saddled tycoons who did not cooperate as fully with the government. International bankers came out impressed. Suharto’s fall bred a new generation of Indonesian executives, and Anthony, after showing Salim could survive, worked with several key new figures. One was Hary Tanoesoedibjo, who took over much of Suharto son Bambang Trihatmodjo’s Bimantara Group and became a media mogul. Other new partners included Chairul Tanjung, owner

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of Bank Mega, and Eddy Sariaatmadja, who owned plantations. While he rebuilt significant parts of his portfolio at home, Anthony expanded outside Indonesia, particularly in China. Salim China invested in property and other businesses. Back home, he returned to a major role in auto business Indomobil, which expanded to include mining.At the start of 2012,Anthony remained chairman of First Pacific, which through a Manila unit had expanded significantly in the Philippines in water, tollroads and other infrastructure areas. Anthony and his wife Margareth have three children — Axton, Astrid and Alston. Axton started working at Indofood in 2004 and in 2009 became a director. Richard Borsuk and Nancy Chng R E F E R E N C E S Some of the material for this article was obtained from interviews with Anthony Salim by the authors from 2006–2009 and from conversations with Liem Sioe Liong 2006–2007, and an interview with Mochtar Riady on 24 Jan 2007. Dieleman, Marleen. The Rhythm of Strategy: A corporate biography of the Salim Group of Indonesia. ICAS. Amsterdam University Press, 2007. “The Salim Group: Starting over.” Tempo. 13–19 May 2008. Verchere, Ian. “Liem Sioe Liong: Suharto’s secret agent.” Insight. May 1978.

Salim, Soedono (Liem Sioe Liong, 1917–2012) Businessman, Indonesia

D

, Lin Shaoliang,

etractors derided him as Indonesian President Suharto’s top crony, but Liem Sioe Liong (Soedono Salim) was

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also one of Southeast Asia’s most pivotal and skilled businessmen. Liem arrived in Java from China in 1938 with barely more than the clothes on his back. Despite his lack of formal education, he parlayed his close association with Suharto into making his Salim Group one of the region’s first multinationals, and he was — for many years — the wealthiest Chinese businessman in Southeast Asia. At its peak, the group encompassed 600 companies and employed an estimated 200,000 people. Long after Suharto’s fall in 1998, the Salim Group had not only survived a strong backlash in Indonesia, but was again thriving, thanks to the tenacity of Liem’s youngest son, Anthony Salim. He took the group into new activities in multiple places. Salim expanded in China and, through its Hong Kong-listed First Pacific unit, invested in water, tollroads, mining and other areas in the Philippines. The Indomie brand of instant noodles, owned by Salim’s core business Indofood, had many customers in parts of the Middle East and Africa. Liem was born in 1917 in a village in Haikou district, near Fuqing, Fujian province, China. He was the second son of a farmer who had 11 children and who died in 1937. The following year, Japanese troops invaded southern China, precipitating a call to draft young men. That prospect, combined with a severe drought, pushed Liem to leave home and join his older brother Sioe Hie and an uncle in the Netherlands East Indies. In the early years in Central Java, Liem, like many Chinese immigrants, tried various trades. Starting off as an itinerant textile and clothing peddler based in Kudus, he extended credit to his mainly Javanese customers. Liem, his brother and uncle started a peanut oil business, and later they ground, packed and sold coffee. Liem rode his bicycle many kilometres to sell his goods. Thanks to his personality and

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instincts, Liem soon made more money than his brother, who had come to Java nine years earlier. The Japanese Occupation wreaked havoc on Liem’s business. But there was one happy episode during those dark years — he met a pretty Indonesian Chinese student of Peranakan heritage 10 years his junior. They married in 1944. The Japanese surrender in 1945 was followed by the struggle for Indonesian independence. As the Netherlands tried to reassert control over its longtime colony, republican units who hid in the mountains conducted raids against Dutch soldiers. Liem and some fellow Hokchia (his dialect group clansmen) suppliers took risks by running provisions such as coffee, rice, sugar and kreteks (clove scented cigarettes) to independence guerrillas. One of the unit leaders was a rising officer named Suharto, then a lieutenantcolonel, and that was where the two first got acquainted. Liem moved to Jakarta in 1952 in search of better opportunities. But the 1950s and early 1960s — when Sukarno railed against capitalism — were rough times for private business. Liem’s ambition to expand beyond trading was stymied by the difficulty of obtaining funds. In the 1950s, he remained a small and relatively unknown businessman. His fortunes changed dramatically following the controversial events in 1965–66 that led to Suharto becoming president. Liem’s reputation as a reliable supplier — secured from his ties with Suharto and his men, which grew while Suharto commanded the Semarang-based Diponegoro Division — put him in good stead with the new president. Contrary to popular belief, however, Liem was not the Chinese businessman closest to Suharto when he gained power.There were

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several others, but as Suharto’s New Order took shape in the late 1960s, Liem emerged as the president’s main ‘cukong’ (a financier enjoying patronage). Liem, who worked well with Javanese, was able to deliver whenever called upon by the president, whether supplying imports or raising funds. Another businessman who was in Suharto’s good books was a fellow Hokchia who had also lived in Kudus, Djuhar Sutanto (Liem Oen Kian). His late father was a friend of Liem’s. Suharto suggested that they work together. The President had earlier introduced Liem to his cousin Sudwikatmono and recommended they become partners. Djuhar brought along his pribumi associate, Ibrahim Risjad. These four men formed what was dubbed ‘The Gang of Four.’ Their first venture, PT Waringin Kencana, was in trading and the manufacture of crumb rubber. Liem started a bank, Windu Kencana, with some of Suharto’s generals. He also worked with foundations started by Suharto including those of Kostrad (Army strategic reserve command). By 1968, Suharto had assigned Liem to be one of only two permitted importers of cloves (the other was the president’s half brother Probosutedjo). This was a big money-spinner for Liem. A huge plus for Liem was his ability to obtain capital at a time when most Indonesian businessmen could not. In the late 1960s, Chin Sophonpanich of Bangkok Bank was seeking clients among astute and well-connected overseas Chinese businessmen. He met Liem and the two hit it off immediately. Chin provided needed funds and introduced Liem to entrepreneurs elsewhere. Chin was the link to Taiwanese businessmen who invested in and provided technical assistance for Liem’s cement plants. Liem credits Chin with giving him a headstart as an industrialist.

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The end of the 1960s and early 1970s cemented the extremely close ties between Liem and Suharto. In the late 1960s, when the Chinese community was urged to drop their Chinese names, Suharto gave Liem an Indonesian one, Soedono, while the ‘Salim’ part was derived from Liem and his two brothers – san lin, meaning the three Lins (Liem’s Chinese surname). Preceding Liem’s cement plants was his flour-miller, PT Bogasari, for which he received help from Malaysian commodity trader Robert Kuok. Also a recipient of Bangkok Bank loans, Kuok invested in Bogasari. Backed by Bulog, the state commodities agency that had the monopoly to import wheat, Bogasari effectively elbowed out PT Prima, a miller listed in Singapore that tried unsuccessfully to have Java plants. Bogasari’s articles of association stipulated that 26% of the profits go to two Suharto foundations. Helped by Bogasari profits, Liem was able to build and expand PT Indofood Sukses Makmur, which became the world’s biggest maker of instant noodles. Aside from food and cement, Liem’s third business pillar was banking. His flagship bank, Bank Central Asia, was foundering until Mochtar Riady (Li Wenzheng) came in to manage it in 1975. Riady, who had a reputation of being a Mr Fix-It for ailing banks, brought his magic touch to BCA, growing it to become the country’s largest private bank. The banker was a prime example of Liem’s management strategy: Hire the best person for the job and give him plenty of leeway to manage. “If you don’t trust the person, don’t hire him,” Liem liked to say. The Liem-Suharto bond operated informally yet comprehensively on a “favoursfor-favours” basis. Suharto assured that Liem’s ventures would be more or less protected, or favoured, while Liem would channel some

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proceeds to the president’s foundations, his family members, and to wherever the leader sought. In accepting Sudwikatmono as a business partner, Liem gave him equity. Suharto’s eldest son Sigit and daughter Tutut were given a total of 30% of BCA. Liem could be counted on to build some of the industrial development that Suharto wanted, and in turn received privileges to ensure these businesses were highly profitable. In 1985, when an economic slowdown put Salim’s cement businesses in serious financial trouble due to too-rapid expansion, Suharto had the Finance Ministry bail it out by injecting US$335 million for 26% in PT Indocement Tunggal Prakarsa. (Four years later, the company was given a waiver from a rule that should have blocked it from getting listed on the Jakarta Stock Exchange.) Prior to the cement bailout, Liem did Suharto a favour by investing in a specialised steel project, Cold Rolling Mill Indonesia, that the president wanted built to expand the capabilities of state-owned Krakatau Steel. (For some years, Liem got a monopoly to import the steel sheets the plant would later make.) In 1990, when Suharto was embarrassed by a scandal from $420 million in foreign-exchange losses at private Bank Duta, owned by three foundations he chaired, Liem together with timber baron Prajogo Pangestu contributed much of the money to recapitalise it. In the 1970s, Liem began expanding outside Indonesia through a few small ventures on his own, including a spinning mill in Singapore. At the start of 1980s, overseas expansion was stepped up, much of it through First Pacific, which was started in Hong Kong in 1981. It bought a California bank, Hibernia, and Dutch trading company Hagemeyer, which was founded in Surabaya in 1904.

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While Suharto was president, Liem was regularly under attack as his main “cukong”. The overseas investments, especially those in Liem’s home province of Fujian, led to strong allegations in Indonesia of capital flight and disloyalty to his adopted homeland. While Liem almost never talked to the media, he showed exasperation at a factory opening in 1991 by complaining to reporters “If I invest abroad, you call it capital flight. If I invest here, you say I want a monopoly.” During the May 14, 1998 riots in Jakarta, Liem’s house was burned. He was in California at the time, undergoing eye surgery. On May 21, Suharto resigned. BCA suffered a massive run as a backlash against the Salim Group got underway. The run led to the government taking over BCA and saddled Salim Group with huge debts for injections made by the central bank. After Suharto’s fall,Anthony Salim worked to salvage the empire. Although Indocement and BCA were lost, he managed to have Salim retain control of Indofood (and its milling unit Bogasari), with First Pacific becoming the biggest shareholder. After 1998, Liem, who became First Pacific’s honorary chairman, lived a quiet life with his wife in Singapore. The couple had four children, born two years apart, starting with Albert Halim, born in 1945. After running the group’s Volvo agency, Albert left to do his own businesses in the 1980s. Second son Andree Halim had an active role in Salim ventures, particularly managing BCA especially after the departure of Mochtar Riady in 1991. Following the 1998 riots, Andree withdrew to Singapore where he now runs listed food producer and distributor QAF. The remnants of the giant Salim Group were completely in the hands of third child Anthony. Youngest in the family is daughter Mira, whose husband Franciscus (Franky) Welirang

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is an Indofood director and a key player in Bogasari. A high point for Liem came in 1996 when he was awarded the Dean’s Medal at the prestigious Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The medal’s citation read: “Entrepreneur, Industrialist, Patriot and Patriarch — In Recognition of a Lifetime of Management Leadership, Achievement and Commitment to Family, Country and the Pursuit of Excellence.” Little known among Liem’s achievements was his role in helping more than half a million Chinese in Indonesia obtain citizenship. He quietly lobbied Suharto, and helping to pay for the bureaucratic procedures. “He did a great thing,” said Sofyan Wanandi, a businessman active in a foundation, Prasetiya Mulya, that Liem and other Indonesian Chinese tycoons founded. Liem died on 10 June 2012 and was buried at the Choa Chu Kang Chinese cemetery, Singapore. Richard Borsuk and Nancy Chng R E F E R E N C E S Based on series of interviews by the authors with Liem Sioe Liong between 2006 and 2007. Dieleman, Marleen. The Rhythm of Strategy: A corporate biography of the Salim Group of Indonesia. ICAS. Amsterdam University Press. 2007. Robison, Richard. The Rise of Capital. Sydney: Allen and Unwin/Asian Studies Association of Australia. 1986. Sato, Yuri. “The Salim Group in Indonesia: The development and behavior of the largest conglomerate in Southeast Asia.” Developing Economies, XXXI-4. December 1993. Schwarz, Adam. A Nation in Waiting: Indonesia’s Search for Stability. 2nd edition. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1999. Warta Ekonomi: “Kami besar bukan kerana dekat dengan Pak Harto.” 21 February 1994.

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Sampoerna, Putera (Liem Tien Pao, Businessman, Indonesia

, Lin Tianbao, 1947– )

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utera Sampoerna is a businessman at the helm of Sampoerna family business empire. He is a visionary business leader, who sold the family’s successful cigarette business and invested in new industries. He is also known for his contributions to education. Liem Tien Pao, later known as Putera Sampoerna, was born into a wealthy business family, whose riches stemmed from a successful cigarette company founded by his grandfather. Putera himself was born on 13 October 1947 in Schiedam, the Netherlands, as the son of Indonesian Chinese father and mother of Dutch descent. He is currently leading the Sampoerna family enterprise. His grandfather, Liem Seeng Tee, migrated from Anxi in China to Surabaya with his father in 1898, when he was still a child. His father died only six months after they arrived, and Liem Seeng Tee lived with a foster family in Bojonegoro. He engaged in various jobs, and met his future wife, Siem Tjiang Nio, a peranakan girl, whom he married at the age of 19.Together, they started operating a provision stall in 1913, which existed until 1984. In the stall, Liem Seeng Tee sold a variety of goods, including blends of manually rolled kretek (clove) cigarettes. Initially, each cigarette was custom made, but later, the couple pre-rolled the cigarettes and experimented with different flavors. This eventually gave rise to the famous Dji-SamSoe brand, which means 2-3-4 in the Hokkien dialect. Liem Seeng Tee’s lucky number was nine, and it was therefore no coincidence that the numbers in the brand added up to

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nine, in addition to having nine letters. This auspicious number still prominently figures in all the family ventures until today. In 1932, the cigarette business had grown large enough for Liem Seeng Tee to buy his first real factory. The Sampoerna family also lived on the premises, in order to be close to the work floor. The grounds, called Taman Sampoerna, also housed a theatre that was a novelty in colonial Surabaya. At present, the place is used as the Sampoerna museum. Until the Second World War the company flourished and the cigarettes, blended and enriched with sauces according to a secret recipe, became famous. However, when the Japanese invaded the Dutch Indies, Liem Seeng Tee was imprisoned by the Japanese, as were his two sons, Liem Swie Hwa (Adi Sampoerna) and Liem Swie Ling (Aga Sampoerna), Putera’s father. Much of the family wealth was looted during this period, but the family managed to rebuild it quickly. The day Liem Seeng Tee was released from prison, August 27, became a day for annual celebrations at Sampoerna. With the death of the founder in 1956, the business faltered and declined, until Swie Ling, Putera’s father, took over the leadership and brought it back on track. Swie Ling had in the meantime married Nan, a lady of Dutch descent, and they had three children of which Putera was the middle one. Putera was born in the Netherlands in the tumultuous post-war period, where his mother escaped the violence in Surabaya, and he spent most of his childhood in Hong Kong and the United States. After graduating from the University of Houston, he went to Malaysia to start a palm oil business before returning to Indonesia in the 1970s. In 1977, he became one of Sampoerna’s directors and gradually assumed the leadership role of the family enterprise.

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Putera Sampoerna has a reputation of being a farsighted and visionary leader with a global mindset and a rational approach to running a business. He is credited with modernizing the family’s cigarette business in almost every respect. He mechanized part of the production and improved the working conditions of the thousands of women that hand-rolled Sampoerna’s kretek cigarettes. He introduced information technology and created one of the most powerful brands in Indonesia. In addition, he reorganized the distribution system in such a way that it was fully controlled by the Sampoerna company.This was not easy, as most of the agents had been working with the firm for a long time, and had become rich and powerful. The move meant breaking away from old traditions and relationships. Yet, Putera argued the reorganization was necessary in order to successfully introduce and distribute new brands. Most people believe Putera was ahead of his time with his views. When he introduced A-mild, a light brand of cigarettes, in 1989, it quickly became a bestselling brand in Indonesia, supported by an innovative marketing campaign, including TV commercials with the motto “how low can you go”. On 27 August 1990, Putera Sampoerna took his company to the Jakarta Stock Exchange, and issued 27 million shares at 12.600 rupiah each, displaying again the family’s preference for their lucky number nine. Over time, H.M Sampoerna, as the company was officially called, became one of the top-3 cigarette producers in the country and surpassed its competitors Djarum and Gudang Garam in terms of profitability. In the midst of the successful rise of H.M Sampoerna, Putera stepped back and allowed his youngest son Michael to become president

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director, being only in his early twenties at the time. Business was not the only thing on Putera’s mind. He believed that the development of a nation depended on the quality of its education system, and he therefore argued that improving the education of Indonesians was of utmost importance. Hence, the Sampoerna Foundation was born in 2001, which Putera Sampoerna endowed with USD 150 million. The foundation, initially headed by his daughter Michelle, is often praised for its innovative and professional education programs. In a move that shocked the Jakarta business community, Putera announced in 2005 that the Sampoerna family reached an agreement with Philip Morris to sell their entire stake in listed family firm H.M. Sampoerna, a move that was unprecedented among ethnic Chinese tycoons. The proceeds, around USD 2 billion, were channeled into a family enterprise, which subsequently invested in a wide range of activities, from plantations to telecoms to gambling. In addition, the family bought Sampoerna Strategic Square, an office tower complex in the Jakarta business district, which houses most of the family companies, as well as the Sampoerna Foundation. Putera Sampoerna is married to an American Chinese woman, Kathleen Chow, and has four children: Jacqueline Michelle; Jonathan Bradford; Farah Khristina and Michael Joseph. Aside from his modern business ideas, Putera is also known for his expensive hobbies, including gambling and private jets. His daughter Michelle created an illustrated family and business history entitled The Sampoerna Legacy in 2007. Marleen Dieleman

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R E F E R E N C E Sampoerna, M. & Hollingsworth Gessler, D. The Sampoerna legacy. Jakarta: Sampoerna, 2007.

Sarasin Viraphol ( , Wu Hanquan, 1946– ) Scholar, diplomat, business executive,Thailand

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nown to many as a fine scholar, a leading diplomat, and a successful business executive, Dr Sarasin Viraphol is a third-generation Chinese-Thai. Born in Bangkok on 2 September 1946, his grandfather migrated to Thailand from Shantou, Guangdong, China. His father, ) is a self-made Ngow Hong Gim, ( entrepreneur while his mother, Ow Po Tieng ), is a housewife. Sarasin received his ( primary education in Bangkok. His parents sent him to St Stephen’s College in Hong Kong for his secondary school education (1959–63). He finished his secondary schooling at Woodside Priory School in California (USA) in 1964. Sarasin received his B.A. major in International Relations from the American University (Washington D.C., 1967), an M.A. (in Area Studies — East Asia) from Harvard University (1971), and a Ph.D. (in History and East Asian Languages), also from Harvard University (1974). His dissertation entitled, “Tribute and Profit: Sino-Siamese Trade, 1652–1853,” was later (1977) published as one of the Harvard East Asian Monographs. This is the first published work which gives a detailed analysis of the actual trading relationships within the tributary framework between China and a Southeast Asian country. Both Qing China and Siam used the tributary relations to legitimize and promote trade to the benefit of both. John K. Fairbank wrote

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in his “Foreword” that the subject of “how international commerce was conducted within the tributary framework makes an absorbing study, and we are accordingly indebted to Dr Sarasin Viraphol for his basic account of the two centuries of Sino-Siamese trade before the modern world.” Fairbank also noted that “His book opens the way for further studies of a complex political and economic relationship”. It also corrects the conventional view that the East Asian economy was stagnant in premodern times. In Fairbank’s words, “In short there was a Maritime China active overseas in East Asia before Maritime Europe expanded into that region”. Between 1968 and 1976 Sarasin was employed first as a lecturer and later as an assistant professor at the Chulalongkorn University. But it seems that he was more attracted to the diplomatic world. His expertise on Sino-Thai history and his good command of many languages: English, Thai and Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese and Chaozhou or Teochew) would make him an ideal Thai diplomat in China. Not surprisingly he was sent to the Royal Thai Embassy in Beijing where he was Second Secretary between 1976 and 1979. After returning from Beijing, he served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) in Bangkok, first as First Secretary, Political Department (1979–1981) and later as Counsellor, Office of the Permanent Secretary (1981–1983), and Director, Policy and Planning Division as well as Assistant to Foreign Minister, ACM Siddhi Savetsila (1983–1984). From 1984 to 1986 he was sent to Japan as Minister Counsellor at the Thai Royal Embassy in Tokyo. Between 1990 and 1992 he was Ambassador to the Republic of the Philippines, where he received the Datuk Sekuna Order from the Government of the Philippines. After the completion of his term he returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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His highest position in the MFA was Deputy Permanent Secretary (1995–1996). In 1995 he was awarded Knight Grand Cordon (Special Class) of the Most Noble Order of the Crown of Thailand (Maha Vajira Mongkut). He also received other honours from the governments of Brazil and Japan. After spending 20 years in the diplomatic service, Sarasin took early retirement and left the government to join the private sector. He was recruited by Charoen Pokphand Group (known as CP) and has been its Executive Vice President since 1996. His “primary responsibilities are in international business development focusing on new business startups.” CP is a Thai multinational enterprise engaged in agribusiness. It is best known for its involvement in animal feed production, vertical livestock integration, crop integration, aquaculture, and food processing. Apparently Sarasin has been able to bring his knowledge, experience and connections to this major multinational corporation and help the company further develop. He travels widely and most often he goes to India and China. In October 2006, he was interviewed by Umesh Pandey, a reporter from Bangkok Post. He responded when asked about the CP group and the challenges it faced: China has now turned into a huge global factory consuming 40% of the world’s natural resources, the country is now proving to the world that it is not just the world’s largest marketplace but also the world’s largest factory ... India, on the other hand, is looking to open its agricultural sector to more input from other countries and Thai companies should take advantage of this. Opportunities to develop

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infrastructure in India are also plentiful. He further explained: The opening up of the Indian market in the agricultural sector is inevitable and is only a matter of time ... CP is ready to expand its presence in India as the need arises. However, the biggest challenge CP faces in its various ventures across the globe is finding the human resources to expand its operations. Business potential in Africa, for example, is going untapped because of a lack of people skills. When asked about the future of the Thai economy, Sarasin noted that vision is needed. He was of the view that “Thai businesses and government agencies should step up the effort to help create a niche for Thai industries to thrive in the globalised world; if not, the country could be left out in the cold.” Regarding the impact of China on Southeast Asia, Sarasin noted in an international conference in Singapore in April 2005, “The rise of China’s economic influence should galvanize governments and businesses of ASEAN states to devise collective approaches and trade and investment strategies.” He also stressed that “For Southeast Asian businessmen, they realize the necessity in meeting the challenge of a rising China for their own ultimate survival, which calls for working realistically and creatively to boost their interaction with China in trade and investment.” Although Sarasin is executive vice president of Thailand’s largest agribusiness conglomerate, he has also been engaged in academic activities. He has been invited to

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participate in various seminars and conferences, especially on China and Southeast Asia. He delivers lectures on the rise of China and its impact on Southeast Asia with special reference to Thailand, ethnic Chinese and Sino-Thai relations, Chinese business etc. Through the international forums, Sarasin has been able to share his knowledge and experience with his fellow academics. Sarasin is a unique figure. He spent eight years in the academic world, twenty years in the diplomatic world and fifteen years in the business world. He is a product of three cultures: Chinese, Thai and Western (mainly English and American) and is a bridge for Thailand and the outside world. Leo Suryadinata R E F E R E N C E S “Curriculum vitae” (Provided by Sarasin Viraphol). Sarasin Viraphol. “The Emergence of China’s Economic Power and Its Implications for Chinese Business in Southeast Asia”. In Southeast Asia’s Chinese Businesses in an Era of Globalization: Coping with the Rise of China, edited by Leo Suryadinata, pp. 38–48. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), 2006. Sarasin Viraphol. Tribute and Profit: Sino-Siamese Trade 1652–1853. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1977. Umesh Pandey. “Contending with giants”. Bangkok Post, 30 October 2006. E-mail interview with the author, July 2011.

Savanvaly, Thao Leng ( , Zhang Guilong, 1946– ) Entrepreneur, community leader, Laos

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hao Leng Savanvaly was born in 1946 in Savannakhet Province, Laos. His parents had migrated to Laos in the early 1940s

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from NigouVillage, Puning City in Guangdong Province. They were engaged in the grocery business and were prominent Chinese leaders actively involved in community service in Vientiane. Savanvaly holds the directorships of seventeen companies and is chairman cum Laos representative of the Association for the Peaceful Reunification of China. After graduating from high school at Ecole ), Savanvaly was Chinoise Lieu-Tou ( unable to continue his education due to the lack of higher learning institutions at the time. Therefore, he started helping out at his parents’ grocery business in his teenage years. At the age of twenty-five, he established the Victory Trading Export-Import Co. Ltd. and focused on importing goods from Thailand and Hong Kong, which were in high demand in Laos. At the same time, he was able to foresee the need for timber in the construction industry in countries such as Thailand, Hong Kong,Taiwan, and China, and started exporting timber from Laos to those countries. His business acumen, insight on the supply and demand of the market, and entrepreneurship, enabled him to set up his second company, Dragon Wood Industries Corporation, in 1990. Currently his factories produce various kinds of fabricated wood products for export to global markets. He is director of seventeen companies doing businesses ranging from commodities, to telecommunication equipment, and real estate to construction. The fact that Savanvaly only finished high school has not deterred him from pursuing a bachelor’s degree in arts, majoring in sociology, when he was in his sixties. He is interested in the study of human behaviour, especially its origins, organizational behaviour, and relations between the individual and society. Biographies of prominent Chinese personalities, their management philosophies, and successful life histories in particular fascinate him. The life

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stories of Chinese leaders such as Tan Kah Kee and Li Ka Shing have been a powerful source of motivation for him. Savanvaly is chairman cum Laos representative of the Laos Association for the Peaceful Reunification of China ( ) which has about 200 members. He firmly supports the anti-secession law, China’s promotion of developing peaceful relations across the Taiwan Strait, and the peaceful reunification of China. He believes that the anti-secession law is an act of peace to bring about the smooth development of cross-strait relations. He represents Lao PDR in the annual worldwide meeting of the various associations for the Peaceful Reunification of China. Concurrent with this appointment, he holds the chairmanship for the Laos Teochew ) and travels Association ( regularly to other countries to attend the meetings of the World Teochew Association ). He also sits on the advisory ( board for the Laos National Education Foundation and is one of the governors of the Association Chinoise de Vientiane (Vientiane Chinese Association) and the Laos Commerce Association. At the same time, he holds directorships in Ecole Chinoise Lieu-Tou, Sino Chote Public School (Laos Savannakhet Public School), and the China Guizhou Overseas Exchange Association as well. He pays regular visits to these organizations and makes himself available as much as possible for meetings and discussions. Savanvaly has received many national certificates, medals, and badges from the Lao Government in recognition of his contributions to the economic development of the country. In 1993 he cooperated in a joint venture with Sop Sisomphou to establish the first private commercial bank in Lao PDR — Vientiane Commercial Bank Limited. Today the bank has developed into a private bank with world-

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class credentials. ANZ in New Zealand began operations as ANZ Vientiane Commercial Bank Ltd. in September 2007 with the purchase of a majority shares in the bank. It moved to 100 per cent ownership in August 2010. In conjunction with the progressive development of tourism in Lao PDR in the 1990s, Savanvaly invested in a joint venture to build the first five-star hotel in Vientiane, the Lao Plaza Hotel, in 1997. Besides providing accommodation to tourists, Lao Plaza Hotel has since become the choice hotel for visiting foreign leaders and diplomats. Outside of Lao PDR, Savanvaly has made huge monetary donations to victims of natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes in China. In the early 1990s, owing to his patriotism to his country and his good communications and interpersonal skills, he was selected as one of the permanent Lao representatives to attend diplomatic exchanges and national conferences. In 1991, he participated in a ministerial strategic conference on the Mekong River Basin development in Kunming in Yunnan, China. In 1993 he was selected as the Laotian representative to visit China on a friendship exchange trip that allowed leaders of mainland China and prominent overseas Chinese to network. In 1997, he represented the Government of Lao PDR as one of the invited guests to witness the historic return of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China as a “special administrative region” (SAR). And in November 2000, he was one of the delegates to receive President Jiang Zemin during the latter’s official visit to Lao PDR. Savanvaly is married with one daughter. Lim Boon Hock R E F E R E N C E Personal interview with Thao Leng Savanvaly, May 2008.

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Seah Cheng Siang ( , She Zhengxiang, 1922–90) Leading physician, educationist, Singapore

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eah Cheng Siang was a clinical physician, gastroenterologist and educationist. He was also known as Singapore’s Father of Gastroenterology. Seah was born on 9 March 1922 in Singapore and was educated at AngloChinese School (ACS) and later at Raffles Institution. A keen cricketer and hockey player, he represented ACS, the YMCA, King Edward VII Medical College, University of Malaya, and Singapore Chinese Recreation Club in both sports. He was an outstanding student, topping his Junior Cambridge class in History and his School Certificate class in Religious Knowledge. In 1940, Seah entered the King Edward VII Medical College to study dentistry. Once again, he demonstrated his scholastic prowess, becoming Exhibitioner in his first year. However, his studies were interrupted by the onset of War and when he returned to the College in 1946, he opted to continue his studies in medicine instead. Seah graduated with an MBBS in 1951, winning the Lim Boon Keng Gold Medal for Medicine and the Brunel Hawes Gold Medal in Clinical Medicine. Upon graduation, he became a houseman at Medical Unit 1 at the Singapore General Hospital.The following year, he was named one of two Queen’s Scholars, alongside Poh Soo Jin.The scholarship enabled him to further his studies in the United Kingdom. In 1957, he obtained his Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree from the University of Malaya for his thesis, ‘A Study of non-specific Lung Abscess’. Seah was thereafter appointed Senior Registrar of Medical Unit I. In 1960, Seah was appointed Consultant Physician and Head of the Medical Unit at Toa

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Payoh Hospital (now converted into Changi General Hospital). That same year, he was elected Master of the Academy of Medicine, a post he held till 1973. In 1970, he succeeded Dr Gwee Ah Leng as Head of the Outram General Hospital’s Medical Unit III, and was himself succeeded at Toa Payoh Hospital by Dr Lee Yong Kiat. Seah held the headship of Medical Unit III for a remarkable 17 years till his retirement in 1987. Upon his retirement, Seah was appointed Visiting Consultant and Advisor to the Hospital and continued treating patients right up to a week before his death. As a researcher, Seah focused on diseases of gastrointestinal tract and liver, especially peptic ulcer, primary cancer and chronic diseases of the liver. In his distinguished career, Seah published over 80 articles and papers in medical journals. In 1967, together with Drs Chua Kit Leng and Jeyeratnam, Seah pioneered the flexible gastroscopy procedure in Singapore. He has also served on the editorial board of the Medical Journal and the Medical Research Council. He is acknowledged as the Father of Gastroenterology in Singapore. In the mid-1980s, he founded the Gastroenterology Society and served as its first president. Seah was a legendary clinician and teacher. A student of the great Gordon Arthur Ransome, he was said to have inherited his teacher’s mantle in his ability to diagnose ailments through good history-taking, examination and diagnosis. He taught his students not to rely entirely on sophisticated medical technology but their own instinctive feel and touch. In 1982, when the National University of Singapore began conferring professorships on government doctors and dentists to recognise their roles in medical and dental education, Seah was conferred the title of Senior Professor of Clinical Medicine. Ever a believer in lifelong learning, Seah played an instrumental part in establishing

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the Postgraduate Medical Studies as well as the Master of Medicine degree in 1970. He was Deputy Director of the school and chief examiner in internal medicine from 1970 to 1988. In 1973, Seah was elected President of the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) and served in this position for sixteen-and-a-half years till ill health forced him to step down. That year, he was also elected President of the ACS Old Boys’ Association. In his first year as President of the SMC, Seah called for the establishment of an Institute of General Practice. He was also Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (since 1969); Fellow of the London and American Colleges of Physicians, and Honorary Fellow of the Singapore College of General Practitioners. Among the many other positions Seah held were: Member, Medical Faculty; Chairman, Expert Committee on Australian Antigen, and Committee for Internal Medicine; Member, Drugs Advisory Committee, Singapore; and Chairman, Penal Cases Committee, Credentials Committee. In recognition of his public service, he was conferred the Public Administration Medal (Gold) in 1970 and the Meritorious Service Medal in 1975. In 1980, Seah was conferred a Datukship by Sultan Iskandar of Johor for his contribution to medicine in Johor. Ironically, it was liver disease that claimed Seah prematurely. He died on 23 June 1990 after a battle with liver illness. He was survived by his wife, Dr Maureen Lim, whom he married in 1953, and four children. As tributes poured in, the Academy of Medicine decided to set up a Seah Cheng Siang Memorial Fund and to raise a sum of between $4 million and $5 million to endow it.The fund will be used to organize an annual lectureship; award an annual medal to the top candidate in the Master of Medicine examinations in

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internal medicine; and sponsor and promote medical research projects in Singapore. The Seah Cheng Seah Lecture was inaugurated in 1992. Held annually in conjunction with the Annual Scientific Meeting of the Chapter of Physicians, Academy of Medicine, it is open to distinguished members of the medical profession by invitation. Kevin Y.L.Tan R E F E R E N C E S “Doctors and dentists are made professors”. The Straits Times, 25 Jan 1982, p. 1. Julia Goh. “Seah Cheng Siang Memorial Fund formed”. The Straits Times, 15 March 1991. “Outram Hospital unit gets new head”. The Straits Times, 30 December 1970, p. 16. “Private specialist is new head of Medical Council”. The Straits Times, 28 March 1989, p. 21. “Schoolboys taking greater interest in current events”. The Straits Times, 20 April 1940, p. 11. Serena Toh. “Prominent physician Seah dies”. The Straits Times, 25 June 1990.

Seck Hong Choon ( , Hongchuan, 1907–90) Buddhist leader, educator, Singapore

V

enerable Seck Hong Choon ( ) was a Buddhist leader with international influence. His contributions extended from China to Singapore and the region, including the improvement of diplomatic ties among them through Buddhism. He developed the Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery ) into Singapore’s largest ( Buddhist temple and was active in education and social welfare. Seck Hong Choon, whose vernacular surname was Zhu ( ), was born on

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3 September 1907 of the lunar calendar, which would be 9 October in the solar calendar, to a middle peasant family in Xiafu Village ( ), Jingjiang ( ) in Fujian, China. He had five sisters, and being the only son in the family, was given intense care, receiving an education at home at an early age. His mother passed away when he was nine, and soon afterwards, he was sent to a private school in his grandmother’s village to learn Chinese classical literature. Under the influence of his grandmother, he became a vegetarian and began to have a better understanding of social life. In 1922, at the age of sixteen, he decided to become a monk and was ordained by Ven. ), his master, at Chengtian Huiquan ( ) in Quanzhou ( ), and Temple ( ) and Hong Choon ( was named Benci ( ). He then received his precepts’ order under ) at Guanghua Temple ( Ven. Benru ( ) in Putian ( ). Ven. Seck Hong Choon followed his master to Nan Putuo Temple ( ) in Xiamen the following year, which broadened his outlook and inspired him to be more committed to his Buddhist studies and practice. This was also the place where he ), from whom he met Ven. Taixu ( sought guidance for three years, specializing in the Vidyamathnsiddhi-Tridasakarika-Sutra and Vijnaptimatrasiddhi Sutra especially. During the Japanese invasion, Ven. Seck Hong Choon and his master fled to the south to seek refuge and arrived in Singapore in 1938, where they resided at Leong San See Temple ) and Phor Kark See Monastery for ( six months. They then proceeded to various places, including Rangoon, Medan, Indonesia, and finally settled down at Meow Siang ) in Penang. After the war and Lodge ( the demise of his master, Ven. Seck Hong Choon succeeded as abbot, and was invited to Singapore by the Singapore Buddhist Lodge, ), and the Chinese Putuo Temple (

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Buddhist Association in 1943, to take charge of Phor Kark See Monastery. As the abbot, Ven. Seck Hong Choon developed Phor Kark See from a small monastery with only two shrine halls and a piece of farmland, into the largest temple in Singapore. His active personal involvement in the preaching of Buddha Dharma was one of the factors which drew him an extensive number of followers. He even travelled to Malaya to deliver his lectures. The main expansion plan took place after 1971, when he organized the Great Compassion Dharma ) in Meeting in water and land ( 1966, which was the first meeting of such a scale out of China. These ceremonies were to commemorate Ven. Seck Hong Choon’s ) and to master Ven. Zhuandao ( nurture potential Buddhists. Ven. Seck Hong Choon was a critical influence on the Buddhist and religious landscape of Singapore in many ways. He lead a committee that successfully appealed the government to gazette Vesak Day as a public holiday. He was the founder of the Singapore Inter-religious Organisation in 1949; and in 1964, after the merger of Singapore and Malaysia, managed to unite all the religious leaders to promote racial harmony and peace during the racial riots. In 1965, he organized the Singapore Buddhist Sangha Organisation and was appointed its chairman, and also formed the Buddhist Precepts and Decorum Society the following year. He was the founder of the Nanyang Buddhist journal, which saw its first publication in 1969, with Ven. Siong Khye as the publisher. This Buddhist journal has existed for the longest period in Singapore and is still in print today. He also paid attention to female Buddhists, sponsoring the formation of Wan Shi Female Buddhists Classes ( ), now known as “Minnan Female

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Buddhists Classes” ( ), ). Other at Wan Shilian Temple ( important appointments Ven. Seck Hong Choon took up were as president of Singapore Buddhist Federation, religious adviser of the Singapore Buddhist Lodge, among others. In education, he assisted in the expansion of the first Buddhist school in Singapore, Maha ). He also led in the Bodhi School ( establishment of the first and only Buddhist secondary school, Manjusri Secondary School ), officially opened in 1982, and ( was appointed the chairman of its board of directors thereafter. Ven.Seck Hong Choon was very involved in charity and social welfare as well. In 1967, he used the remaining donations from the first Great Compassion Dharma Meeting held the previous year as development fund for the Buddhist Free Clinic’s Foundation, and was appointed chairman on its completion in 1969. The clinic saw its first branch established three years later, and the second in 1979, both under the charge of Ven. Siong Khye. Ven. Seck Hong Choon also looked into other aspects of social needs, including forming the Drugs Rehabilitation Counselling Service within the Singapore Buddhist Federation, together with Ven. Siong Khye, and setting up “Evergreen Home”, an old folks’ home in Phor Kark See. He was also the bridge connecting Singapore to the region and China. He was abbot of Meow Siang Lodge in Penang, abbot ) and Huazang of Xinyuan Temple ( ) in the Philippines, and Temple ( director of Nengren Secondary School ( ) in the Philippines as well. In the last eight years of his life, from 1982, he led devotees to China eight times, visiting famous and historical temples, establishing contacts with Buddhist colleges and associations, and

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improving the understanding between China and overseas Buddhists. Some highlights of the trips included the pilgrimage homage to the four Buddhist Sacred Mountains, and the paying of homage to His Holiness Panchen ) twice. Ven. Seck Hong Lama ( Choon also invited prominent Buddhist representatives from overseas to Singapore, ), president notably Zhao Puchu ( of the China Buddhist Association, who visited in 1988. This series of visits were of diplomatic significance. It can be perceived as informal diplomacy in the absence of formal diplomatic channels between Singapore and China, prior to the official establishment of diplomatic ties. In 1987, he was awarded the title of “Supreme Chinese Monk” (Phra Ajancin Bodhi Sangvara Sinhanakorn Kanachan) by the Thai king for his contributions to Buddhism. He was the first in Singapore to receive such honour from the king. There are memorial halls in China and Singapore to commemorate the Ven. Seck Hong Choon at the Chengtian Temple and Phor Kark See Monastery respectively. Ven. Seck Hong Choon died on 25 December 1990 at Phor Kark See Monastery. Ho Yi Kai R E F E R E N C E S Chia, Jack Meng Tat. “Buddhism in Singapore–China Relations: Venerable Hong Choon and His Visits, 1982– 1990”. The China Quarterly (2008). Published online: 12 January 2009. Y.D. Ong. Buddhism in Singapore — a short narrative history. Singapore: Skylark Publications, 2005. 《

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1968。 《

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，1994。

See Chinben ( , Shi Zhenmin, 1932–86) Academic, social activist, Philippines

C

hinben See was a leader in the ChineseFilipino community who advocated national integration of ethnic Chinese into mainstream Philippine society and considered Philippines as their homeland and country. He was also a scholar who helped to develop Chinese-Filipino studies. His untimely death was a blow to the movement but his wife, Teresita Ang-See, and close friends continued his unfinished work in his memory. See Chinben was born in Hui Liao, Jinjiang, Fujian, China on 19 April 1932. In 1936, accompanied by his mother (a daughter of a Chinese physician) and younger brother Tekben, he left China and joined his father, ) (a small trader) who had See Chay ( earlier migrated and settled in Cebu, Southern Philippines. See Chinben considered Cebu as “the hometown of his childhood” ( ), not Jinjiang, where he was born as he left China when he was four years old and too young to remember anything. He wrote: “We also have dreams, but the dream never brought us back to the moonlit beaches of Southern China but to the fabulous sunsets along the banks of Manila Bay. …Coconuts and pineapples figure in our dreams but never the longans and the lychees.” See often reminisced about his early experiences in Cebu, even if it was a difficult one, especially when the Japanese occupied and ravaged the province during the war. He

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learned to speak the Cebuano dialect like a native due to early exposure to exclusively Filipino neighbors. These unforgettable early experiences had profound impact on his outlook and his life. See received primary education and junior high school in Cebu and then he and youngest brother Huybin, transferred to Chiang Kai Shek High School in Manila where he finished his senior high school. See went back to Cebu after high school to help his father manage their business but when his second brother, Tekben, himself finished high school, See convinced his father to allow him to continue his tertiary education. See left for Taiwan in 1956 since the cost of education was much cheaper there. He took up history at first but after attending a lecture given by the world famous anthropologist and archaeologist, Professor Li Chi, See found his niche and love for anthropology. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology from the National Taiwan University and applied for graduate studies with the Harvard-Yenching Fellowship. He was accepted to Harvard University (1962–65) where he received a Master of Arts degree in Anthropology. Returning to the Philippines, See taught at the Xavier University in Cagayan de Oro City southern Philippines in 1969-70, after which he became founder and director for Southern Philippines of Pagkakaisa Sa Pag). He met his future wife, unlad ( ), who Teresita Ang (Hong Yuhua was a member of Pagkakaisa in the activities of the association. Despite the age gap, love sparked due to the common interest and shared vision. They got married in 1975. In 1975–78, he was part of a Harvard-Yenching Foundation funded interdisciplinary research project at the Academia Sinica in Taiwan to

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study the settlement of the Changhua Plain in Central Taiwan and another research project on the study of the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States. When See and his wife Teresita returned to the Philippines, See taught at the De La Salle University (1978–80) as an assistant professor, and the Asian Centre at the University of the Philippines (1981–85) as associate professor. See was consciously building the Chinese-Filipino studies and gained acceptance and popularity among the students. He also continued to participate in international conferences and submitted many thought-provoking papers. See had published a number of fine academic papers, including the studies on the Chinese in Taiwan and the United States, but his most valuable works and the largest in number were his works on the Chinese in the Philippines. According to Professor Edgar Wickberg, See’s studies on Chinese organizations in the Philippines are “more detailed, more historically treated and raise more questions of analysis and explanation… they raise the questions that should help guide the rest of us as we continue the work.” Apart from the academic works, See also published numerous popular articles on the Chinese in the Philippines as he saw himself not only as an academic but also a member of the Chinese-Filipino society and wanted to contribute to its development. Not surprisingly, he was one of the founders of the Pagkakaisa (Unity) Sa Pag-unlad (Progress), a non-government organization made up of idealistic and socially conscious Chinese Filipinos. It was established in 1970 and advocated a pioneering concept of unity in cultural diversity in the Philippines. The aim was to push an amendment of the 1935 constitution which was based on jus sanguinis (by blood) rather than jus soli (by birth place)

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which denied citizenship to many Philippine Chinese who were born, grew up and educated in the Philippines. See became director of the organization’s Southern Philippines chapter and as such, he went around the southern regions (from Visayas to Mindanao) to drum up support for the idea of integration as well as preparation for the campaign for the Constitutional amendment for the jus soli citizenship provision. This was, at the outset, a very arduous task because at that time, the idea of integration was not heartily embraced by the Chinese community. The older generation Chinese mistakenly thought that with integration, they were being asked to give up their heritage and traditions. See had thus to point out their misperception. He used his network of relatives, classmates and friends in gathering support for Pagkakaisa and for the objectives and activities of the organization. The new Constitution, promulgated in 1973, did not adopt the jus soli principle of citizenship but in 1975, then President Ferdinand E. Marcos, passed a decree allowing for easy access to naturalization of citizenship by administrative means. See himself was among those who were granted Filipino citizenship under the decree. The decree was meant to prepare for diplomatic recognition of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Marcos did not wish to have a sizeable number of Chinese citizens owing allegiance to a communist PRC. To a large extent, the road towards preparing the ethnic Chinese community towards this end had already been paved through the efforts of See and his Pagkakaisa organization. From 1979–80, with Pagkakaisa colleagues, See started a weekly column ) for the entitled “Crossroads” (

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Chinese newspaper Orient News ( ).The writers’ insights had a lot of impact on the Chinese-Filipino community. The theme “we are all Filipinos in our national identity but we should take pride in our Chinese heritage” resonated in the hearts and minds of young Chinese Filipinos. On 23 February 1986, the EDSA People Power Revolution broke out. At that time, See was undergoing a battery of tests to find out what was wrong with his failing health. Even though he was wracked with fever, he went out to his friends to solicit support for the revolution and to convince the Chinese-Filipino community that “this is our revolution too because we are integral parts of this society.” When Marcos was deposed and President Corazon C. Aquino was sworn in as President, See gathered his friends to resurrect the Pagkakaisa Sa Pagunlad, which was forced to hibernate during Martial Law. Unknown to him he had liver cancer. He was undaunted when he learned of the shattering prognosis that he had few more months to live. He lived each day fully and doubly treasured each bonus moment. He worked on proposals to improve the Chinese-language teaching in the country and to put up a Chinese-Filipino cultural center. Despite his illness, he continued giving talks in conferences and discussion groups on what the Chinese Filipinos could do to help rebuild the country ravaged by 20 years dictatorship. At his death bed, See completed his last academic paper to be presented at the October 1986 International Association of Historians of Asia (IAHA) conference at Singapore. On 29 November 1986, See finally succumbed his illness leaving behind his wife, a nine-year-old daughter Carmelea, and an one-year-old son, Sean. His good friends Go Bon Juan (in the Philippines) and

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Lily Chua (in the United States), launched a fund-raising campaign via World News ( ) to establish a memorial scholarship fund and a book procurement fund in his memory. His wife also published a 550page collection of his writings, The Chinese Immigrants, in 1992. In 1987, the Kaisa Para Sa Kaunlaran, successor to the Pagkakaisa group, was organized. In 1999, See’s proposal for a cultural center, written with his frail hand on his death bed, came to fruition. With the help of Dr Angelo King, who had read the proposal, the Kaisa Heritage Center with the Bahay Tsinoy — Museum of the Chinese in Philippine Life — was inaugurated. In memory of See’s life of continuous learning, his entire library collection and an endowment fund of P3 million was given by his wife and children for the Kaisa Heritage Center where the library, Chinben See Memorial Library, was named to honor him. Leo Suryadinata R E F E R E N C E S Ang-See, Teresita and Lily T. Chua, eds. Crossroads: Short essays on the Chinese Filipinos. Manila: Kaisa Para Sa Kaunlaran, 1988. Edgar Wickberg. “Foreword”. In The Chinese Immigrants: Selected writings of Professor Chinben See. Edited by Ang-See, Teresita. Manila: Kaisa Para Sa Kaunlaran, 1992, pp. 1–2. Go Bon Juan and Ang-See, Teresita. “Bridge Builder in our Midst: The Story of Professor Chinben See, An Anthropologist”. Tulay Literary Journal, Vol. I No. IV, August (1988): pp. 89–97. 〈 ），1987 4 1 。 〈 1980 2 24 。

〉，《

〉，《

〈 》（

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》（

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），

Seow Houtseng Sribunrueang ( , Xiao Focheng, 1864–1939) Leading Thai-Chinese journalist, community leader, Thailand

B

est known as Seow Houtseng, he was a leading Thai-Chinese journalist who supported the revolutionary activities of Sun Yat-sen. He had special relationships with Rama VI, which made it possible for him to survive despite his ardent Chinese nationalist views. He got into trouble after Rama VI passed away. Seow Houtseng was born in British Malaya in 1864 to Seow Liang-an and Yiew, but his family relocated to Bangkok when he was still an infant. His father became the owner of one of Thailand’s first few rice mills. The Seow family was quite cosmopolitan. Though he grew up mostly in Thailand, his father had him registered as a British subject from a very early age. Seow and his brothers were well educated in both the Thai and Chinese languages. This would later play a major part in his role as a bilingual news editor, and his image as the model transnational Chinese-Thai citizen or Chino-Siam as they were popularly known during the early twentieth century. The young Seow Houtseng helped his father run the family business, but later chose not to carry on with this when his father passed away. Seow instead pursued a personal interest in both the Thai and Chinese languages. He launched three daily and monthly newspapers: the Thai daily, Chino-Siam Warasap, the Chinese 》), and daily, Hua Siem Sinpao (《 the monthly, Phadung Witthaya. Chino-Siam Warasap commenced publication on 15 April 1907. Apart from

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advertisements, it also published articles and news stories, carried government and business announcements, and printed obituaries of prominent people. Through this paper, Seow occasionally expressed or exchanged personal views with His Majesty King Wachirawut (Rama VI), with the monarch adopting the pseudonym, Atsawapahu. As a journalist, Seow could not avoid getting involved in politics. Questions were raised as to whether Chino-Siam Warasap had supported the foiled rebellion of 1911, and whether it had exhorted Thais to boycott Japanese products towards the end of World War I. In fact, Seow himself was quite keen on the politics of both Thailand and China. He was a loyal supporter and close associate of Sun Yat-sen from the earliest years of Sun’s revolutionary activities in Overseas Chinese communities throughout Southeast Asia. He helped facilitate Sun’s four visits to Thailand during the first decade of the twentieth century and assisted him in garnering support from the Chinese community in Thailand through his various publications. During the early years of the Republic of China, Seow was continuously recognized as the leader of the Siamese branch of the Kuomintang. His newspapers were frequently used to promulgate Chinese Nationalist propaganda. As dynasties were being toppled one after the other in the early twentieth century, it was only natural that the Thai ruling class soon began to be suspicious of Seow’s close relationship with Sun Yat-sen and the Chinese Republic. Moreover, with King Wachirawut’s promotion of a brand of nationalism that had a rather obvious antiChinese overtone — Atsawapahu’s Jews of the Orient being the prime example — it was almost unavoidable that a character such as Seow would come into direct ideological

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conflict with the fledging Thai nationalist movement of that era. At one point, Prince Thewawong Warophakon branded the Chino-Siam Warasap a public enemy and proposed to KingWachirawut that Seow Houtseng into exile. However, the monarch opposed the idea, reasoning that Seow’s wife was Thai, his children were all raised mostly in Thailand, and the majority of his relatives and business associates resided in Thailand. The king believed that Seow was propagating Chinese nationalism mainly to sell his newspapers, and that he would have great difficulties if he were to be banished to China. Moreover, King Wachirawut was a staunch supporter of the free press and insisted on being as lenient as possible towards the news media. He suggested a much subtler way of dealing with Seow Houtseng and his publications; he decided to offer subsidies to some of Seow’s publications in exchange for Seow’s regular reports on crucial news and developments within the Chinese community in Thailand. Consequently Seow served as King Wachirawut’s secret agent within the Chinese community in Thailand, while the crown secretly supported Seow’s publishing business. While engaging in this secret cooperation, Seow, on the one hand, made certain that his published statements supported republicanism only in the context of China, and openly expressed his loyalty to the crown in the case of Thailand. King Wachirawut, on the other hand, was willing to tolerate Seow’s dissenting views and continued to engage in journalistic debates with Seow to the end of his reign in 1925. Seow, however, did not enjoy such a cordial relationship with the crown in the reign of King Prachathipok (Rama VII). With political tension constantly escalating in Thailand, Seow’s publications began to be shut

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down soon after the death of King Wachirawut. Without his royal patron, Seow began to fade from the Thai political scene and became more involved in Chinese politics, especially after Japan began its expansion into China with the invasion of Manchuria in 1931. Seow was then at the forefront of the underground movement in Thailand for Chinese national salvation. In the early 1930s, he accepted a ministerial position with the Chinese government, and relocated to China, remaining there until his death in 1939. Seow’s wife was Rian Yamitrai, and they had four children. Wasana Wonsurawat R E F E R E N C E Phenphisut Intharaphirom. Siao Hutseng Sibunreuang: Views and Roles of the Overseas Chinese in Thai Society (Siao Hutseng Sibunreuang: thatsana lae botbat khong chin sayam nai sangkhom thai). Bangkok: Institute for the History of Thai-Asian Relations, Chulalongkorn University, 2004.

Setiono, Benny Gatot (Khouw Thian Tong, , Xu Tiantang, 1943– ) Community leader, writer, Indonesia

B

enny G. Setiono is a community leader and head of the Chinese Indonesian Association, Jakarta Branch. He is also the writer of Tionghoa Dalam Pusaran Politik (1,137 pages), published by Elkasa in Jakarta in 2003, with an introduction by Daniel S. Lev, the late American political scientist and authoritative commentator of Indonesian politics from the Washington University in Seattle. Setiono received the Wertheim Award 2008 from Wertheim Stichting (Wertheim

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Foundation) in Leiden-Amsterdam for his efforts and work for freedom in the Indonesian nation. He was born on 31 October 1943 in Kuningan, West Java. When he was little, Benny’s house was burnt down by a mob calling themselves the “People’s Army”, and his grandfather was killed by the Hisbullah group. The incident happened in 1947, during the first clash between Indonesian nationalists and the Dutch. After the incident, his parents and their children moved to Cirebon city, West Java, before moving again to Jakarta, where the family settled down. The young Setiono went to school and grew up in Jakarta. His father, Khouw Sin Eng, later known as Endang Sunarko, was able to speak Dutch, English, and French. He was a freelance writer who often contributed articles to Sin Po daily and Pantjawarna magazine, also under the management of Sin Po. Khouw was also an activist in Xiongdi Hui, an anti-Japanese resistance organization before World War II. Setiono went to three different primary schools in Jakarta, the last one being a Dutch school, which was closed down in 1954 together with other Dutch schools. He was then transferred to an Indonesian primary school at Gang Komandan, where Soe Hok Gie (political commentator, college instructor, and former student leader) was also schooled, albeit at a different time. After finishing his primary education in 1956, Setiono studied at a Christian junior high and senior high school in Jakarta and graduated in 1962. He was admitted to the Faculty of Economics at Res Publica University (known as URECA), a university established by Baperki (Badan Permusyawaratan Kewarganegaraan Indonesia. The Consultative Body for Indonesian Citizenship), a Chinese social organization that was close to President Soekarno. When

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

he was in his third year, there was the 1965 upheaval in Indonesia, known as the G-30-S, which led to the fall of Soekarno, the banning of the Communist Party of Indonesia, and the emergence of the military. In the turbulence, the Ureca campus was burnt down in October 1965 by an illicit group supported by the militia. The new authority took over the campus soon after that and renamed it Trisakti University. Setiono was then compelled to leave the university. When in Ureca he was active in the Students’ Council and made many friends. According to his recollection, his short university life had a profound impact on his thinking. After leaving the university, he went into several business ventures, and his longest involvement was with PT Dewi Sani Mustika, which introduced TV Satellite in 1985. He also established another business, PT Jaya Sakti Indonesia, which supplied maintenance equipment for golf courses. However, being a social activist at heart, he began to organize social and political parties just like his Indonesian counterparts, when Soeharto was forced to step down in May 1998, after a series of riots which ushered in the era of Reformasi. Together with other Chinese, Setiono helped found Perhimpunan Indonesia-Tionghoa (INTI, Chinese Indonesian Association) in Jakarta in April 1999. He then sold his businesses in order to concentrate on the organization. When Johanes Herlijanto from the University of Indonesia asked him for the reason he joined INTI, Setiono explained that during the Soeharto administration, like other Chinese, he had no choice but to become a middle-class entrepreneur, something he did for more than thirty-two years. It took none other than the 1998 May Riots to make him aware that throughout all those years, the Chinese “had been made so powerless, put in the cage, led only to do business, and finally

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made as scapegoats”. Thus he now realized that “the Chinese should wake up and do something, at least to increase their political awareness in order to be able to struggle for equality as citizens” (Herlijanto 2004, p. 71). Setiono also expressed his idea of “bring[ing] as many Chinese as possible into the mainstream of Indonesian nation, without giving up their Chinese-ness”. He strongly believed that “the Chinese should work together with other Indonesian groups to build a democratic and pluralistic Indonesia which is free from poverty, injustice and corruption”, so the gap between the rich and the poor “could be diminished”. In 2002, he and several friends established ELKASA (Lembaga Kajian Masalah Kebangsaan), Institute for the Study of National Problems, which published his book, Tionghoa Dalam Pusaran Politik (Chinese in the Political Turbulence) in 2003, with an introductory note from Daniel S. Lev. Lev noted that although Setiono was not a “professional scholar”, he “has a brain and a heart of a real scholar who is interested in historical details and want to understand the puzzling mystery of an evolutionary process by reviewing and asking various new questions”. Lev further noted that “the focus of that book is actually Indonesian history, within which Chinese minority also has a role, and their perspectives are changing and a balance is always sought among many actors in a very complex history in order to obtain a realistic picture of history of the people who have long become part of Indonesian society, as an Indonesian who due to the making of a history is coincidentally a minority”. The book has also been translated into Chinese by Professor Zhou Nanjing of Peking University in 2004. On the practical side, Setiono at INTI — Jakarta Branch — together with other

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managerial members, has developed a “clinic on the move” programme which provides free medical charity for the poor, Chinese and non-Chinese alike. The programme is under the chief of the committee of social service, Dr Hapsarini. The coordinator of the programme is Dr Lie Dharmawan. According to Setiono, “his organization was reaching out to poorer Indonesians of all ethnicities and providing food and medicines” (Fuller 2006). “Ethnic Chinese,” he said, “also need to be more mindful of the wealth gap and must work to reduce it if racial harmony is to be maintained” (Fuller). On Sunday, 2 March 2008, the organization established the fantastic record of providing 11,136 of residents of Tegal City and its surrounding area with free medical treatment.This feat was acknowledged and recorded by Indonesian Record Museum (MURI). Besides being the head of the INTI Jakarta branch, Setiono is also known as a social observer on the ethnic Chinese. He has written numerous articles for the mass media and the Internet, such as “Bung Karno and Etnis Tionghoa”, Indonesia Media Online, December 2002, and “Kebangkitan Organisasi Tionghoa di Indonesia Jangan Sampai Kebablasan”, Berpolitik.com, 27 August 2007. Thung Ju Lan R E F E R E N C E S Fuller, Thomas. “A Golden Age for Indonesian Chinese”. Global Chinese Network, 13 December 2006. (accessed 11 August 2008). Herlijanto, Johanes. “The May 1998 Riots and the Emergence of Chinese Indonesians: Social Movements in the Post-Soeharto Era”. Paper presented at the 18th Conference of International Association of Historians of Asia (IAHA), 6–10 December 2004, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, pp. 64–80. (accessed 11 August 2008).

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Personal interview with Benny Setiono. September 2008.

Shaw, Runme ( , Shao Renmei, 1901–85) Movie magnate, philanthropist, Singapore

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unme Shaw was a China-born movie magnate and philanthropist, and cofounder of The Shaw Organisation. Runme Shaw was born in Shanghai, China on 24 October 1901, the third of 10 children of textile merchant, Shaw Yuh Hsien (1867–1920) and his wife Wang Shun Xiang (1871–1939). The Shaw children grew up in Shanghai and were educated in traditional Shanghainese schools learning Confucian classics and classical Chinese literature. When he was older Runme worked in his father’s trading company as sales manager. In his spare time, he and his older brother Runje (1896–1975) would produce plays in a small family-owned opera theatre called the Laughter Theatre. Once, during a performance of Runje’s play The Man from Shensi, the stage collapsed and the hero fell through the floorboards. The audience found this very amusing, so Runje and Runme incorporated the incident into the play. The play’s success encouraged the brothers to buy a primitive movie camera and set up a film company, Unique Film Productions. They then made a silent film based on Runje’s play, which was a great success. They followed this up with a string of other successful silent movies. Casting their eyes beyond the China’s shores, the Shaw brothers looked to promoting their films in Southeast Asia, and as Runme was the company’s distribution manager, it was his task to open up the markets. At age 23, he left Shanghai and headed for Indochina where he

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hoped to meet up with some film distributors. However, he was denied a permit to land and he looked further south, choosing Singapore as his base to distribute Shaw films to the large Chinese migrant population in the region. Two years later, his younger brother Run Run (b. 1907) joined him in Singapore. Runje remained in Shanghai and continued to make films. In 1924, Runme established Hai Seng Company at 116 Robinson Road for film distribution. This company later became Shaw Brothers Pte Ltd, and then Shaw Organisation. The Shaws found the Singapore film market cliquish and protected and monopolized by established players. They decided that the only way for them to expand their market share was to operate their own cinema, which they did. In 1927, they leased a cinema in Tanjong Pagar for the princely monthly rental of $2,000 and started showing their own films. Their movies were a hit. To expand his business into Malaya, Runme hoisted a projector on his back and travelled around Malaya and started showing films in major towns like Ipoh, Penang and Kuala Lumpur, often in tents or in the open air with a makeshift screen. When talking films were introduced, the Shaw brothers began making their own ‘talkies’. The first one, which was a great hit, was called Romance of the Opera. They also attempted some Malay movies at a film studio, Malay Film Productions Ltd in Jalan Ampas, but the early ones were failures as the directors were Chinese and did not understand Malay culture very well. The Shaws did, however, revive their Malay movie business after the War when it engaged two popular Indian film directors, BS Rajhans and Phani Majumdar to direct their films. From 1947 to 1967, the Shaws produced over 300 Malay films, many of which have become classics. Among the

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most famous actors to emerge from these studios was the multi-talented P. Ramlee. By 1939, the Shaw brothers owned and operated a chain of cinemas in Singapore, Malaya, Thailand, Indonesia and Indochina. Among the famous Singapore cinemas were: Pavilion, Roxy and Alhambra (Singapore’s first air-conditioned cinema). Having established themselves in the movie world, the Shaws diversified into other entertainment ventures. These include amusement or entertainment parks similar to those in Shanghai, offering a variety of programmes, such as magic shows, gambling tents, cabaret stages, Malay bangsawan and Chinese opera stages, and cinemas that showed Indian, Chinese, Indonesian, Middle Eastern and American movies. Between the mid-1930s and the 1980s, the Shaws owned and operated two of the three amusement parks in Singapore: New World (on Jalan Besar) and the Great World (on Kim Seng Road).The Shaws later started parks in the Malayan towns of Malacca, Ipoh, Taiping and Alor Star. The entertainment world came to an abrupt halt when the Japanese invaded Singapore in February 1942 and took over all theatres and amusement parks. Runme tried unsuccessfully to hide from the Japanese who captured him and offered him a salary of $350 in Japanese currency to run the cinemas and screen propaganda films produced by the Japan Film Distribution Company. When the Japanese Occupation ended in 1945, the cinemas and parks were returned to the Shaws and they were able to commence business again. The post-War years were particularly profitable ones for the Shaws, especially after the privations of the Occupation. Demand for movies – one of the most affordable forms of entertainment — was so great that in the late 1950s, Run Run left Singapore for Hong Kong to make movies to meet this demand. The Shaw studios churned out up to 60

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movies a year and Runme continued in his role as master distributor. Later, the Shaws also became exclusive distributors for Universal, Warner Brothers, United Artists and British Pathe. By the 1970s, the Shaw chain of cinemas comprised some 230 theatres worldwide, including cinemas in Hong Kong, Japan, Indonesia, North America, Canada and Australia. When cinema audiences began dwindling in the 1980s, the Shaws started developing cineplexes, opening Prince and Jade cinemas in 1988. In 1993, they transformed their landmark Lido cinema into a 22-storey mixed development complex that included shows, restaurants, offices and an 8-screen Cineplex. By the 1980s, management of the sprawling business devolved to the secondgeneration of Shaws: Runme’s sons, Vee King and Vee Foong; and Run Run’s son Vee Meng. In 1982, Runme was forced into retirement when he suffered a serious fall and went into a coma. Runme Shaw was very active in public life as well, serving as Chairman of the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board (1969–76); Chairman of the SingaporeTurf Club (1964–83); President of the St John’s Ambulance Service Council and the Alliance Francaise; Vice-President of the National Kidney Foundation; and Patron of a large number of charities including the Singapore National Heart Association, the Singapore Association for Mental Health and the YMCA. His public service work was recognised with a series of awards and titles including:Darjah Indera Mahkota Pahang, by Sultan of Pahang (1968); International Dag Hammarskjold Award (1982); Honorary Doctor of Letters, National University of Singapore; Meritorious Service Medal, Republic of Singapore; Panglima Mangku Negara, awarded by Yang di-

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Pertuan Agong of Malaysia; Dato Kurnia Perkasa, by Sultan of Pahang; Knight of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Italy; Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, conferred by the Italian President; Order of the Holy Sepulchre, His Holiness Pope Paul VI Officier de la Legion d’Honneur, French Government; and Associate Knight Officer, St John. Despite his numerous contributions to business and public life, Runme Shaw is perhaps best remembered as a philanthropist. He began his charitable work in 1948 when he and Run Run distributed money and gift bags to the aged in Singapore, Malacca, Ipoh, Kuala Lumpur and Penang during Chinese Yew Year. In 1957, the brothers established the Shaw Foundation, believing that wealth should be returned to society. Since its establishment, it has given away hundreds of millions of dollars to various charities and to the cause of education, welfare, medicine, arts and heritage. It is one of the largest philanthropic organisations in Asia. Runme never recovered from the coma he went into after his 1982 fall. On 2 March 1985, he suffered a stroke and died at the age of 84. He was survived by his wife Peggy Soo Wei Ping and six children: Doris,Vivien, Nora, Sylvia,Vee King and Vee Foong. Kevin Y.L.Tan R E F E R E N C E S “Magnate with a heart: Obituary of Tan Sri Runme Shaw”. The Straits Times, 4 March 1985, p. 10. Melanie Chew. Leaders of Singapore. Singapore: Resource Press, 1996, pp. 50–54. Shaw Organisation website. (accessed September 2011). Sumiko Tan. The Winning Connection: 150 Years of Racing in Singapore. Singapore: Bukit Turf Club, 1992, pp. 38, 64, 73, 198–200.

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Shen Demin (Shen Teh Min, , 1936– ) Cardiac surgeon, founder of Humanity Foundation Bandung, community leader, Indonesia

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hen Teh Min, better known as Shen Demin, is a pioneering cardiologic surgeon in Indonesia, general chairman of the Humantiy Foundation (Bandung), director of Rajawali Hospital (Bandung), and president of the Perhimpunan INTI West Java Branch. Shen was born in Jakarta in 1936 into a middle-class family. His father, Shen Woo Pow, was a technician at Shanghai Colour Printing who had migrated to Indonesia before the outbreak of World War II. In 1948, he established the Shanghai Lithograph Company in Bandung that later became the Friendship Colour Printing Work which did well. Shen Demin is his eldest son. The young Shen Demin received his primary and secondary education in Chinese schools in Bandung and graduated in 1953. Although he was Chinese educated, he paid special attention to his study of the Indonesian language and was able to pass the Indonesian national examination with excellent results. He was admitted to the School of Medicine at the University of Indonesia (Jakarta), which was difficult to get into, especially for ethnic Chinese. He performed very well at the school and graduated as a doctor in 1960. According to Tempo, he decided to become a doctor because of the encouragement of his mother. At one time his elder sister was very ill the family sent for a doctor who never showed up; she passed away subsequently. “After that my mother never stopped encouraging her children to become doctors,” Shen noted.

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After his graduation Shen worked in the , later renamed Husada Yang Seng Ie ( Hospital) in Jakarta and learned more about surgical operations. The following year he moved to the Chinese Hospital in Bandung, where he was encouraged by its director and colleagues there to go overseas for further studies. He thus applied to the University of Pennsylvania in the United States to study general surgery. He was accepted and spent five years (1962–67) getting a Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree. From 1967 to 1968 he worked at the St Vincent Hospital specializing in cardiac surgery. Later he joined the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio where he specialized in cardiology and worked under the supervision of two leading pioneering cardiac surgeons, Dr Donald B. Effler (1915–2004) and Dr Rene G. Favaloro (1923–2000). He also received further training in thoracic surgery and cardiac surgery, and assisted in heart transplant work. Shen was at the time only thirty-three years old and, already recognized as a young cardiac surgeon. He became a fellow of the American College of Surgeons (FACS) and later, a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada (FRCSC), a recognition that he gained after working at the Royal Victoria Hospital of the McGill University in Canada before returning to Indonesia. In 1970 Dr Shen Demin returned to Indonesia to work as a deputy head of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Hasan Sadikin General Hospital in Bandung. The lack of basic facilities for conducting cardiac operation at the hospital prompted him to remark that without aequate equipment, he felt as if his hands were tied up during an operation. His vision to build a modern and well equipped hospital was shared by some of his Indonesian colleagues. Together with Dr Soegijanto Soegijoko, Sanusi Hardjadinata,

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and Suhadi Sutisnahmidjaja, Shen set up a Humanity Foundation (Yayasan Kemanusiaan) in 1975 with the view to establishing the dream hospital.The team found a piece of land in Rajawali Street and began work building the Rajawali Hospital. According to Tempo, its initial capital of only 17 million rupiah came from the revenue of the badminton world champions tour in Bandung, Semarang, and Bali in 1976. The local authorities, Shen’s father, and the local Chinese communities were all enthusiastic about helping this young doctor to realize his dream. It took a few years to build such a modern hospital and, when it was ready, it came with a special room for conducting emergency operations and an ICU. It is worth noting that there is also an acupuncture and TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) department. It is under Dr Shen Demin’s leadership that the Rajawali Hospital in Bandung has developed into a well known heart centre in Indonesia. Reportedly Dr Shen himself conducted an open heart surgery in 1980, the first of such operations in Indonesia. Shen was interested in medical research. He enrolled in the Ph.D. programme at the post graduate school of the Institute of Agriculture in Bogor (Institut Pertanian Bogor, IPB),West Java, to do research on heartrelated disease and submitted a dissertation on the influence of the EDTA on atherogenesis in high risk monkeys. He obtained his Ph.D. from IPB in 1991. In 1998 he also obtained a Master’s degree in Health Care Management from the University of Gajah Mada (UGM), Yogyakarta, after submitting a thesis on an analysis of the shortage of heart specialists in the Rajawali Hospital. As an Indonesian of Chinese descent, Shen was aware of the situation of the Chinese in Indonesia. In fact, he could have stayed overseas after completing his post-graduate education. But, he chose to return to Indonesia.

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He stated that he wanted to contribute to the development of Indonesia as it was his country. Nevertheless, he felt that he was still being discriminated against as a member of a minority group and that he was not accepted by mainstream society. Not surprisingly Shen noted that he is recognized internationally as a cardiac surgeon and has been invited to various countries for his expertise, yet he was not given a professorship in Indonesia although a professorship was conferred on him by the Peking Union Medical College in 1995. This has not deterred him from advocating meritocracy and all Indonesians working together for the success of their country. When Soeharto stepped down and Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur) became president and advocated cultural pluralism in Indonesia, Shen became an ardent supporter of Gus Dur. He took the view that Gus Dur made a major contribution by introducing pluralism to Indonesia, which benefited all communities, including the Chinese. He noted that without Gus Dur, Chinese Indonesians would not be able to enjoy the cultural freedom they do now. Gus Dur passed away on 30 December 2009, and on 9 February 2010, coinciding with forty days after Gus Dur’s passing, and also coinciding with the lunar (Chinese) new year, Shen organized a commemoration service for Gus Dur rather than a Chinese new year celebration in order to remember Gus Dur’s contributions. When asked by a reporter from Pikiran Rakyat (a Bandung daily newspaper) whether Gur Dur’s ideal of “pluralism” had been realized in Indonesia, Shen stated that the situation had improved, but racial discrimination still existed. Chinese doctors were taken on by Indonesian state hospitals, but they were always put into less important positions. Shen has been active in the Chinese community to promote its integration into

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mainstream of Indonesian society. He joined INTI (General Organization of Chinese Indonesian) and most recently was elected chairman of the INTI West Java Branch (2010– 14). In 2011, a group of Chinese Indonesians who had received some Chinese education decided to establish an ASEAN Nanyang University (ASEAN NU) in Indonesia. An ASEAN NU preparatory committee was set up in Bandung of which Shen was elected chairman. On 6 June 2011 a declaration was made stating that the ASEAN NU (later renamed ASEAN Nanyang International University) was to be established with the advent of the rise of China as an economic power; it was time for Indonesians to promote cultural exchange between China and ASEAN. It also stated that the setting up of ASEAN NU was inspired by Tan Kah Kee (who established the Xiamen University in China for overseas Chinese), Tan Lark Sye (who established the Nanyang University in Singapore), and Lim Lian Giok (who was an advocate of Chinese education in Malaysia). No definite date for the establishment of the university has however been set. Shen is married to Geraldine Waligorski, an American anaesthetist whom he met when he was studying in the United States. The two were married on 4 July 1967 and have one son (Paul) and one daughter (Michelle). Shen likes playing volleyball and table tennis, and doing judo for which he is the holder of a brown belt. Leo Suryadinata R E F E R E N C E S Pikiran Rakyat (Bandung). “Pluralisme Itu Obat”. 7 February 2010. “Prof DR Dr Demin Shen menjawab, 10 Juni 2009”. Available at (accessed January 2012).

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Pusat Data dan Analisa Tempo. “Apa dan SiapaDemin Shen”. (accessed December 2011). Shen Demin. “Pengaruh EDTA terhadap aterogenesis pada kera ekor panjang (Macaca Fascicularis)”. Disertasi, Facultas Pasca Sarjana, Institut Pertanian Bogor, 1991. ：“ ”。《 》, pp. 145–49; English section, pp. 131–36. ，1981. ” 〈“ 》，2011 6 8 。 〈 》。 49。

〉， ：

〉，

：

《

《 ，1981， 131–36、145–

Shen Ren Shi ( , 1886–1964) Businessman, community leader, Brunei

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hen Ren Shi was a businessman and a community leader in the oil-producing Belait district of Brunei Darussalam, which grew from a backward monarchy to a cash-rich state. He was a leader of the Chinese in business, education, and community matters, and was eventually regarded as an unofficial Chinese Kapitan. Shen was born and educated in Tai-pu ) of Guangdong Province at a county ( time when China, under the rule of the Qing Dynasty, was in a state of turmoil. In 1907, just four years before Sun Yat Sen and his fellow revolutionaries succeeded in overthrowing the feudal dynasty, Shen, aged twenty-one then, made up his mind to migrate south, hoping to seek a better future in Bau, in the Kuching Division of Sarawak, a place well known to the Hakka for it is where their predecessors made their fortune through gold-digging. In Bau, Shen was employed by a fellow inhabitant from Tai-pu, who ran a blacksmith shop. Not long afterwards, he

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became acquainted with Xie Zi Cheng ), who ran a roaring business, ( importing drapery and other sundries into Miri, an oil town that sprang into being when 1910 the first oil well drilled by Sarawak Shell struck oil. At Xie’s prompting, Shen went with him to Miri to work in his shop as secretary and bookkeeper. In 1929, twenty-two years after Shen’s overseas venture, he decided to seize the business opportunities opened up by the discovery of oil in the Belait District, which is over twenty miles from Miri. He migrated to Kuala Belait and started his own drapery and sundries shop under the business name of Hua ). With his encouragement, quite Qiang ( a number of fellow Tai-pu inhabitants followed him to Kuala Belait — Zheng Cheng Chang ), Nyau Tze Lim ( ) etc. being ( notable examples. By 1931, the sleepy fishing village had developed into a town, complete with a row of wooden shops erected on concrete floor and some ten makeshift shops built with palm leaves (atap) along the river bank, now known after the name of the river, Belait, which is also the name of the tribe living along it. Though the condition was harsh and primitive, it had by then attracted a considerable number of immigrant workers, mainly Chinese, comprising Hakka, Cantonese, Hokkien, Foochow, Hainan, and some other minor dialect groups.They were the customers that sustained the early pioneering shops such as coffee shops and restaurants, bicycle shops, barber salons, provision stores, etc. Shen’s Hua Qiang was one of the most prominent shops. By now, the provision of education to the children of school age became a pressing matter.The British Resident then would rather leave the Chinese community to sort out the problem. Out of an esrit de corps, Shen, along with nine other prominent community

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leaders representing various dialect groups, cofounded Chung Hwa Chinese School, sited at the present-day car park off Jalan McKerron. There were forty-two pupils in the first batch. It was headed by Liang Shuo Fu ( ), from Tai-pu. Two years later, this school was relocated to a new, two-storey wooden building in Jalan Bunga Rambai, constructed on a concrete floor, and comprising a hall, a library, an office, eight classrooms, and staff quarters. This new school building was the fruit of strenuous fund-raising efforts made by Shen and his cohort, and it stood as a symbol of Chinese unity and the Chinese spirit of selfhelp within the community. After the war, Brunei Shell made great efforts to rebuild the oilfield, which was set on fire just about the time the Japanese retreated for home. There was then a surge of new immigrants, mainly oilfield workers from Hong Kong, Malaya, and Singapore. Kuala Belait was booming. However, the Chinese community was not properly organized and at times clannish tensions flared up. There was a clear need to form a Chinese Chamber of Commerce to represent and speak for all shopkeepers (taukay). In June 1951, Shen publicly proposed the formation of a Chamber of Commerce to the shopkeepers in Seria and Kuala Belait. The response was overwhelming. A pro tem committee headed by Nyau Tze Lim was subsequently established. It consisted of eight persons, four from each of the two towns.This was supported by the then Assistant British Resident G.A.T. Shaw, who went out of his way to grant Shen a prestigious site in Jalan Pretty especially for the construction of the proposed association. In due course, the groundwork for the foundation of a Chinese Chamber of Commerce was completed, and the association was officially established in 1955. The first management committee was sworn in on

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1 January 1956, headed by Shen. Construction of the association’s premises commenced in April 1956, and was completed in less than a year at a cost of over $100,000. It was officially declared open on 28 April 1957 with great pomp and fanfare. The new concrete modern building was an impressive landmark, another milestone in Shen Ren Shi’s personal contribution to Brunei Darussalam — with the collective help of local community leaders. In the course of thirty-five years living in Brunei — from the year he settled down in Kuala Belait in 1929 to the year he passed away in 1964 — Shen had served his community selflessly. The then assistant British Resident valued his service very highly, passing all matters relating to the Chinese community to him for resolution. These often included the registration of marriage according to Chinese customs, the dissolution of Chinese marriage by agreement, and settling disputes within the Chinese community. He was seen acting as a bridge between the colonial government and the people, promoting understanding, and improving communication between them. He also played a crucial role in promoting racial peace and harmony. His duties were many and his sense of responsibility to the public wore him down. He hardly had time and energy to attend to his own personal interests. His shop, Hua Qiang, actually suffered due to his negligence. In an interview with his eldest son, Shen Wei Huai, conducted by Niew Shong Tong when he was doing research in Brunei in the 1980s, Shen Wei Huai lamented his father’s failure to look after his own shop or exploit any business opportunities presented to him as a popular, well-liked taukay. In the words of his son: “My late father in the eyes of the community is a very nice person, not mercenary, never seek or expect reward whenever he helps out. He has done many a good deed, earning the respect of his community…”

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Because of his influence and the respect he gained from the Chinese community, Shen Ren Shi was often regarded and addressed as “Chinese Kapitan”, although he was not officially appointed as such. Law Fah Ngin R E F E R E N C E S 、 ，2006。 〈

《

》。

：

：

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Shen Ting ( , 1915–91) Educationist, Malaysia

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hen Ting, a distinctive Chinese educationist in Malaysia, had been the principal of an independent Chinese secondary school. Under the Education Act 1961, all Chinese secondary schools were required to be converted into national type schools with a subsidy provided by the government.Those Chinese secondary schools which did not accept the conversion would not receive any such subsidy and were thus considered as “independent” schools. Many of these independent Chinese secondary schools were facing financial difficulties and low student enrolment. In Perak, there were at the time nine independent Chinese secondary schools. These schools could only attract students who could not enter the government or national type secondary schools because they failed the government entrance examination. Most of these schools were on the verge of closing down. In such tough circumstances, Shen

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Ting had played a pivotal role in the history of Chinese education in Malaysia by starting a revival campaign for independent Chinese secondary schools in Perak. This campaign had far reaching impact and it later expanded into the National Revival Campaign for Independent Chinese Secondary Schools. It was this nationwide campaign that saved the many independent Chinese secondary schools in Malaysia from collapse and laid the foundation for their subsequent development into dynamic and reputable educational institutions in the country. ) Shen Ting was born in Zhao’an ( ) province in 1915 and was in Fujian ( the fourth child in his family. He attended a traditional private school when he was young and later studied in a modern school. In 1934 he completed his secondary education at Ping Min Secondary School ( ) in Quanzhou ( ). Subsequently he took another year to study Education for Agricultural Villages as he had decided to devote himself to teaching the children in the villages. He moved to Penang soon after his wedding in 1935 and was employed the following year to teach language, history, and geography at Chung Hwa High School ) in Penang. During the Japanese ( Occupation, he operated a small business to earn a living. After the war, he resumed his teaching career and taught at Poi Lam ) in Ipoh in Secondary School ( 1955. When the government implemented the conversion of Chinese secondary schools in 1962, he was appointed vice-principal of the converted Poi Lam National Type Secondary School, a post which he held only in name without any extra allowance received. In order to supplement his income, he worked part-time as the head of general affairs in the newly established Poi Lam Independent

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Chinese Secondary School. He retired from his post in Poi Lam National Type Secondary School in 1975 at the age of sixty. Soon after his retirement, Shen Ting was employed as principal of Shen Jai High School ) in Ipoh. He served the school ( for ten years and during this time he was also actively involved in the revival campaign for independent Chinese secondary schools in Perak. Riding on the momentum of this campaign and with the cooperation from the board of directors as well as staff of the school, he was able to transform Shen Jai High School from an insignificant independent school into a reputable private educational institution in Malaysia. By the time he left Shen Jai High School, he had served in the education sector for about half a century. Shen Ting had served in independent Chinese secondary schools in Perak for many years and knew the plight of these schools too well. In 1972, he was already brooding over the idea of raising funds for these independent Chinese schools. On 1 April 1973, representatives from the nine independent Chinese secondary schools in Perak held a joint meeting at Yuk Choy ) in Ipoh to discuss High School ( ways to improve their schools. Shen Ting was then vice-principal of Poi Lam National Type School and head of general affairs in Poi Lam Independent Chinese Secondary School. It was at this meeting that he first proposed the idea to launch a fund-raising campaign to establish a development fund totaling RM1 million for the nine independent Chinese secondary schools in Perak. In 1974, the Council of Perak Chinese School Committees ) officially launched this fund( raising campaign and Shen Ting was elected honorary secretary of the council. He served in that capacity with utmost dedication and

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assisted the council to launch many activities, thus contributing much to the Chinese education movement in Perak. Shen Ting was the actual mastermind behind the revival campaign for independent Chinese secondary schools in Perak. At a time when these schools were facing threats to their survival due to declining student enrolment and distrust from many parents, Shen Ting was confident that the independent Chinese secondary schools were the real Chinese schools. He realized that if these schools could not survive, then Chinese education in Malaysia would die a natural death. It was, in fact, such a realization that motivated him to initiate the revival campaign for these schools. The idea to launch a fund-raising campaign for these schools was born out of his real experiences and far-sightedness. In managing the fundraising campaign, he had to face many parents and members of the public who would always make scornful remarks and describe the independent Chinese schools as mere tuition schools. However, despite the challenges and hardships, Shen Ting had no regrets working with the various leaders of the Chinese education movement to seek donations from all corners of the Perak state. His significant role in the revival of these independent Chinese schools was unrivalled. In recognition of his dedication and contributions to the development of Chinese education in Malaysia, he was presented with the Spirit of Lim Lian Geok Award in 1991. Shen Ting died the same year in Ipoh. Lew Bon Hoi R E F E R E N C E 〈 》。 ，1993， 124–27。

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Shih Choon Fong ( , Shi Chunfeng, 1945– ) Engineer, educationist, Singapore

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hih Choon Fong, who was born in 1945 in Singapore, is often credited for being the president of the National University of Singapore (NUS) who elevated the country’s foremost tertiary institution into a “world class university”. However the truth is most NUS students have no idea who he was or what he did in the university. Originally educated in Monk’s Hill Primary School and thence Beatty Secondary School, Shih did not go to university immediately after his secondary education, choosing instead to head to the Singapore Polytechnic where he obtained a diploma in engineering. This did not deter him from further bettering himself for he obtained his Master’s and PhD from Harvard University in 1970 and 1973 respectively, after which he decided to dedicate his career to research and education. Accordingly, he led the Fracture Research Group at the GE Corporate Research Lab in the United States following the attainment of his PhD. In 1981, he joined Brown University as an academic. When he became a full professor, he returned to Singapore and headed NUS Institute of Materials Research and Engineering as its director. In 1997, he was promoted to deputy vice-chancellor, and in 2000, president of the university. In his nine years as NUS president, Shih was widely credited with creating the university’s research-intensive focus, as well as enhancing NUS reputation internationally. Shih utilized his experiences in Harvard and Brown universities to initiate a performance and market-based evaluation system for the

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academics in NUS, which determined the academic staff ’s marketability and research potential. He was also credited for drawing on his American experience in injecting more flexibility and responsiveness to the rigid, British-based Singapore higher education system through the implementation of new teaching and grading methodologies from the American system. In doing so, the Times Higher Education Supplement claimed that Shih’s efforts had successfully augmented NUS growing international recognition and achievements. In order to promote NUS global profile, Shih presided as chairman emeritus of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU), a consortium of forty-two leading research universities along the Pacific Rim, which was modelled after the prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU). He also sat on the governing boards of several university consortiums, including Universitas 21 and the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU), and chaired the Governing Board of the APRU World Institute, an institute of advanced studies to address scientific, social, and economic issues of global importance. Shih did not spend his time only in the administrative running of NUS, but also continued to pursue his interest in academia. Indeed, he was in the list of highly cited engineering researchers in the world compiled by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). Likewise, in his academic capacity, Shih made significant contributions in nonlinear fracture mechanics and computational methods for fracture analyses. He had some 150 publications in top scientific journals to that effect. Among his academic honours were the Swedlow Award and the George Irwin Medal, both from the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). Given his continued interest in the development of technologies in the field of

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engineering, it was not surprising to discover that Shih was a foreign associate of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was the inaugural recipient from the Asia Pacific of the Chief Executive Leadership Award, presented by the Council for Advancement and Support for Education. He also received the decoration of “Chevalier” or Knight of French Legion of Honour. Brown University similarly honoured him by bestowing on him an honorary doctorate of science in recognition of his contributions to higher education and research. Outside of academia and the administration of NUS, Shih was a former consultant to the National Aeronautics Space Administration, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and a member of the MIT Corporation Visiting Committee for the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Locally, Shih served on several national level committees in Singapore. He was chairman of the Singapore-MIT Alliance Governing Board, as well as an executive committee member of the Economic Development Board. Professor Shih was a founding member of the Singapore International Foundation, as well as a board member of the National Research Foundation chaired by former Deputy Prime Minister Dr Tony Tan. In 2002–03, his performance and market-based evaluation system for academics in NUS attracted the attention of then Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. This in turn resulted in Shih’s seat on the Economic Review Committee, whereupon he and others in the committee crafted wide-ranging strategies for remaking Singapore. Shih stepped down from his position as president of NUS at the end of 2008 and has served as founding president of the King

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Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia since 1 December 2008. Shih’s successor is a Singaporean physician, Professor Tan Chorh Chuan, who is concurrently the deputy chairman of A*STAR. Ho Khai Leong R E F E R E N C E S Arab News. “Shih appointed KAUST President”. 13 January 2008. (accessed 11 October 2008). Davie, Sandra. “NUS President to Leave at the End of this Year”. Straits Times News. (accessed 11 October 2008). NUS Knowledge Enterprise. “A Decade of Dedicated Leadership and Service at NUS”. 13 January 2008. (accessed 11 October 2008). NUS Office of the President. “Profile of the NUS President”. (accessed 11 October 2008).

Sia, Isidro C. ( , Xie Xile, 1953– ) Medical doctor, Philippines

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r Isidro Sia is a medical doctor who has focused on two underserved fields in medicine — community pharmacology and ethnopharmacology. Sia’s work has benefited both national and international organizations such as the World Health Organization, the Ministry of Health of Vietnam, and the ASEAN Technical Committee on Traditional Medicines and Health Supplements. It is rare to find among Filipino medical doctors one who has devoted an otherwise

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lucrative career to these two underserved fields in medicine or to scientific study correlating ethnic groups, their health, physical habits, and methodology in creating and using medicine. Dr Sia is this rare find, and is truly deserving of the many awards he has garnered for his pioneering work in documenting and applying his findings on the healing traditions and medicinal plants used by indigenous tribes in the Philippines. Sia readily says that it was his Chinese heritage and his environment that were influential in instilling in him the passion for his life’s work. Growing up in the province of Tayabas, Quezon, he was fascinated by life in the countryside. As a boy, he observed and interacted with the Aeta people until it was time for him to study at a university in Manila. While in Manila, he developed a special interest in herb vendors of Quiapo, Manila, and the Chinese drug stores in Ongpin (Chinatown). Sia’s father used Chinese traditional medicine and this added to his interest in the use of traditional medicine, particularly the practices of Philippine indigenous groups. One of his most significant works is the documentation of the healing traditions of more than twenty ethno-linguistic groups in the Cordillera Region, the Sierra Madre mountains, provinces of Mindoro, Palawan, and Davao — areas that span different islands from the northern to the southern parts of the archipelago. This documentation is a rich source of study materials for potential medicinal agents and a rallying point for forest conservation in the country. Drawing from the deep belief that trees and plants in the forest are what give people health and life, indigenous tribes have learned the value of cherishing their environment. Sia’s research highlights the potential of using traditions and beliefs to safeguard the forests. He says there have been numerous results of

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his research that have benefited indigenous communities.The establishment of a medicinal plant herbarium is planned on his research team’s findings.As well, his research is used to promote advocacy for the rich traditions for health of the indigenous peoples, while developing culture-sensitive health education materials that incorporate beneficial local practices with acceptable western medicine practices to be used by indigenous communities. This is not commonly done even among action-oriented researches. With this undertaking, he emphasizes that indigenous peoples are the object and not the subject of his research. With his writings and when he is teaching, he underscores participatory research and looking at research from the point of view of indigenous peoples. The communities are also encouraged to use results of the research for their advocacy on protecting their ancestral domain. In fact, the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples has recognized the weight of his ongoing research into the Aeta peoples in Aurora Province and offered to partner his team. Research results will be used for the promotion of the protection of the Aeta ancestral domains and the founding of an area-based cultural studies centre in a local institution in Aurora. He and his team believe that specific programmes and projects should cater to the uniqueness of individual indigenous communities, so government projects would be more meaningful for them. It is through these programmes that existing legislation to protect the rights of indigenous peoples is given more strength. Sia has also conducted communitybased research to determine the efficacy, safety, and acceptability of medicinal plants used in indigenous communities for common ailments such as scabies, skin fungal infection, rheumatism, diarrhoea, and cough.

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His other research activity, done among the communities of lowland cultural groups in Luzon, resulted in beneficial home remedies from plants that may be used by family health care providers. His involvement in an integrated, multidisciplinary programme on medicinal plant research has brought attention to the use of scientifically validated medicinal plants among people living in urban areas. Working with a team from various disciplines, Sia has determined the efficacy and safety of certain medicinal plants, including lagundi (Vitex negundo) for cough, and sambong (Blumea basamifera) for urinary stones. These and other plants have since been accepted and endorsed by the Department of Health for popular use around the country. One of Sia’s published research works, “Parmakolohiya sa komunidad: Mga nakatagong gamot sa mga bahay sa Brgy. Bungo, Gapan, Nueva Ecija”, (Community Pharmacology: medicinal plants in Barangay Bungo, Gapan, Nueva Ecija) was recognized as an Outstanding Research Publication by the National Academy of Science and Technology in 1995. The paper focused on medicine used at home in general, and was not specific to medicinal plants. Of the numerous awards that Sia has received, he says, this has a personal significance. His co-researchers were community health workers, who were overwhelmed on receiving the award at ceremonies held at the Department of Science and Technology.The research paper, which was written in Filipino, was later published in the Acta Medica Philippina, the scientific journal of the University of the Philippines College of Medicine. Regardless of the accolades and awards he has already won, Sia has even bigger hopes for his projects.When permitted by the community, he puts information gathered from research in a national database as documentation on the

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cultural heritage of the health of Philippine indigenous communities. Further research on their medicinal plants may also be done to look into their efficacy and safety in order to develop new medicinal agents, for which the intellectual property rights of the indigenous peoples to any product that is developed will be respected. Sia has also been serving as community physician in Nueva Ecija, Pangasinan, and Rizal during weekends since 1982. He gives importance to training community health workers so that they become competent in health education, nutrition, hygiene, management of simple illnesses, proper use of medicine and herbs, recognition of and referrals for serious medical problems, community leadership, and organization. National and international organizations such as the World Health Organization, the Ministry of Health of Vietnam and the ASEAN Technical Committee on Traditional Medicine and Health Supplements have benefited from Sia’s work. His principal focus with WHO and with the Vietnamese Government is the rational use of medicine. With ASEAN, it is the harmonization of the regulation of health supplements and traditional medicine. On the side Sia always discusses with colleagues work in ethnopharmacology in their countries. At the local level, he serves as project leader for the National Drug Information Center, which has significantly supported the work of the National Drug Policy Program, National Drug Committee, Bureau of Food and Drugs, and National Poison Control and Information Center. He has also helped prepare the Philippine National Drug Formulary used by the Department of Health. As a professor and physician at the University of the Philippines, Manila, for twenty-two years, Sia always emphasizes

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patient-oriented and local-based content and employs student-friendly teaching methods. He handles a course on traditional medicine and various elective courses on herbal medicine in order to impart interest in traditional medicine and community service to students. For these, Sia was given the “Outstanding Basic Science Teacher Award” in 1995, and the “Angelita Reyes Gantimpala sa Kagalingan sa Pagtuturo ng mga Saligang Agham” (Angelita Reyes Award for Best Teaching Practices in Science) in 2001. As well, he was given an award for excellence in the field of medicine in the 2008 Dr Jose P. Rizal Awards for Excellence, organized by The Manila Times and Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran. He continues to expose young medical students to underserved Filipinos to emphasize the need for medical practitioners to stay in the country. Some of his students have been inspired by this teacher’s dedication to his advocacy and have even followed in his footsteps. At the moment, he has many young researchers who are involved in studies of ethnopharmacology and community pharmacology with current projects involving the Aeta people of the Aurora province. He has also served as chairman of the Department of Pharmacology, associate dean of the College of Medicine, dean of the Graduate School, and vice-chancellor of U.P. Manila. He is currently director of the Institute of Herbal Medicine. Sia submits his all his accolades to his family’s support. His father was only ten years old when he migrated to the Philippines from Shui Kou Village, Nan An, Fujian during the 1910s. The elder Sia set up a small copra business in Quezon when he grew up. Even though Sia’s parents did not get past primary school, they persevered to make sure all seven of their children finished university. Isidro Sia himself was born on 6 April 1953 and has a brother who is a retired

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teacher in Fujian Province. His other siblings have careers as accountants, teachers, and there is a sister who is a nurse. He says insufficient quality time with his family is the price he pays for his dedication to his advocacy. Yet despite all his awards and recognitions, he is not resting on his laurels because of his deep interest in the cultural diversity of the Philippines, and concern for its indigenous communities, which he feels are still underserved. Maan D’Asis Pamaran R E F E R E N C E S Tulay Fortnightly. “Outstanding Tsinoys honored June 14”. Vol. 21, nos. 1-2, 17 June 2008, p. 19. Personal interview in May 2009 and July 2010.

Siauw Giok Tjhan ( , Xiao Yucan, 1914–81) Community and political leader, journalist, Indonesia

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iauw Giok Tjhan was the most influential Chinese Indonesian politician in the two decades after 1945. As the chairman of Baperki, the largest organization of Chinese Indonesians, from 1954 to 1965, he had widespread support from both Peranakan and Totok Chinese. His radical left political sympathies and status as a Chinese community leader made him a controversial figure, especially among anti-communists and advocates of assimilation. They also led to his arrest in November 1965 and subsequent internment without trial for twelve years. Siauw Giok Tjhan was born in the Kapasan Chinese quarter of Surabaya on 23 March 1914. His father, Siauw Gwan Swie, was a Peranakan with no knowledge of

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Chinese; his mother, Kwan Tjan Nio was the daughter of a Totok Hakka who only agreed to his daughter’s marriage on condition that the couple’s eldest son be sent to a Chinese school. As the eldest child, Siauw Giok Tjhan was therefore sent to the Tiong Hoa Hwe Koan school in 1918. After his maternal grandfather returned to China in 1920, Siauw’s father transferred him to the Buys Instituut (a prestigious Dutch preparatory school) and then to the Europeesche Lagere School (ELS — a Dutch elementary school attended by indigenous and Chinese, as well as Dutch students). When the grandfather returned to Surabaya six years later, he was horrified to discover that Siauw had no knowledge of Chinese. He was not forced to return to a Chinese school, but was required to work at his grandfather’s general retail shop after classes at the Hoogere Burger School (HBS — the most prestigious Dutch secondary school). His HBS schooling made him well versed in English, French, and German as well as Dutch, and he was a voracious reader of romance and detective fiction in all four languages. He also read the Malay language newspapers, such as Pewarta Soerabaia and Sin Tit Po, to which his father subscribed, as well as the Malay translations of Chinese books, and the Indian epics, Mahabharata and Ramayana. The world economic depression had a severe impact on his family and changed the course of his life. His father, who had become quite wealthy speculating in agricultural products, now made massive losses because of their dramatic fall in value.With the bankruptcy of the Incasso Bank, his father’s savings, which had been deposited in that bank, were converted into promissory notes that were difficult to cash. His grandfather sold up his business to pay his debts and returned to China. In 1932, his final year at the HBS, his mother and then his father died within the space of six months.

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Aged eighteen years, Siauw was now an orphan, responsible for his own livelihood, and that of his fourteen-year-old brother, Siauw Giok Bie, who had just completed his study at the Meer Uitgebreid Lager Onderwijs (MULO — Junior High School). It was at this time that he began to be actively interested and involved in politics. When he took part in the boycott action led by Liem Koen Hian against the Netherlands Indies Football League (NIVB) and its Surabaya branch, he was suspended from school for a week. His growing anti-colonialism and admiration for Liem led him to join Liem’s new pro-Indonesian Partai Tionghoa Indonesia (PTI — Indonesian Chinese Party) and to seek a career in journalism.With Liem’s help he started work for the Surabaya daily, Sin Tit Po, but when Kwee Hing Tjiat established the daily, Mata Hari, as a PTI mouthpiece in 1934, he recruited several PTI supporters, including Siauw, to work in Semarang. In 1937 Kwee sent him back to Surabaya to head a branch office of Mata Hari. By now Tjoa Sik Ien and Tan Ling Djie — two radicals who, as students in the Netherlands, established a proIndonesian Union of Indonesian Peranakan Chinese (SPTI) — had returned to Surabaya. Tjoa became chairman of PTI and Tan, editor of Sin Tit Po, and they led both in a more radical direction. Strongly influenced by Tan (who was also active in the “Illegal PKI” — the underground Indonesian Communist Party organization set up by Musso), Siauw was now attracted to Marxism and the struggle against fascism. His translation of Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China appeared in serial form in Sin Tit Po, and he was actively involved in the Tjin Tjay Hwee movement to provide support for victims of the Japanese military expansion in China. In 1939 Kwee Hing Tjiat closed the Surabaya office of Mata Hari and recalled Siauw to Semarang. Shortly thereafter, Kwee died

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and Siauw took his place as editor-in-chief. In Semarang, he met Tan Gien Hwa, whose father was a successful trader in Pemalang, and they married in 1940. Soon afterwards both her parents died and the couple became responsible for her four younger siblings.When the Japanese invaded, they closed Mata Hari and interned the staff. Siauw was out of the office at the time, thus escaping internment. During the Japanese Occupation he was in hiding, mainly in Malang. Even in this situation, he was able to become leader of the Kebotai, a Chinese militia established by the Kakyo Shokai (an organization of Chinese set up by the Japanese). In this capacity he urged the Chinese to support the struggle for Indonesian independence, forging links with leaders of Indonesian paramilitary organizations, and contributing (with Tan Ling Djie and Tjoa Sik Ien) to the ideas presented by Liem Koen Hian to the body set up by the Japanese authorities in Java to prepare for Indonesian independence. After independence was proclaimed, Siauw was actively involved in politics. He joined the Partai Sosialis (Socialist Party) at its formation in December 1945. In April 1946 President Soekarno appointed him a member of the KNIP (Central Indonesian National Committee — the de facto legislature of the republic during the revolution). In 1947 he became a member of the Badan Pekerja (Working Committee) of the KNIP and was minister for minority affairs in the Amir Sjarifuddin cabinet (July 1947 – January 1948). After the fall of that cabinet he went into opposition as a member of the FDR (People’s Democratic Front) led by Amir, but when Musso returned from exile in August 1948 and merged the left wing parties into the PKI, he stayed outside the expanded party. His status as a non-party member of parliament did not prevent his arrest by the Hatta government in September 1948, together with other leftists in

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connection with the Madiun Affair. When the Dutch seized Yogyakarta in December 1948, Siauw escaped from internment only to be rearrested a few days later, this time by the Dutch. Among his fellow political prisoners were prominent figures who had been opponents of the FDR. On his release in August 1949 Siauw resumed his political career as a member of the Badan Pekerja. He unsuccessfully opposed concessions made by the Hatta government in its negotiations with the Dutch, but as a member of the Badan Pekerja, automatically became a member of the parliament (DPR) of the new federal Indonesian state (RIS) which came into being in December 1949. In January 1950 Siauw resumed his journalistic career, publishing Sunday Courier (a weekly), and editing Republik (a monthly). A year later, he launched Suara Rakjat, a weekly, which in July 1951, became a daily under the name, Harian Rakjat. In October 1953, Harian Rakjat became the official organ of the PKI under the leadership of Njoto, who had been actively engaged in this newspaper and the Sunday Courier from their inception. Siauw continued to contribute to Harian Rakjat and his close association with prominent PKI leaders such as Tan Ling Djie (who lived with Siauw and his family from 1951 until late 1965 when both were arrested) and Njoto led many to believe that he himself was a party member. It seems clear that his sympathies were with the radical left, but he remained without any formal party affiliation for the rest of his political career. His newspaper ventures were supported by funding from Totok businessmen with sympathies for the People’s Republic of China. After selling Harian Rakjat to the PKI, he set up a foundation called Yayasan Kebudayaan Sadar, which published magazines and books in Chinese, including the weekly Jue Xing (Sadar), which were addressed to a Totok Chinese readership.

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As a member of parliament, Siauw was a vigorous opponent of moves to restrict access of ethnic Chinese to Indonesian citizenship, and moves favouring the economic interests of indigenous Indonesians at the expense of ethnic Chinese. His most important political achievements were as chairman of Baperki (Consultative Body for Indonesian Citizenship) from its founding in March 1954 to its dissolution in late 1965. Under his leadership, it became the largest ever organization of Chinese Indonesians with a claimed membership of nearly 300,000 in1965 (although this included some non-Chinese members). In 1957–58 when pupils with Indonesian citizenship were required to attend national schools and foreign schools with links to the Kuomintang were closed, Baperki stepped in to become a major provider of national schools, and in 1960, set up its own university (URECA — Universitas Res Publica). Although technically not a political party, Baperki gained 180,000 votes in the 1955 elections (entitling it to one seat in the national parliament which Siauw occupied) and fared even better in the 1957 regional elections. Siauw was able to attract support from Totok as well as Peranakan Chinese, from business people and intellectuals, and from members of both the older and younger generations. His influence was enhanced by his close friendship with prominent indigenous political leaders, including President Soekarno. Support for him was not universal among ethnic Chinese, though. Most of his opponents were anti-communist, particularly from Catholic and PSI (Indonesian Socialist Party) circles, some of whom, such as Auwjong Peng Koen and Tan Po Goan, defected from Baperki as early as 1955. Yap Thiam Hien, another vocal critic, remained a member, but was unable to lessen Siauw’s domination of the organization.

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Although Baperki’s membership was broad-based, in the highly polarized political environment of President Soekarno’s Guided Democracy, Siauw increasingly aligned it with Soekarno, the PKI, and other “progressive revolutionary forces”. At this time, Baperki came under attack for its alleged “exclusiveness” from a movement of anti-communist ethnic Chinese (backed by the Indonesian army), who advocated assimilation into the wider Indonesian society (see Sindhunatha, Kristoforus). In the changed circumstances after an abortive coup on 1 October 1965, Baperki was forced to disband and many of its leaders were interned. Siauw himself was arrested in November 1965 and spent the next ten years in jail and a further two years under house arrest. In September 1978 he was allowed to go to the Netherlands for medical treatment. Despite his ill health, over the next three years, he was active among Indonesian political exiles there, rallied support for former political prisoners and their families in Indonesia, and gave lectures about the current situation in Indonesia. Minutes before he was due to give a lecture at Leiden University on 20 November 1981, he suffered a heart attack and died. He is survived by his wife and children. Siauw was respected by his opponents as a man of principle and integrity. Charles A. Coppel R E F E R E N C E S Burns, Peter (ed). Siauw Giok Tjhan Remembers: A Chinese Peranakan in Independent Indonesia. Townsville: James Cook University of North Queensland Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, 1984. Hering, Bob (ed). Siauw Giok Tjhan Remembers: A Peranakan-Chinese and the Quest for Indonesian Nationhood. Townsville: University of North Queensland, 1982. Lev, Daniel S. “Becoming an Orang Indonesia Sejati: The Political Journey of Yap Thiam Hien”, Indonesia (Special

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Issue in 1991 on “The Role of the Indonesian Chinese in Shaping Modern Indonesian Life”), pp. 97–112. Siauw Giok Tjhan. Lima Jaman: Perwujudan Integrasi Wajar. Jakarta: Yayasan Teratai, 1981. Siauw, Tiong-Djin. Siauw Giok Tjhan: Riwayat Perjuangan Seorang Patriot Membangun Nasion Indonesia dan Masyarakat Bhineka Tunggal Ika. Jakarta: Hasta Mitra, 1999. Siauw, Tiong Djin and Oey Hay Djoen (eds.). Sumbangsih Siauw Giok Tjhan dan Baperki dalam Sejarah Indonesia. Jakarta: Hasta Mitra, 2000.

Sidharta, Myra (Ew Yong Tjhoen Moy, , Ouyang Chunmei, 1927– ) Noted researcher and writer on Chinese-Indonesian culture and philosophy, Indonesia

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yra Sidharta is one of the most prolific and widely respected researchers and writers on Chinese-Indonesian culture and philosophy. Before she began studying the Chinese in Indonesia, Sidharta was a practicing psychologist who taught psychology and Chinese philosophy at the University of Indonesia. Sidharta is a third-generation ChineseIndonesian. Her grandfather migrated to Indonesia in 1872 from the county of Meixian in the Guangdong province of China.Although he planned to work in the gold and tin mines in Belitung, he was employed by a Dutch mining company to be an administrative employee and as an interpreter. He later became one of the most prominent figures on the island of Belitung. Sidharta’s father, who received a Dutch education, also worked at the same Dutch company where her grandfather had worked. As the child of an employee, Sidharta was allowed to attend a small Dutch-language school run by the mining company.The teachers were

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recruited from The Netherlands, and most of the pupils were Dutch. Due to her Dutch education and the many Dutch magazines that her father subscribed to, Sidharta had a good grasp of Dutch culture and language. This is why she decided to further her studies at The Netherlands after finishing high school. In 1958, she graduated from Rijks Universiteit Leyden with a degree of drs. (Dutch equivalent to a Bachelor’s degree) in psychology. Although Sidharta had a western educational background, she always remembered her Chinese roots. Like most Chinese on the island of Belitung, she spoke the Hakka dialect at home and with other Chinese in social situations. Through the help of a Mandarin teacher who was residing at her grandfather’s house, she learned how to speak Mandarin and write Chinese characters. It was during her Chinese lessons that she first read books written by classical Chinese authors such as Ba Jin and Lu Xun, novelists who were active in depicting China’s social problems in the first half of the twentieth century. Her tutor and cousin, who attended Chinese schools, were the ones who helped her to comprehend the stories. In her essay, “In Search of My Ancestral Home”, she discloses that her Chinese studies, along with the many stories about Meixian that her grandfather had shared, made “a visit to Meixian became a pilgrimage that [she] resolved to make in [her] lifetime” (2001, p. 149). In 1982, she finally visited Meixian, where she met her “warm,” “hardworking” and “friendly” relatives and where she gained a deep appreciation of the county’s beautiful landscape and lively cultural heritage. Sidharta admits that her trip to Meixian brought her happiness because she could finally spend some time with her Chinese relatives, but she affirms that she is happiest in Indonesia, the place where she works and feels most needed.

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In Indonesia, Sidharta practised psychology upon her graduation in 1958. She opened a children’s psychiatric clinic and cowrote several scientific books on psychology with M.A.W. Brouwer and Anna Alisyahbana (Menuju Kesejahteraan Jiwa, 1977 and Rumah Sakit Dalam Cahaya Ilmu Jiwa, 1983). She also lectured on psychology at the University of Indonesia from 1958–1967 and the University of Malaya from 1967–1971. She began taking a deep interest in Chinese culture and philosophy when she met M.A.W. Brouwer, a Catholic priest with whom she co-wrote the above articles on psychology. Brouwer encouraged her to study Chinese-Indonesian women because no one has done it before. Her curiosity piqued, she began reading Chinese-Indonesian novels published in the 1920’s and 1930’s to obtain clues on how the Chinese-Indonesian women lived during that era. Her findings were published in 1982 as a chapter in the book, Indonesian Women in Focus. The chapter is entitled “The Making of the Indonesian Chinese Woman”. It has been widely used by scholars to gain insight on Chinese-Indonesian women. Following her publication on ChineseIndonesian women, Sidharta published and presented many other articles and books on Chinese culture and philosophy, with wideranging topics. She wrote about Kho Ping Hoo, the writer of Kungfu stories in Indonesia (paper presented for the International Study Society of the Chinese Overseas in San Francisco in 1991 and later published in 2004 within her biographical collection of 8 Chinese-Indonesian writers, Dari Penjaja Tekstil Sampai Superwoman, 8 Biografi Penulis Peranakan Tionghoa di Indonesia, published by Gramedia). She also wrote on localized Chinese cuisine (Old Recipes, New Meals, the Localization of Chinese Food in Indonesia, paper presented on the 9th Symposium on Chinese

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Dietary Culture, National Chengkung University, Tainan, Taiwan, in 2005), Chinese gravestones (“The Manufacture of Chinese Gravestones in Indonesia,” article published in collaboration with Claudine Salmon as part of the archeological magazine, Archipel 72, in 2006) and Chinese marriages in Indonesia (The Role of the Go-between in Chinese Marriages in Batavia, paper presented at the IIAS Workshop on Chinese Archival Sources and Overseas Chinese Communities (1755–1950) at Leyden, The Netherlands). As a researcher and writer on the Chinese in Indonesia, Sidharta highly appreciates the value of archival materials. While doing research on a woman who opened a home to save Chinese girls brought to Indonesia from China to become prostitutes, she sought and gained permission to study the Kong Koan archives.The Kong Koan was a legal institution where the Kapitan or leader of the Chinese community during the Dutch colonial era kept notes and proceedings of legal cases between 1600 and 1900. The oldest book that Sidharta found in the archives was one from 1745.When she arrived at the Kong Koan archives, Sidharta saw decay and disrepair because no one was taking care of the rare archival materials. She then sought the help of a friend, Jean Smith, at the United States Library of Congress who had connections with the Genealogical Society in Utah. Upon seeing the wealth of information at the Kong Koan archives, Smith asked and obtained the permission to microfilm marriage and birth certificates for the Genealogical society. Later on, Ohio University microfilmed the whole archive for their database. In 1991, Sidharta was invited to talk about the remnants of the Kong Koan archives (“On the Remnants of the Kong Koan Archives,” paper presented at the seminar organized by Hong Kong University on Local History of the Asian Pacific Region: Contribution of the Overseas Chinese).

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Sidharta’s efforts in conservating the Kong Koan archives finally caught the attention of Leyden University, which decided to bring the archives to The Netherlands. Researchers and students all over the world have made journeys to Leyden University to study the priceless archives, which have all been digitalized. Up to this day, Sidharta continues to conduct research on Chinese-Indonesians, especially on the writers of novels, food and religious life. She is also an active free-lance feature writer for several newspapers and magazines. In her own words, “I will never stop writing. Writing is my life and it is one of the ways through which I can contribute to my country.” Aimee Dawis R E F E R E N C E S Indonesia Media Online. “Dokumentasi Sastra Melayu Tionghoa”. (accessed March 2012). Majalah Tempo Online. “Apa & Siapa: Myra Sidharta”.

(accessed March 2012). Sidharta, Myra. “In Search of My Ancestral Home”. In Cultural Curiosity, Retracing the Chinese Diaspora edited by J. Kho. Berkeley, CA: The University of California Press, 2001.

Sidharta, Priguna (Sie Pek Giok, , Xue Biyu, 1924–2003) Leading neurologist, university professor, Indonesia

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riguna Sidharta, better known as Sie Pek Giok among his friends, was a leading neurologist in Indonesia and was also recognized as a good teacher and pioneer in his field. Sie was born on 18 December 1924 in Losarang, Indramayu (West Java), the eldest son

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of a Peranakan family. His father, Sie Hway An, and mother, Tan Hong Heng, both received primary education at the Dutch school. They had eight children, but one of their sons died a few days at birth. Sie Pek Giok did not originally have this name, which is a girl’s name. He was initially called Sie Pek Hie, but because he often suffered from high fever and stiffness, his uncle suggested that his name be changed to Pek Giok instead. As soon as this was done, he was rid of the high fever and stiffness. Sie Pek Giok went to a missionary school in Indramayu for his primary school education (1931–38) and then attended a Dutch normal school for indigenous Indonesians (HollandsInlandse Kweekschool) in Solo (1938–41), followed by a Dutch high school (HBS) in Jakarta (1946–47). Therefore he had nonChinese as classmates. He performed well in high school and, as a result, won a scholarship to study medicine at Rijks Universiteit (1949– 54, Leiden). In the early 1950s, Indonesian Chinese students in the Netherlands were divided into several groups. Some were proPRC and some were pro-Taiwan. There was also a newly emerging group led by Lauw Chuan To (later known as Junus Jahja), which was Indonesia-oriented and advocated “assimilation” into Indonesian society. It was also in the Netherlands that Sie fell in love with a psychology student, Ew Yong Tjhoen Moy (also known as Myra Sidharta) and the two got married in 1953 before he finished medical school. In 1954 Sie got his medical degree. As he was academically inclined, he continued to pursue his graduate work and in 1956 received his doctoral degree from the same university after successfully defending his dissertation, “Localization of Fibre Systems within the White Matter of the Medulla Oblongata and Cervical Cord in Man” (Leiden, 1956). From 1955 to 1956 Sie worked at Rijks Universiteit as special assistant and, from 1956

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to 1958, as acting head of the Neuropathology section of the same university. He was doing very well in the Netherlands and many of his professors there advised him to stay on in the country, but, his parents urged him to return to Indonesia telling him that it was better for him to be well known in his own country than in a foreign land. The Medical Faculty of Indonesian University (FKUI) also wanted him on its staff so he eventually brought his family back to Indonesia and taught at the FKUI from 1959 to 1968, with a break from 1962 to 1963, when he did post-doctoral work at the Montreal Neurological Institute in Canada. In 1968 the University of Malaya began to teach courses in Malay rather than in English and required the service of Indonesian professors. The British Council recommended Sie who had by then changed his name to Priguna Sidharta. Sidharta accepted the invitation to teach at the Department of Medicine, University of Malaya, as a senior lecturer (1968–70). However, after finishing the contract, he wanted to return to FKUI, but was rejected due to university politics. Unable to return to FKUI, he served as a volunteer doctor in Persahabatan Hospital in Jakarta. The Universitas Katholik Atma Jaya (Jakarta) then invited him to teach as a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine (1973–86) which he accepted. He continued to publish research papers and more importantly, Indonesian textbooks that were badly needed. In October 1987 he was promoted to professor of neurology at the same university and this promotion to a full professorship was published in the local newspapers, including Kompas. Sidharta received a lot of congratulations and support from the medical community and his former students, including many who claimed to be his students because they had read his books and felt they had benefited from them. But it seems that he was not without enemies,

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however. A reader sent a letter to the editor of Kompas saying that Sidharta was not qualified to be a full professor. In fact, twenty years ago when Sidharta was the second most senior person in the department at FKUI, Professor Mahar Mardjono of FKUI had wanted to promote him to full professor, but this was blocked by a few individuals. Many believed that it was a matter of ethnic prejudice rather than scholarly merit. Because it was alleged that Sidharta was getting publicity for himself in Kompas, he was interviewed by the Indonesian Doctors’ Association, but they did not find anything improper in his professional conduct. It is ironic that although he was the one who advocated the assimilation of the Chinese into Indonesian society, some “indigenous” Indonesians were apparently not yet able to accept him as one of them. Nevertheless Sidharta did not lose his fighting spirit. Whenever young medical students/ doctors of Chinese descent encountered racial discrimination and wrote to him, he always advised them to continue to work hard and fight for their place in Indonesia. In fact, Priguna Sidharta was also a well known doctor in Jakarta. His patients consisted of ordinary persons as well as high-ranking government officers. Even those who were prejudiced against ethnic Chinese went to see him for medical advice and treatment. He was so popular that he had to work until late at night every day. Eventually he suffered a stroke. Sidharta liked to talk about his rich experiences with his intellectual friends. Many encouraged him to write his autobiography and one of these was Arief Budiman. Sidharta eventually wrote his memoirs entitled, Seorang Dokter Dari Losarang: Sebuah Otobiografi (A physician from Losarang: an autobiography), published in Jakarta in 1993.

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He also published numerous research papers and more than ten medical books, including Neurologi Dasar (Basic Neurology, Jakarta, 1967); Pengobatan Penyakit Saraf (Treatment for Neurological Illness, Jakarta, 1968); Neurologi Klinis Dasar (Basic Clinical Neurology, Jakarta, 1978); Neurologi Klinis dalam Praktek Umum (Clinical Neurology in General Practice, Jakarta, 1980); Ketegangan dan Akibatnya (Tension and Its Consequences, 1981); Kembali Hidup Dengan Cacat (Living Again with Handicaps,1981); and EncokRemetik (Rheumatics, 1983). Sidharta died on 3 July 2003 in Jakarta. He was survived by his wife Myra Shidarta, daughters Sylvia and Julie, and son Amir. Leo Suryadinata R E F E R E N C E S Apa & Siapa Sejumlah Orang Indonesia 1985–86, pp. 839–40. Jakarta: Grafitipers, 1986. Jakob Oetama. Kawan Kami: Myra ‘Moy’ Sidharta. Jakarta: privately printed, 2004. Sidharta, Priguna. “Curriculum Vitae”. 1980. ———. Seorang Dokter Dari Losarang: Otobiografi. Jakarta: P.T. Temprint, 1993.

Sebuah

Siem Piet Nio ( , Shen Biniang, pen name: Hong Le Hoa, circa 1907–1980s) Writer, feminist, Indonesia

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iem Piet Nio is a freelance writer, founder, and editor of Soeara Persatoean Kaoem Prampoean Tionghoa Indonesia, the first known Sino-Indonesian feminist magazine to be published in the Malay language. She was born in 1907 in Purbolinggo, East Java, into a Peranakan family and received her education at the Sekolah Bethel,

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a missionary school of her native place. Soon after graduation she founded the Ping Min ) or Association for Niu Sze Hui ( Women Masses. In the late 1920s she moved to Banyumas (Central Java) and began to contribute articles to various magazines such as Panorama, founded in 1927 in Batavia by the well known writer and social critic, Kwee Tek , 1896–1951). Another magazine Hoay ( to which she contributed was Liberty, launched in 1928 by the writer and journalist, Ong Ping , 1903–1978) in East Java, first Lok ( published in Jember, and then in Surabaya. In an issue of Panorama (7 January 1928), Siem, under her pen name, Hong Le Hoa, published a short article entitled, “Persatoean jang diharap” (The Federation which we Expect), in which she presented the aims of the federation of women’s associations that she wanted to create. She wrote: “Hong Le Hoa is neither a person of great ability nor someone capable of being a leader, but she is a strong and reliable supporter who will do her best to devote her energy and thoughts to her aim, and will work very hard in order to launch this federation.” Her project was well received and within a few weeks enthusiastic letters came from seven women’s associations which were all based in Java, namely the Chie Mei Hui ( , Sisters’ Association), which was founded , in Bogor in 1922 by Kwee Yat Nio ( 1907–1993) for young single Peranakan (or local born) Chinese women; the Lo Chun Hui , Spring Appreciation Association) ( , in Sukabumi; the Chiun Nie Hui ( Women’s Association) in Cianjur; the Fu , Women’s Association) in Nie Hui ( , Cilacap; the Hoedjin Siotjia Hui ( Married and Unmarried Women’s Association) in Kebumen; the Lie Hak Seng Hui ( , Female Students’ Association) in Malang,

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and the seventh in Sukaraja, the name of which is not known. In spite of their Chinese names, which were spelled according to the Hokkien dialect, these associations were run by Peranakan girls, some of whom were very young, such as Siem Piet Nio herself and Kwee Yat Nio, who was just fifteen years old when she founded the Ping Min Niu Sze Hui. Soon afterwards, Siem Piet Nio, who was based in Banyumas, launched the first issue of her magazine entitled, Soeara Persatoean Kaoem Prampoean Tionghoa Indonesia (“TheVoice of the Federation of Indonesian Chinese Women”), which was printed in Sukabumi with the help of the Lo Chun Hui. It was apparently the first Sino-Indonesian magazine concerned with the improvement of the social status of women. This publication seems very hard to come by, and does not appear in the catalogue of the National Library in Jakarta. The editor herself, whom I met in Sukabumi in the late 1970s, had lost her own collection during the Second World War. Writer Kwee Tek Hoay, who held Hong Le Hoa in great esteem, wrote a review of the first issue (Panorama, II, 87, August 1928, pp. 1370–73) in which he said that while, from a technical point of view, the journal was still in infancy, its contents were nevertheless quite satisfactory. He added that the magazine had the great merit of having been voluntarily launched by members of the federation without any external help, and of being circulated free of charge, with all expenses covered by the “persatuan” (federation). Kwee did not allude to its circulation. The magazine consisted of one and a half page, and was divided into three parts: the first dwelled on federation news, the second, with the world of women, while the third was devoted to literary works from women writers. The first page began with an introduction

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(permulaan kata) in which its authors explained the aim of the organ, and presented the editing and administrative staff. This was followed by a series of news concerning the federation in particular: its concrete organization, its main purpose, which was the promotion of women, and the moral obligation of the federation to help women achieve their emancipation. The second part focused on domestic life: family matters, children’s education and health, domestic work, food, and cooking… The last part was devoted to literary works: a novel which would be presented in instalments, as well as two Malay traditional poems or syair. It is not known when exactly the magazine ceased to appear. In the late 1920s Siem, under the pen name, Hong Le Hoa, published a long story entitled, “Poetri dari Salome” or (Salome’s Daughter) which was published in instalments in the magazine, Panorama (II, 74–84, 12 May– 21 July 1928), as well as several short stories. Siem married Liauw Seng Toh (who died in 1970), a journalist and a member , “Brothers’ of the Shiong Tih Hui ( Association”) in 1930, and settled in Sukabumi where she contributed articles for Menara, the organ of the Shiong Tih Hui, an association aimed at promoting education among Peranakan Chinese. She apparently ceased to write many years ago, but was still keeping a shop in Sukabumi in 1979. She died in the 1980s in that city. Claudine Salmon R E F E R E N C E S Kwee, Tek Hoay. “Terlahirnja Soeara Persatoean Kaoem Prampoean Tionghoa Indonesia”. Panorama, II, no. 87 (11 August 1828). 1370–73. Salmon, C. Literature in Malay by the Chinese of Indonesia, pp. 182–83. Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1981.

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Tan Hong Boen. Orang-orang Tionghoa jang terkemoeka di Jawa (Who’s Who), pp. 228–29. Solo: The Biographical Publishing Centre, 1935. Private communication with Siem Piet Nio.

Silalahi, Harry Tjan (Tjan Tjoen Hok, , Zeng Chunfu, 1934– ) Former student leader, political activist, Indonesia

H

arry Tjan Silalahi was a former student leader and political activist. Together with Jusuf Wanandi and others, he founded the Centre for the Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Jakarta. He also played a significant role during the transition from the Soekarno period to the New Order in 1965–66. Born in Yogyakarta on 11 February 1934, Harry Tjan was the son of a male nurse. Except for his two years at the HCS (Dutch Chinese School), he was educated in Indonesian schools. He attended the SD (primary school), SMP (lower secondary school), and SMA (higher secondary school) in Yogyakarta. While at high school, he was a member of the Ikatan Pemuda Pelajar Indonesia (IPPI), an Indonesian student and youth organization. He was also a member of the Chung Lien Hui (Zhong Lian Hui ), a Peranakan Chinese high school student association in Indonesia, and became its chairman in 1952. Under his leadership the name Chung Lien Hui was changed to Perkumpulan Peladjar Sekolah Menengah Indonesia (PPSMI, the Indonesian High School Students Organization), indicating its Indonesian orientation. After graduating from high school, Tjan moved to Jakarta to study at the Faculty of Law, University of Indonesia (FHUI), in 1955.

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For two years he worked concurrently as an administrator for the Yayasan Strada in Jakarta and in 1957 became a teacher and later principal of the Ricci School (primary and secondary school) in Jakarta Kota (Chinatown). Tjan was reportedly interested and participated in cultural activities, such as acting in school plays. When he came to Jakarta, he continued to be active in the drama circle. He played major roles in a number of plays produced by the Sin ), a Peranakan social Ming Hui Jakarta ( organization, and the Catholic University Student Association (PMKRI): Penuntutan (Prosecution, 1956), adapted from “Witness for the Prosecution”, produced by PMKRI; Mawar Hutan (Wild Rose, 1958), directed by himself and produced by the Sin Ming Hui; Taufan (Storm, based on the play by Cao Yu, 1958), directed by Steve Lim (later known as Teguh Karya) and produced by the Sin Ming Hui. One of the founding members of this organization was a leading lawyer and politician during the Soekarno era, Oey Tjoe Tat. With the passing of time, Tjan left his drama circle and came to be involved in student politics and later national politics. During his university student years, he was elected chairman of PMKRI-Central for 1961–62 and went to the United States and Europe several times to attend student conferences, representing PPMI and PPSMI, of which he was the vice-chairman. In 1962 (1961?), he graduated from the University of Indonesia (UI) and worked for Pan American Oil (Pekan Baru), though not for long. He returned to Jakarta and came to be associated with K. Sindhunata and his Lembaga Pembinaan Kesatuan Bangsa (LPKB) to promote the assimilation of ethnic Chinese into Indonesian society. In June 1965 Tjan joined Partai Katholik and later served as its secretary general. During the struggle between

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the army and the PKI, he and other Catholic leaders sided with the army in crushing the PKI. In 1965 he was elected secretary general of the Front Pantjasila, a federation of anticommunist mass and political organizations. After the 1965 G-30-S movement, he became secretary general of the Kesatuan Aksi Pengganyangan Gerakan September Tigapuluh (KAP-Gestapu), or United Action for the Elimination of the 30 September Movement. From 1967 to 1971 Tjan was an appointed member of the DPR, and chairman of “Commission 1”, in charge of Information on higher and non-departmental institutions. In 1971 he participated in the general election as a candidate for Partai Katholik, but was not elected. He then left Partai Katholik and joined the CSIS which he helped to found and served as vice-chairman on its board of directors. He became a pillar of the CSIS. It was reported that he was close to Major General Ali Moertopo and General Benny Murdani, the two major supporters of CSIS, and served as their advisers. In 1978 he was appointed a member of the DPA (Dewan Pertimbangan Agung) by President Soeharto, and in 1985, became vicechairman of Badan Komunikasi Penghayatan Kesatuan Bangsa Pusat (Bakom PKB-Pusat, or the Appreciation of the National Unity Body at the National Level). Bakom was a new name for the defunct LPKB and the chairman of Bakom was K. Sindhunata. In fact, the assimilation movement had started in 1960 in opposition to the integration approach of Baperki. One of the purposes of this movement was to change Chinese names to “Indonesian names”. But the actual name changing would only take place after Soeharto came to power. Unlike most of the assimilationists, Tjan did not change his surname, but added an indigenous Batak clan name to his Chinese and western names.

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There is an interesting story with regard to his Batak surname. Tjan had a close relationship with Albert Bolas Silalahi, chairman of the Catholic Party at the Tapanuli Utara (Sumatra) chapter. It was through Silalahi that he became a member of the Silalahi clan (a Batak ethnic group) in 1967 and Tjan had been adopted by the Silalahi family and hence took Silalahi as his surname. Since 1966 he has served as an executive member of the Trisakti University Foundation (Jakarta). Trisakti University was the new name given to the Univeritas Res Public (Ureca) established by Baperki, a mass socio-political organization which was banned after the 1965 coup. He has also served as a member of the Advisory Board of the Management School of Prasetiya Mulya (Jakarta) and was also a member of the Advisory Council of Tarumanegara Foundation and Atma Jaya Foundation. Both are university foundations in Jakarta. In the legal field, he was active in Persahi (Persatuan Sarjana Hukum Indonesia), an Indonesian Law Graduates/Lawyers Association. Tjan has published a number of articles and monographs, one of which being Konsensus Politik Nasional Orde Baru (Jakarta, 1990). He married twice. His first wife, Theresia Marina Gani, who died of cancer, was a graduate of UI. His second wife, Theresia Ying, was also a graduate of the same university. Leo Suryadinata R E F E R E N C E S Apa dan Siapa Sejumlah Orang Indonesia 1985–1986, pp. 845–46. Jakarta: Grafitipers, 1986. Hadi Soesastro et al. (ed.). Budi dan Nalar: 70 Tahun Tjan Silalahi. Jakarta: CSIS, 2004. Suryadinata, Leo. Prominent Indonesian Chinese: Biographical Sketches, pp. 149–51. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1995.

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Sim Kee Boon ( , Shen Jiwen, 1929–2007) Retired senior civil servant, head of civil service, chairman of Keppel Corporation, Singapore

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im Kee Boon was one of a select group of early senior civil servants who saw Singapore through its early years of nationhood. A man of wide-ranging experience and unusual acumen, he is best remembered as the man who created Changi Airport and turned it into one of the world’s best airports, as well as for turning Keppel Corporation around. Sim was born on 5 September 1929 in Singapore. He was educated first at the AngloChinese School and then at the University of Malaya in Singapore where he graduated with an honours degree in economics in 1953. Later on, Sim obtained a departmental scholarship to study business administration at the London School of Economics. On graduation, Sim joined the prestigious administrative service and was posted to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry as an administrative officer. In 1960, Sim was appointed deputy director of the Trade Division of the Ministry of Finance, and two years later, at the young age of thirty-three, Sim was appointed acting permanent secretary of the Ministry of National Development, and then acting permanent secretary of the Ministry of Finance. In 1966, Sim was promoted to the post of permanent secretary of the Ministry of Finance where he remained till 1975. He subsequently served as permanent secretary of the Ministry of Communications (1975–84) and Finance again (1983–84). In 1979, Sim succeeded George Bogaars as head of the civil service.Though he officially retired in September 1984, he stayed on for another

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eighteen months as permanent secretary (special duties) in the Prime Minister’s Office to ensure a smooth handover to his successor, Dr Andrew Chew. It was when he was at the Ministry of Communications that the Singapore Government decided to build a new airport at Changi, as well as expand the existing airport at Paya Lebar. Sim was given the task of coordinating this mammoth project — the largest public works to be undertaken by the government up till then. A massive land reclamation was undertaken to ensure that the runway could accommodate the latest, most up-to-date aircraft. Sim oversaw every single aspect of the works, including the land reclamation and squatter resettlement. Work began on Changi Airport in 1975 and, by 1981,Terminal One was operational. Sim, who took on the mantle of chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore immediately on his retirement as head of the civil service in September 1984, remained closely connected with the airport and its development till he retired in 1999. He was succeeded by Tjong Yik Ming. Sim had no special training to manage the airport project and approached it as a layman would, asking his staff for suggestions and querying basic assumptions and practices. He advocated the practice of “management by walking around” and sought from his staff, the simplest, most effective solutions to problems at hand. Sim’s hands-on approach endeared him to his staff who were often stumped by his command of and attention to detail. Sim believed in leading by example and won the respect of his staff for fostering an “airport family culture”. Nothing escaped his scrutiny and Sim had inputs on every aspect of airport construction and management, including the type of trolleys used, the colour of the carpets,

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and the quality of the airport toilets. One of his famous admonishments to his staff was, “Don’t give me 1,001 reasons why it cannot be done; just give me one reason how it can be done.” By the time Sim retired, he had overseen the development of Terminals One and Two at Changi, which many travellers regard as among the very best airport terminals in the world. Sim regarded the development of Changi Airport as his “national service”. Changi Airport has continuously been featured in the world’s best airports lists since 1987. After Sim retired from government service, he joined Keppel Corporation Ltd as its executive chairman. At the time of his taking over the helm at Keppel, the public listed corporation was bleeding from an illtimed takeover of Straits Steamship Company by Keppel’s subsidiary, Keppel Shipyard, in 1984. By consolidating Keppel’s core business, writing off bad debts, and trimming and rationalizing its manpower requirements, Sim was able to slash Keppel’s S$845-million debt. In 1986, just two years under Sim’s leadership, the Keppel Group posted a modest $5.1million profit. By the time Sim stepped down as Keppel’s executive chairman in 1999, the once debt-ridden company had been transformed into one of the largest and most successful congolomerates in Singapore. For the first half of 1999, it posted S$2.1 billion in profit. He was succeeded by former cabinet minister, Lim Chee Onn. Other important positions Sim has held include: chairman, Insurance Corporation of Singapore (1968–82); chairman, National Grain Elevator Ltd (1968–87); and chairman, Straits Steamship Land Ltd (1984–96); chairman and managing director, Intraco Ltd (1968–74); chairman, Far East Levingston Shipbuilding (1984–92); senior adviser, Keppel Corporation (2000–03); founder chairman of MobileOne

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Ltd; chairman, Singapore-Suzhou Township (1993); and chairman, Changi Airport Advisory Group (2007). Sim also served on the boards of the Development Bank of Singapore (1968–81) and Temasek Holdings (Pte.) Ltd. (2000–07); and was a member of the Council of Presidential Advisors (1997–2006), of which he was chairman from 2004 to 2005. For his public service, Sim received the Pingat Jasa Gemilang (Meritorious Service Medal) in 1963, and the Darjah Utama Bakti Chemerlang (Distinguished Service Order) in 1991. Sim was an avid golfer, and was responsible for the formation and construction of the Tanah Merah Country Club. He died on 9 November 2007 after a seventeen-year battle with cancer. He was survived by his wife, Jeanette (a former teacher), five sons, and five granddaughters. In July 2008, the Singapore Management University(SMU) announced the establishment of the Sim Kee Boon Institute of Financial Economics with a S$17-million endowment fund. Its first director is Professor Roberto S. Mariano, dean of the School of Economics at the SMU. Kevin Y.L.Tan R E F E R E N C E S Business Times. “Retiring But Still On the Go”. 25 November 1999. Cheong, Colin. From Ground Up: Stories from the CAAS Experience. Singapore: CAAS, 2006. Fernandez, Warren. Without Fear or Favour, pp. 36–37, 114. Singapore: Times Media, 2001. Low Kar Tiang. Who’s Who in Singapore, pp. 356–57. Second edition. Singapore: Whos’ Who Pub, 2003. Peh Shing Huei. “Former Civil Service Head Sim Kee Boon Dies at Age 78”. The Straits Times, 10 November 2007. Today. “Mr Changi dies at 78; Sim Kee Boon will be remembered for building airport into Singapore icon”. 10 November 2007.

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Sim Mow Yu ( Shen Muyu, 1913–2009) Educator, community leader, cultural figure, Malaysia

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im Mow Yu was a central figure in the Chinese educationalist movement in Malaysia. He was born on 20 July 1913 in Malacca, the sixth child of Sim Hong ), who was a cultural activist and Bo ( supporter of the Kuomintang revolutionary movement in China, the influence of which extended to British Malaya at the beginning of the 20th century. Sim attended the Peifeng ) Secondary School in Malacca and upon ( graduation, served in the school as a teacher, and later, a principal, until his retirement. Since his youth, Sim had demonstrated a strong political commitment to fight for ethnic Chinese rights within the established order, and was determined to protect and preserve vernacular Chinese education which was regarded as the chief transmitter of Chinese culture. His lifelong involvement in the Chinese education movement and cultural activities earned him immense respect from Chinese communities and organizations both at home and abroad. The transformation of Sim’s political orientation was representative of the generation of his time. Before and after the Second World War, different ethnic communities were fighting for its legitimate political places in the peninsula. Political orientation and attitudes of the elite and intelligentsia underwent changes, from quasi-feudalism to nationalism, from being China-oriented to being Malaya-oriented.The ethnic Chinese were divided into three camps: the Kuomintang sympathizers; the Straits Chinese, and the communists. All regarded the fight to gain citizenship as the utmost priority.

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The Koumintang-leaning Sim joined the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA), which was able to reconcile the first two groups when it was founded in 1949 in a call to ethnic Chinese to apply for Malayan citizenship. In 1955 Sim helped set up the Malacca branch of the MCA Youth Wing. In 1965, the Chinese Guilds and Associations initiated a nation-wide movement to appeal for the Chinese language to be made an official language, but Sim’s popularity and unpromising stand angered MCA president Tan Siew Sin (see later entry) who subsequently took the unprecedented step of sacking Sim from the party. In 1971, the MCA, under Tan’s leadership, thought the time was ripe to revive the party’s legitimacy after its embarrassing electoral defeat three years previously. It organized the Chinese Unity Movement, in which Sim, due to his enormous popularity with the Chinese community, was invited by Tan to participate. In audience-packed rallies, Sim called for equality between Bumiputera and non-Bumiputera and fair treatment to vernacular Chinese education. However, Sim and another orator, ), were detained Gu Xing Guang ( under the Internal Security Act (ISA) by the authorities for making seditious comments in public rallies in Ipoh. Both were later released without being charged. In 1987, Sim was detained again after a 2,000-strong protest staged by the Dong Jiao Zong (Chinese educationists) at the Hanainese Association Building, beside the Thian Hou Temple in Kuala Lumpur. What ignited the protest was the Malaysian Education Ministry’s appointments of some 100 non-Chinese (Mandarin) conversant senior assistants and principals to vernacular Chinese schools. Politicians from the major Chinese-based parties (the MCA, the DAP, and GERAKAN) also joined the protests, which, according to the authorities, evoked

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racially sensitive issues. Sim was among the 119 people detained under the Internal Security Act 1960, an operation which came to be known as “Operasi Lalang”. Sim was supportive yet sceptical of a group of Chinese educationists, led by Lim Fong Seng, also a fellow detainee of “Operasi Lalang”, who joined the DAP and Gerakan at the wake of the 1990 elections as a means “to penetrate the Barisan Nasional, and to modify the Barisan Nasional”. He commented that this act was similar to the brothers who were “forced to ascend the Liang Mountain” ) in the novel, Water Margin, a ( comment which appropriately reflected the situation at the time. In his retirement, Sim was still regarded as an authoritative voice, making critical comments on government policies which he regarded as unfair to the Chinese. In 2000, he was invited by MCA president Ling Liong Sik to rejoin the MCA. He refused by saying that he felt much “freer” by remaining a non-partisan figure. In 1987, United Chinese School Teachers’ Association of Malaysia established a foundation to publish Sim’s speeches, biography, diaries, writings, and calligraphies. Sim held many positions in Chinese organizations and associations, the more important of which are: president of United Chinese Schools Association (1966–94), vicechair of Merdeka University Berhad, chairman of Confucius Association, Malacca. He has also received many prestigious honours which include Justice of the Peace awarded by the queen of England (1956), JMN awarded by the king of Malaysia (1959), DMSM (which carried the title “Datuk”) awarded by the Malacca governor (1999), and the Cultural Medallion Award by the Taiwan Government (1997). In addition, Sim also practised traditional Chinese calligraphy which was popular and

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highly valued by collectors. Sim saw in the calligraphy of the martyred Tang dynasty ), a visual statesman, Yan Zhenqing ( embodiment of the values of righteousness and integrity. Sim’s reputed artistic style stemmed more from a political rather than purely aesthetic basis. “Correct”, “serious”, and “forceful” were terms habitually applied to describe his calligraphic style. He also regarded calligraphy as an effective way to enjoy healthy life and longevity. His realistic yet firm and unyielding stance on the preservation of Chinese education was a cornerstone in the Chinese community’s struggle against the discriminatory policies of the UMNO-dominated government. Sim, as president of the United Chinese School Teachers’ Association of Malaysia and a leader in the Chinese education movement, contributed greatly to the subsequent continuation and advancement of Chinese education in Malaysia. His humble, sage-like personality provides the moral legitimacy that Chinese education needed so badly in times of trials and tribulations. ) who Unlike Lim Lian Geok ( was more orthodox and remembered more for his uncompromising and confrontational style with the authorities, Sim was a pragmatic reformer, progressive thinker, and tactful leader. He demonstrated at the time that he understood how politics work, and that Chinese education would perish if the community kept on retreating from the onslaught of the government’s proBumiputera policies. He was acknowledged as a community leader and cultural figure of distinction by many prestigious organizations. On 5 February 2009, Sim died in Malacca at the age of ninety-six. He is survived by six sons and two daughters. Ho Khai Leong

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R E F E R E N C E S 〈 》。

：

〉，《 ，1977。

“Our Headmaster Datuk Sim Mow Yu Passed Away )”. 18 February 2009, in Stored ( Record: Remembering Our Headmaster Datuk Sim.

(accessed 12 April 2011).

Sim Wong Hoo ( , Shen Wangfu, 1954– ) Businessman, philanthropist, Singapore

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im Wong Hoo, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Creative Technology Ltd, is a notable Singapore entrepreneur. Many young Singaporeans owning Creative Technology MP3 players will also tell you that Sim is the creator of the Sound Blaster audio card and heads the company that makes cutting edge multimedia products. Born in 1954, Sim, who is known as something of a maverick in the Singaporean engineering circle, graduated from the Electrical & Electronic Engineering faculty of the Ngee Ann Polytechnic in Singapore. On 1 July 1981, Sim and Ng Kai Wa (his school friend) set up a shop in Pearl Centre called Creative. This marked the humble beginnings of Creative Technology. In those days, it was little more than a computer repair shop. While running this modest shop, Sim conceptualized an addon memory board for the Apple II computer. This add-on sold very well, leading Sim to create customized personal computers (PC) adapted for the Chinese language, inclusive of enhanced audio capabilities whereby speech and melodies could be produced. This new audio interface was a resounding success and soon led to the full development of a standalone sound card named Sound Blaster, thereby marking Creative’s first real product.

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In time, the Sound Blaster came to be used as a standard forcomparison of sound cards. With the introduction of the Sound Blaster line of audio card products, Creative and Sim Wong Hoo successfully brought a dedicated audio processing card to the general consumer. Gradually other audio processing products were developed and released in the market such as the Monaural Sound Blaster cards in 1989, and the Sound Blaster Pro stereo cards in 1992. After much trial and error and further development, the sixteenbit Sound Blaster AWE32 and AWE64 were enhanced with wavetable MIDI as well as thirty-two and sixty-four voices respectively. By 1988, the market was once again stunned by the Creative’s latest offering — the Sound Blaster Live!, the first Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) based sound card. As the years went by, the Sound Blaster garnered further enhancements and eventually came to provide 3D audio and home theatre quality sound directly from a PC. By the late 1990s, Creative had come to dominate the PC audio market. Its meteoric rise, however, was momentarily dimmed when it became embroiled in a series of lawsuits with Aureal Semiconductor in 1998, whereby Aureal alleged that Creative had infringed on its various technology patents, such as the PCI audio and the 2D/3D positional sound APIs. Not to be outdone, Creative responded by countering with a series of lawsuits whereby it alleged, among other claims, that Aureal used false advertising. For a while, it looked as though the ensuing legal tussle would rend the Singaporean technological world asunder. Fortunately, the numerous lawsuits were resolved when Creative acquired Aureal’s assets in September 2000 for US$32 million. Despite Creative’s many innovations in the realm of PC sound cards, the company

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and Sim failed to make an impression in the CD-ROM market. Its developments and marketing strategy to that effect failed to take off, resulting in a desperate attempt by Creative to cut its losses. It did so by writing off nearly US$100 million in inventory when the market collapsed due to a glut of cheaper alternatives. Creative managed to bounce back into the game, so to speak, when it developed a portable audio player in the late 1990s. In 2000, it launched the Creative NOMAD Jukebox, and was the foremost choice for youngsters who wanted to store and listen to their music in MP3 and wav formats while on the go. Indeed, Creative was so successful with its MP3 player line that it remained a serious competitor in the portable audio player market until the entry of Apple’s iPod. In true Sim Wong Hoo style, Creative took the introduction of the iPod in its stride and conceptualized a new line of portable music players known as the ZEN MP3 player. The new technology developed led Creative to apply for U.S. Patent 6,928,433 on 5 January 2001, and it was awarded the patent on 9 August 2005. As it turned out, the ZEN patent was awarded to Creative for the invention of a user interface for portable media players. This patent opened the way for potential legal action against Apple’s iPod and the other competing players as evinced in May 2006 when Creative took legal action against Apple. However, the issue was resolved amicably between Creative and Apple when both companies entered into a broad settlement whereby Apple would pay Creative $100 million for the licence to use the Zen patent. On its part, Creative was to join the “Made for iPod” programme. In so doing, the company was afforded new opportunities. It also became the first Singaporean company to be listed on the NASDAQ.

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Like most mavericks and those of an innovative turn of mind, Sim was highly critical of the drone mentality of the people he saw in Singaporean society, asserting that Singaporeans tended to have a compliance mindset whereby their thoughts and actions had to be approved by higher authorities. In saying so, he must clearly recall the discrimination he faced in the Singapore job market where employers generally favoured university graduates rather than polytechnic graduates. Sim dubbed this, the No-U Turn Syndrome (NUTS). He made this statement about the No-U Turn Syndrome in his book, Chaotic Thoughts from the Old Millennium, in response to the reams of red tape he had encountered with government bureaucrats. Since he was developing technology that he liked on his own free will, without official sanction, some of the bureaucrats were none too pleased about this. Sim spoke out against such a mindset, claiming that it stifled creativity in Singaporeans — the same creativity that the government has been trying to promote in the recent years. Indeed, the No-U Turn Syndrome was also a thinly veiled criticism of the rigid Singapore education system in which students are taught from a young age to obey instructions in an unquestioning manner, in a society where grades and paper certification are emphasized at the expense of some life skills. His successes in CreativeTechnology made Sim the youngest millionaire in Singapore at the age of forty-five. His contributions to the technological and business world culminated in his being the first person to be named the Businessman of the Year twice, in 1992 and 1997. In 2002, the Singapore Computer Society recognized his contribution to the IT industry by declaring him Person of the Year. Indeed, Sim continues to be widely acknowledged as Singapore’s star entrepreneur. It is believed that

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he will bring Singapore to new technological heights during his current tenure as chair of the Technopreneurship 21 Private Sector Committee. Sharon Loo R E F E R E N C E S Aggarwal, N. “Creative Creator Is Tops Again”. The Straits Times, 28 March 1998, p. 3. Business Times. “IT Leaders Push Limits”. 26 February 2003. ———. “2 S’poreans in Running for Innovator Award”. 8 September 1994, p. 2. Kagda, S. “Sim Wong Hoo is Singapore’s Businessman of the Year”. Business Times, 9 January 1993, p. 1. Sim Wong Hoo. Chaotic Thoughts from the Old Millennium. Singapore: Creative O, 1999. The Straits Times. “Ex-lecturer, Creative Founder among Asia’s Leading Innovators”. 5 January 1994, p. 32.

Sima Gong ( , 1933– ) Thai-Chinese writer,Thailand

S

ima Gong is a prominent Chinese writer in Thailand. His works come in many different genres, including prose and poetry, novellas, and literary analyses, all of which are well received by his readers. He joined the Thai Chinese Writers’ Association ) in 1987 and became its ( vice-chairperson in 1988. He then served as chairperson of the association for more than two decades before retiring and becoming the honorary chairperson in 2010. He is celebrated for his support and generosity towards Chinese literary activities in Thailand. Using profits from his business, he donated generously to support Chinese literary activities and writers both within and outside Thailand.

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Sima Gong’s real name is Ma Junchu ( ). Of his pseudonyms, Sima Gong is the most ) and well known. Others include Jiancao ( ), which he uses when writing Tianyin ( poetry. He was born in 1933 in Thailand, but received his primary and secondary education in China. After graduation, he returned to Thailand to help out in his family business at the age of twenty-one. In 1966 he started writing and published his works mainly in the literary column of the Tong Hua Daily News. He travelled to many places both in Thailand and around the world, and wrote many pieces of prose describing his journeys. His travel diaries became very popular because Sima Gong was adept in describing the beauty of the places he visited. He became a famous writer in the 1970s, having published widely both in Thailand and Hong Kong. His works during this period consisted mainly of prose and poetry. Later, as he became busier with his business, he stopped writing for ten years. In 1985 he resumed writing and published his works in the literary columns of various Chinese newspapers. After a talk with a Singaporean writer, Huang Mengwen, in 1989, he was inspired to promote a new genre, the novella, in Thailand’s Chinese literary circles. Two months after that meeting, Sima Gong published his first novella in the literary column of the New Chinese Daily. From July to December 1990, he published more than thirty novellas. Since then, an increasing number of Thai Chinese writers have written novellas, and this has become an established genre of literature in Chinese literary circles. Although Sima Gong’s works generally receive compliments regardless of their genre, his pieces of prose are usually considered to be his best work. They are highly praised for their lyrical elements. Many of them express his love for his hometown, Chaoyang County in

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Guangdong Province, and his admiration for the beauty of Mother Nature. Sima Gong is especially good at using metaphors and similes to demonstrate his feelings and thoughts explicitly. His prose also demonstrates his unique perspective on the world, which is the strength of many of his works. One of his more famous prose collections is The Collection of Cold and Warmth (《 》), which was published under the name Jiancao. This collection was first printed in 1988 by the New Chinese Daily as part of its celebrations for the fiftieth anniversary of the Zhong Yuan Bao, and its own fifteenth anniversary. It is a collection of 100 short pieces of prose, selected from those he had written ), a for “Articles of Cold and Warmth” ( literary column in the New Chinese Daily. Each of the pieces selected is a playful satire which touches on different aspects of life. They are a display of Sima Gong’s unique perspective on life, his humour, as well as his knowledge and proficiency in the Chinese language. Sima Gong is also celebrated for his novellas. He is one of the first few ThaiChinese authors to write novellas and employs an array of literary techniques in doing so. Each of them is not necessarily of the same form and structure because Sima Gong plans his novellas according to their content. Actors ) is his first collection of novellas. Each ( novella in Actors is a scene from everyday life. Sima Gong has written them in such a way that each novella is of a different structure and form, and with a different emphasis. By putting the novellas together, the reader is able to gain a better insight into Thai society. In the postscript of his novellas collection published in 2008, Sima Gong said that he loves both non-fiction prose and the novellas for different reasons. He loves non-fiction prose for its “truthfulness” and “sincerity”. His nonfiction prose is the outward expression of his

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feelings and thoughts.Thus, all recorded events and characters are real. On the other hand, he also loves his novellas, which are fictitious. Even when he has obtained his inspiration from real life, the final product would not be a truthful representation of the original event. Aside from being a writer, Sima Gong contributes to Thai-Chinese literary circles in many other ways. He is active in many Chinese literary activities. For instance, he was invited to be judge of many writing competitions such as the Thai-Chinese Golden Pen competition ), organized by the New ( Chinese Daily and Joint Chinese Association ( ) in 1974, and the writing competition organized by the Huachiaw Chalermphrakiat University in 1993 and 1995. He has attended many literary seminars and conferences in China. As chairperson of the Association of Chinese Writers in Thailand, he organized a seminar on novella writing in 1996, a Chinese art camp, and a delegation to China in 1998. Aside from participating in literary activities, Sima Gong is also well known for donating large sums towards literary activities and groups. Although Sima Gong has stepped down from his position as chairperson of the Association of Chinese Writers in Thailand, he is still deeply involved in Thai-Chinese literary circles. He is currently the chief editor of 》), a the Thai-Chinese Literature (《 literary journal in Thailand. Goh Yu Mei R E F E R E N C E S 〈 ： 〉。 (accessed 22 March 2011). 《 1990， 24–29。 〈 ：

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》。

〉， 《 ，2000， 10–11。

：

，

》。

：

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Sin, Jaime Lachica (1928–2005) Religious leader, Philippines

J

aime Lachica Sin ( ), the thirtieth Roman Catholic archbishop of Manila, is best known for his role in Philippine political affairs. He was acclaimed in the Philippines and all over the world for his moral leadership and defence of freedom, justice, and peace. In the hastily called presidential elections of 1986, when the government’s defence chief and a general in the armed forces broke away from the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos, Cardinal Sin called for the citizenry to go out into the streets and peacefully defend the revolutionaries. Millions heeded the call that capped a long struggle to oust Marcos. The event came to be known as the “People Power” or “EDSA” revolution.The latter is the name of the highway where people gathered to demand the restoration of democracy. President Corazon Aquino was sworn in as the country’s first female president. In 2001, the cardinal led another peaceful revolt,“EDSA II”, which led to the resignation of former President Joseph Estrada, who was accused of corruption and misrule. Throughout his twenty-nine years as archbishop of Manila, Sin fully immersed himself in the affairs of the state — providing a moral compass and becoming the moral conscience of politicians and public servants. He received numerous awards from the Philippine Government and other foreign governments, religious and lay organizations, and private groups. He was given more than thirty honorary doctorate degrees and awards by universities and colleges in the Philippines and abroad. A few months before his death,

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he became the first Filipino to be given the Golden Palm of Jerusalem, the highest service award of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. During his term as archbishop of Manila, he ordained 237 diocesan priests and 460 religious priests. He erected 171 parishes in addition to the 101 that were present when he assumed the role of archbishop. After the celebration of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, Sin recommended to Pope John Paul II the division of the archdiocese of Manila into several smaller dioceses for more effective pastoral management and ministry. This resulted in the erection of five new dioceses in 2004 — the dioceses of Parañaque, Novaliches, Cubao, Pasig, and Kalookan. He presided over ceremonies for the establishment of these dioceses and the installation of their respective bishops. This move was a testament to the magnanimity of Cardinal Sin. The archdiocese of Manila used to encompass the whole of Metropolitan Manila and beyond, and there was only one leader, the cardinal archbishop of Manila. But with the growth of the population, the archdiocese became too big and unwieldy. Cardinal Sin recognized this and voluntarily asked for power to be devolved from one bishop (himself) to several bishops. Born on 31 August 1928 in New Washington, Aklan, a small coastal town on an island in central Philippines, Sin was the seventh of nine children of Juan Sin — a Chinese businessman who had migrated to the Philippines from Fujian, China — and Maxima Reyes Lachica. After an early education at the New Washington Elementary School in his hometown, he entered the St Vincent Ferrer Archdiocesan Seminary in Jaro, Iloilo, in June 1941. When his studies were interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War and the

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subsequent occupation of the Philippines by Japanese forces, he spent much of this period serving in the local parish church as an altar boy of the priests, and caring for old clergy residing in the church compound. His mother died on 8 June 1945, just before the war ended and before he returned to the seminary to resume studies for priesthood, more determined than ever to fulfil his childhood dream of a consecrated life of service. Sickly and afflicted with asthma throughout his childhood and seminary days, he put his fate in the hands of the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus Christ, to whom he had always been intensely devoted. On 7 October 1953, the feast day of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary, one of the Virgin Mary’s many titles, he wrote a letter to her, asking for healing from his congenital illness as a sign that he should pursue his vocation to priesthood. He was ordained to priesthood on 3 April 1954 at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Roxas City, Capiz, and never suffered from asthma since. For three years (1954–57) he was a missionary-priest of the diocese of Capiz, evangelizing the remote parishes of the province while raising funds for the construction of the St Pius X Seminary in Roxas City. The seminary was completed and he became its first rector in 1957, serving for the next ten years until his appointment as bishop. On 10 February 1967, he was appointed auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Jaro, based in Iloilo City, and was ordained as a bishop on 18 March 1967. He rose through the ranks, eventually becoming archbishop in October 1972. Just over a year later, Pope Paul VI appointed him the thirtieth archbishop of Manila. He was installed in this new post on 19 March 1974 at the Manila Cathedral and he chose the motto, “Serviam” (I will serve).

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Two years later, on 26 May 1976, he was elevated to the rank of cardinal by Pope Paul VI. He was the third Filipino to be appointed cardinal by the pope. As a cardinal, he was present at five world meetings of bishops, known as synods, in Rome (1977, 1978, 1980, 1983, 1987), at the Second Extraordinary Assembly of Bishops (1985), and the Special Assembly of Bishops for Asia (1998). He participated in two conclaves — on 25–26 August 1978 to elect Pope John Paul I; and on 14–16 October 1978, to elect Pope John Paul II. The pope is the head of the worldwide Catholic Church and is elected by a majority of cardinals, of whom there are fewer than three hundred in the world. Over the years, Cardinal Sin served in various Vatican congregations or commissions in Rome. In the Philippines, he served two terms as president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (1977–81). He led the Philippine Church in ceremonies for the two pastoral visits of Pope John Paul II — in February 1981, for the beatification of St Lorenzo Ruiz, the first Filipino saint, and in 1995, for the 10th World Youth Day in Manila, which saw the participation of more than four million people, the largest Christian gathering ever in history. In 1987 Cardinal Sin established the Lorenzo Mission Institute, a seminary for the formation of priests, with a special focus on the evangelization of the Chinese, both in the Philippines and elsewhere. The founding of the institute followed the cardinal’s historic visit to the church in China in 1985, at a time when the Chinese Catholic Church was not permitted to interact with catholic churches in the rest of the world. Cardinal Sin’s commitment to the training of future priests came to the fore again when he founded the Holy Apostles Senior Seminary, designed especially to welcome late vocations.

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This allowed older men to train for priesthood and was the cardinal’s way of responding to the shortage of priests. Some say that Cardinal Sin was too involved in politics, but for Southeast Asia and the world, he is an exemplar of religious faith that is non-violently engaged for social change. On 21 November 2003, he retired from active ministry as the archbishop of Manila. He was seventy-five by then. Sin died on 21 June 2005 at the Cardinal Santos Medical Center in San Juan, Metro Manila. Peachy Yamsuan R E F E R E N C E Yamsuan, Noli I. Scenes of Sin, A Photographic Chronicle of Jaime L. Cardinal Sin. Manila: Goodwill Bookstores, 1999.

Sindhunatha, Kristoforus (Ong Tjong Hai, , Wang Zonghai, 1933–2005) Assimilationist leader, lawyer, naval officer, business consultant, politician, Indonesia

K

ristoforus Sindhunatha was a lawyer by training who rose to the rank of major in the Indonesian Navy, but he is best known as the leader of the assimilationist movement among the ethnic Chinese. An ardent Indonesian patriot, he believed that Chinese Indonesians would only become fully accepted by abandoning their Chineseness and assimilating into the wider Indonesian society. The ideas of his group had an important influence on the formulation of government policy in the early years of President Soeharto’s New Order, but were subjected to considerable criticism after Soeharto’s fall in 1998.

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Kristoforus Sindhunatha was born in Jakarta on 20 March 1933, the second of three sons of Dr Ong Hok Lan. His original name was Ong Tjong Hai. His father was trained as a doctor at the NIAS (Nederlandsch Indische Artsen School — Netherlands Indies Medical College) in Surabaya and pursued further studies in the Netherlands before Sindhunatha’s birth. He died young, when Sindhunatha was only four years old. Sindhunatha himself was raised in a Dutch-speaking household and was a member of the last generation to be educated at one of the prestigious HBS (Hoogere Burger School) Dutch secondary schools in Indonesia. He nevertheless grew up a committed Indonesian patriot. A student of the Law Faculty at the University of Indonesia, he graduated in 1961. As a student he was active in the Catholic student organization, PMKRI (Perhimpunan Mahasiswa Katolik Indonesia) and was its deputy chairman (1957–59).This brought him into contact with leaders of other student and youth organizations.After graduation he joined the legal division of the Indonesian Navy, thus becoming an officer in the armed forces. This was unusual for an ethnic Chinese. By this time an assimilationist movement had started to develop among Chinese Indonesians. Although he was not a signatory to the earliest public statements of the movement, such as the Assimilation Charter at Bandungan (Ambarawa) on 15 January 1961, Sindhunatha was in complete sympathy with their views and soon emerged as their leader. When a Bureau for the Promotion of Nation Building (UPBA — Urusan Pembinaan Kesatuan Bangsa) was set up under army auspices using martial law powers in June 1962, he was named the chairman of its executive body. Soon after this, he abandoned his Chinese name, becoming one of the first

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ethnic Chinese to make use of the namechanging law of 1961. He then became head of UPBA’s successor, the Institute of Promoters of National Unity (Lembaga Pembina Kesatuan Bangsa) formed in early 1963, and remained head of the government’s Institute for the Promotion of National Unity (LPKB — Lembaga Pembinaan Kesatuan Bangsa) that replaced it in July 1963, until its dissolution in November 1967. From the outset the LPKB was engaged in a political struggle on two fronts with the large organization, Baperki (Badan Permusjawaratan Kewarganegaraan Indonesia — Consultative Body for Indonesian Citizenship). On the one hand, Baperki opposed racial discrimination and urged the integration of ethnic Chinese as Indonesian citizens, whereas the LPKB campaigned for Indonesian citizens of Chinese descent to assimilate into the Indonesian population by replacing their Chinese names with Indonesian-sounding ones, marrying indigenous Indonesians, and abandoning associations with exclusively Chinese membership. On the other hand, in the highly polarized political environment of President Soekarno’s Guided Democracy, Baperki’s leadership had aligned the organization with the “progressive revolutionary forces” of the left (which included the Indonesian Communist Party — PKI) whereas the LPKB was aligned with the anti-communist camp (which included the Indonesian army). Both proclaimed themselves in full support of the president and vied for his endorsement of their respective platforms. Baperki was much more successful in this endeavour, and the LPKB was on the defensive until the political landscape changed dramatically in October 1965. When six leading army generals were kidnapped and murdered on 1 October 1965, members and sympathizers of the PKI

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(including Baperki members) were blamed for it. At the time Sindhunatha was in France, but on his return, the LPKB, under his leadership, seized their opportunity. After the buildings of Baperki’s Res Publica University (URECA) were gutted by fire by anti-communist mobs on 15 October, Sindhunatha and other LPKB activists were active in replacing it with a new Trisakti University, and rebuilding the campus with financial aid from the Netherlands. He remained actively engaged with the university for the rest of his life, serving successively as deputy chairman and chairman of the Trisakti Foundation for more than thirty years. The LPKB, with army backing, played a leading role in pressuring Baperki members to dissolve their branches in late 1965, and became an important contributor to the development of government policy on what was called “the Chinese problem”. After the LPKB itself was dissolved in November 1967 (and its functions transferred to the Department of Home Affairs), Sindhunatha claimed a number of policy successes for the LPKB under his leadership.These included a ban on the Chinese language press, the appeal by the government for Indonesian citizens of Chinese descent to change their names, the abolition of the colonial laws requiring Indonesian residents to be classified on the basis of their descent in civil registry offices, and the adoption of a firm line of division between citizens and foreigners. The Soeharto government adopted assimilation as its policy and the rival concept of integration was stigmatized through its association with Baperki for the three decades of the New Order. Sindhunatha resigned from the navy’s legal division in 1971 with the rank of major after ten years of service and became active in PT Indulexo, a consultancy firm.Within a few years he returned to an active role in assimilationist

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politics. Rioting in Jakarta in January 1974 and a growing consciousness of the widening gap between the rich and the poor led him and kindred spirits to form a new Organization for the Creation of National Unity (BPKB) under the authority of the Jakarta governor. In July 1977 the Department of Home Affairs sponsored a conference of ethnic Chinese and officials which led to the establishment of a new national body, BAKOM-PKB (Badan Komunikasi Penghayatan Kesatuan Bangsa) of which Sindhunatha was to be general chairman up to 1995. When his old comrade-in-arms in the assimilation movement, Junus Jahja (formerly Lauw Chuan Tho), converted to Islam from Protestant Christianity in 1979, Sindhunatha welcomed it as an act of personal conviction, but he himself remained a staunch Catholic. Unlike Junus Jahja, who became a proselytizer for conversion to Islam as the final stage of assimilation, he did not urge religious conversion upon his fellow ethnic Chinese, and stressed the plurality of religion in an Indonesian state founded on the principles of the Pancasila. When President Soeharto resigned in May 1998 after mass violence against ethnic Chinese in Jakarta, Solo, and elsewhere, the political environment changed dramatically. In a new era of reform, restrictions on freedom of expression were lifted and Indonesia embarked on democratization. New political parties were formed to participate in the first genuinely free elections since 1955. True to his assimilationist principles, Sindhunatha joined with Amien Rais in founding the mainstream National Mandate Party (PAN) in 1998, but was one of a group of disappointed members who resigned from it in January 2001. In the more open post-Soeharto era, assimilationists such as Sindhunatha found

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themselves criticized publicly for their role in formulating the New Order government policies towards the Chinese. Ethnic Chinese who resented the suppression of the expression of Chinese culture were prominent among the critics. Sindhunatha did not resile from the views he had championed, but was now prepared to concede openly that the Soeharto government, by continuing to discriminate against the ethnic Chinese in various ways, had not been consistent in its adoption of his assimilation agenda. Sindhunatha was a hard-working, unpretentious, straightforward, and patient leader who was willing to listen to others. Consistent in his beliefs, he led by example. The Indonesian Government recognized his dedication by awarding him the Bintang Mahaputra Pratama. In 1983 the French Government awarded him the honour of the Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite for his contribution to relations between France and Indonesia as deputy chairman of the Indonesia-France Association. Sindhunatha died in Jakarta on 16 August 2005 of lung cancer and complications from other diseases. After a requiem mass led by the Jakarta Catholic archbishop, he was buried with naval military honours at the Kalibata Heroes’ Cemetery. He is survived by his wife, Hudiani Sutikna (Kiem Hoey), and their three children. Charles A. Coppel R E F E R E N C E S Coppel, Charles A. Indonesian Chinese in Crisis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983. Ensiklopedi Tokoh Indonesia (website). Silalahi, Harry Tjan. “Mengantar kepergian almarhum Mayor Laut K. Sindhunatha”. Kompas (Jakarta), 25 August 2005.

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Siong Khye ( , Changkai, 1916–90) Buddhist leader, physician, educator, Singapore

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enerable Siong Khye ( ) was a Buddhist leader who contributed in different areas, from promoting Buddhism, to medical therapy and education. He was key in proposing Buddhist studies to be included as an ‘O’ Level subject, and was the first Buddhist monk in Singapore to have received the Public Service Star (BBM). Ven. Siong Khye was born on 19 November 1916 of the lunar calendar, which would be 13 December in the solar system. His mother passed away two years later and he was raised by his aunt thereafter. His education commenced with the studies of Confucian texts when he was six, and ) in he moved to Nanyue Temple ( ) with his father three years Jingjiang ( later, where he learnt martial arts and medicine ). In from Ven. Master Yuanzhen ( 1927, he was ordained by Ven. Yuanzhen, and ) in followed him to Taiheng Temple ( ), where he furthered his studies Shishi ( in Buddhism and training in martial arts. In 1931, he received full precepts order from ) of Dakaiyuan Ven. Zhuandao ( ) in Quanzhou ( ). Temple ( After the demise of his father the following year, Ven. Siong Khye went to several places for his Buddhist studies over a period of five years, including the Wanshi Buddhist Research ), studying under Centre ( ); at the Bao’en Ven. Huiquan ( ) of the Qita Buddhist College ( ) in Ningbo ( ); and the Temple ( Buddhist College of Yuantong Temple ( ) in Shanghai.

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Following the outbreak of the Japanese War in 1937, Ven. Siong Khye joined the ) in Sangha Rescue Team ( Shanghai to provide medical aid to the soldiers. He returned to Fujian the following year and ) and served in Chongfu Temple ( ). In 1944, he Chengtian Temple ( was entrusted with taking charge of Chongfu Temple after the demise of Grand Master ). 1946 was the year Ven. Miaoyue ( his leadership was recognized officially, as he was being elected director of general affairs of Jinjiang Branch, Buddhist Association ( ), and also permanent committee member of the Fujian Buddhist Association ). He also established the ( Minnan Buddhist Fellowship ( ) that year. Ven. Siong Khye’s service to Southeast Asia started in 1947 when he arrived at Meow ) in Penang to assist in Siang Lodge ( its management. Two years later, he went to Singapore, giving medical consultations at ). The same year he was Putuo Temple ( elected head of charity of the Singapore Chinese Physician Association. He contributed outside Malaysia and Singapore as well, examples being accepting invitations to give Dharma talks in the Philippines in 1953, and conducting the triple-grand-precept conferment rites ( ) there in 1984. In 1954, he founded the Katho Temple ) in Singapore. It was set up with a ( clinic in Lorong 31, Geylang. This was where he conducted Chinese pugilistic and physician osteopathy courses, and after rebuilding it in 1969, the Nanyang Buddhist journal was founded there the same year, with Ven. Seck ) as president and Hong Choon ( himself as publisher. This Buddhist journal has existed for the longest period in Singapore and is still in print today.

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Ven. Siong Khye was well versed in the art of healing, specializing in orthopedics and osteopathy. He was very recognized in this area and held various appointments in different organizations, such as being a committee member and lecturer of the Chinese Physician Medical School, honorary adviser of the Singapore Chinese Physician Association, and dean of the Medicinal Research Centre. Apart from research, teaching, and consultation, Ven. Siong Khye contributed to social charity and welfare in the medical field as well. In 1951, he and committee members of the Singapore Chinese Physician Association established the Chinese Free Clinic, later known as the Chinese Physician Free Clinic, where he volunteered as a physician on top of being a member of its management team. In 1972, he set up the first branch of the Singapore Buddhist Free Clinic, and in 1979 the second. Together with Ven. Seck Hong Choon, Ven. Siong Khye formed the Drugs Rehabilitation Counselling Service within the Singapore Buddhist Federation. Ven. Siong Khye contributed to education as well, believing it was necessary to promote the modernization of Buddhism and education. In 1981, the first and only Buddhist secondary school, Manjusri Secondary School ( ), was completed. It was officially opened in 1982 and Ven. Siong Khye was a member of the school building committee as well as supervisor. One of his important initiatives to promote Buddhist studies was to represent the Buddhist Federation in proposing to the Ministry of Education the introduction of Buddhist Studies as an ‘O’ Level examination subject. On its approval, he worked closely with the ministry in the curriculum design and teacher training. He also proposed setting up the Singapore Buddhist Teachers Association and was invited to be the adviser on its establishment.

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Ven. Siong Khye was indeed an important Buddhist leader. In addition to the various appoints mentioned above, he was also elected deputy director of the Missionary Department; secretary general, vice-chairman, and Chairman of the Singapore Buddhist Federation on separate occasions. He also co-founded the Singapore Buddhist Sangha ) and Organisation with Ven. Fale ( served as its honorary secretary. In 1966, Ven. Seck Hong Choon invited him to organize the triple-grand-precept conferment rites and the Great Compassion Dharma Meeting ), which was in water and land ( the first on such a scale out of China. These ceremonies were to commemorate Ven. Seck Hong Choon’s master, Ven. Zhuandao, and to nurture potential Buddhists. In 1987, Ven. Siong Khye led a pilgrimage to China, visiting famous Buddhist mountains and temples, ) and Mount including Mount Putuo ( ); and also led a team to Taipei Jiuhua ( in 1989 to take part in the 5th Meeting of the World Sangha Council, where he was elected vice-president for Singapore. In 1988, he organized the Laity Precepts Conferment Ceremony for lay Buddhists, taking up the role of chief instructor monk, and was honourably graced by then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. As a leader, Ven. Siong Khye even tried to unite Buddhists from different school of thoughts by initiating the Vesak joint-celebration in 1966. In recognition of his contributions, Ven. Siong Khye was conferred the Public Service Star (BBM) by the president of Singapore on National Day in 1985, and was the first Buddhist monk to receive this honour. He was also awarded the Medal for Services to Education in 1990 by the minister for education, Dr Tony Tan Keng Yam. However, Ven. Siong Khye felt that he was merely fulfilling his duties as a Buddhist and should not claim any credit for himself, humbly sharing all accolades with

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all his fellow Buddhists and the public. He advocated that the value of life be measured by the depth and performance of one’s service to others. Among Ven. Siong Khye’s works, which were mainly on Buddhism and medicine, were a compilation of the works of the late Ven. Huiquan, and also an account of the triplegrand-precept conferment rites in Singapore mentioned above, titled The Gems of Precepts 》). He was very serious in (《 his medical research, having participated in the World Chinese Medical International Conference 1987 in Shanghai, written papers, and authored a book on osteopathy (《 》). He also documented his last pilgrimage 》). (《 Ven. Siong Khye died on 7 September 1990 at Katho Temple, and was cremated on 13 September 1990. Ho Yi Kai R E F E R E N C E S 《

》。

：

，

1968。 ：

《

》。

：

，1993。 》。

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：

，1991。

〉， 《 》 257 。 ，1990， 4–5。

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：

》。 ，1984。

Soe Hok Gie ( , Shi Fuyi, 1942–69) Social and political activist, public intellectual, Indonesia

W

riting about the late Soe Hok Gie is like writing about a person with multi-personalities and talents. He

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

was an intellectual, outspoken social critic, humanist, student leader and activist, prolific writer, historian, and lecturer of history at the University of Indonesia. As an angry young man who was impatient with all the ills he saw in Indonesian politics and society, he was one of the earliest persons who reminded Indonesians with his writings about the danger of environmental degradation and destruction. He was also a mountain climber and a nature lover.Among his friends he was known as Hok Gie. Soe was born in Jakarta on 26 December 1942 into a Peranakan intellectual family. His father, Soe Lie Piet, who later changed his name to Salam Sutrawan, was a novelist and a journalist. His elder brother, Arief Budiman, has a Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University, and is an accomplished writer and a social critic. The difference between the two brothers is like between fire and water. Arief’s writings are usually “cool” and thoughtful, while Soe’s writings are to the point, harsh, and most of the time, kurang ajar (impolite) by Indonesian standards. Soe received his early education in Catholic schools, including Kanisius College, the famous and elitist senior Catholic high school in Jakarta. Although members of the family considered themselves Catholics or Christians, Soe once clarified that the family seldom attended church activities as a result of an incident. One day when arriving early for a mass, the family was not allowed to sit in the front row because the seats were reserved for the rich who had contributed much money to the church. He also wrote that he once offended his high school history teacher when he criticized the latter who he believed had given some historical fact the wrong explanation. He was a keen reader particularly of books on history and politics. Soe’s productive writings and activities were during his student days in 1962–69

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at the Faculty of Letters (Fakuktas Sastra), the present-day Fakultas Ilmu Pengetahuan Budaya (Faculty of Humanities), University of Indonesia, in Jakarta. During his early days as a student, he joined the Gerakan Mahasiswa Sosialis (Socialist Student Movement) which was clandestinely active in opposing the Soekarno dictatorship. But he later left the organization because he felt Indonesian socialists were “bourgeois” and elitist. However he still maintained a good relationship with famous, socialist leaning personalities such as the late Sumitro Djojohadikusumo who became minister of finance during the early years of Soeharto’s New Order government, and the late Sudjatmoko, who was once Indonesian ambassador to Washington. He was also on good terms with army officers who were against Soekarno’s left-leaning domestic and foreign policies in the early 1960s. Soe was indeed a fierce anti-communist figure. He participated actively in student demonstrations against Soekarno’s Old Order government after the failure of the September 1965 Movement and was one of the thinkers of Kesatuan Mahasiswa Indonesia (Indonesian Student Unity), the student organization that became the main force behind the mass movement of young Indonesians in toppling Soekarno. However he was disappointed with those student leaders who started out being anti-establishment, but later joined the government as ministers or Members of Parliament after the establishment of the New Order government. Soe also criticized the military and the New Order government for their treatment of people who were accused of being communists and involved in the 30 September 1965 Movement. Although he was strongly anticommunist, many of his writings protested against the mass killings of those considered members of Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI

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— Indonesian Communist Party) in Central and East Java, and Bali. The killings were executed by mass organizations affiliated with anti-communist parties, with the strong backing of the military. He also protested against the treatment of people accused of being communists or members of the then banned PKI who were imprisoned or interned on Buru Island in the far eastern side of Indonesia without trial or being put through any legal process. His writings appeared in various major Indonesian newspapers such as Kompas, Sinar Harapan, Mahasiswa Indonesia, Harian Kami, among others. His sympathy for those who were oppressed or defeated in their political struggles is reflected in his Sarjana (comparable to today’s BA) thesis, “Simpang Kiri Sebuah Jalan” (Left Side of a Road), which tells the story of those who organized the communist rebellion in 1948, popularly known as the “Madiun Affairs”, and how they were suppressed. His thesis was rated “fully satisfactory” and he obtained his degree on 12 December 1969, shortly before he died. He also attacked the rampant corruption within the Soeharto government. At the time when all powers were held by the Indonesian military, he openly criticized the corruption within the state oil company, Pertamina, led by the late Ret. General Ibnu Sutowo. At a time when the ethnic Chinese were being sidelined in most of the political activities in Indonesia, Soe did not seem to be held back by worries about his ethnic background. A writer wrote that because of Soe’s boldness and directness in presenting his criticisms, he was more Indonesian than the Indonesians.When he was once reminded by his friends about his own safety, he responded without hesitation that he was not afraid of being killed as a result of his criticism, but of being turned into a disabled

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person because he would then be a burden to his family and friends. From 8 October 1968 to 3 January 1969, Soe, together with a group of student leaders from Asia and Australia, had the opportunity to visit America and Australia for seventy days, at the invitation of the U.S. Department of State. He wrote many articles on the visit from various angles. He was actively involved in the creation of Lembaga Pembinaan Kesatuan Bangsa (LPKB — Institute for the Promotion of National Unity), an organization created by Indonesian ethnic Chinese leaders (Drs Junus Jahja and K. Sindhunata among others) who believed that the full integration of ethnic Chinese into mainstream Indonesian society was through assimilation. This move was taken as a reaction to the integration, but non-assimilation idea of Baperki a mass organization of Chinese Indonesians led by Siauw Giok Tjhan. But Soe left LPKB believing that it had become “too bureaucratic” and a government agent in integrating the ethnic Chinese. As a member of LPKB, he was active in the establishment of the organization’s newsletter, Bara Eka, and was its editor in 1964–65. He became chairman of the student senate of the Faculty of Letters of the university for the period 1967–68 and during his chairmanship, put emphasis on the wellbeing of the students of the faculty. With others, he established the Kino Club by cooperating with various foreign embassies and cultural centres to show good quality films for the students. To arouse student interest in reading, he organized a book club which held monthly book discussions. He gave administrative support to poor students who were unable to pay their tuition fees, with recommendations for them to be given free tuition or payment relief. He

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also established a forum for students who felt they were being treated unjustly by their dosen (lecturers) to voice their dissatisfaction. The programme worked well with the cooperation of the late Professor Harsya Bachtiar who was then dean of the faculty. His final act before he died was sending make-up accessories to former colleagues who had become Members of Parliament during the heyday of student demonstrations. He sent the accessories with the following note: wear this to make yourself to look beautiful” in front of the authorities. This became the stuff for public ridicule and, of course, aroused the resentment of those who received the accessories. Soe’s hobby was mountain climbing.With his friends, he established a mountain climbers’ organization named Mahasiswa Pecinta Alam Prajna Paramita (Prajna Paramita Nature Lover Students). He wrote several articles on the forest destruction (caused by humans) and its consequences. Ironically he died of gas poisoning while climbing Mount Semeru in East Java on 16 December 1969, just ten days before his twenty-seventh birthday. Several of his writings have been published. Among these are: Kisah Penumpasan RMS (The story of the quelling of Republic of South Maluku, Jakarta, 1965); Demonstrasi Mahasiswa Djanuari 1966 (Student Demonstration of January 1966, Jakarta, 1966); a book titled Di bawah Lentera Merah — Riwayat Sarekat Islam Semarang 1917–20 (Under the Red Lantern: The Islamic Union of Semarang between 1917–20, Jakarta, 1991) which was originally his Sarjana Muda thesis. However the New Order government banned the book as soon as it was published arguing that it “could spread communism and socialism which was against the Pancasila as a state ideology”. His selected articles were also published under

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the title, Zaman Peralihan (Era of Transition, Jakarta, 1999). To commemorate the fortieth anniversary of his death, his friends published a book titled, Soe Hok-gie, Sekali Lagi (Soe Hokgie, once more, Jakarta, 2009). In 2005 his life story was made into a motion picture entitled, Gie, which was nominated in twelve categories at the Festival Film Indonesia (FFI, Indonesian Film Festival) and won three awards: Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Cinematography. Soe Hok Gie has become the icon of young, courageous, and idealist Indonesians, regardless of their racial origins. A. Dahana R E F E R E N C E S (Editor’s note: Soe Hok Gie’s Chinese surname is ” ” (Soe), not “ ” (Soh or So) as given by many writers.) Badil, Rudy, Luki Sutrisno Bekti, and Nessy Luntungan R. (eds.). Soe Hok-gie, SekaliLagi: Buku, Pesta dan Cinta di Alam Bangsanya. Jakarta: PT Gramedia, 2009. Santoso, Stanley and Aris (eds.). Zaman Peralihan (by Soe Hok Gie). Yogyakarta: Yayasan Bentang Budaya, 4th printing, 1999. Soe, Hok Gie. Catatan Seorang Demonstran. Jakarta: LP3ES, 1983. Suryadinata, Leo. Prominent Indonesian Chinese: Biographical Sketches, pp. 152–53. Singapore: ISEAS, 1995.

Soeryadjaya, William (Tjia Kian-liong, , Xie Jianlong, 1922–2010) Business leader, Indonesia

W

illiam Soeryadjaya was the principal founder of PT Astra (along with his brothers), which, for many years, was the second largest conglomerate in Indonesia, next to Liem Sioe Liong’s very different Salim

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group. Astra was widely considered in its early years to be the best run of all the large corporations in the country, and William was a frequent recipient of management awards. He himself was by far the most eminent of the relatively few large Peranakan tycoons of the Soeharto era — most of the big ones being Totok — a fact that had direct relevance to his admirable Javanese social values and public behaviour. Astra struck a crisis in 1992–93 when Soeryadjaya’s eldest son, Edward, ran the group he controlled, PT Summa, into trouble. He allowed it to become seriously overextended, with the result that it had to be bailed out through the sale of a large part of the Soeryadjaya family assets in Astra, which thenceforth fell largely into the hands of Soeharto cronies. Fortunately his second son, Edwin, maintained the family business thereafter on a much more prudent basis. The business gradually re-established its eminence as one of the country’s wealthiest business corporations. However, Soeryadjaya himself played a less prominent part in the business in the last fifteen years of his life, relying increasingly on Edwin to run it. Soeryadjaya was noted for his distinctive personal qualities. He was a Christian with a firm belief in God’s decisive role in human affairs. He had a relatively humble lifestyle and a strong sense of broader national purpose for his business ventures. He preserved an unusually high degree of autonomy from President Soeharto, a stance which weighed against him heavily in the 1992 crisis when PT Summa received no assistance from the government. Yet by 1996 the Soeryadjaya empire was estimated to be worth US$1 billion and within less than a decade had re-emerged to rank among the twenty largest groups in the country.

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Born in 1922 in a family of modest local means, Soeryadjaya was brought up in Majalengka, West Java. He was orphaned when he was twelve but had earned enough by his early twenties to finance taking a technical course in the leather industry in the Netherlands for several years after World War II. On his return to Java in 1949 he engaged in a range of trading ventures although without much initial success (particularly in the leather industry). In 1957 he established PT Astra with the aid of his brothers, which soon came to dominate the import of motor scooters, then motor cycles, and later, the automotive sector more generally, plus heavy equipment and office equipment. He had various ups and downs in the following years, and, most notably, a lucky break in the late 1960s when Astra benefited from fluctuations in the exchange rate. It had imported 800 Chevrolet trucks at a very favourable rate of Rp141 to US$1 which then turned to Rp378 by the time of their resale. Another lucky break was his close association with PT Toyota in the 1970s, which became the largest importer of cars and cycles in the following decades. This gave Astra a dominant position in the rapidly growing motor cycle and automotive industries in the 1970–80s, when its earnings rose to more than US$1 billion per year, second only to those of Liem Sioe Liong. On the basis of his European experience of company management, Soeryadjaya put together a team of young professionals to assist in the running of the company and a very competent manager, Theodore Rachmat, as president director, with whom he worked closely. In 1984 Astra also entered the agribusiness industry by buying 15,000 ha of land in South Sumatra on which it began the large-scale cultivation of palm oil and

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

cassava for cooking oil.This later led Astra into big investments in oil palm plantations and cooking oil. Astra was floated on the Jakarta Stock Exchange in 1990 in the largest float ever at that time in Indonesia. In the late 1980s Astra became much more diversified and expanded aggressively. This involved both strengthening its core businesses and moving into new fields such as production for export (initially in paper and chemicals) in response to the government policy of promoting non-oil exports. Its development of wood-based industries (notably plywood) and other agricultural products, including sugar cane, was an important part of this new strategy. Real estate proved not to be a success, however, and was phased out of Astra and into the family assets under Soeryadjaya’s daughter, Judith.The chief executives of Astra firms were encouraged to develop ventures they personally favoured and some fifty to sixty of these were created in due course. This optimistic phase of Astra’s growth was brought to an end in 1992, however, when PT Summa was threatened with collapse after becoming grossly overextended under Edward Soeryadjaya and had to be bailed out to the tune of roughly $1 billion from the family’s personal fortune. This led to the family having to sell off a large part of its 75 per cent stake in Astra to safeguard its shareholders and clients. Astra fell under the control of timber magnate Prayogo Pangestu and several other Soeharto cronies. Soeryadjaya could have merely sacrificed his family’s shares in Summa, but for the sake of the good name of his company, felt obliged to reimburse its shareholders. He never regained his former influence in the company, although he retained a stake in it and continued to try for some years to recover a controlling interest there, but without success.

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The Soeharto regime is said to have been ill-disposed towards PT Summa after it had made history in 1991 by entering into a business agreement with the Muslim organization, Nahdahtul Ulama, under which hundreds of small local Muslim banks were financed by Summa, under the name NUSUMMA. This aroused some hostility from pribumi organizations. However, both the NUSUMMA venture and Soeryadjaya’s generosity towards the Summa shareholders must be ranked among his most outstanding gestures towards contributing to the social advancement of the rest of the Indonesian population. His reluctance to become dependent on the Soeharto regime was said to have been sparked by the fact that an Astra showroom in Bandung was trashed by student demonstrators during the course of the Malari riots in 1974, due to the company’s close links with Ibu Tien (Soeharto’s wife). Thereafter he kept his distance from the palace. The Soeryadjaya family group reemerged in the wake of the Summa disaster under various groups headed by William’s son, Edwin, and two daughters. The foremost of these groups was PT Surya Raya, headed by Edwin, who proved to be a much more cautious and low-key chief executive. (Edward remained in Singapore for the most part, although he was later made direktur utama of one of Soeryadjaya’s most important companies after 2000.) Even after the loss of control of Astra to Prayogo Pangestu in 1993, Soeryadjaya still retained a substantial business empire of 322 firms. He had lost only 28 per cent of his total business network and still had majority shareholding in various large groups. His Peranakan background and strong sense of involvement in Indonesian society marked him out from the other cukongs (tycoons) of the Soeharto era in various

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ways. His sense of an obligation to spare the nasabah (clients) of Summa Corp. from losses lay behind his decision to take over the losses they incurred from his son’s overexpansion and also his efforts to build up an autonomous Indonesian auto industry. He made little use of personal contacts with key members of the Soeharto regime and his Christian values also played an important part in his business dealings. He had a strong sense of the importance of helping to develop the standards of education in Indonesia and gave a generous subsidy to the Prasetya Mulya Foundation when he sold part of his land to it for its offices at a much reduced price. He was also on the international board of the Asia Foundation in New York. Jamie Mackie R E F E R E N C E S Amir Husin Daulay, Banjar Chaeruddin, B.Wiwoho & Marah Sakti Siregar. William Soeryadjaya, Kekayaan dan Kejatuhannya. Jakarta: PT Bina Rena Pariwara, 1993. Butler, Charlotte. 2002. Dare to Do: The Story of William Soeryadjaya and PT Astra International. Singapore: McGraw Hill Foundation, 2002. Hiscock, Geoff. Asia’s Wealth Club: Who’s Really Who in Business — The Top 100 Billionaires in Asia. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2000. Jakarta Post. “William Soeryadjaya, businessman, dies at 87”. 5 April 2010.

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Soesastro, Hadi Marwoto (Tan Yueh Ming, 1945–2010) Economist, policy analyst, public intellectual, Indonesia

H

adi Soesastro’s full name is Martinus Yosefus Marwoto Hadi Soesastro, but he was called Hadi by his colleagues, and Mingkie (derived from the “dutchification” of

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his name, Ming) by his family and close friends. He was one of the pillars of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), founded in Jakarta in September 1971 with the objective “to provide independent analyses on international and national developments as a basis for policy formulation”. Its focus was, therefore, on policy research. At that time, it was probably the only such research institute set up by private initiative. At the beginning, however, the centre was perceived as a “think tank” of the Soeharto government because General Ali Moertopo and General Soedjono Hoemardani, both then aspri (asisten pribadi), or “personal assistants” of Soeharto, were among its founders. Both have since died. However, through the solid research work CSIS had produced and the high-quality national and international scientific meetings they organized, negative perceptions towards the two aspri changed. CSIS is now a highly respected and probably the best known policy research institute in Indonesia, nationally and internationally. The driving force behind the creation of the centre came from Jusuf Wanandi (Liem Bian Kie) but in its preparatory stage of establishment, Soesastro was already involved in shaping its structure and content. He was recruited while he was still studying in Germany and returned to Indonesia in 1971 to be one of the leading figures in the CSIS. He started as research staff, and became executive director shortly thereafter (1973– 74). Over the years, he held one key position after another, and from 1999, he became its executive director again until he passed away of cancer in 2010. His education in Germany and his experience as an active participant in the Indonesian student organization in Europe (Perhimpunan Pelajar Indonesia) were an asset for the broad vision that CSIS has adopted

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

since the beginning. Furthermore, his Ph.D. education at the then Rand Graduate Institute in the Management Science Department added value to his credentials and contributions to CSIS. His leading roles as an internationally recognized economist, senior researcher, and organizer of scientific meetings, have immensely contributed to the continuing success of CSIS. This is also evident in the number of his publications. Among the 354 titles that he has written, approximately 200 discussing a variety of topics, especially energy, economic reform, and regionalism, were published by CSIS. His works have often been cited in academic and policy circles. Besides his fulltime work at CSIS, Soesastro has an outstanding teaching record as a lecturer at both state and private universities, including the staff college of the Indonesian Navy. He was invited twice, the last time in 2005, as visiting professor at Columbia University, New York. His concern to increase the number and quality of scholars, especially young scholars, led him to accept positions on the editorial boards of various scientific journals and on the management boards of research institutions in Indonesia and abroad. He was also a judge for the national scientific writing competition, as well as a member of various national committees of, for example, the World Energy Conference, and the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council. From 1996, he was a member of the International Advisory Board of the Asia Society, New York. From 1999, he accepted eight government assignments, the last of which was as co-chair of the Joint Study Group on the India-Indonesia Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement and as a member of the ASEAN-Korea Eminent Persons Group. He also had remarkable experience working in the private sector.

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From 2005, he was an independent commissioner of Semen Gresik Tbk, PT Sepatu Bata Indonesia and PT Adira Finance. In 2005, he received the Dharma Karya Pertambangan dan Energi Award, presented on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Republic of Indonesia by the then Minister for Mines and Energy of the Republic of Indonesia, Dr Purnomo Yusgiantoro. Soesastro born in Malang (East Java) on 30 April 1945 in the last few months of the Japanese Occupation, is the second child and first son of four children. His father was Tan Sien Giok, and mother, Kwee Ting Lan. His father ran a printing and publishing business, Paragon Press, which he had taken over from his father-in-law, Kwee Sing Tjhiang. It should be noted that Tan Sien Giok and Kwee Sing Tjhiang were pre-war Peranakan writers. In 1949, Tan and Kwee went to Holland, taking the young Soesastro and his sister along on that trip.They lived in Den Haag for almost a year. His father attended some courses and training in new printing techniques and technology, leaving the children with a Dutch nanny. They went to a nearby public school, where he became fluent in Dutch. What he remembered well of his stay in Holland was his fourth birthday, which was also the birthday of Queen Juliana, and he participated in the big public celebration. Back in Indonesia, he and his sister went to the school run by the Ursuline nuns in Malang, where they were introduced to the Catholic religion. In 1952, they were baptized. They were the only Catholics in their family and only much later, were his mother and grandmother also converted to Catholicism. His father remained a Buddhist and took care of the Buddhist altar at their home. Soesastro’s younger sister was a Catholic, but his younger brother became Moslem when he married a

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Moslem girl.The variety of faiths in the family did not create any problems; in fact, his father used to take the children to church on Sunday and wait in the car to drive them home. He also had good relations with the Dutch bishop in Malang and liked to invite priests for dinner at home as he enjoyed conversing with them on a range of topics. Soesastro’s parents spoke Dutch with their close friends, but the language at home was Indonesian mixed with what was called “passer Maleisch”, including some Javanese and Dutch. No one in the family spoke Chinese; hence, his family is clearly Peranakan Chinese with an inclination towards speaking Dutch. According to Soesastro, there was no incentive to learn Chinese, something he regretted very much later in life. He was, however, fluent in Indonesian, English, Dutch, and German. His high-school education was also in Malang — at the Catholic senior high school, St Albertus — where national figures in the Soeharto cabinet such as Widjojo Nitisastro (Economic and Finance Minister), Rahmat Saleh (Governor of Bank Indonesia), and Rudini (Army General and Minister of Home Affairs) were among the alumni. Soesastro was also involved in activities outside school. From the age of nine to eighteen, he was what he himself called a “fanatic boy scout”. In 1963, when he was eighteen, he went abroad for further studies. His entire family, including his grandmother, travelled to Jakarta to see him off. They all stayed at the then newly opened Hotel Indonesia. It was the first time he was in a building that was fully airconditioned. He flew by KLM to Amsterdam where he was taken care of by his relatives. He then went on to Aachen, where he was accepted at the Technische Hochschule. He started studying shipbuilding, but due to the

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influence of B.J. Habibie (who later became the third President of Indonesia), who was then a doctoral candidate at the same school, he switched to aeronautical engineering. He finished his studies in six and a half years, six months longer than it should have been. But he insisted this was a good thing because he was very much involved in the students’ organized activities and was getting involved in the East-West controversy. Later, when he had almost finished his studies, he was “discovered” by Sofyan Wanandi, who was looking for people for the research institute that he and his brother, Jusuf Wanandi, were planning to establish. That was how he was recruited to become one of the leading figures of CSIS. Soesastro passed away in Jakarta on 4 May 2010 after a long illness that did not deter him from continuing his work whenever he was able to do so. His untimely death was mourned, not only by his family, but by numerous friends and colleagues, both in his age group as well as younger ones. In the “In Memoriam” article in the Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies (BIES) of August 2010, Hall Hill and Mari Pangestu aptly referred to him as “M. Hadi Soesastro: Indonesian Public Intellectual, Asia Pacific Visionary”. Mely G.Tan R E F E R E N C E S Hill, Hall and Mari Pangestu. “M. Hadi Soesastro: Indonesian Public Intellectual, Asia Pacific Visionary”. Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies (BIES), 46, no. 2 (August 2010): 171–79. Personal communications about Hadi with Thee Kian Wie and Mayling Oey-Gardiner. “Soesastro, Hadi M.: A Short Write-up about Myself”. Unpublished, Melbourne, September 2008. Personal communication.

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Soeto Meisen (Sze Tu Mei Sen, , Situ Meisheng, 1928– ) Journalist, businessman, Chinese community leader, Indonesia

A

s a journalist and businessman who had close ties with Indonesian political leaders such as President Sukarno and Foreign Minister Adam Malik, Soeto Meisen played a unique role in the evolution of Indonesia’s diplomatic relations with China after the 1950s. In the words of Roeslan Abdulgani (1914–2005, Secretary General of Afro-Asian Conference in 1955 and Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1956–57), Soeto Meisen was an ordinary Chinese who “participated in the making of history.” Born on 12 August 1928 in the western Java town of Sukabumi, Soeto Meisen was the second son of Soeto Tjan (1900–1978) and Liu Jinduan (1904–1995). Soeto Tjan, born in Kaiping of Guangdong Province, was one of the major Chinese community leaders and important educators in Indonesia, having served as Chairman of the Chinese School Teachers’ General Association and President of the Qiao Zong (Overseas Chinese General Association) before being expelled back to China in 1960 for criticizing the Indonesian government’s policy toward the local Chinese. Liu Jinduan was born in Sumatra and educated in Singapore. Like her husband, she too was a teacher who actively contributed to Chinese education and welfare. There is no doubt that Soeto Meisen was profoundly influenced by his parents’ life-long dedication to the Chinese community. Soeto Meisen was educated in Guangren School and Huazhong Chinese School

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in Jakarta. Both he and his parents were captured and detained for their participation in an anti-Japanese underground organization during the Japanese occupation. In 1947 Soeto Meisen joined the Harian Thien Sung Yit Po (Tiansheng Ribao), a newspaper associated with the Kuomintang (KMT) and became acquainted with President Sukarno. He joined the Chinese newspaper, Hsin Pao (Sin Po), in the early 1950s as a journalist and political editor, which gave him the more opportunities of meeting with Sukarno on an informal basis. At the request of Sukarno, Soeto Meisen acquired for him a large number of publications in Indonesia and Hong Kong pertaining to the new China, such as Barioen’s Melihat Tiongkok Baru [Look at the New China] (Jakarta: Rasda, 1952). Partly through these writings and through extensive journalist accounts about Indonesian impressions of the PRC (written by reporters such as Soeto Meisen), Sukarno became captivated by China’s socioeconomic progress and political change. He even suggested in 1954 that Indonesia should establish a People’s Congress similar to the one in China. According to some written and oral history reports from both the Indonesian and Chinese sides, during the preparations leading to the Bandung Conference in 1955, Soeto Meisen served as an informal messenger between Sukarno and the Chinese embassy officials in Jakarta pertaining to China’s participation in the Conference. While still a formal employee with the Hsin Po, Soeto Meisen was engaged by Sukarno as an informal personal assistant dealing with China affairs and accompanied the President in his historic visit to China in October 1956 during which Soeto Meisen served as an interpreter on some occasions. With the founding of Guided Democracy in

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July 1959 and the increasingly warm relations between Indonesia and China, Soeto Meisen resigned from his post at the Hsin Po at the end of 1959 to become Sukarno’s personal assistant, drawing a stipend from the government (but not a salary as he was not a formal civil servant). From 1963 to 1965, he served as the director of the Shoudu Ribao (Indonesian name: Harian Ibukota), a semi-official Chinese-language newspaper published in Jakarta. In the early 1960s, he accompanied Sukarno on two more state visits to China and took part in activities relating to Indonesia-China diplomacy, including serving as the secretary of the team of medical specialists dispatched from Beijing to help cure Sukarno’s kidney problems (the Chinese team was led by Dr Wu Jieping, a renowned physician who later became vicechairman of the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People’s Congress). Immediately after the 30 September 1965 Movement which would eventually lead to Sukarno’s downfall two years later, Soeto Meisen left Indonesia and since lived in Macau. In 1969 he set up the Sunny Land Investment Co. Ltd, which was to “invest on [sic] the real estate projects of Macau including the construction of residential buildings, business offices and industrial factories.” According to the company’s official profile, “In recent years, the company starts to invest on [sic] the real estate projects in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xiamen, Zhuhai and Hubei Xiangfan of Mainland China. It also carries out the investment of other industrial and transportation projects in Mainland China.” Apart from engaging in business activities, Soeto Meisen served as the honorary Chairman of Kaiping Hometown Association in Macau and donated 1 million

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Hong Kong dollars to establish the Soeto Tjan Science Museum in Kaiping. While in Macau, Soeto Meisen continued to keep close contact with Indonesia, including with Adam Malik (1917–1984). As the Indonesian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Malik was President of the 26th Session of the United Nations’ General Assembly which in October 1971 passed the historic resolution to restore the lawful rights of the People’s Republic of China in the UN. According to the memoir published in 1998 by Luo Qingchang, Deputy Director of Premier Zhou Enlai’s Office dealing with foreign affairs, Soeto Meisen served as Malik’s personal messenger to Beijing prior to the meeting of the UN General Assembly, conveying the latter’s intention to facilitate the PRC’s return to the UN. In 2003/2004, with the support of President Megawati Sukarnoputri, Soeto Meisen and two of his sons opened a new business in Indonesia, introducing traditional Chinese medicine to the country. Seoto Meisen passed away on 13 October 2010 in Macau. His business has been in the care of his sons. Liu Hong R E F E R E N C E S Hong Liu. China and the Shaping of Indonesia, 1949– 1965. Singapore and Kyoto: National University of Singapore and Kyoto University Press, 2011. Leo Suryadinata. Pribumi Indonesians, the Chinese Minority and China. 3rd edition. Singapore: Heinemann Asia, 1992. 《 》。

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” ，2006.

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Hong Liu: Personal interviews with Soeto Meisen (Hong Kong, April 1994; Macau, September 2000).

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Somsath, Boun Iene ( , Chen Wensen, 1959– ) Entrepreneur, Laos

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any Laotians may not know who Somsath Boun Iene is, but the people in Vientiane, be they residents or migrants, will probably know Meely Haysoke Hotel, Meely Seafood Steamboat Restaurant, Meely Dry Cleaner, and Meely Travel Agency. Opened in 1991, Meely Dry Cleaner was Somsath’s first business in Lao PDR, while Meely Haysoke Guesthouse was opened in 1998. His latest business achievement was when he spent 23 months to successfully construct a modern sevenstoreyed commercial building, the tallest building in Vientiane. The official opening was launched by Deputy Prime Minister, Somsavat Lengsavad in October 2011. Somsath plays an important role as the “envoy” for Sino-Lao friendship that is much appreciated by the officials and businessmen. He started his business from zero and became a prominent entrepreneur. He holds directorships for many companies and is frequently invited by the Laotian Government to be present in negotiating business deals with its Chinese counterparts from China. He is also a well known leader among the Chinese community in Lao PDR. Somsath, whose original name is Chen Wen Sen, was born on 21 April 1959 in ) district, Chaozhou ( ) Puning ( ) Province. Perfecture in Guangdong ( He is a first-generation Chinese immigrant in Lao PDR and has one brother and a sister who both migrated there a few years after him. His parents, another brother, and

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another two sisters are still residing in China. He has four children. The eldest, a son, was educated in Thailand, and is now helping to manage most of his business. His second child is the daughter who had graduated from the Republic Polytechnic in Singapore and is currently managing Haysoke Hotel, a 3-star hotel established in 2006 in Luangphabang, which has been named a World Heritage City by UNESCO. Somsath’s third child, also a daughter who graduated from Jinan University, Guangzhou, is managing Meely Décor, an interior design company. His youngest child, a son, is pursuing his diploma studies in Micro Nanotechnology, also at Republic Polytechnic, Singapore. Prior to this, he had graduated from Marsiling Secondary School, Singapore. Somsath graduated from senior high school at Puning Diyizhongxue ( ) China in 1977 and started trading in tangerine upon his graduation. At the time his daily routine was to transport five to six trucks of tangerines to sell in Zhanjiang. As trading in tangerine could generate only small profit, he changed to trading in construction materials, wine and cigarette business. These businesses were not profitable, especially when he had to support his family. It was in 1987 that his paternal uncle who was an early migrant to Thailand invited him to help in his business. Somsath agreed and at the same time, explored business opportunities for himself. Somsath, after living in Thailand for a year, found that there was potential in doing business in Laos because after the country’s liberation, Laotian government introduced an open policy to invite foreign investment. In Lao PDR, Somsath’s first job was as a helper in a grocery store. It was eight months later, in 1988, that he heard about a dry-cleaner who wanted to sell his business. After some careful consideration,

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he decided to use all his savings to buy over the business. He not only kept its original name, Meely Dry Cleaner, but thereafter named all his businesses “Meely”. Initially, he was working alone and had to collect, wash, and deliver the laundry to his customers on his bicycle. He persisted in doing such hard work for more than two years before he began to have some savings. At the time, one of his main sources of income was from washing bedsheets and guests’ clothing items for Novotel Hotel, a Singaporean-owned hotel in Vientiane. Unlike other dry-cleaners in Vientiane, Meely Dry Cleaner is the only one that has survived till today; it even has three branches in the city. Somsath’s businesses have been strongly supported by his wife and children. He was married to Fang Yan in 1981, 6 years before he migrated to Laos. Three of his children were born in China, with only a youngest son born in Laos. In 1996, his whole family succeeded in obtaining Laotian citizenship and started using Lao names. For example, his wife, Fang Yan was named Phansing Somsat. In 1994, his wife migrated to reunite with him in Laos, and started the ‘Meely Seafood Steamboat Restaurant’, the first of its kind in Vientiane. Fang emphasized the need for fresh ingredients and was able to attract many customers, to the extent of having a long queue outside their shop every day. When others rode on the boom and opened their seafood steamboat restaurants, the market become saturated. Somsath then closed his restaurant business and moved into the hospitality trade. In June 1998, he opened Haysoke Guesthouse. It was an opportune time as the hotel business was booming due to the increasing numbers of tourists visiting the world heritage sites in Luangphabang and Vientiane as the capital city of Laos is the gateway to enter the country. Almost every day, his hotel occupancy rate hit 100

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per cent. During the outbreak of SARS in 2004 many hotels closed down, but Haysoke Guesthouse in Vientiane and Haysoke Hotel in Luangphabang were still able to maintain a 50-60 per cent occupancy rate. Every year, Somsath contributes to education funds and municipal constructions in various counties in Lao PDR. For his contributions, the Laos government has awarded him a medal engraved with the flag of Lao PDR, the national emblem and a star as a gesture of Sino-Lao friendship. Lim Boon Hock R E F E R E N C E Interview with Somsath Boun Iene, May 2008.

Song Ong Siang ( , Song Wangxiang, 1871–1941) Lawyer, Christian leader, social reformist, historian, Singapore

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amed author of One HundredYears’ History of the Chinese in Singapore, Song Ong Siang, also known as Sir Ong Siang Song, was knighted by King George V in 1936. After Song returned from his studies in the United Kingdom in 1893, he embarked on his career and religious work. He led church activities for almost fifty years, and was a key Christian leader of his time. He embraced the mission of reforming the Straits Chinese community and, together with Lim Boon Keng, led the reform movement. One of his significant contributions was the founding of the Singapore Chinese Girls’ School, the first girls’ school established and managed by the Chinese in Singapore and Malaya. Being a lawyer was his lifetime career and, like Lim Boon Keng, he was a professional who rose to be a prominent social leader.

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Song Ong Siang’s ancestry can be traced to Nan Jing County of the Fujian Province, China. Song himself was born in Singapore on 14 June 1871, a third-generation Straits-born Chinese. His father and grandfather were born in Malacca. Song’s father, Song Hoot Kiam, who was the strongest influence in Song’ life, followed the famous sinologist, Rev. Dr Legge, to Britain, met the queen, and had his baptism in a church there. He then returned to found the oldest family of Straits Chinese Christians in Singapore, becoming a dedicated leader at the Prinsep Street Presbyterian Church. Song’s mother, Phan Fung Lean, was a Penang Nonya from a Christian family. She was Song’s first Malay-language teacher and gave him a good foundation in the language which he pursued at Raffles Institution. In 1907 Song married Yang Hee Neo at the first military wedding held for a Chinese volunteer officer. Yang was loyal to the British Empire, passionate about the church, education, and voluntary work, making her Song’s great lifetime partner. They did not have any children of their own, but adopted two girls. Song received an English education, treading the educational path designed by the local colonial government for outstanding Straits Chinese students. He went to Raffles Institution, and then furthered his studies in Britain after being awarded the Queen’s Scholarship. He was the first Chinese person to be admitted to the Downing College of Cambridge University. Following his return after graduation, he started his career in law, and also devoted himself to church work, social reforms, and pro-British activities. The three circles he was active in were closely linked. Song is an important figure in the developmental history of Christianity in Singapore and Malaya. He led the Prinsep Street Presbyterian Church and Chinese Christian Association for almost half a century

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(1893–1941). During this period, he assumed the position of an elder for forty-one years, and served as president for forty-eight years. Much of his wealth was donated to religious purposes after he passed away. During the Victorian age, there were many Christian intellectuals actively involved in societal affairs. Combining religion, knowledge, ethics, and social responsibility, they embraced the ideal of improving the quality of life of, and being of service to, people. Song was one such Christian intellectual. His ideas on social reformism, however, were also inspired by Malay literary works, mainly the works of Abdullah Munshi. In the hope of enlightening the Straits Chinese, he published the Bintang Timor, a daily Malay newspaper. With his good friend, Lim Boon Keng, Song took on the task of reforming the Straits Chinese society and the education of its members. They formed a reform party, launched The Straits Chinese Magazine (1897–1908), and tried their best to elevate the Straits Chinese’s level of knowledge, and change their outdated attitudes. After The Straits Chinese Magazine ceased publication, he founded The Straits Chinese Annual to raise funds for the setting up of the Singapore Chinese Girls’ School. The girls’ school was founded in 1899 as part of the goal to reform the Straits Chinese community. This school produced many outstanding graduates and is currently a very well established and prominent girls’ school. Song’s social reformism was one that was tolerant and allowed scope for negotiation. He was not against the social reform movement upholding Confucianism instead of Christianity as its flagship. He also agreed to the merging of modern systems and Confucian classics as the main objective of the girls’ school, and not spreading the Christian faith within the school. A Reading Club was established within the Chinese Christian Association, which

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valued education highly and nurtured youths using outstanding literary works. The club placed emphasis on language, and artistic and philosophical training. Song acted as the club’s adviser for a long period of thirty-one years and had the opportunity to influence hundreds of students. But he had never forced students to change their religious faiths. Song was loyal to Britain all his life. One of his motivations for participating in and leading the Straits Chinese community reform movement was to prove to Britain that this community deserved to be British subjects. The Chinese Philomathic Society, Straits Chinese British Association, and Chinese Volunteer Company, which Song set up with Lim Boon Keng, were key organizations that pledged allegiance to Britain. In the First World War, Song led the Straits Chinese to support the British in whatever way they could. The local colonial government in turn appreciated this loyal subject, appointing him assistant editor of the Straits Settlement’s Law Reports, an unofficial member of the Legislative Council, and a member of various boards and committees. Song’s loyalty and contribution won British praise and One Hundred Years’ History of the Chinese in Singapore, the book which bore favourable testimony to the British Empire for the world, won him even more credits. He was awarded the C.B.E. and K.B.E. in 1927 and 1936 respectively. The Indian newspaper, Calcutta Englishman, described this book as an epic poem that moved hearts in the British Empire. This grand major work contains a large quantity of historical data on important personages and events and remains an invaluable work of reference on Singapore history today. It is a pity that the editor-cumauthor was pro-British and westernized, and was detached from the immigrant masses and working classes, thereby affecting the selection

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of materials, as well as his writing perspective. The bias is evident and the book appears more to cover one hundred years’ history of the Singapore Straits Chinese. As the sun set for the British Empire, the world stage underwent a change of scene. The Japanese arrived at the beginning of 1942, occupying Song’s birthplace after driving out the local colonial government. Song however, passed away in Singapore on 29 September at the age of seventy. His passing on meant that he escaped the turbulent fate of being caught up in the inevitable dilemma of mourning the fall of the British master while serving the new political ruler. Lee Guan Kin R E F E R E N C E S Ching, Seow Ying. “A King’s Chinese: A Study of Song Ong Siang”. B.A. Hons. thesis, University of Singapore, 1972. Song, Ong Siang. One Hundred Years’ History of the Chinese in Singapore. Singapore: University of Malaysia Press, 1967. 《 》。

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，2001。

Soon Peng Yam ( , Sun Bingyan, 1912–2009) Leading businessman, Singapore

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oon PengYam was a leading businessman and founder chairman of the Sim Lim Group of companies. Soon Peng Yam was born on 6 January 1912 in Tong An District of Fujian Province, China, the third son in a family of five. His father owned one of only two sundry shops in their village and did fairly well. However, conditions were very feudal and oppressive — with bigger, more powerful clans bullying

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smaller ones — in their village and this made it impossible for his father to carry on the sundry shop business. In 1926, the entire Soon family departed for Singapore. As a young boy, Soon studied Chinese classics and Confucian works in the village school and was about to complete his primary education when his family decided to leave for Singapore. The family stayed first at Weld Road with some relatives and then moved to Beach Road. His two older brothers sought employment in various businesses while his father became a street hawker. At the recommendation of a family friend, and because he was anxious to learn Malay, Soon started work in a small provision shop in a Malay village in the Race Course Road area. He stayed there for less than two months because the long hours and need to deliver very heavy sacks of rice to customers. Soon resigned and proceeded to work a number of jobs — as shop assistant in a liquor store; a clerk in Boon Liew Company in Rochor Road (for 5 years); and then chief clerk at the Lam Huat Pineapple Factory in the Kranji area. He was hardworking and capable and much valued by his employers. In the evenings, Soon studied English and brushed up his Chinese to the point he was able to write articles for the local newspapers, using a pen name. In 1934, age the age of 22, Soon decided to strike out on his own. The idea to go into business was mooted by one of Soon’s second brother, and it was decided that they should go into the timber business. Having accumulated sufficient knowledge about business, Soon took the plunge, providing $2,000 to start the business at 89 Geylang Road.The business was called Sim Lim Sawmill, a name inspired by the fact that Sim Lim means ‘forest’ in Chinese and its Chinese characters contains five ‘mu’ or ‘wood’ characters. The business did well but

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within a year, Soon’s elder brothers could not see eye to eye with each other. Consequently, they went their separate ways with the eldest brother starting his own shop, Sen Yew and the younger brother, Sen Ann. Soon bought out his brother’s shares in Sim Lim and continued running it. The business turned a 15% profit within the first year. Before long, Soon went beyond the timber business, importing and distributing a whole range of building materials, and specializing in cement from Vietnam. In 1937, following Japan’s invasion of Manchuria, the Chinese community in Singapore responded to a call by Tan Kah Kee to raise funds and contribute to the China Relief Fund to help finance China’s war effort. Soon was appointed to the Committee and was in charge of the Geylang District Relief Committee and was very active, giving speeches and mobilizing people to contribute. When the Japanese invaded Singapore, Soon was a wanted man. He spent much of the Occupation evading the Japanese military police and bribing them into leaving him alone. He even tricked them into thinking that he had gone to till farm land in Endau in Johore. In many ways, he was very lucky. Unable to sit still while the Occupation was on, Soon started doing business again, but all his goods were taken away by the Japanese who paid him cost price for the goods. After the War, Soon resumed his business. By this time, his head office and sawmill were at Sungei Road at the site where he would eventually build Sim Lim Tower. To cope with increasing business and to cut costs, Soon purchased a godown in Kallang and thus began his foray into the warehousing business. While timber remained his main trade, Soon diversified into materials like cement, zinc sheets, bricks, tiles, sand and hardware products such as iron bars and nails. Soon also expanded

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his business beyond Singapore, setting up offices in Thailand, Java and Sumatra. Unlike the other more traditional building materials suppliers, Soon was constantly looking further and further afield for his products. He imported a large amount of west European and American products, in addition to the more traditional and popular Chinese products. His ability in seeking out non-traditional sources of construction materials was demonstrated once again when he became Singapore’s first businessman to tap into Taiwan’s fledgling cement manufacturing industry. Through him, Taiwanese cement found its way into the Malaysian and Singaporean markets. In 1952, Sim Lim & Company became a private limited company, and Soon assumed the post of general manager. Soon explained that he did this to give some of the company’s shares to his loyal staff.The company eventually went public in 1976. After going public, Sim Lim went into property development. In the early 1980s, Sim Lim Investments bought two plots of land in Rochor Road and Bencoolen Street to build Sim Lim Tower and Sim Lim Square. Both buildings have since become Singapore’s electronics and computer retail centres. Another major property investment for Sim Lim was Yunnan Gardens, a luxurious freehold residential project in Jurong West. Beyond the business world, Soon was active in the community. He was Chairman or President of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (1965–68); Siew Sin Sia and Ee Hoe Hean Club (both rich men’s clubs, the latter from 1966 to 2001); Patron of the Soon Clan Association; Chairman and Trustee of the Chinese Swimming Club for a staggering 38 years; Honorary President of the St John’s Ambulance Brigade; Committee Member of the Singapore Detainees After-care Society; President of the Singapore Building

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Materials and Timber Traders’ Association; Chairman of Chng Hwa Free Clinic Foundation (1972–81); Vice-Chairman of the Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan; and advisory committee member of Ai Tong School. Soon never fully retired from business although he spent less time on its management and more time on social causes when he reached the age of 70. A long-time diabetic, he died on 30 April 2002 at the age of 90. He was survived by his wife, Chang Yoke Ling, six sons and three daughters and more than 20 grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Kevin Y.L.Tan R E F E R E N C E S Leong Weng Kam. “Pioneer community leader Soon Peng Yam dies, aged 90”. The Straits Times, 2 May 2002. Soon Peng Yam. Oral History Interview. Singapore: National Archives, 1981. Victor Sim (ed.). Biographies of Prominent Chinese in Singapore. Singapore: Nan Kok Publishing, 1950, p. 55.

Soon Seng Lee ( , Sun Shengli, 1945– ) Educator, businessman, community leader, Brunei

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oon Seng Lee was an educator who was keen in promoting education in Brunei. He was a leader in other fields as well, mainly in business and social organizations, and was even involved in the sports scene. Soon was born in Kampung Lupak Luas, Brunei, right after the end of the Second World War, on 16 December 1945.To commemorate the defeat of the Germans and its allies, as well as the victory of the Allies, he was named Seng Lee (meaning victory in Chinese) by his father.

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At the time, Brunei successfully became a British Protectorate. In 1947 Soon’s family moved from Kampung Lupak Luas to a freshwater village in Brunei, where he spent his bittersweet childhood and adolescence. In the early years at the village, life was tough, lacking essentials such as water and electricity. However the villagers, though from different backgrounds and religions, were very supportive of one another, which is regarded as priceless. Transport was very inefficient too. Although the villages were connected by a nexus of bridges, Brunei Town could only be reached by boat. His family supported themselves basically by managing a small store, which was incidentally the one and only store in the village. This store could be said to have operated twenty-four hours a day because, regardless of whatever time of the day it was, as long as the villagers had any needs, even during rest hours, the family would serve them.The usual mode of transport between his house and the town area was by boat. At a very young age, Soon had to help out at home and was also required to do some heavy physical work at the store; he then grew up slowly from a weak and sickly child into a healthy adult. Due to the limited means of transport, he only attended kindergarten when he was nine. Every day, he had to row a boat by himself to the “Bomanka” village near town and leave his boat at Uncle Wu’s house. When the tides were low, the boat could not reach Uncle Wu’s house. At such times, he would have to wade through the mud to push the boat. The sort of hardship he experienced can only be understood by those who lived through it. Due to his poor family circumstances and strict parents, Soon and his siblings were brought up to be thrifty and hard-working. In his primary school days, he spent his leisure selling small items such as ice cream, sweets, tikam-tikam,

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etc. at the village. His father would give him 20 per cent of the sales to encourage him to save money. Besides attending school and selling small items, Soon spent the rest of his time helping his parents to manage the shop. His second brother had to stop going to school before graduating even from primary school to help the family out because of its financial problems. Soon was more fortunate though and could have successfully complete his high school education at Chung Hwa Middle School in 1967. Although he had good results and had thought of furthering his studies in Taiwan like most of his fellow classmates, he did not ask his parents to support him in th is. Being a considerate son, he had no choice, but to allow the opportunity to pass him by. Between 1968 and 1971, Soon taught at Chung Hwa for four years. He was an assistant in the administration and was in charge of selling textbooks. In 1971 his family decided to leave the water village they had lived in for twenty-five years to move to Tutong. Soon considered himself fortunate as the Tutong ) had Chung Hwa School ( vacancies for teachers and the principal. With the encouragement of his father-in-law, Wu Chun Fa, who was the school’s the head of board of directors, he started teaching in the unfamiliar environment with his wife, Lin Feng Ying. Four years later, in 1975, he was promoted to headmaster of the school, a position which he held for four years, and was later promoted to principal. As a teacher, he wanted to promote the teaching of Chinese in the school. With the cooperation of the directors, teachers, and students’ parents, the school’s education gradually became mainstream and the students’ results were promising. Between 1980 and 1984, he left his education career, and was employed by Pusat Johnson as a business manager.

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In 1985 he left the company to establish his own business in Kampung Petani in Tutong District. His company, Lee Ta Trading Co., has been selling personal computers, electrical generators, water pumps, etc. until today. Soon’s participation in associations and community service varies in different areas. In education, from 1983 to 2008, he was a member of the board of directors of, and since 2009 Chairman of Chung Hwa School, Tutong, acting variously as director, supervisor of education, secretary, and vicechairman as well. He is currently chairman of the board. From 1984 to 2009, he was a supervisor of education on the board of directors of Kiudang Chung Hwa School. Currently he is the Chinese secretary. From 1988 to 2008, he was chairman on the board of directors of the Chinese Charity Association, Tutong. He now holds the position of vicechairman here. And from 2000 to the present, he is, an adviser of the Chung Hwa School, Tutong Alumni. From 1997 to 2010, for the Chung Hwa Middle School, B.S.B. Alumni, he had held the positions of director, vicesecretary, and vice-public relations, and is currently vice-chairman. In business, he was secretary, and then supervising director of the Electrical Association, Brunei from 1995 to 2009. For charity, Soon was head secretary on the board of directors of the Chinese Charity Association, Kiudang from 2008 to 2009. Within the Chinese community, he was an adviser in the Guang Hui Association, ) from 2008 to 2009. Brunei ( He also acted as chairman for the Tutong District Chinese Society Sultan’s Birthday Celebration Committee for ten years — from 1998 to 2008. Soon was involved in sports as well, and was appointed as a member of the board of directors of the Tai Chi Association, Belait

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from 1994 to 2010, holding positions like the director of Education, head secretary, commercial affairs director, vice-director of welfare. He is currently director of welfare. He has also acted as vice-chairman for the Wushu Association, Brunei from 2003 till 2010. As well, Soon was chairman of the Amateur Basketball Association, Brunei from 1978 to 2009, and is currently its vicechairman. In addition he was honorary adviser for the Tai Chi Association, Brunei-Muara from 2008 to 2009. Soon has held various appointments with different government authorities as well. To name a few: he was member of the municipal board of Tutong District (2006–08), one of the supervisors for the Drug Rehabilitation Centre (2008) and Brunei Prisons (2007), director of the Orphan Fund in Tutong District (1987–2009) and Cultural and Arts Association, Tutong (2005–08), treasurer for the Sultan’s Birthday Celebration Committee in Tutong (2003–08), the Kampung Sengkarai Information Association (2001-13), and the TutongTown Country Information Association (2007–11). Yu Chin Chai R E F E R E N C E S Certificate of Appointment as a Member of the Municipal Board of Tutong District for the session 2004–06, dated 25 November 2006. Certificate of Art and Culture Association. Tutong District Appointment letter for the session 2004–07, dated 18 November 2007. Tai Chi Health Association, Anniversary) Magazine, p. 8. 《 1987）

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Belait

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（1937–

》，1987。

《

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》，2007。

Personal interview.

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Su Bin (Tsui Tze Man, , Xu Simin, 1914–2007) Media leader, community leader, Myanmar

U

Su Bin has always been credited for keeping the Sino-Burmese connection alive through his mass medium — the press. He was the founder of New Rangoon Post, a daily in Rangoon in the 1940s, and also that of The Mirror three decades later in Hong Kong where he became a citizen. His active political engagement further saw him contributing to the smooth handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997. He was born on 3 July 1914 in Rangoon. ), his father, was reported Xu Zanzhou ( to be a philanthropic and patriotic overseas Chinese migrant to Burma. He came to Rangoon via Penang in 1891, and was one of the founders of the first Chinese school, Zhong ), in 1902. Xu Zanzhou Hua Yi Xue ( provided funds to establish Chinese schools in Burma and was one of the founding directors of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in 1911. During the early years when fires were frequent occurrences in Rangoon, he also provided care for the overseas Chinese fire victims. Xu not only actively took part in Sun Yat Sen’s Revolutionary Party, the Tung Meng ) Burma branch, but also recorded Hui ( how Burmese overseas Chinese were actively participating in its political movement in two historical monographs: Revolutionary History of the Overseas Chinese of Burma, 1901–1912 (《 1901–1912》) and Geography of 》). These are valuable Burma (《 primary sources for the study of the Burmese Chinese in the early twentieth century. Xu’s ), was a Burmawife, Daw Saw Lan (

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born overseas Chinese of Hokkien descent. They had two sons and three daughters. The ), is currently eldest son, U Sein Aye ( chairman of the Mirror Cultural Enterprise Company. U Su Bin began formal education at the age of thirteen, when he attended classes at Chung Ling Chinese Middle School ( ) in Penang. After a year of schooling, he returned to Rangoon and continued his studies at Hua Qiao Middle School, one of the best Chinese schools at the time in Rangoon, and completed his secondary education within three years. The reason he could excel in his studies can be traced back to the early days when he started work in his father’s bookshop as a typesetter. In 1936, he sat for the entrance examination at the Arts Faculty of Amoy University and succeeded in securing a place, but his education was interrupted the next year by the advent of the Japanese invasion. After completing his basic education, he founded New Rangoon Post, a pro-Beijing daily in Rangoon, in 1940. U Su Bin spent the first fifty years of his life in Rangoon. In 1949, when China gained her independence, he was a delegate to the 1st Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and a the 1st National People’s Congress. In 1950, he was secretary general of the Preparatory Committee for welcoming ), the first Chinese Yao Zhongming ( ambassador to Burma, and his embassy members. It was an event organized by the overseas Chinese in Burma. In 1952, he became the consultant to the Orient Trade Company and the Burma China Trade Company in Rangoon. When Chinese ) visited Prime Minister Zhou Enlai ( Rangoon enroute one of his overseas trips in 1954, U Su Bin was responsible for hosting the premier on behalf of the overseas Chinese

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in Burma. Premier Zhou reportedly visited Burma nine times on his way to other Asian and African countries, and it was reported that ), a senior Director Liao Chengzhi ( Chinese official in Beijing and a good friend of U Su Bin, said that “if you need help, look for Xu Si-min”. From 1960 to 1964, U Su Bin was elected chairman of the Burma Chinese Chamber of Commerce for its eight, nineth and tenth Term Committee. In 1962, all of Burma bore the brunt of the military coup, especially Rangoon, since it was the capital city. In 1964, U Su Bin’s businesses in Rangoon were nationalized by the Burmese Government under General Ne Win. He returned to Beijing and worked as a member of the China Overseas Association, getting allowance of about 100 RMB a month. Together with his investment income in Guangdong Overseas Chinese Investment Company, which gave him an additional monthly income of 300 RMB, he was able to provide some level of comfort for his family. After about seven years in Beijing, he finally received approval to migrate to Hong Kong in September 1976. He officially settled there as a Hong Kong citizen in 1977. As it was his passion to write and express his views and open support for Communist China, he set up The Mirror, a pro-Beijing magazine to support the policies of modern China. Between 1995 and 1997, he was a member of the SAR Preparatory Committee for the historical handover ceremony which saw the British returning over Hong Kong to China after a hundred years of British rule. As a strong and ardent supporter of the Chinese Communist Government, U Su Bin was nicknamed “Big Cannon Xu”. He was conferred the Grand Bauhinia Medal by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) in 1997. The next year, he became chief adviser to the Hong

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Kong Association of International Investment and led a Chinese delegation to visit and invest in Myanmar. In December 1999, at the invitation of the Myanmar Government, he led a delegation of the Hong Kong Association of International Investment to Myanmar, and was conferred an award for his outstanding contribution to Myanmar by Lieutenant General Khin Nyut, then secretary-1 of the State Peace and Development Council of Myanmar. U Su Bin died of organ failure on 9 September 2007 in Hong Kong, at the age of ninety-three. Gao Siren, Beijing’s liaison person in Hong Kong, praised the late U Su Bin for his support of the law of Hong Kong and the “one country, two systems” policy. Mourners at his funeral included high level officials from China and Hong Kong, such as ); Chief Executive of Donald Tsang ( director of China’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office of the State Council, Liao Hui ), and the former Hong Kong leader, ( ). Chinese President Tung Chee-hwa ( ), Premier Wen Jiabao Hu Jintao ( ) and the head of China’s congress, ( ), also sent wreaths Wu Bangguo ( and flowers. He was buried at Dapeng Bay ) in the city of Shenzhen, China. Hong ( Kong Chief Secretary for Administration Henry Tang wrote the eulogy and read: “Xu provided valuable opinions and counsel on the development of the country. Xu also made his significant contribution to Hong Kong’s smooth reunification with the motherland and the implementation of the ‘one country two systems’ principle”. Daw Win R E F E R E N C E S 《

》。 ，2002。

：

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《

： ，1981。

《

》。

》（

：

）。

：

，1986。

Su Guaning ( , Xu Guanlin, 1950– ) Academic, scientist, engineer, Singapore

S

u Guaning has made important contributions to the scientific and technological landscape of the city state of Singapore. As president of the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and holder of various positions in the Defence Science Organisation and the Defence Science and Technology Agency, he was able to shape on science and technology. ), was a Su’s father, Su Kee Lay ( Johore (Malaysia)-born Chinese who went to Fujian Province, China, for his high school and tertiary education. He obtained a degree in electronic engineering from Xiamen University, where he was schoolmates with ), who graduated in Lim Yih Chern ( physics and later became his wife. The couple moved to Taiwan where Su Guaning was born. When the young boy was four years old the family migrated back to Malaysia and, two years later, moved to Singapore. Both Su’s parents taught at the Chinese ) and Su went to a High School ( nearby primary school, the Nanyang Girls High School Primary Section ( ), for his education. He then went to Catholic High School and Raffles Institution where he won a President’s Scholarship and a Colombo Plan Scholarship in 1967 to study electrical engineering at the University of Alberta in Canada. He subsequently attained a master’s degree at the California Institute of

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Technology before returning to Singapore as one of the earliest research engineers in a unit of the Ministry of Defence that subsequently became the Defence Science Organisation (DSO). He later completed his doctorate at Stanford University on a DSO Scholarship. When Su returned to Singapore, he was appointed deputy director and later director of the Defence Science Organisation (DSO). In 1997 the DSO was incorporated as DSO National Laboratories and Su became its CEO. During his time at the DSO, he was awarded the Public Administration Medal (Silver) in 1989 and the Public Service Medal in 1997. Despite his commitment to the DSO, he still found time to pursue a career in academia as he wanted to inculcate an appreciation of the importance of technological development in the younger generation. In 1991 he was appointed adjunct associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the National University of Singapore where he taught radar systems and signals processing. He was appointed as adjunct professor in 1995. In 1997 Su left the DSO to head the Defence Technology Group at the Ministry of Defence. His years of experience in design, research, project management, and general management of research and technology at various organizations stood him in good stead at the Ministry of Defence, where he spearheaded several major initiatives, including the setting up of the Defence Technology Group as the Defence Science and Technology Agency, which he served as founding chief executive.With his long experience in research and raising Singapore’s status as a technological hub, Su has also played a prominent role in decision making on the national science and technology policy since 1988: he helped to establish the National Science and Technology Board, and served as board member from 1991 to 2001.

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Su’s contributions to academia should likewise be acknowledged because since his inauguration as president of NTU, he has striven to improve NTU as a globally known research intensive university on par with the National University of Singapore (NUS). As soon as he became president of the university, Su took into account the wishes of the graduates from the Class of 1999–2003 for the NTU to have a more transparent academic system in which students would be better able to find out where they stood in terms of their performances. Similarly, he increased the number of professional internships available to the students. Su also stirred up a small controversy during his time as NTU president when he supported the idea of renaming NTU as “Nanyang University” to reflect its rich cultural history as one of the first tertiary institutions in Southeast Asia offering higher education to the Chinese community. This proposal from some alumni, although welcomed by many graduates of the former Nanyang University, was not universally supported. Instead, the counter arguments were supported by a significant number in the community. The first argument was that the NTU is a separate institution from the Nanyang University that was established by the Chinese community of the 1950s. The second stemmed from concerns over possible confusion in the job market and the effect the renaming of the institution might have on the brand equity that the NTU had cultivated over the years. Such misgivings eventually led to a decision to postpone the move indefinitely while Su focused on building academic strengths and scientific and technological developments at the university. These include expanding the NTU student population to 7,000 students, establishing

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new schools, revamping undergraduate curricula, research in a major way, raising general academic standards, introducing new academic governance, expanding China programmes and entrepreneurship programmes, converting itself from a government agency to a corporation, alumni increasing the membership of its alumni association and fund-raising, as well as raising its international reputation. During his term the decision was made to establish a medical school with the Imperial College in London. He also founded the Global Alliance of Technological Universities and served as chairman from 2009 to 2011. For his contributions in shaping the science and technology policy in Singapore, Su was awarded the Public Administration Medal (Gold) in 1998, and the National Science and Technology Medal in 2003. He was similarly acknowledged by the French president in 2005 when he was awarded the Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. In 2011, he received the Meritorious Service Medal from the president of the Republic of Singapore, and the Friendship Award from the Government of China. On 30 June 2011 Su stepped down as president of the NTU and was made president emeritus. He was succeeded by Bertil Anderson, a Swede. At the appreciation dinner given in his honour, the NTU’s chairman, Koh Boon Hwee, said: “Professor Su transformed NTU from a practice-oriented, teaching university to an internationally-recognised research university, with the establishment of two research centres of excellence.” Su himself stated: “The fact is, with our collective efforts, NTU has built a world reputation. We recognize 1955 Nantah, 1981 NTI and 1991 NTU as milestones in the history of

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the university, and shall continue to climb, united by our common heritage.” Ho Khai Leong R E F E R E N C E S Koh, Tommy T. B., et al. (eds.). “Su Guaning”. In Singapore: The Encyclopedia, p. 524. Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2006. See, Sharon. “Su Guaning steps down as NTU president”. Channel News Asia website, 1 July 2011. (accessed December 2011). Tan, Amelia. “Guiding NTU to Greater Heights”. The Straits Times, 9 August 2011, B7. 〈 〉， 〈 〉，《

： 《 ，2008， 54–67。

》。

：

： 》，2011 6 27 。

Information provided by Su Guaning (January 2012).

Sun Yanzi, Stefanie ( , 1978– ) Singer, song-writer, Singapore

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tefanie Sun Yanzi was born Sng Ee Tze, the second daughter of Sng Yeow Hong (an engineering professor) and his wife Ee Kwai (a teacher) on 23 July 1978, in Singapore. She has an older sister, Yee-kia and a younger sister, Ee-mei. Sun was educated at Nanyang Primary School, St Margaret’s Secondary School, Raffles Girls’ School and St Andrew’s Junior College. She obtained a degree in marketing from the Nanyang Technological University in 2000, the same ) year her debut self-titled album, Yan Zi ( catapulted her to fame. Sun’s musical education began at the age of 5 when she started learning the piano. When

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she completed her final piano examinations at age 19, her mother saw an advertisement in the newspaper for a singing course at the Lee Wei Song School of Music. It was during her vocal lessons with the famous Lee brothers — Wei Song and Si Song — that her talent blossomed. Her teachers urged her to make a demo tape and sent it to Samuel Cho, managing director of Warner Music in Taiwan. Cho knew that she was a rare talent and immediately negotiated to sign her on as an artiste. Over the next 1½ years, Warner worked on her debut album. When Yan Zi was released in May 2000, it was an instant hit, selling 330,000 copies in Taiwan, 200,000 copies in China, 12,000 copies in both Hong Kong and Malaysia, and 17,000 copies in Singapore. Sun became the first Singaporean artiste to sell more than 10,000 copies of an album locally. One of the songs featured in ) became the album — Cloudy Day ( the most-requested song on Singapore radio. Her second album, My Desired Happiness ) was released in December that ( same year and sold more than 380,000 copies in Taiwan alone, and over 1,000,000 copies in China. In 2001, Sun released her third album, ), and it sold over a million copies Kite ( worldwide. This was followed by Start ( ), a collection of covers. It sold over 250,000 copies in Taiwan and over a million in China. Back in Singapore, Sun was so popular that she was invited to sing the official National Day songs for the National Day Parades of 2002 and ) and One 2003: We Will Get There ( ). Her fifth album, To United People ( ) was released in early be Continued … ( 2003, and once again, it sold over 250,000 copies in Taiwan and over a million copies in China. Two more albums followed, and by the end of 2003, Sun had sold over 7 million albums in Asia with just seven albums.

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By the end of 2003, Sun was exhausted and suffering from depression. She had released seven albums in just over three years, performed numerous concerts and embarked on several tours but she was having difficulties relating to her colleagues and friends and grew suspicious of those around her. She decided that it was time to take a year’s break to recover and to rethink her career and the direction it ought to take. The break did wonders and by the end of 2004, a more cheerful Sun was back, ready to release a new album, Stephanie. The self-titled album is a reprise of her debut Yan Zi, and was intended to herald in a new Sun and a fresh approach and attitude. It was a smash hit, selling over 2.3 million copies in Asia; her most successful album till then. Sun’s 2005 album, A Perfect Day ( ) showed a maturing Sun, who was determined to focus on the quality of her music without comprising her artistic integrity. Although it was commercially less successful, Sun still managed to sell over a million copies of that album in Asia. The following year, Sun went on an extensive concert tour, with four sell-out concerts at the Hong Kong Coliseum and a much-anticipated homecoming concert in Singapore. All the touring took a toll on Sun who was heavily criticized when she went offkey during a performance at Taiwan’s Golden Melody Awards 2006. It was a major blow to Sun who had won the Best Female Mandarin Singer award at the Golden Melody Awards the year before. In 2007, after 9 albums with Warner, Sun switched record labels and released Against the ) under the EMI/Capitol label. Her Light ( move to EMI was precipitated by the departure of her long-time producer Sam Chen, former president of Warner Music Taiwan, for EMI. This move made EMI Taiwan the largest music label on the island. Like Sun’s previous albums, it was a hit, selling 60,000 copies in the first

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three days of its release in Taiwan, and over 500,000 copies in China in the first week.That year, Sun had a harrowing experience while filming a music video in Cairo when she and her mother were extorted by local gangsters. After handing over RMB200,000 (about S$38,000) and with the help of Singapore embassy staff, Sun and her team were able to leave Egypt. Over the years, Sun has collaborated with other artistes as well, most notably with her good friend, Jolin Tsai, another Taiwanese singer; A-do; Tanya Chua; JJ Lin; May Day ); FIR;Wang Leehom; and Wang Feng. ( On 8 March 2011, Sun her first album ) with her new in four years, It’s Time ( label, Wonderful Music (a subsidiary of Rock Records), which shot to the top of the charts. Two months later, on 8 May 2011, Sun married her Indonesian-Dutch boyfriend Nadi van der Ros at a glittering wedding at the posh Capella Singapore hotel on Sentosa. For her outstanding artistic achievements, Sun was named Her World magazine’s Young Woman Achiever Award in 2001; NTU Outstanding Young Alumni Award in 2005; awarded the Singapore Youth Award (Arts and Culture) in 2007; and Business China’s Young Achiever Award in 2011. Kevin Y.L.Tan R E F E R E N C E S Kwok Kar Peng. “Stefanie Sun’s wedding sparks media frenzy”. The New Paper, 8 May 2011. “Singapore’s new pop princess”. The Straits Times, 26 July 2000, p. 1. “Sun gets hotter every day”. The Straits Times, 15 July 2001. Tan Kee Yun. “Singer Stefanie Sun on wearing low-cut dresses”. The New Paper, 10 March 2011. Yeo Kai Chai. “Rising Sun”. The Straits Times, 19 September 2000, p. 4.

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Sung, T. S. ( , Song Zhixuan, 1896–1976) Educator, Brunei

T

eaching and managing a school, spreading Chinese culture, and promoting Chinese education made up T. S. Sung’s lifelong career. He taught in Yang ) School in Singapore during Zheng ( the 1920s, and thereafter, in Miri (Sarawak), until the Japanese occupied the oil-rich town. After the war, he continued teaching in Brunei until he retired in 1967 at the age of seventy-one. He was clearly an exception to the general pattern of early Chinese migration to Brunei. His contributions to Chinese schools and his influence in the affairs of Chinese communities were widely acknowledged in Brunei. In the early twentieth century, especially after Dr Sun Yat Sen overthrew the Qing Dynasty in 1911, and in the early years after World War II, many who came to Brunei were peasants or the unemployed in rural areas, but not in Sung’s case. He was a law graduate from Dong ) in Guangdong. Wu University ( After sailing first to Singapore in the 1920s, then to Miri in Sarawak, and finally to Brunei immediately after the war, he became effectively bilingual, fluent in both Mandarin and English. He was widely accepted as a very stern, knowledgeable, and capable intellectual — one not inclined to do business or engage in activities just to make money. He had a dream that was different from those of the majority of Chinese immigrants — to promote Chinese education and culture. In February 1946, Sung giving up golden opportunities to represent Miri in Sarawak’s first Legislature, accepted an invitation by

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the management committee of Chung Hua Middle School in Kuala Belait to serve as its headmaster, which was a critical turn both for him and the school. Chung Hwa Middle School was founded in 1931, fifteen years before he took over its administration. Its solitary building was one of the few left standing after the bombings by the Allied planes. By the time he took over its administration, it was in a state of dilapidation. Undeterred, Sung, together with his wife, ), plunged into their Lin Mojun ( respective work of salvaging the school by administering and teaching in it. Sung, relying on his experience as a dean of studies at Chung Hua Public School. Miri, set up systems, laid down rules and regulations, and quickly started his plans to build staff quarters and offices for teachers. In the course of 21 years, from 1946 to 1967, Chung Hua School was turned into a Chinese school with lower secondary and kindergarten education, supported by the Chinese community, and capable of adjusting to changing circumstances. In 1957, it was renamed Chung Hwa Middle School Kuala ). Its Belait (CHMSKB, secondary school provided its primary school graduates with access to secondary education without hassle. The increase in the number of students meant that Sung had to recruit more teachers and construct more buildings. His best teachers were recruited after 1949 from Hong Kong or Taiwan. These new teachers were generally believed to be anti-Communist mainlanders, but they, knowing that most Chinese in Southeast Asia then were pro-mainland China, hardly allowed their political beliefs to interfere with their teaching. The number of school buildings also increased — from one to five. CHMSKB, under the leadership of Sung, emerged as an outstanding Chinese school,

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one of eight in Brunei, of which three were secondary schools, complete with primary and kindergarten classes. As principal, Sung took charge of the school, led his staff, and set an example by being a dedicated and disciplined teacher. His ambition was to make CHMSKB famous in both the academic and athletic fields. In his role as administrator, Sung was good at maintaining harmony and unity in the management committee. He sorted out differences among members from different dialect groups, and showed his flair for tackling the “newly rich” people from the world of business. He was also actively involved with the affairs of clans and associations after school hours, offering his service as advisor or secretary, ex gratia. He played a pivotal role in the yearly fund-raising activities, such as the New Year lion dance performance and school concerts. In recognition of his abilities and services, the British Resident appointed him a member of the Belait Chinese Affairs Advisory Committee in 1954, and the following year, the only Chinese member in the State Education Advisory Committee. In 1956, three years before the United Kingdom granted selfgovernment to Brunei, Sung was awarded an MBE by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II —the only Chinese in Brunei to receive such an honour. Sung’s influence and his weight in the Chinese society in Brunei can be measured by his contributions in the two instances below: In November 1955, the Department of Education informed all Chinese schools by mail that the Brunei Government would, from 1 January 1956, grant them financial aid amounting to 50 per cent of their current and capital expenditure. This was viewed as a timely award to the Bruneian Chinese communities for keeping their schools free

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from political disturbances — at the time a common occurrence in the region. The announcement was, of course, a tremendous boost in furtherance of Chinese education. It also helped to overcome the difficulty Brunei graduates faced in pursuing further education abroad. It was generally believed that Sung, who was articulate and English speaking, had a positive influence on the British Resident. On 3 February 1958, the State Education Advisory Community received word that the government had decided to stop granting aid to the school from 1959. In response to a call for action, Pehin Dato Temonggong Lim ) convened a meeting of Cheng Choo ( representatives of the management committees of all the Chinese schools, eight in total on 315 March. That meeting elected seven prominent persons, namely Lim Chen Choo, Ong Kim Kee, Yap Chong Teck , Lim Teck Hoo,Yong Chee Shan, Lim Teck Jin and Sung, to sign a petition to be submitted to the British Resident, appealing to him to withdraw the government’s decision on the said matter. The appeal was upheld. As it turned out, the government only finally ceased granting aid eleven years later. In the twenty-one years from 1946–67, many students of CHMSKB did well in their later endeavours after graduation, whether in Brunei or overseas, and acknowledged that their success was due to the sound foundation laid down by the strenuous efforts of Sung and his wife. Sung passed away peacefully in 1976 at the age eighty, survived by his wife and an adopted daughter, who has now settled in Australia. His wife died a few years later after him. They were both buried at Kuala Belait Chinese Cemetery. Part of his estate was used to set up a scholarship named after them in accordance with his will — a charitable act

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consistent with his philosophy and outlook on life. Law Fah Ngin R E F E R E N C E S 、 ，2006。

《

：

（1977）， 》。

44 《

》。

75

《

》，2006。

Suryono, Bambang ( , Li Zhuohui, 1938– ) Journalist, former editor-in-chief of Guoji Ribao, writer, Indonesia

B

ambang Suryono, better known as Li Zhuohui in the Chinese-speaking community, is arguably the most well known Chinese newspaper editor in Indonesia in the post-Soeharto era. He was editorin-chief of Guoji Ribao (Jakarta), the largest Chinese-language newspaper in post-Soeharto Indonesia. Li was born in 1938 in Indonesia, but his place of birth is unclear. According to a recent book written by him, he used to live in a village where he received his primary school education in Chinese. He probably received his high school education in Singapore which was the cultural centre of the Chinese and the centre of English education in Southeast Asia in the 1950s.According to him he taught Chinese language in Chinese high schools, most likely in Singapore or Malaya, until 1960 when he returned to Indonesia. In 1963 he joined the ), the Chinese edition Zhongcheng Bao ( of Warta Bhakti, a leftist newspaper owned by Chinese Indonesians who published the

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, Sin Po) influential newspaper, Xin Bao ( before 1960. Li was the executive editor cum chief writer of Zhongcheng Bao. The person taking overall charge of Warta Bhakti/Zhongcheng Bao was A. Karim D.P., an indigenous Indonesian journalist who belonged to the Nationalist Party and who was close to President Soekarno. On 30 September 1965 there was a coup which led to the banning of PKI, the fall of Soekarno, and the rise of General Soeharto. All Chineselanguage newspapers were banned and Li Zhuohui lost his job. In fact, after coming to power, Soeharto implemented a total assimilation policy towards the Indonesian Chinese community. The three Chinese cultural pillars namely, Chinese mass media, Chinese schools, and Chinese organizations, were all abolished. Chinese journalists, teachers, and cultural workers were unable to work in their own professions and began to move to the commercial field. Li was no exception. He began to learn new skills such as business administration, and eventually became head of a paper manufacturing factory, a job he held for more than twenty years. He later resigned and set up his own electronics shop. Nevertheless, he continued to pay attention to Indonesian politics and the Indonesian Chinese community, especially the Chinese speaking community. In May 1998, prior to the fall of Soeharto, there were student demonstrations and a power struggle within the influential elites, especially within the military. Anti-Chinese riots were instigated and Chinese Indonesians became the victims. Li’s electronics shop was looted and forced to close down.There was an exodus of the Chinese and the Indonesian economy got into tremendous difficulties. Soeharto was eventually forced to step down, but the situation remained unclear. Li fled Jakarta for a

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while and started writing reports on the sociopolitical situation in Indonesia for Singapore’s ), Malaysia’s Sin Chew Lianhe Zaobao ( ), and Hu Sheng (Aspirasi, Jit Poh ( Jakarta). Indonesia itself went through an era of reform which led to the re-emergence of the three Chinese cultural pillars. A few Chineselanguage newspapers were published in the major cities of Indonesia, with the largest ), number in Jakarta. Xiong Delong ( or chairman of the Guoji Ribao ( International Daily News) group in the United States, decided to launch the Guoji Ribao in Indonesia and invited Li to be its editor-inchief. That was in 2001. Under the editorship of Li, Guoji Ribao developed into a large Chinese daily in Jakarta. The paper also collaborates with mainland Chinese newspapers (for example, China’s People’s Daily, Hong Kong’s Wenhui Bao), and their “overseas editions” are distributed as Guoji Ribao supplements. Because of these supplements, Guoji Ribao has become an “international newspaper” and not purely a Chinese Indonesian paper. Li is a very prolific editor and writer; he pens most of the editorials in Guoji Ribao. As he is also interested in the history of the Chinese community in Indonesia, he has also written a number of essays on the subject. With the assistance of his staff and friends, he has edited, and published a series of books on Indonesian Chinese pioneers in the sociopolitical and cultural fields. He has also collected some of his analyses on Indonesian politics and published them in books. To date, he has published at least nineteen books in Chinese including four on Indonesian Chinese leaders, and four on IndonesianChinese culture and education. In these publications, he clearly puts forward his views on a number of important issues. On Chinese education in Indonesia, he

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argues that“the prejudice and misunderstanding of mainstream society towards ethnic Chinese is strong and deep-rooted, and requires many generations to narrow the gap, most importantly through education, including the revival of Chinese language education”. He also maintains that it is necessary “to encourage ethnic Chinese to be integrated into mainstream society, but ethnic Chinese should not forget their roots; they have to learn the Chinese language, spread Chinese culture and morality, in order to contribute to the country and society”. Li argues that Confucianism and Chinese education should be combined, stating “Confucianism should be popularized.We need to learn from the ways in which Christianity and Islam are proselytized, spread Confucian sayings and teachings and make them practical.” He takes the view that Indonesia and other ASEAN states lagged behind the “four dragons” economically due to the fact that they rejected Confucianism. As far as China is concerned, his views have been consistent. When he was the editor of Zhongcheng Bao in the 1960s, he wrote editorials to promote cordial relations between the PRC and Indonesia; after becoming chief editor of Guoji Ribao, he continued to hold the same view. On the question of Chinese participation in Indonesian politics, he wrote: “Ethnic Chinese should stand up and participate in [Indonesian] politics together with other races in order to safeguard their own rights; they need to oppose discrimination, oppose hegemony, oppose resorting to non-democratic means … they need to work together with other ethnic groups, share their joys and sorrows, join the army, and participate in building the country in various ways…” On 4 January 2012, Li stepped down as chief editor of Guoji Ribao. Prior to this, Li

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had been involved in the preparation of the ASEAN Nanyang University in Indonesia, together with Shen Demin, a leading heart surgeon in Bandung. Leo Suryadinata R E F E R E N C E S 《

》。2007

12 14 ，

。 《

》。2001 5

《 2007。 《

， 26 。 》。

：

，

》。

：

，

2003。 《 ，2005 8 。 《

》。 》。

： ：

，

2011。

Susanti, Susi Lucia Francisca ( , Wang Lianxiang, 1971– ) Badminton world champion, Indonesia

L

ucia Francisca Susi Susanti who was born in Tasikmalaya, West Java, is often considered to be the finest female badminton player that Indonesia has ever produced. She won the first gold medal for Indonesia at the Barcelona Summer Olympics in 1992 and dominated the women’s singles event in the early to mid 1990s. Now retired, she became Indonesian team manager for the Uber Cup in 2008. Most viewers who watched Susi Susanti receive Indonesia’s first gold medal at the Barcelona Summer Olympics in 1992 would remember seeing tears streaming down her face while the Indonesian national anthem was being played. In that historic moment, Indonesians across the nation were united

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in feelings of immense pride and joy as they shared her sweet victory. While Susi’s gold medal at the Barcelona Summer Olympics is considered to be the pinnacle of her contribution to Indonesia, Susi has lifted up Indonesia’s name numerous times throughout her glittering career as Indonesia’s greatest female badminton player. She dominated the women’s singles event in the early to mid 1990s, winning AllEngland in 1990, 1991, 1993 and 1994, the World Badminton Grand Prix consecutively from 1990 to 1994, and the International Badminton Federation World Championship in 1993. She won at the Japan Open three times and won the Grand Prix Series in Bali in 1990. She also won various Badminton Grand Prix Series and Badminton World Cups. She led the Indonesian team to win the Uber Cup in 1994 and 1996. Other than her gold medal at Barcelona, she also won a bronze medal at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, the United States. Susi was inducted into the International Badminton Federation (IBF, currently Badminton World Federation or BWF) Hall of Fame in May 2004 and received the Herbert Scheele Trophy from the IBF Council in 2002 for outstanding exceptional services to badminton. Susi admitted that many sacrifices had to be made to achieve success. Since secondary school, she had to leave her family in Tasikmalaya, West Java, where she was born, to live at a dormitory and enroll at a school that was only for athletes. She said that she was socially awkward because she only had athletes as friends. It is no wonder that she chose to marry Alan Budikusuma, who was also an Olympic gold medalist at Barcelona and fellow badminton player. They were married on 9 February 1997.

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As an athlete, her training schedule was extremely packed. She would train for six days in a week (Monday to Saturday), from 7 to 11 in the morning and from 3 in the afternoon until 7 in the evening. She also had to follow strict guidelines for her meals, sleeping times and clothing. She was not allowed to wear high-heeled shoes to avoid spraining her ankle. Visiting malls and going the movies could only be done on Sundays. However, she was often so tired that she opted to rest on Sundays rather than going out. In order to be a world champion, Susi fully understood that she had to focus on her training and give up many things that non-athletes could enjoy. As she recalled, “It is impossible to be a badminton world champion if you do not put your heart and mind in your goal. I even gave up my tertiary education because I could not concentrate on my game while studying for exams. But I have no regrets. How else could I contribute to my country while achieving my dream at the same time?” Until 1997, Susi continued to win badminton championships for Indonesia, the final one being the Badminton World Cup 1997. In 1998, she also led the Indonesian female badminton team to its runner-up position during the Uber Cup competition in Hong Kong. It would be another decade (in 2008) before the Indonesian team could qualify for the Uber Cup final, with Susi as the team manager. Susi recalled that the May 1998 riots broke out when she was in Hong Kong for the Uber Cup final. Being a Chinese-Indonesian, she feared for her family and friends back in Indonesia. Thankfully, her family and friends escaped the wrath of the mob during the riots. The condemnation by the international community of the May riots was intensely

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felt by Susi, who was interviewed by CNN (Cable News Network) regarding her position as a Chinese-Indonesian badminton world champion. During the interview, Susi said candidly that she was deeply concerned about the situation back home because she realized that news reports of the riots were much more vivid in Hong Kong than in Indonesia. Nevertheless, she maintained that she is still an Indonesian first and foremost, and would not hesitate to keep representing Indonesia in international badminton championships. Her pregnancy, however, caused Susi to willingly leave the world of badminton in 1998. Following the birth of her daughter, Laurencia Averina, she dedicated herself to being a fulltime mother. She was again blessed with the arrival of a second child, Albertus Edward, two years later. Her third child, Sebastianus Frederick, was born in 2003. Even though she and her husband had a stellar career as badminton players, Susi does not want her children to follow in their footsteps. She feels that athletes are underappreciated in this country. Unlike Korea and China, which have comprehensive pension plans for ex-athletes and offer a host of benefits and incentives for star athletes, Indonesia does not offer its athletes a bright future. She attributes this as one of the reasons which explain the declining quality of badminton players in the country. With the exception of several corporate sponsors such as Djarum and Ciputra, Indonesian badminton players and federations receive little financial support for their efforts and achievements. She shares how she and Alan had to pool their own resources to establish a sports equipment corporation, Astec (Alan and Susi Technology), to support their family. They have also opened a foot reflexology and sports physiotherapy center, Fontana, in Kelapa Gading.

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Based on her own experiences and observations, Susi wants her children to concentrate on their education. Badminton, she says, “can come after they have completed their education. Education provides more tangible benefits than the uncertain future facing badminton athletes.” In spite of everything, she still hopes that the Indonesian government and society would value badminton players more to restore her nation’s supremacy in the competitive world of badminton. Aimee Dawis R E F E R E N C E S Femi Diah Nugrahani. “Susi Susanti: Setelah Sepuluh Tahun Gantung Raket”. 9 August 2007. (accessed March 2012). TokohIndonesia DotCom. “Susi Susanti: Peraih Emas Pertama Olimpiade”. 9 March 2005. Ensiklopedi Tokoh Indonesia. Website. (accessed March 2012).

Sy, Henry ( , Shi Zhicheng, 1923– ) Entrepreneur, Philippines

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n a bright Sunday morning, a typical Filipino family goes about their day this way: they wake up and head off to the shopping mall. And these days, the SM Malls have become the one-stop place where families begin their days with a mass, followed by lunch, then a movie, maybe a visit to the doctor or dentist, reading and shopping for a couple of books, checking out the latest gadgets, doing some shopping, and even letting the toddler play with other toddlers. The SM Mall is the brainchild of Henry Sy (born 25 December 1923), dubbed the

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“Retail King” and richest man in the country. SM Malls have certainly, irrevocably, changed the lifestyle of millions of Filipino families. Because of the SM Mall, families do not have to move from place to place for their spiritual, social, health, physical, entertainment needs. For the last fifty years, generation after generation of Filipinos have been given the convenience to access and attend to all aspects of their being at one place of convergence. “With the SM shopping malls, people tell me I changed Philippine lifestyle. Families and friends spend time together in malls. They shop, dine, and have fun whatever age, whatever budget they have,” Sy says. More than half a century ago, Henry Sy was not wealthy and a mall was but a figment of his imagination. Before the Second World War, Sy left his homeland of China to accompany his father to the Philippines and try their luck here as retailers.They opened a corner grocery in Manila. Sy recounted how they were so poor that at the end of a day of attending to customers, he would clear the counter for a place to sleep. Sy held on to the dream of becoming an entrepreneur. In 1946 he opened a small shoe store in Quiapo. By 1950, he had earned an associate of art degree in commercial studies from the Far Eastern University. It was then that he began to conceive of greater things, beyond the small shoe store in Quiapo. “I thought if I sold a pair of shoes to every Filipino, I would be a successful man.” In 1958, Shoe Mart (SM) was born.With perseverance, determination, and discipline, he endured travelling for forty hours by propeller plane to New York to get his supply of shoes. From shoes, his business began to offer other products such as clothes and bags. By 1985, SM City North Edsa in Quezon City was built.This department store, relying heavily on the sale of low-priced consumer goods, could not have

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been built at a worse time. The country was undergoing political upheaval, the economy was in a slump, and the location chosen for the store was “in the middle of nowhere”. With tenacity, Sy defied all the naysayers. When the customers came, concessioners and other businesses followed and SM City North Edsa was transformed from being in the “middle of nowhere” to being the centre of everything — a mall in effect. With the success of the first SM City, other malls were built all over the metropolis, next in other cities and provinces in the country, then all the way to China and Guam. Each SM Mall has SM department stores, SM cinemas, SM supermarkets, and a toy kingdom. Selected SM supermalls offer special facilities, such as SM skating rink, SM bowling centres, and the SM IMAX theatre.What retailers in the malls offer range from the usual products of food, clothing, and accessories to gaming arcades for children of all ages, play places for children under five years old, medical and dental clinics, wellness centres, and even spas. At present Sy boasts of twenty-three supermalls, translating into 2,905,833 square metres, luring close to two million visitors every day. Of all these malls, Sy refers to the SM Mall of Asia (MOA) as “the greatest project of my life”. Opened on 20 May 2006, the MOA, standing on reclaimed land along Roxas Boulevard, incorporates hotel, leisure, and entertainment facilities, schools, medical centres, a church, and residential and office condominiums. It houses the first IMAX movie theatre in the country and provides ample facilities for major trade fairs, exhibitions, and conventions. Sy’s business has gone beyond building and managing malls and has ventured into banking, property, and tourism development. He claims that all his businesses — retail merchandising, mall operations, banks, condominiums and

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resorts — all complement a single vision: creating synergy. These businesses are managed efficiently and effectively by Sy’s six children, all of whom have become experts in their respective fields. Teresita, the eldest, is president of Shoemart, Inc. and chairman of Banco de Oro Universal Bank. Henry, Jr. is president of SM Investments Corporation and senior vice-president of SM Prime Holdings, Inc. He is also tasked to keep an eye out for new business opportunities. Hans is the head of mall construction and operations while Herbert is in charge of SM supermarket. Elizabeth is the senior vicepresident for marketing. Harley is SM Prime’s senior vice-president and treasurer. Even with the scope and continued expansion of the family business, Sy was said to run it using the principles of running a corner grocery. He met regularly with his six children to discuss and oversee every aspect of the business. They spent Saturdays inspecting the SM malls firsthand: from the malls to department stores to supermarkets. On Sundays, they would meet again to report on their respective inspections and make further plans for improvement. Sy values the contributions of each of his children and would like his family to continue to run the enterprise. Teresita, the one expected to head the business, envisions another strategy. The family would provide the oversight while professional managers handle dayto-day operations. This way the family can somehow relax and enjoy what they have built through years of hard work, dedication, and perseverance. More than his dedication to creating SM Malls, Sy is also committed to contributing to Philippine society. FORBES Magazine recognized Henry Sy, Sr. in 2009 as one of forty-eight (one of four Filipinos) heroes of philanthropy. His efforts through the SM Foundation have touched countless Filipino

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lives. Established in 1990, the foundation focuses on health, education and spiritual needs. It is responsible for running clinics near SM malls, and repairs and refurbishes paediatrics wards and hospices. It also organizes medical missions and mobile health and dental clinics, as well as respond to relief work during calamities. In 2008 it successfully treated 164,000 people in remote areas through its 401 medical missions.The foundation is also active in building Catholic chapels, youth centres, and public school buildings. It has built and maintained a total of eighteen facilities by 2008. In the field of education, the SM Foundation helps hundreds of scholars develop into productive citizens by providing education, as well as moral, social, and spiritual guidance. One of the more recent projects of the foundation is the Kabalikat sa Kabuhayan Farmers Training Program. Aside from the training given to the participants, the SM Foundation also provided linkages to its suppliers and concessionaires which would procure the produce of the farmers. All these programmes are aligned with Henry Sy’s vision of helping Filipinos. “We must do something to help others in society. I am pleased that through SM Foundation, we are able to do so many sociocivic projects, and support at any one time 400 college scholars in need.” SM Malls have also been active in creating environmentally and socially responsible supermalls: the Big Malls with Big Hearts. The chain has launched its own solid waste management programmes and its SM Malls also serve as a monthly venue for “Trash to Cash”, a programme where customers bring their solid waste products, such as paper, plastic, and electronic products, in exchange for a certain amount of cash. SM malls are also mindful of their water and energy consumption. Water conservation is done through treatment plants and the use of

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waterless urinals in the men’s restrooms. To control the use of electricity, computerized systems are installed to regulate the airconditioning, ensuring that no more energy than is practicably necessary is utilized. To reduce the use of plastic bags, the Green Bag Project has been launched. This project encourages SM shoppers to use and reuse a green cloth bag instead of using plastic bags to carry their purchases. SM malls not only initiate environmental awareness, but also cater to the special needs of certain sectors of society by installing and providing facilities for people with disabilities.They conduct seminars for their employees about better treatment and accommodation of patrons with disabilities. SM Malls have also allotted certain areas as breastfeeding stations. This guarantees that nursing mothers will have a designated private space to care and respond to their infants even in a public mall. These environmental and socio-civic projects implemented within the SM Malls create an atmosphere of responsible citizenship, not only for corporations, but also for individuals who tread in these spaces. Anna Katarina Rodriguez R E F E R E N C E S Bignotia, Carmela. “Proudly Tsinoy: Henry Sy Sr.: The Man Truly Has It All”. 10 March 2007. Retrieved 10 July 2009 from . Flores, Wilson Lee. “SM’s HENRY SY BULLISH ON RP ECONOMY”. The Philippine Star, 7 December 2005. Retrieved 10 July 2009 from . “Henry Sy is still RP’s richest man: Forbes”. ABSCBNnews. com, 6 July 2010. Retrieved 20 July 2010 from . Rayel, Michael. “Henry Sy’s Keys to Success”. Ezine @rticles, 2009. Retrieved 15 December 2009 from .

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“Why Henry Sy believes the Philippines is not hopeless”. 29 April 2009. Retrieved 10 July 2009 from .

Sy Kong Triv ( , Xu Guangxiu, 1947– ) Businessman, politician, Cambodia

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y Kong Triv was born to well-todo ethnic Chinese parents, Sy Seng Ho (1918–73) and Uong Kim Uor in Kampot Province on 8 August 1947. He is chairman of K.T. Pacific Group, a manufacturing and distribution company that provides one of the largest varieties of services in Cambodia. In his personal capacity, he owns many local businesses, including KTE Mitsubishi electronics and the Mondial Center that was built on 90,000 sq metres of land, and is the largest business and festivals centre in Phnom Penh. He is one of the vice-presidents of the Cambodian Chamber of Commerce, and honorary chairman of Cambodia’s Hainan Clan Association. He is fluent in Khmer, Thai, Vietnamese, and Mandarin. He also speaks two Chinese dialects: Hainanese and Teochew. He has two daughters and two sons, all of whom were educated in the United States. Currently, three of his children have returned to Cambodia and are helping him in his business. Sy’s father, Sy Seng Ho, had fled from Qiongshan, Hainan Island in China, to Cambodia during World War II and started a job as a teacher. In all, Sy Seng Ho had four sons and three daughters. It was because of his deep interest in and devotion to education that he was highly respected and appreciated by his students and the community. However, as his salary as a teacher was not enough to feed his family properly, he turned to running a small

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business of his own and eventually became an influential businessman. Sy Kong Triv graduated from junior high school in Kampot Province with excellent grades, but could not continue his studies because of the civil war from 1970 to 1975. When the war ended with the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge on 17 April 1975, hardship continued to prevail in Cambodia until 1979. During the time of Khmer Rouge regime, Sy and his family were deported to the countryside to become ordinary peasants working on farms with millions of other Cambodians. Three of his brothers died from starvation during this horrendous period. During its reign, the Khmer Rouge completely destroyed the Cambodian economy, culture, and social structure, resulting in a complete collapse of the country’s infrastructure. After liberation in 1979, Cambodia became the poorest country in Asia and faced the challenging task of rebuilding itself from scratch. Like many Cambodians who did not seek asylum in a foreign country during the decade-long turmoil, Sy Kong Triv returned from the countryside to Phnom Penh. He started a small business trading in daily necessities such as thread and needle, combs and towels, etc., buying these goods at the Cambodia-Thai border in Koh Kong Province, and carrying them by his bicycle to sell in Phnom Penh. The distance between the two locations he used to ply for his trading activities was approximately two hundred kilometres. After a couple of years, his hard work paid off when he managed to save enough money to set up a trading company in Koh Kong Province. During the U.S. economic embargo on Vietnam from 1985 to 1989, Koh Kong Province was the only available conduit into Cambodia for goods and commodities. The Cambodian Government appointed Sy Kong

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Triv’s company as the representative for importing goods for use in Cambodia. These goods ranged from electrical appliances and clothing to colour television, motorbikes, and second-hand vehicles. These were initially imported from neighbouring countries such as Thailand and Singapore, but later expanded to as far away as Hong Kong.The imported goods catered not only to demand in Cambodia, but were also re-exported to Vietnam. In 1990 Sy Kong Triv established the K.T. Pacific group, which originated from a string of former family businesses. Its portfolio of businesses is diverse and encompasses a range of industries from manufacturing, engineering, construction, to trading, land development, markets and entertainment. Over the years, as his business grew, Sy gradually established joint ventures with local as well as foreign companies, such as, the British American Tobacco (BAT) Ltd., Eastern Steel Industry Corporation, Muhibbah Engineering (Cambodia) Co., Ltd. (MEC), KT HINO Ltd. Co., and also facilities management of the Phnom Penh International Airport and Siem Reap International Airport. Sy’s contributions to the country’s economic development and improvement of educational standards have resulted in his receiving numerous letters of recognition, awards, and medals from both the Royal Government of Cambodia and local and foreign communities. In 1994 he was granted the honorary title of Oknha by then King Norodom Sihanouk. On 14 July 1999 he was appointed special economic adviser to Samdech Chea Sim, chairman of the Cambodian Senate. In 2004 he was conferred the title, Naek Oknha by King Norodom Sihamoni. Naek Oknha is the most prestigious and highly respected title bestowed by the king to individuals in recognition of their valuable contributions to the economic, social, and educational development of Cambodia.

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In January 2006, following a nomination by the Cambodian People Party (CPP), Sy was selected as a senator, together with three other ethnic Chinese personalities. Lim Boon Hock R E F E R E N C E S Men, Narong S. Who’s Who: The Most Influential People in Cambodia, pp. 562–63. 1st ed. MBN International Co., Ltd., 2007–2008. Interview conducted in May 2008.

Sy Sieng Suy (Sy En, , Shi Xingshui, 1904–63) Community leader, Philippines

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y Sieng Suy was among the most respected early traditional leaders of the Chinese community in the Philippines and served as an effective bridge between the community and mainstream society. As presidential adviser of the late President Carlos P. Garcia, he played a crucial role in safeguarding the rights of the local Chinese while at the same time instilling in them the need to help their chosen country of residence. Born on 15 March 1904, Sy Sieng Suy , legal name, Sy En) came to the ( Philippines at eleven years of age. He stayed in the store of an uncle, Sy Zhi Qiong ( ), to learn business as a working student while studying at night school at the Anglo Chinese School. Despite the heavy workload, he showed unmistakable leadership qualities and was chosen to head the student council, and also to be captain of the basketball team. ), a He continued college at Po Ti ( night school where he learnt bookkeeping. After graduation, he worked as the general manager of Hock Teck Foundry Shop (

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), which he ran well and gained the trust of customers and fellow businessmen. With this trust and respect from the Chinese community, Sy became president of Lin Pok Sy Association for five years, and chairman of the Ban-Siong Hue Kuan ( ) for eight years. On 7 July 1937, when the Marco Polo Bridge Incident triggered mass indignation in the Chinese community, he led the Philippine-Chinese Anti-Japanese Society ), “Kang Ti Hui” for short, ( and “The Boycott Japanese Goods Movement”. Understanding the extreme need of China for resources to resist the Japanese, he was among the conveners of the Philippine-Chinese Salvation Committee and the fund-raising effort for the National Salvation Movement among Southeast Asian Chinese communities through the Federation of Overseas Chinese National Salvation Associations ( ). At the time, he was already a committee member of the General Headquarters of the ) in the Philippines Kuomintang Party ( and an executive committee member of the Manila Chinese Chamber of Commerce ). With his anti-Japanese activities, ( he became the target of a manhunt when the Japanese occupied the Philippine in 1942, but he was able to escape and went underground for three years. At the end of the Second World War, Sy exerted efforts to help the community recover from the devastation of war, and supervised many of the rehabilitation efforts. As chairman of the Philippine Chinese Charitable Association ), he headed the fund-raising efforts ( to repair and rehabilitate the Chinese General Hospital, calling on the Chinese community to practise austerity and donate instead to medical welfare causes. Through the increased donations, the hospital was able to cater to both poor Chinese and Filipinos at discounted rates. Sy also spearheaded many medical missions to

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poor areas with free medical consultation and medicine. For indigent Chinese families, he provided burial lots for free or at discounted rates at the Chinese cemetery. As duly elected chairman of the Manila Chinese Chamber of Commerce in consecutive terms from 1950 to 1961, Sy led the reconstruction of its office, the present YMCA, and building of the Chinese Embassy in Dewey (now Roxas) Boulevard. He headed the liaison committee of the Chinese Consulate General’s Office and was elected president of the Philippine Chinese Educational Association. Other responsible positions he held at the time were executive committee member of the Philippine Regional Headquarters of the Federation of Overseas Chinese National Salvation Associations, chairman of the Youth Cultural Publications Association, and chairman of the Board of the Philippine Chinese High School. Due to his stature and leadership positions in the Chinese community, Sy was invited to be an adviser to the late Philippine President Carlos P. Garcia (1957–61), and his Cadillac was given a special No. 36 plate number as an amenity of his position. With that appointment, Sy was able to use his concurrent influential positions as chairman of the Philippine Chinese Charitable Association and chairman of the Manila Chinese Chamber of Commerce to look after the general welfare of the Chinese and their fellow Filipinos and encourage them in joint business ventures as well, even including those with overseas Chinese. It was during Sy’s leadership at the Chinese Chamber of Commerce that the Retail Trade Nationalization Law was passed in 1954. That law was one of the most devastating blows to the livelihood of Chinese businessmen in the Philippines. Sy acted as a bridge to mediate between Malacanang Palace,

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Congress, and the hapless businessmen who were unable to adapt quickly to the significant change wrought by the Retail Trade and subsequent nationalization laws. There were many deportation cases for those arrested for transgressing provisions of the law and Sy acted to mitigate the harm and adverse effects of the new laws.When community leaders found the Manila Chambers of Commerce inadequate, they started a national movement to organize the nationwide chamber into a Federation. Sy was at first reluctant to sacrifice the traditional historical role of the Manila Chambers of Commerce, but when he saw that the problems and challenges of the times called for a bigger and more powerful federation, he later gave in and paved the way for the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce to be the lead organization in the country which it still is today. Sy undertook all his responsibilities with great passion, often missing his meals because of the many demands on his time. Sometimes, as early as six in the morning, there were already people who approached him for help with their difficulties. He was never known to have turned away anyone who came to him. Sy was also often the mediator of conflicts between family members, business partners, or of misunderstandings between different organizations. As Sy had dedicated most of his life to charitable work and having addressed the concerns of the community, his death at the prime age of fifty-nine brought profound grief and mourning to community members. He passed away on 8 November 1963 and his wake was held at the Ongpin Gymnasium of the YMCA. Two hundred and sixty Chinese organizations had signed up for the funeral committee, encompassing nearly all the existing Chinese organizations in the 1960s. The funeral cortege during his interment was

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likewise unprecedented. While the leaders in the procession had already arrived at the Chinese cemetery in La Loma, its end was still lined with mourners queuing up at theYMCA, a distance of more than 3.5km, signifying how much Sy was loved and mourned by his followers and the people he had helped wholeheartedly with passion. Vincent Chua R E F E R E N C E S 《

·

》。

：

，1953。 〈 《 》，2010 2010 10 19 ； 20 。

， 〉， 10 20 ； 《 》， 《 》，2010 10

《 · ，2001， 464。

》。

：

Sy Yinchow (Chua Kee; , Shi Yingzhou, 1919– ) Writer, translator, journalist, sportsman, Philippines

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y Yinchow, using pen name Chua Kee, holds the world record as the longest serving editor-in-chief. He started newspaper work in 1945 and, now at the age of ninety-three, is still actively editing the United Daily News and putting out a weekly one-page literary supplement in the same paper. His lifetime commitment to journalism and creative writing influenced at least three generations of Chinese Filipinos. Many of his works and commentaries reflect the sentiments and the situations of a sector of the ChineseFilipino community who still reads Chinese. His works are also quoted or reprinted in foreign newspapers, magazines, and journals. He was also among the earliest Chinese writers

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to have translated Filipino works into Chinese, for which he is recognized by China as an authority on Philippine literature. Born in China’s Fujian province on 16 March 1919, Sy’s family migrated to the Philippines when he was three years old due to the instability in southern China. Born in the year of the May 4th Movement, Sy was exposed to China’s new literature at a very young age and his love for literature became a lifetime pursuit. Although journalism is his vocation, literature has always been his passion, and Sy is distinguished in both disciplines. Sy founded his first newspaper, the Manila New Day, an underground resistance newspaper, in 1945 during the Japanese Occupation. Since then, he has served as editor-in-chief of three other newspapers. His last and longest stint is as chief editor of the United Daily News, which was among the first Chinese broadsheet to resume publication after martial law (1973 to the present). Sy’s closest rival for the record of being the longest continuously serving editor-inchief is Sir Etienne Dupuch in the Bahamas who was editor-in-chief of the Tribune from 1919 to 1972, and later contributing editor of Nassau Daily. Technically, therefore, Dupuch held the editor-in-chief title for only fiftythree years. Sy served as editor-in-chief for a total of sixty-two years — Manila New Day (1945); Chiang Kai Shek Daily News (1946–48); The Great China Daily News (1949–72); and United Daily News (1973-present). He has also served in various press associations and was the keynote speaker of the 20th Assembly of the World Chinese Language Press Institute (1987, Manila). Both as a journalist and as a writer, he has written extensively about the issues seriously affecting the Chinese-Filipino community — Chinese language-education, the deterioration of the Chinese-language facility among the young

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generation, the peace and order situation, and the undercurrents of racism and racial stereotypes. He exhorted the community to take extra care in helping their Filipino countrymen and their own workers so that racist tendencies can be dissipated. Sy’s passion for literature started at a very young age, and he started writing at age sixteen. At eighteen, Sy had his poems published in Xiamen and Shanghai, and even caught the attention of China’s renowned writer, Ba Jin ). Sy is a true pioneer in the literary ( movement among Chinese writers in the Philippines, which he started even before the war. In the post-war era, he was also the first to relaunch and promote the Chinese literary movement. He published the first collection of Chinese literary works in the Philippines in 1946, and the first Chinese poetry selection in 1949 and again in 1950. He also published the literary works of the Overseas Chinese in the Philippines under the auspices of the Federation of Chinese Writers Association , 1950–72), for which he served ( as founding chairman and executive director until the organization closed down when former President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law and shut down media outfits. As soon as media control became more relaxed, Sy established the Filipino-Chinese Literary Arts Association in 1982. The group remains active until today, publishing a monthly, full-page literary supplement in the United Daily News. In his position as convenor of the Chinese Literary Association in the Philippines, he was elected to head the 2nd Asia Chinese Writers Conference held in Manila in 1985. He concurrently served in two other international writers organizations — as vice-president of the Asia Chinese Writers Association, based in Taipei, from 1985 to 1994, and as honorary president of the World Chinese Writers Association, based

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in Hongkong, from 2004 to the present. He is also a fellow of the International Writing Programme of the University of Iowa. As a writer, he has presented papers in more than 100 international meetings all over the world. Poetry translation is another of Sy’s forte. The twenty-seven books he has published include Anthology of World Poetry, which translated 330 masterpieces by 128 great poets from twenty countries into Chinese. There is also Best Chinese Poems from Tang and Sung and Shakespeare’s Sonnets. His expertise encompasses the theory of poetry translation, having published more than twenty articles on the theoretical basis of translation work. All his translation works have been reprinted many times in other countries. His world poetry translation, for example, is world renowned as a great feat. In the Philippine literary field, Sy was among the earliest Chinese writers to have translated Filipino works into Chinese and is recognised by China as an authority on Philippine literature. His translation of Dr Jose Rizal’s Mi Ultimo Adios has been incorporated in many anthologies of poetry in Chinese translations. In 2010, the Manila Critics Circle, a renowned Philippine literary awards giving body, recognized Sy for a lifetime of translating Philippine literature into Chinese. He has three anthologies of Chinese translations of Philippine short stories. As a sportsman, he was active in track and field, especially in his youth, and is one of the five leaders of the Philippine Chinese Track and Field Association. For half a century, he collected data on track and field in China and since 1958, has been a member of the Association of Track and Field Statisticians (International), which publishes the International Athletics Annual. He is renowned as an authority on Asia’s track and field statistics.

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Among the awards and honours he has received are the President Macapagal Gold Medal for Outstanding Poet and Rizalist (1964); President Marcos Gold Medal for Outstanding Poet and Translator (1966); President Chiang Kai-Shek Prize for Culture (1968 and 1970), Lifetime Achievement Award for Journalism at Dr Jose P. Rizal Awards for Excellence (2004); Asia Chinese Writers Foundation Lifetime Achievement Prize (2004); Philippine National Book Award 2006 (for his book, Best Chinese Poems from Tang and Sung), among others. Now ninety-three, Sy Yingchow has had a life that has spanned nearly five generations. He is an eyewitness at the inauguration of all presidents of the Republic of the Philippines. His phenomenal and institutional memory of major events in the Philippine society and in the Chinese-Filipino community is unrivalled and is a marvel to people who have interacted with him. Philippine literature is now known and appreciated in China,Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other Chinese-speaking communities because of Sy’s pioneering works. Sy and his wife, Jade, who is the first woman to have received the “Exemplary Mother” Award in the Chinese-Filipino community, have been living in the same house in Binondo since they got married. His son, John, is a writer, poet, and translator like him. One of Sy’s daughters, Joan Sy Cotio, served as president of Chiang Kai Shek College from 1994 to 2007. Teresita Ang-See R E F E R E N C E S “Longest in the Philippines: Longest Serving Editor in the World”. Retrieved 3 October 2010 from . Orosa, Rosalinda L. “Sy Yinchow and the other Jose”. In The Philippine STAR, 9 August 2003. Retrieved 3 October 2010 from .

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Tulay Fortnightly. “14 Tsinoys conferred Dr. Jose Rizal Awards”. 10 August 2004, Vol. 17, No. 5, p. 10. Personal interview, October 2010.

SyCip, Washington ( , Xue Huacheng, 1921– ) Accountant, entrepreneur, public intellectual, Philippines

W

ashington SyCip is sometimes called, “Mr Global” and “The Wise Old Owl”, and for great reasons. His lifetime achievements span several generations on all continents. Directorships in an amazingly wide range of giant corporations and advisory councils in Europe, the United States, Australia, and Asia keep him, his little carry-on suitcase, and the courier company which chases after him with Manila’s newspapers and assorted documents wherever he may be, on the run. Yet he shows up at those international meetings in a natty suit and tie (he keeps suits of clothes in several capitals), ready to dispense radical advice and ideas — when they are sought — in soft, measured sentences. Global and national leaders, public figures, and business tycoons who seek his ideas, opinions, and analyses on political, social, and economic issues do not go away disappointed. They know they will learn something of value from “The Wise Old Owl”. On the other hand, certain leaders may not be happy to find that he will express his views when asked, no matter what they may be — a mark of the man’s integrity. Despite being recognized as a citizen of the world, SyCip’s heart nevertheless lies on Philippine soil. His greatest anxiety, at ninety, is seeing the Philippines forever mired in where it is today — from being a leading Asian nation

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in the 1960s, to being barely ahead of Burma, Laos, and Cambodia. His greatest passion is to see the country’s head held high again among the community of nations one day. SyCip’s family was hardly a typical overseas Chinese family of the early twentieth century. While the majority of families emigrating from China sought jobs in a new country or faced penury at home, SyCip’s grandfather migrated to the Philippines some time in the mid-nineteenth century to leave behind the turmoil China was undergoing in that period. Sy Ching Cip, the grandfather, came from Xiamen, in Fujian Province, China. Two of his sons, Alfonso and Albino, were renowned in the Chinese-Filipino community as founders and key officers of important institutions among which were the Chinese Chamber of Commerce (founded in 1904), the Chinese Charitable Association, and the AngloChinese School (the first Chinese school in the Philippines established in 1899). Born in 1883 in Manila, the Philipppines, Alfonso was educated in China and returned to the Philippines in 1903. He worked in Cebu for eleven years, founded the Cebu Chinese Chamber, Cebu Chinese School, Chung Hua Hospital and set up the Chinese cemetery. He returned to Manila in 1912 and became one of the leaders of the Chinese community. His longest stint in Chinese organizations was as president of the Manila Chinese Chamber of Commerce. Albino, Washington SyCip’s father, was born in 1887. After his education in China, he pursued studies in law at the Michigan University in the United States. After receiving a law degree, he returned to the Philippines in 1912 and topped the Philippine Bar Examinations that year (the president of the University of the Philippines, Jorge Bocobo, was placed second). His wife, Helen Bau, came from a prosperous Chinese Presbyterian

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family in Shanghai, which owned the Chinese Commercial Press, the largest printing press in Asia at the time. Meeting on their way back to Asia from studies in the United States, Albino and Helen made their life in the Philippines. Albino was one of the founding trustees of China Banking Corporation, the first Chineseowned commercial bank in the Philippines, founded in 1924. The Philippines was a U.S. colony from 1898 to 1946. In February 1921, Alfonso, as vice-president of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce (with Dee C. Chuan as president), presented Governor-General Francis B. Harrison with a petition against the Bookkeeping Law, which banned Chinese businessmen from keeping their books of accounts in Chinese. When the chamber lost the case in the Philippines, Dee and Alfonso sent Albino, the lawyer (accompanied by another officer, Rafael Gotauco), to represent the Chinese community in arguing the case against the Bookkeeping Law before the United States Supreme Court. The case was won, and the law was declared unconstitutional. Both Alfonso and Albino were also key leaders in anti-Japanese resistance movements, for which they were imprisoned in January 1942. Alfonso was granted amnesty after one year because of his age and released on 18 February 1943. Alfonso’s family fled to Fuga Island in Northern Luzon to avoid being under Japanese rule. Unfortunately, a few members of the family died when the United States bombed Fuga. Albino’s family decided to stay behind in Manila so they could visit him in prison. This decision saved them from harm. Washington SyCip was born on 30 June 1921 while his father, Albino, was fighting the Bookkeeping Law at the U.S. Supreme Court. Elated by his victory then, Albino chose to name his infant after the capital of the United

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States.Two younger sons, Alexander and David, were also named after leaders of men. Bowing to the wishes of his maternal grandmother, SyCip’s parents took him to Shanghai to live for five years. He learned to speak Shanghainese and was taught Chinese by private tutors. He came home to Manila once in a long while, but his mother visited frequently. As the time for his formal schooling approached, she brought him back to the Philippines. SyCip’s father insisted that he and his siblings study in Filipino public schools and that they walk to school three kilometres away, instead of riding in the family car. He did not want his children to grow up only in the company of the rich, or associate with only a specific racial or cultural group. Compared with his two brothers, Alexander and David, Washington had a more difficult time back in the Philippines because he would be teased for his Chinese ways and accent. It is a tribute to the man’s genius that he later learned to speak perfect English and graduated at the top of his class at P. Burgos Elementary School and, later, V. Mapa High School, both times as valedictorian. Today SyCip is one of the most respected names in the world. “Perhaps my Chinese heritage contributed a lot to whatever success I may have achieved,” Washington once said. “My father had always taught me that it’s really important to work hard and be frugal.” “Wash” would later also adopt his father’s policy of not allowing his children to work in his company. “If my children do well,” his father had said, “people will claim that it is because they are the Chairman’s children. If they do not do well, people will judge them even more harshly; that they must be really stupid not to do well despite being the Chairman’s children.” Albino SyCip’s policy worked. His three sons’ successes were all hailed as their own

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personal accomplishments. SyCip’s brothers, David, a successful businessman, and Alexander, a lawyer, were also renowned in their time. David headed the Asset Privatization Trust in the post-Ferdinand Marcos regime, handling the privatization and return to their rightful owners of the many assets sequestered by Marcos. Alexander’s law office was good training ground for young interns such as law graduate Franklin Drilon, who would later become president of the Senate of the Philippines. Two sisters, Elizabeth and Paz, were born after the boys. SyCip himself has three children — sons George, a businessman and an investment counsellor, and Robert, an investor, and daughter Vicky, an educator. SyCip graduated summa cum laude in accounting from the University of Sto. Tomas (UST) in Manila. He passed the board examinations for Certified Public Accountants at age nineteen, two years short of the required minimum age to be licensed.While at Columbia University in New York for doctorate studies, Pearl Harbor was bombed. He then enlisted with the 2nd Philippine Regiment and, because of his facility with languages, was sent to a Japanese language school to learn Japanese and then posted to India to break Japanese wartime codes. SyCip could have stayed on in New York after World War II, but he chose instead to return to the Philippines to help rebuild his war-torn country. At the age of twenty-five, he opened a one-man accounting office in Chinatown, called Binondo, while teaching at UST. In 1947, SyCip’s fledgling accounting firm expanded to become SyCip, Velayo, Jose & Co. after SyCip took in Vicente Jose and his bosom buddy, Alfredo Velayo. The company became the pioneer in the Filipinization of the accounting profession in the 1950s, after the country gained independence

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from the United States.Tom Fernell, a Scottish accountant, decided to return to his homeland and negotiated to merge his practice with Sycip’s on condition that his two Filipino accountants — Arsenio Reyes and Ramon J. Gorres — would be Sycip’s partners. From this relationship, the largest accounting firm in the Philippines – SyCip, Gorres, Velayo & Co (SGV) — derived its current name. SyCip’s link through the SGV Group, foreign affiliates, various boards, and professional organizations, render him and his firm, of which he was chairman until 2007, among the most well connected Asian personalities and institutions in the world. The firm began correspondent relations with some of the leading western institutions in the west such as Arthur Andersen & Co., Ernst & Ernst, Haskins & Sells, and Arthur Young, and SyCip has used these links to entice investments and draw business enterprises to the Philippines, often by quietly placing his considerable personal credibility on the line. In 1966 SGV institutionalized social responsibility by organizing the SGV Foundation (SGVF). To this day, SGVF participates in uplifting the industrial management sciences through financial support and grants for professorial and research chairs, scholarships, and other programmes. In 1971 SyCip launched the SGV Professional/ Social Involvement Program, through which the company donates professional services to non-government organizations devoted to civic affairs and social problems. A man of integrity, SyCip is uncompromising when it comes to questions of honesty and incorruptibility. His perennial advice to businessmen and capitalists is: “Pay the right taxes. You will never grow big by cheating.” Together with Ramon del Rosario, Sr., president of Filoil Refining Company, a group

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of Harvard professors led by Stephen Fuller, and top business schools in the country, SyCip has formed the Asian Institute of Management (AIM), a region-wide institution guided not only by a Filipino board of trustees, but also by a board of governors drawn from throughout Asia. AIM opened its doors to students from all over the region in 1968. Serving as founding chairman of AIM, SyCip held that position until his retirement in 2001. He now serves as chairman emeritus of the board of trustees and board of governors of AIM. Both the SGV and AIM are among SyCip’s crowning achievements. The two institutions greatly enhance the Philippines’ image abroad, training professionals to be at par with graduates from the best international business schools. Schools, in fact, are his favourite beneficiaries of grants and endorsements. Education, more than any other form of support, is what SyCip says will “lift Filipinos from poverty,” and improve the Philippines’ economic profile. At age ninety, when all his contemporaries have long retired, SyCip still actively involves himself with organizations like the Synergia Foundation, an organization

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that seeks to improve Filipino students’ access to quality basic education, and the Kaisa Heritage Foundation which serves to preserve and promote the legacy of Chinese-Filipinos in all aspects of Philippine life. Teresita Ang-See R E F E R E N C E S Aguila, Kap Maceda. The Candid and Brilliant Washington Sycip Of The SGV Group, 5 September 2008. Retrieved July 2009 from . Banal-Formoso, Chelo. “How to save RP schools: Washington SyCip puts his money where his mouth is”. Philippine Daily Inquirer, 9 April 2008. Retrieved June 2009 from . Dalisay Jr, Jose Y. Wash, only a bookkeeper: A biography of Washington Z. SyCip. Makati: SGV Foundation and AIM Scientific Research Foundation, 2009. Official website of Washington Sycip . “The 1992 Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding: Biography of Washington Sycip”. Retrieved July 2009 from . Personal Interview in April 2009.

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T Taï Maõ Vieãn (Tjia Ma Yeng, , Xie Mayan, 1862–1940) Business tycoon,Vietnam

T

aï Maõ Vieãn, also known as Tjia Ma Yeng, was a rich capitalist of Hokkien origin who lived in the later part of the nineteenth century and the first forty years of the twentieth century. According to the latest information, his ancestor was an overseas Chinese from Batavia (now Jakarta), Dutch East Indies (present day Indonesia). Taï Maõ Vieãn himself was born in Batavia and his mother died when he was young. His father then took him to Xiamen (Amoy), Fujian, to study and learn English. His surname, “Tjia”, is the Indonesian-Dutch spelling for Xie ( ) in the Hokkien dialect. Vieãn later migrated to Vietnam from China. However, according to another source, Vieãn came to Cochinchina in 1885 when he was twenty-four years of age. He started as a clerk in a Chinese business firm and rose to become a famous rice trader and miller. In 1905 he obtained French citizenship. Vieãn was also known as Má Chín Daœnh. During the French Occupation period, the nickname, Má Chín, was used for people who were middlemen or who were agents of big French companies, banks, and Chinese trading companies. To the owners of those companies, má chín were trustworthy people, often tasked to market goods and services, as well as source for goods. To them, má chín were the only buyers and

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sellers they knew. Má chín made it easy for the Chinese companies to do business. They were also known as compradors (maïi ). In present times, má chín are the baœn marketers and purchasers. Vieãn was originally a má chín, and was a rich businessman. However, originally he was not rich. According to what is known, Vieãn was the eldest son of a rich trader who went bankrupt. In the nineteenth century, his father moved the entire family to Saigon — Chôï Lôùn to restart a career. When Vieãn was turning into an adult, his father advised him that in the business world, great deeds were predicated on a dynamic mind, and that this was more valuable than wealth. His father believed that Vieãn would be able to make it in business. True to this assessment, five years after Vieãn stepped into the business world, he managed to restore his family’s wealth by becoming a skilful má chín. The following account is believed to be how Vieãn became rich and prominent. Around 1908 in Saigon, there was a notorious person nicknamed “Four-Eyes Big Brother” who was the head of the mafia that protected gambling halls. He was pesky and terrifying Chinese businesses that wanted peace to conduct their business, so they needed someone else to protect them from “Four-Eyes Big Brother”. Vieãn fitted the bill. Even though “Four-Eyes” was a gangster, Vieãn was able to negotiate quietly with him, by promising to pay him a big sum of money. The strategy worked, and the Chinese businesses were left in peace. The money was of course contributed by Chinese businesses toVieãn. His reputation rocketed after

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this affair, and he naturally became a strategist and adviser in many important matters that concerned the Chinese community. Entering the 1920s, with the rise of prices of commodities in the world economy, Vieãn became a major trader for eastern medicinal products. In the mid-1920s, his main activity was exporting rice through his company, Hock Guan Hong, of Chôï Lôùn. He also owned two steamships and many estates in Saigon and Chôï Lôùn, as well as played the role of strategist and coordinator for the trading activities of the Chinese in Saigon-Chôï Lôùn. For instance, when business leader Quách Ðàm wanted to export rice to Singapore and Hong Kong, he could not help but sought the advice of Vieãn so that his venture could be successful. With his diplomatic skills and social network, Vieãn had close liaisons with the business world in Asian countries. He researched the markets of the world and the region, forecast the trends, and was able to design wise trading strategies for his Chinese friends in Chôï Lôùn. One could say that his every move moved the prices of the market. Vieãn was apparently as wealthy as Quách Ðàm. He was also in real estate, constructed houses, did rice polishing, and owned many rice polishing enterprises. Complementing these were his many means of transportation that plied the roads, bringing rice to the entire region of SouthernVietnam. He was very much a strategist working behind the scenes, as he always worked silently and also traded without fuss. It was said that at one time, his total assets and money made up half of all the assets and money of the Chinese community in SaigonChôï Lôùn. In the 1930s, when the economy of Vietnam met with increasing difficulties and recession, Vieãn transferred his wealth and his businesses to Hong Kong. The Chinese in Chôï Lôùn now remember Vieãn as one of five persons who built the

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beautiful and famous Hà Chöông ( ) Temple in District 5. Vieãn had many wives, and his wives were the owners of many properties close to the temple. Vieãn’s relatives were also known to have built the Sùng Ðöùc ) and Phöôùc An ( ) temples. Vieãn ( himself was the owner of many properties and houses. His home has become the office of the Young Pioneers. Another house at 122 Ðoã Ngoïc ThaÏch Street in District 5 is now the court house of the district. Phan Thò Yeán Tuyeát R E F E R E N C E S Engelbert, Thomas. “Chinese Politics in Colonial Saigon (1919–1935): The case of the Guomindang”. In Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies 4 (2010): 97. (accessed August 2011). The Tomb Inscription of Tjia Mah Yen, a Hokkien Businessman of French Cochinchina (translated by Li Tana). In Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies 4 (2010): 153. (accessed August 2011). Thöôïng Hoàng. Giai ThoaÏi veà Các Tæ Phú Sài Gòn Xöa, pp. 41–45. Treû Publisher, 1998. 〈 〉， 4 ，2010， 223。

《

》

Tam Assou, Franciscus Xaverius (Phanxicô Xaviê Ðàm Á Tô, 1855–1934) Religious leader,Vietnam

,Tan Yasu,

T

am Assou was a Chinese Catholic priest leading the Chinese Catholic community in Saigon, the present-day Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, in the early twentieth century. Tam was the first Chinese priest ordained in Saigon and the first Chinese priest of the local

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Chinese Catholic Church in Cholon (Chôï Lôùn), the “Chinatown of Saigon”, which is the present-day Fifth District in Ho Chi Minh City. His most important contributions were the revival of the Chinese Catholic community in Cholon in the early twentieth century, and establishing a new church on new land without any prominent support from the local Chinese laymen. He founded an orphanage and a school of Catholicism in Cholon and also built many small houses around the church to shelter poor Chinese residents. The Chinese Catholic community that he built in Cholon in the early twentieth century grew in importance during the Vietnam War and the Cold War in the latter half of the century. Tam was born in 1855 in Macau and raised by a French convent in Hong Kong called Sisters of St Paul de Chartres ( ). He was baptized by Bishop Pellerin, a French Bishop in Vietnam who, at the time, was in Hong Kong to escape the oppression towards the Catholics in Vietnam. When Tam was eight, the Sisters of St Paul de Chartres established a branch in Saigon, and Sister Benjamin le Noël de Groussy took him to Saigon, and allowed him to live with Father Philippe, a French priest with the Paris Foreign Missions Society (MEP), a Catholic missionary society established in the seventeenth century by French priests, assigned to East Asia by the pope. Father Philippe was at the time also the priest of the Chinese Catholic church in Cholon. In 1865 Father Philippe organized a Chinese Catholic group in Cholon, among whom were the former patients of Cho Quan (Chôï Quán) Hospital, which was located between the present-day First District of Ho Chi Minh City and Cholon. It was one of the important facilities for the education and service of medicine in French Indochina in the

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nineteenth century. The chapel and house of Father Philippe was a small Vietnamese hut. Tam, while living in “Chinatown” with Father Philippe, acquired more Cantonese and Chaozhou dialects in addition to the French he spoke. When he turned thirteen, Father Philippe who was on his way to France to seek treatment for an ailment took him to College General, a seminary in Penang in the Malay Peninsula, for his studies.The college had been an important seminary and sanctuary for Asian seminarians, especially Vietnamese ones, since the nineteenth century. When Tam returned to Saigon, the Chinese Catholic community was already established. As French colonization of the southern part of Vietnam began in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the central area of Saigon-Cholon saw an influx of Chinese immigrants. In 1866, Admiral Pièrre de la Grandière, the governor of Cochinchina, was impressed with the church congregation and gave them land to build a bigger church.The new building was the first church of the Chinese Catholic community in southern Vietnam. After 1879, the church was managed by a Father Brillet and the number of ethnic Vietnamese devotees started increasing. In 1881, he built a chapel for them next to the Chinese church. Later, in 1898, the Vietnamese group started to use the building of the Chinese church and the diocese became a Vietnamese diocese. The Chinese and Vietnamese congregations then became divided in Cholon. Tam was ordained a Catholic priest in Saigon on 30 November 1882, after which he worked in the Saigon diocese for sixteen years. During that period, he was vice-priest of the cathedral in Saigon. In 1898, he was asked to go to Cholon by the bishop in Saigon, who was at the time concerned about the decline

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of ethnic Chinese Catholics there. Tam was to take care of the spiritual health of forty Chinese believers residing in Cholon. Tam developed a plan to build a Chinese Church in Cholon, and found a desirable piece of land in the centre of Cholon. However, as its owners were either in China or Southeast Asia, it was very difficult to reach an agreement with them to buy the land. Nevertheless he succeeded in acquiring it and soon began the construction of the church that was named after St Francisco de Xavier. On 3 December 1900, on the holy day of St Francisco de Xavier, the ceremony to lay the cornerstone of the church was held. The building was completed in 1902. Although there was no single donor who was prominently known to have contributed to church projects then, the inscriptions on a tablet on the wall inside the church record that more than two hundred Chinese individuals and shops contributed to its construction in a fund-raising event initiated by Tam. The inscriptions on two plates at the entrance of the building further signify that there were several groups of Chinese devotees classified by their native places in China, such as Guangdong and Fujian. At the turn of the twentieth century, more Chinese children were baptised, as Tam established a school and an orphanage for them. However, the overall number of Chinese believers remained stable because many Chinese children were raised in their native villages in China, and overseas Chinese men were also not settled in one place.The Chinese Catholics numbered about four hundred. In 1932, the golden jubilee of the Father Tam Assou’s ordination was celebrated on a large scale in Cholon. Tam died two years later on 24 January 1934 in Cholon. The church is situated in the centre of Cholon, and is

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fondly called “Nhà thôø Cha Tam”, which means “the church of Father Tam” in Vietnamese. In Chinese, the church is called “Sheng Xin Tang” ), which means “the church managing ( the School of Sacred Heart”. The church of Father Tam is still the central place for Chinese Catholics in Ho Chi Minh City. It is the only Chinese parish in the city where its priest is responsible for pastoral work relating to ethnic Chinese residents over the entire country of Vietnam. It has been estimated that in Ho Chi Minh City, there are 2,800 Chinese Catholics. At the entrance of the church, one will be able to see decorative plates in Chinese that were donated by Chinese devotees on the opening of the church. Beneath them lies the gravestone of Father Tam Assou. A room exhibiting historical relics of the church stands next to the church, in another building. In 1963, Ngô Ðình Dieäm (president of the Republic of Vietnam, 1955–63) was in the church just before his assassination.The seat he used for his prayers has been preserved inside the church and labelled with a plate that explains the historical event. The church therefore attracts many tourists besides Catholics. Several Chinese priests who have connections with the church and seminary are active in Vietnam and abroad. For example, Father Pièrre Lam Minh (1953– ), the present emeritus bishop of the Diocese of Hong Kong, is a graduate from the School of Sacred Heart and Chinese seminary in Cholon. Father Lam Minh had been both impressed by the establishment of the Chinese seminary in Cholon in the 1960s and inspired by the fact that a Chinese man, such as Tam, could become a Catholic priest. Tam Assou is a historical hero for the local Chinese Catholics in the southern region of Vietnam. Serizawa, Satohiro

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R E F E R E N C E S Li, Tana. “Vietnam”. In The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas, edited by Lynn Pan, pp. 228–33. Second Edition. Singapore: Chinese Heritage Centre, 2006. 《 ：

》。 ，2000。

〈 》， ，2000， 3–6。

。

〉，《 ：

Tan Ah Tah ( , Chen Yada, 1906–76) Judge, Singapore

T

an Ah Tah was the first Asian to be appointed to the Singapore High Court. Tan Ah Tah was born in Penang in 1906, the eldest son of Mr and Mrs Tan Chin Kim. The elder Tan served in the Government for 36 years and retired as an accountant of the Labour Office. Other than Tan Ah Tah, Tan Chin Kim had two younger sons, Ah Ee and Ah Fee. In 1933, he was awarded the Imperial Service Medal. Ah Tah was educated first at Victoria Institution in Kuala Lumpur before proceeding to the Penang Free School in 1918 to continue his studies. In 1925, he won the prestigious Queen’s Scholarship (along with schoolmate Tuey Say Koo) and proceeded to study at Christ’s College in Cambridge where he graduated with a BA and LLB. He was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1930, and called to the Bar of the Straits Settlements on 10 August 1932. He practised at the Penang law firm of Logan, Ross & Samuel for the next 10 years, before joining the Straits Settlements Legal Service in 1940. On 30 October 1935, he married Choo Yu Keun, youngest daughter of Mr & Mrs Choo Kia Peng of Kuala Lumpur. The elder

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Choo was a prominent tin miner and had served as President of the Selangor Miners’ Association. He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) medal by the Colonial Government for his services to the business community. The wedding took place at Ampang House, home of the Choos. The best man at the wedding was Tan Teow Bok (later co-founder of the law firm, Shook Lin & Bok). Tan’s first appointment in the Legal Service was as Assistant Registrar of Companies, Deputy Commissioner for Estate Duties and Deputy Commissioner of Stamps, Straits Settlements.Tan was in service for only slightly more than a year before the Japanese invaded Malaya. He remained in his post throughout the Japanese Occupation and was put in charge of the Estate Duty Office. Following Liberation in August 1945, Tan was put in charge of the Stamp Office. After civil government was restored in 1946,Tan resumed his duties and was appointed Commissioner of Estate Duties, the first localborn Chinese to hold a post previously only held by Malayan Civil Service officers. In October 1947, Tan Ah Tah, together with Tan Thoon Lip, became the first two Chinese to be admitted to the Colonial Legal Service, the premier service. In July 1948, he was made Third District Judge in place of his old friend Alfred V. Winslow. He held the post for slightly over three months, before he was made First District Judge and First Magistrate, in place of E.P. Shanks. Between 1949 and 1953, Tan was transferred among several posts, serving as: Criminal District Judge, First Magistrate, and Civil District Judge. In July 1954, Tan became the first Asian to be appointed to the Supreme Court bench when he was made Acting Puisne Judge in place of Justice E.N. Taylor who was set to go on two months’ leave. He was confirmed as

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Puisne Judge in May 1955. In February 1956, he was one of three judges appointed to sit in the newly-constituted Public Security Appeals Tribunal (the others being Justice E.N. Taylor and Justice J.W.D. Ambrose). This tribunal had been established under the Preservation of Public Security Ordinance. Tan Ah Tah made legal history once more in August 1958 when, upon the retirement of the incumbent Chief Justice, Sir John Whyatt, he assumed duties as Acting Chief Justice. He was sworn in on 18 August 1958 by Governor Sir William Goode. By this time, Singapore was headed towards self-government and it was widely expected that Tan would be selfgoverning Singapore’s first Asian Chief Justice. It thus came as a shock to the bar when it was announced in November that year, that the colonial government intended to appoint Sir Alan Rose as the new Chief Justice of Singapore.Almost immediately there were loud protests. Together with two of his colleagues, Professor Lionel A. Sheridan, Head of the Department of Law at the University of Malaya, who, with two of his colleagues protested the appointment in a letter to the Straits Times. Later, an extraordinary meeting of Singapore lawyers was called on 29 November 1958 to protest against Sir Alan’s appointment as Chief Justice, the first time lawyers had ever protested against the appointment of any judge. The Secretary of State justified the appointment of Sir Alan on the grounds that a permanent appointment to ‘this important post’ should await the advice of the incoming Prime Minister when he had an opportunity to give it his full consideration. Sir Alan Rose arrived in Singapore on 6 January 1959 to take up his new appointment. He had been Chief Justice of Ceylon up till 1955 and was on leave from his appointment as Chairman of the Medical Appeals Tribunal in the UK. Tan Ah Tah never became Chief Justice. When

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Sir Alan retired in January 1963, Wee Chong Jin was appointed Chief Justice while Tan remained Senior Puisne Judge. In January 1964, when Singapore was part of the Federation of Malaysia, Tan was appointed a judge of the Federal Court — which is an appeals court — in Kuala Lumpur. Upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 65 in 1971, Tan retired from the bench. The Constitution was amended to allow the President to appoint judges on contract terms after they reached retirement age. Tan’s service was thus extended, and he retired for the second time on 29 November 1975. Numerous tributes were paid to him upon his retirement. All those who knew him thought that he had the perfect judicial temperament — courteous, kind, polite, dignified and with a good listening ear. Beyond his judicial service, Tan was active in two other organizations: the Singapore Old Frees Association, an oldboys’ society for former students of the Penang Free School; and the Stamford District Scout Association. He served as President of the latter from 1973 till his death on 12 August 1976. Tan was survived by his wife Choo Yu Keun, his daughter Eileen Tan Siew Lean; and his two sons: Cheng Lim (a doctor) and Cheng Guan (a lawyer). Cheng Guan also studied at Cambridge and was called to the Bar by his own father in 1965. Kevin Y.L.Tan R E F E R E N C E S “Chief Justice: A Protest by Lawyers”. Singapore Free Press, 29 November 1958, p. 1. “Justice Tan appointed a Federal Court judge”. The Straits Times, 10 January 1964. “Local man as Commissioner of Estate Duty”. The Straits Times, 17 September 1946, p. 5. “Now he’s Mr Justice Tan”. The Straits Times, 25 July 1954, p. 7.

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“Tributes for Justice Tan at memorial reference”. The Straits Times, 22 August 1976. “Two well-known Chinese families united”. Singapore Free Press, 1 November 1935, p. 6.

Tan Chay Yan ( , Chen Qixian, 1871–1916) Pioneer rubber planter, merchant, Singapore

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an Chay Yan is best remembered as the pioneer in commercializing the cultivation of rubber in Asia. Back in 1895, he brought in the now historic nine seedlings from the Singapore Botanical Garden and planted them in a 43-acre piece of land in Bukit Lintang, Malacca. Nobody took Tan’s venture seriously until he exported his first shipment of 450kg of rubber sheets overseas in 1904. His pioneering effort brought immense prosperity not only to his family, but also to British Malaya and then later the Federation of Malaya. By the year 1920, the rubber industry had become the backbone of British Malaya with 2.2 million acres planted with rubber.The British Government officially acknowledged Tan’s first plantation as the first rubber plantation in Malaya and Asia. In Singapore, he also invested in a rubber plantation in Choa Chu Kang together with other prominent Chinese businessmen such as Lim Boon Keng, Lee Choon Guan, and Tan Jiak Kim. For his contributions to rubber plantations and also his philanthropic activities, two roads were named after him respectively in Malacca and Singapore; namely, Jalan Tan Chay Yan in Malacca (formerly known as Jalan Kampong Empat), and Chay Yan Street in Tiong Bahru, Singapore. Tan was born in 1871 in a prominent Peranakan (Straits-born Chinese) family which traditionally engaged in the property and

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land business, as well as tapioca plantations in Malacca. He was the eldest son of Tan Teck Guan and a grandson of Tan Tock Seng (1795–1850) who was a well known philanthropist and businessman in Malaya and Singapore. Tan Chay Yan’s ancestors came originally from the Hai Cheng district of Fujian Province in China and married with local Peranakan in Malacca. Tan was brought up in Malacca and educated at the Malacca High School. He did exceptionally well in his studies, but his main interest was in plants and gardens. He was probably influenced by his father who excelled in gardening and, in fact, specialized in the cultivation of orchids. Tan’s interest in rubber began when he met Henry Ridley in England. Ridley was a botanist, a geologist, and the first scientific director of Singapore Botanical Gardens between 1888 and 1991. He spent many years promoting rubber, which was native to South America, as a commercial product in Ceylon and Malaya. When Ridley arrived in Singapore, he strongly encouraged Tan to venture into rubber planting. Tan was convinced and then took the historic nine seedlings from Singapore to Malacca where he converted his ancestral tapioca plantations into rubber estates. His experiment turned out to be a great success. From there, he went one step further by establishing the Malacca Rubber and Tapioca Company to plant rubber on a bigger scale, totalling 4,300-acre land at Bukit Asahan, Malacca. When the rubber plantation turned out to be another success, he sold the rubber estate to a European firm called the Malacca Rubber Plantation. With these achievements in rubber planting, he fervently encouraged other Chinese businessmen to invest in rubber planting in Malaya and Singapore, and could well take credit for his immense contribution to promoting rubber planting and its commercialization in Malaysia. As a result,

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the rubber industry is one of the mainstays of the Malaysian economy till today. With his increasing wealth in rubber planting, he, like his contemporaries, diversified his business into finance and insurance. He was the first chairman of the Eastern United Assurance Corporation, a position he held till his death in 1916. Like his grandfather, Tan was also a philanthropist in the region. Among his philanthropic activities, the most outstanding one was his donation ($15,000) to the construction of a building named after his father in a medical school in Singapore. The medical school was to become the King Edward VII Medical School, the forerunner of the University of Singapore’s Medical Faculty. In Malacca, he also donated a huge sum of money for education. In fact, he co-founded Pei Fong High School which is situated at Jalan Tan Chay Yan, the road named after him. Pei Fong High School is now a renowned independent Chinese high school in Malacca. Tan was equally active in politics and public service. As young as twenty-one years old, he was already appointed by the Straits Settlement Government to the Malacca Municipal Council. Three years later, he was made a Justice of Peace for his contribution in public service. In 1900, he was appointed by the government to be a member of the Malacca Sanitary Board. In the meantime, he was equally active in politics. When Tan Jiak Kim, Seah Liang Seah, Lim Boon Keng, and Song Ong Siang set up the Straits Chinese British Association (SCBA) in Singapore on 17 August 1900, he responded by establishing the Malacca branch of the association in October 1900. The association was a political and cultural association of the Chinese Peranakan in the Straits Settlements of Malacca, Penang, and Singapore, which provided a platform for

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the Straits-born Chinese to voice their views on politics, and also championed their rights. Ironically, Tan was also active in China-centric nationalism. In 1906, he became a founding member of the Malacca branch of Dr Sun Yat Sen’s Tung Meng Hui, which advocated the overthrowing of the Qing Dynasty in China and was a predecessor of the Kuomintang Nationalist Party later. In 1916,Tan was seriously ill with malaria because of the long hours spent in his rubber plantations. Unfortunately he did not recover and died at the age of forty-six in Malacca, leaving behind his wife, six daughters and a son. His wife, Chua Wan Neo, who belonged to the tenth generation of Nyonya in Malacca, was the only Chinese woman recipient of the King George V Silver Jubilee Medal in 1936. His son, Robert Tan Boon Siang, who was the former president of the Malayan Orchid Society, developed a new hybrid of orchid variety and named it Vanda Tan Chay Yan in honour of his father. The hybrid won the highest award given by the Royal Horticultural Society of the United Kingdom at the Chelsea Flower Show in 1954. Ng Beoy Kui R E F E R E N C E S Lee K. H. and Chow, M. S. Biographical Dictionary of the Chinese in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: Pelanduk Publications, 1997. Nadaraj, V. “Malaccan who Gave Malaysia Rubber & Wealth”. The Star, 18 March 2002. (accessed March 2008). Ngui, Clarence Y. K. “The Great Rubber Baron”. Malaysian Business, 1 August 2003. “Tan Chay Yan (1870–1916)”. Tiong Bahru Estate blog. (accessed March 2008). 《 ，1995.

》。

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Tan Chee Khoon, David ( , Chen Zhiqin, 1919–96) Opposition party leader, Malaysia

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ew politicians in Malaysia commanded the deep respect from all sides that Tan Sri Dr Tan Chee Khoon did throughout his political career. A staunch multiracialist, he was often given the honorific, “Conscience of the Nation”. Born on 4 March 1919 to humble Hokkien immigrants in Cheras outside Kuala Lumpur — his father came from a Methodist family and his mother was an Anglican — Tan was the second son in a close-knit family with five children. In 1932, when he was thirteen years old, he accidentally pushed a knife into his left eye. It had to be replaced with a prosthesis. An ardent reader of books on history, Middle Eastern history, and military history, Tan was educated at Kajang High School and Victoria Institution. He failed to win the Queen’s Scholarship in 1938, but managed nevertheless to begin studies at Singapore’s King Edward VII College in medicine on smaller scholarships. When the Japanese Occupation interrupted his studies, he went back to Kuala Lumpur. During the war, he married Liew Fong Ying and, by the time he was back at college after the war, the couple already had a son. Between 1947 and 1949, the college’s students’ union elected him as treasurer, vice-president, and president successively. Later in life Tan established a series of scholarships at his old schools, most of them named after his parents, Tan Chin Ghee and Tay Kim Siew. He developed his general practice into the Sentosa Medical Centre, and remained a

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keen Christian all his life, being active in the Kuala Lumpur Methodist Church where he fought for its Malayanization, until health reasons forced him to slow down in 1976. He was also deeply involved in the Malaysian Medical Association, of which he became president in 1967. Between 1959 and 1971, Tan was on the council of the University of Malaya. He was involved in several memorable clashes, including the selection of the university’s first professor of economics. He strongly and successfully supported Dr Ungku Aziz against Professor Thomas Silcock’s candidacy. When he left as chairman, the university awarded him a doctor of laws degree. Tan’s involvement in politics began when he joined the Selangor branch of the Labour Party in 1952, encouraged by his old schoolmate, Lee Moke Sang. Lee became the first chairman of the national Labour Party of Malaya when this was formed in 1954. He helped prepare the party’s memorandum to the Reid Commission, whose terms of reference for formulating a parliamentary democracy had been provided by Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaya’s first prime minister. Although Tan became chairman of the Kuala Lumpur branch of the party in 1956, and the party’s national treasurer in 1959, he did not run in general elections until 1964. He headed the Selangor Selection Committee of the Socialist Front in 1959, when it won five parliamentary seats in the state. Between 1964 and 1978, he served three terms as Member of Parliament for Batu, and state assemblyman for Kepong, though, interestingly, as representative for different parties each time. He was also the official leader of the opposition in parliament during that period. Tan helped found Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia in 1968 after the Labour Party, by now strongly radicalized towards the left,

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decided to boycott the approaching elections. Gerakan turned out to be hugely successful in the 1969 general elections due to a successful electoral agreement with other opposition parties, winning eight parliamentary seats and twenty-six state seats. For various reasons,Tan’s announcement on May 13 that Gerakan would not form an opposition coalition in Selangor, and instead wanted the ruling Malay party to form the state government, was delayed and made public on Malaysian TV only late in the day. Some believe that an earlier announcement would have defused the tense situation sufficiently to avoid the racial clashes that took place that evening. Top-level infighting in Gerakan prompted Tan to leave in 1971 and he reluctantly founded a new non-communal party, Parti Keadilan Masyarakat (Pekemas). He refused to be enticed into joining the ruling coalition, and purportedly also rejected an offer to become chief minister of the state of Penang should he agree to cross the political divide. He also rejected a request from the government for Pekemas to join the ruling coalition and refrained from contesting in Sabah state in 1974. As MP, Tan was prone to using quotes from the Bible, which gained him a reputation as a religious person, and the title of “preacher” from Tunku Abdul Rahman. He became popularly known as Mr Opposition, and was famed for his courage, compassion, integrity, and deep sense of justice. In November 1976 he suffered a stroke that forced him to retire from politics and many other commitments. Over the years,Tan refused several awards from the political establishment, but in 1980, accepted the Panglima Setia Mahkota (PSM) from the king, which carried the title of “Tan Sri”. He was also awarded the Datuk Paduka Mahkota Selangor (DPMS) by the sultan of Selangor.

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With this new respectability, Tan was asked to write for the mainstream press. He consented and his weekly column for The Star, titled, “Without Fear or Favour”, was well received. His topics were largely about multiracialism and democracy, as well as interviews with prominent politicians. But after more and more of his writings were censored or stopped by the editors, he let the column die after four years, and concentrated instead on writing his memoirs. His column in the Chinese Nanyang Siang Pau also suffered the same fate. The award that Tan showed particular delight in receiving was that of “Outstanding Malaysian”, given him by the human rights group, Aliran, in 1984. The citation for the occasion stated: “Truth and progress can be hindered or hampered but only temporarily; their victory is inevitable. The question is whether man himself is prepared to fight for truth. People like Dr Tan, because they are not afraid to stand up against existing power structures, have earned for themselves a noble role in the march of civilization.” Tan passed away on 14 October 1996 at the age of seventy-seven. Ooi Kee Beng R E F E R E N C E S Tan Chee Khoon. From Village Boy to Mr. Opposition. Petaling Jaya: Pelanduk Publications, 1991. ———. Malaysia Today. Without Fear or Favour, edited by Raj Vasil. Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 1985. ———. Without Fear or Favour, edited by Raj Vasil. Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 1984. The Star. “Memorable MPs”. 8 April 2007. Vasil, Raj. Tan Chee Khoon. An Elder Statesman. Petaling Jaya: Pelanduk Publications, 1987. Victoria Institution website. “Tan Sri Dr Tan Chee Khoon — A Life of Service”. (accessed 20 July 2011).

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Tan Chee Yioun, Vincent ( , Chen Zhiyuan, 1952– ) Leading businessman, Malaysia

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incent Tan is one of the new breed of prominent Chinese businessmen to emerge in Malaysia in the New Economic Policy era. Known for his close connections to influential officials and politicians, he became chairman and chief executive officer of Berjaya Corporation Berhad, a diversified conglomerate which controlled a wide array of businesses in leisure and gaming, property and construction, vacation, hotels and resorts, insurance, investment holdings, food and beverages, telecommunications, and manufacturing. Born in Batu Pahat in 1952, Johor, Vincent Tan was the fourth child in a family of six sons and a youngest daughter. His father had migrated from Eng Choon Prefecture in Fujian, China, to British Malaya before the Second World War. After working for a number of years, Tan’s father used his savings to start and operate a small transportation company. Although he wanted to study law, Tan had to start working after finishing his English secondary school education in 1970 because his father could not afford to pay for his tertiary education. His first job was as a clerk with the United Malayan Banking Corporation. While working as a bank clerk, Tan also moonlighted as an insurance agent for the American International Assurance in the evening to supplement his income. Because of his natural flair for making deals, Tan did so well in selling insurance that he decided to do it full-time in 1972 and before long was promoted at age twenty-one to be an agency supervisor.

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By the end of the 1970s, the ambitious Tan decided to strike out on his own in the Klang Valley, the political and economic hub of the country. In quick succession he ventured into a series of businesses in retail, transport, real estate, car importing, and a joint undertaking with Tokyo Marine & Fire Insurance in insurance. His first major break came in 1981 when he won the franchise to bring McDonald’s fast food restaurants into Malaysia, after having first contacted them in 1973 when he read about the company in Fortune magazine. His winning the McDonald franchise over other powerful and well established Malaysian business groups enhanced his credibility in business and political circles. By 2008, besides expanding the McDonald franchise to more than 180 restaurants all over Malaysia, Tan had also added several other companies to his food and beverage business, including the American Roasters Grill, Starbucks, and 7-Eleven franchises. In the mid-1980s, he emerged as a member of an exclusive group of businessmen who were closely connected to powerful politicians and influential civil servants, especially Mahathir Mohammed (prime minister, 1981–2004) and Daim Zainuddin (minister of finance 1984–91). Influenced by the successes of the Japanese zaibatsu and Korean chaebol business models, the Mahathir administration handpicked a coterie of businessmen to establish, develop, and operate huge Malaysian business conglomerates; Tan was one of those handpicked businessmen. He was thus given favourable access to major privatization projects without tender, soft or government-guaranteed loans for business acquisitions, and expansions, and other perks and privileges. Besides his political and bureaucratic links, Tan without fail would include Malay partners in most of his business

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ventures, thus fulfilling the NEP’s Bumiputra quota objective. Tan’s first major business foray with Malay business partnership was the acquisition of a 38 per cent interest in Berjaya Corporation, whose principal activity was the manufacturing of wire products in 1984. Renamed Berjaya Group, it became his holding company for his ever expanding business empire. The critical phase in the development of his business empire was Tan’s biggest coup — when he successfully negotiated with the Mahathir administration in 1985 to privatize the staterun Sports Toto lottery — to Berjaya without any open tendering process. Berjaya bought up 70 per cent of Sports Toto, and Tan listed the company on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange in 1987. Within days the share price of Sports Toto rose fivefold and Tan used this opportunity to raise funds by reducing his ownership percentage. In 1990, Tan gained full control of the lucrative Sports Toto operation through a series of controversial manoeuvres. Indeed, over the years Sports Toto has become the main cash cow for Tan to expand his Berjaya Group into a huge, diversified, and ever changing business conglomerate. From the mid-1980s until the Asian Financial crisis in 1997, Tan rapidly built up his business empire through a dizzy myriad of shares-for-assets swaps, takeovers, and reverse takeovers, frequently with the support of, or in collusion with influential UMNO politicians or well connected Malay businessmen. The economic depression years in the mid-1980s provided excellent opportunities for a well connected and funded businessman such as Tan to acquire financially distressed companies relatively cheaply. By the mid-1990s, he had emerged as one of the most successful of Malaysia’s growing class of politically connected business tycoons.

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Under the holding company, Cosway,Tan expanded into the manufacturing of personal care and household products, and distribution of cosmetics, toiletries, and fashion jewellery, and durable consumer goods, and, in the 2000s, also the distribution of audiovisual and children’s educational products. Berjaya also bought a number of real estate and leisure businesses such that by the mid-1990s it had emerged as a strong player in the country’s hotel and resort vacation industry, with holdings including the Bukit Tinggi Resort in Pahang. In the real estate sector, Berjaya successfully increased its land banks holding, especially in the Klang Valley. In 1995, Tan launched a massive shopping, entertainment, and leisure centre project named Berjaya Times Square in the central business district of Kuala Lumpur. While the Times Square project was launched in 1995, its progress was stalled by the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 and was only completed in 2003. Tan was also the recipient of a number of privatized services and companies that the government implemented without any open tendering process. In 1994, the government awarded him the concession to operate the national sewerage system through a buildoperate-transfer (BOT) arrangement. Tan established Indah Water Konsortium Sdn Bhd to run the national sewerage system, but the company incurred losses without fail until it was later renationalized. In the mid1990s, because of increased car ownership and escalating traffic congestion in the Klang Valley, the government decided to build a light-rail transit system and Berjaya was one of three independent companies selected to participate in the project. Tan’s KL Monorail (previously known as Peoplemover Rapid Transit — PRT) opened in 2003, but was eventually renationalized in 2007

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because of the company’s escalating debts. However, Tan was more fortunate with the telecommunication concessionaire he was awarded in 1995 which he successfully developed into Malaysia’s third largest mobile phone operator, and number one in prepaid services sales by the early 2000s. Like all of Mahathir’s handpicked businessmen, in the aftermath of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997, Tan was faced with soaring debt levels at the beginning of the 2000s. To address his financially distressed situation, he controversially managed to get the government in 2000 to renationalize his lossmaking company, Indah Water Konsortium Sdn. Bhd. Tan was also forced to embark on the controversial, extensive restructuring of his Berjaya Group by transferring most of the former company’s assets into a new vehicle. In exchange shareholders and investors were given one share in the new company for every four shares they had previously held. He sweetened the deal by adding a number of his personal assets, such as part of the Times Square development. Indeed, the manner in which he managed to extricate himself from the adverse impact of the Asian Financial Crisis demonstrated his astute survival skills. By 2003 not only had Tan recovered from the financial crisis, but was already beginning to expand his business empire again. His many critics have questioned Tan’s strong relationship with the government and his answer to them was: “It’s only prudent for a businessman to be friendly with the government of the day, but I’m not into politics and our companies are well run.” Indeed, for Tan, his close relationship with influential politicians and well connected Malay businessmen has been a very profitable investment. Lee Hock Guan

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R E F E R E N C E S Ahmad Mustapha Hassan. The Unmaking of Malaysia: Insider’s Reminiscences of UMNO, Razak and Mahathir. Petaling Jaya: SIRD, 2007. Gomez, Edmund Terence. Chinese Business in Malaysia: Accumulation, Accommodation and Ascendance. Surrey, the United Kingdom: Curzon Press, 1999. Malaysian Business. “Vincent in Person”. 16 October 2002. Searle, Peter. The Riddle of Malaysian Capitalism: Rentseekers or Real Capitalists. New South Wales, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1999.

Tan Chee-Beng ( , Chen Zhiming, 1950– ) Anthropologist, researcher, scholar, Malaysia

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an Chee-Beng who was born in Batu Pahat in 1950 is professor and head of the Department of Anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has made major anthropological contributions to the study of ethnography of the Chinese community in Malaysia and beyond. He is multilingual and highly proficient in Chinese, English, and Malay. Besides teaching and coaching young scholars in the field of anthropology, he has written and published extensively. A renowned scholar in the field of cultural studies and ethnic relations, Tan is a highly reputable anthropologist who has shown special interest in the unique cultural identity of ethnic Chinese communities. His anthropological studies include the Baba in Malacca; and the Hui Hui and Chinese Peranakan in Terengganu. He is best known for his in-depth knowledge of the Baba community, which is a subethnic group of the Chinese Malaysians. He has revived the terminology Peranakan

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to refer to the highly integrated Chinese community in Terengganu and Kelantan who experienced acculturation in terms of language, daily customs, and a consciousness of identity, as a result of living with the Malay people in Peninsular Malaysia. In 1974,Tan obtained a Bachelor of Social Science (Hons.) degree from the University of Science Malaysia in Penang. Later he left for the University of Cornell in the United States, where he was conferred a Master of Arts (M.A.) degree two years later. During his pursuit of a Ph.D. degree, he conducted a seventeen-month fieldwork, observing the anthropological aspects of the Baba Nyonya community. In 1979, he obtained his Ph.D. in Anthropology with a thesis entitled, “Baba and Nyonya: A Study of the Ethnic Identity of the Chinese Peranakan in Malacca”. Tan was a lecturer in the National University of Singapore from 1979 to 1980. On his return to Malaysia, he taught at the Department of Chinese Studies, University of Malaya, from 1980 to 1996. During that period, he was promoted to associate professor of the Department of Anthropology and Sociology and was the head of “Project of Ethnic Relations Studies”, initiated by the Faculty of Arts and Social Science of the same university. In 1997, he joined Hong Kong Chinese University and is now a professor and head of the Department of Anthropology and Sociology. Tan has been the project director for “East-Asian Cultural Relations and Identity” and the Editor-in-chief for Journal of Asian Anthropology. He has also been co-editor and later editor of Journal of Chinese Overseas (Singapore). His scope of research includes topics such as cultural transformation and identity, Chinese religious beliefs, the development of Chinese Peranakan, Overseas

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Chinese, the cultural identity of Hong Kong and China. As an internationally recognized scholar, Tan has published fifteen books on various topics concerning the Chinese community in Malaysia and Singapore. Although he often writes in English, his works are also translated and appreciated in the Chinese and Malay languages. For example, The Development and Distribution of Dejiao Associations in Malaysia and Singapore has been translated into the Chinese language. His passion for constructing a theoretical framework to understand the Chinese ethnic identity proves to be a constant motivator for younger scholars to venture into similar areas of study. His interest in studying the ethnic minorities was evident when he conducted a research and co-authored a book entitled, Three studies on the Orang Asli in Ulu Perak with two other authors, Mohd. Razha b. Hj. Abd Rashid and Syed Jamal Jaafer. He worked on this when he was still an undergraduate student in 1973. In 1988, Tan authored two important monographs: The Hui Hui (Chinese Muslims) in Terengganu; and The Baba of Melaka: Culture and Identity of a Chinese Peranakan Community in Malaysia. The latter was based on seventeen months of fieldwork in Malacca and was indeed an eye-opener for researchers and readers who have an interest in acculturation and the study of comparative culture. His research provided fresh insights and perspectives for many to examine the Baba culture and identity. Malaysian society began to realize that the Baba community preserved Chinese cultural traits despite acculturation with the Malay community. With his vast knowledge of the traditional Chinese religions, he edited The Preservation and Adaptation of Tradition: Studies of Chinese Religious Expression in Southeast Asia (1990)

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and Bibliography on Ethnic Relations:With special reference to Malaysia and Singapore (1992). In 1997, drawing on some of these examples, he published a book entitled, Ethnic Groups, Ethnogenesis and Ethnic Identities. In 2000, Tan co-edited The Chinese in Malaysia with Lee Kam Hing. This comprehensive monograph provides an informative description and analysis of the development of the nationals of Chinese descent in Malaysia. In the Preface to The Chinese in Malaysia, Lee Kam Hing and Tan Chee-Beng wrote,“Our hope is that the volume succeeds in showing that there has emerged a community of Malaysians but of Chinese origin which the term Chinese Malaysians emphasizes.” The cultural diversity, religious practices, and ethnic identity of Chinese Malaysians have always attracted his attention even after he left Malaysia and worked at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in the late 1990s. His passion for the people in Malaysia also included the indigenous people in Sarawak and he has worked closely with the indigenous communities and produced a monograph on the communal associations of the indigenous communities of Sarawak. Tan has contributed to the study of the family and religious lives of the Chinese in Malaysia and Asia. His work on the Baba, Peranakan in Terengganu, Hui Hui and other indigenous people in Sarawak has greatly enhanced anthropological knowledge of the Chinese in Southeast Asia. He has made contributions to the Malaysian anthropology field by providing theoretical perspectives on the ethnogenesis and ethnic identities of these minority groups. In 2003, he published Chinese Minority in a Malay State:The Case of Terengganu in Malaysia. Of late, Tan’s research interest has been on the identity of the Chinese in China. In 2004, he wrote Chinese Overseas: Comparative Cultural

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Issues. His many years of research on cultural change and Chinese ethnicity in Southeast Asia have enabled him to examine the effects of localization and its impact on the identity construction of the Chinese overseas. He has also conducted research on Quanzhou andYongchun (both in Minnan and Southern Fujian), of which he is a descendant. In 2006, he published a book entitled, Southern Fujian: Reproduction of Traditions in Post-Mao China. In 2007, Tan wrote Chinese Overseas: Migration, Research and Documentation. Besides anthropological research, Tan has co-authored several books on popular foodways in Asia. In 2001, he co-authored Changing Chinese Foodways in Asia. In 2007, he co-authored with Sidney C.H. Cheung, Food and Foodways in Asia: Resource, Tradition and Cooking. His latest publication is entitled, The World of Soy. In conclusion, Tan Chee-Beng’s fieldwork has contributed theoretically to the understanding of Chinese in Southeast Asia, as well as Chinese in Fujian and Yunnan. His more recent contributions on migration, intermarriage, cultural reproduction, cultural heritage, cultural identity, religious belief, and sociolinguistics of China and the overseas Chinese are also prominent in the respective areas. His genuine passion for the communities under study continues to inspire local and foreign research interest to venture into the anthropological field of study. Ngeow Yeok Meng R E F E R E N C E S “Tan Chee-Beng: Biographical Information”. (accessed 4 February 2012). “Tan Chee-Beng: Books”. (accessed 10 January 2010).

Tan Chee-Beng (ed.). Chinese Food and Foodways in Southeast Asia and Beyond. Singapore: NUS Press, 2011.

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Tan Chee-Beng. “Confucianism”. In The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, G. Ritzer. (ed.). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007. Tan Chee-Beng. “Intermarriage and the Chinese Peranakan in Southeast Asia.” In Peranakan Chinese in a Globalizing Southeast Asia, Leo Suryadinata (ed.), pp. 27–40. Singapore: Chinese Heritage Centre, 2010. Tan Chee-Beng. “Li Yih-yuan and the Study of Chinese in Malaysia”. Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnography Academia Sinica, no. 89 (Spring 2000): 17–31.

Tan Cheng Lock ( , Chen Zhenlu, 1883–1960) Politician, businessman, Malaysia

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un Tan Cheng Lock was a founding member of the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA), and its first president from 1949 to 1958. He led MCA alongside the leaders of UMNO (United Malays National Organisation) and MIC (Malaysian Indian Congress) to gain Malaya’s independence from the British in 1957. A fifth-generation Malacca-born baba, Tan Cheng Lock, born 5 April 1883, studied at the Malacca High School and completed his secondary school education at the Raffles Institution in Singapore. He obtained his Cambridge School (Leaving) Certificate, but his hope of studying law at a university in the United Kingdom came to nought when he was not awarded a Queens Scholarship. Financial constraints compelled him to accept a position teaching English and literature at the Raffles Institution in Singapore in 1902. He returned to Malacca in 1908 to work as the assistant estate manager, Bukit Panjang Rubber Estates. In 1913 he married Yeo Yoke Neo, the only daughter and heiress of a wealthy Malacca businessman. The couple had four daughters ), who and one son, Tun Tan Siew Sin (

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later became the second and longest-serving finance minister of Malaya (later Malaysia). Tan Cheng Lock’s nephew, Dr Goh Keng ), was finance minister, and later Swee ( deputy prime minister of Singapore. The British colonial administration, recognizing Tan’s leadership potential, appointed him a Justice of the Peace in 1912 and a Malacca municipal commissioner from 1913 to 1922. In 1923, he was nominated an unofficial member of the Legislative Council of the Straits Settlements where he served until 1934, and of the Straits Settlements Governor’s Executive Council from 1933 to 1935. Tan devoted his life and resources to social and political reform in Malaya. His leadership and participation in many government committees and civil society activities were remarkable. In 1915 he helped to re-establish the Straits Chinese British Association (SCBA), and revive the Chinese Company of the Malacca Volunteer Company, in which he served as a volunteer private from 1915 to 1919. He was appointed a member of the Malacca Rural Board in 1916. From 1926–32 he was vice-president of the Malacca Chinese Chamber of Commerce, and from 1947–51, its president. In 1927, he founded and became the first president of the Asiatic Planters’ Association. From 1928–35, he was the president of the Malacca branch of the SCBA. In 1931 he founded and became the first president of the Malayan Estate Owners’ Association. In the same year, he was a member of the Straits Settlements Rice Cultivation Committee. He was also a member of the Straits Settlements Trade Commission from 1933–34 and from 1949–52, he was a member of the University of Malaya Council. Tan was also president of the Malacca Hokkien Community Association and patron of the Malacca Chiang Chew Hoo Association (the ancestors of whose members were the

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Chinese pioneers who first emigrated from China to Malaya some 500 years ago). As a trustee of the 300-year old Cheng Hoon Teng ) dedicated to Kuan Yin, the Temple ( Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, he persuaded the colonial government to pass an act (The Cheng Hoon Teng Temple Incorporation Ordinance, 1949) to protect the temple, the only religious institution in Malaysia to be given this distinction. He sat on many government committees, such as the Technical Education Committee, Trade Commission, Housing Committee, Committee on Destitution, Rubber Restriction Committee, and the Chinese Marriage Committee. Concerned with the damaging effect of opium on the Chinese population,Tan agitated against its widespread use, and eventually had it banned. Opposed to the sale and enslavement of young Chinese maidens (mui tsai) recruited from mainland China, he moved to restrict their entry, and finally end the trade. He also enacted the Monogamous Marriage Act as he was against the irresponsible polygamous practices of the Chinese. After the Act was passed, he “married” his wife at the civil marriage registry. He helped Malay farmers and Indian plantation workers as well as the landless and squatters, but failed in his campaign to provide Chinese farmers with paddy land to produce rice on a commercial scale. He respected honest work and paid tribute to the worker and “the masses” for their invaluable contributions to the country’s development. He proposed minimum wages, and “a gigantic programme” of subsidized government public housing for poor and working people. Tan also suggested publiclyfunded “homes for decrepits and the destitutes”, and “free hospitals, clinics and dispensaries… for the benefit of the poor classes”. As a baba, Tan Cheng Lock could not speak any Chinese dialect or read or write

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Chinese. He spoke baba Malay and English, but was extremely proud of his Chinese heritage. Tan’s ancestor, Tan Hay Kuan, first arrived in Malacca in 1771 and married a local Chinese woman. Recognizing English as a lingua franca amongst all ethnic groups, and believing in the intrinsic value of education, he clamoured for free English elementary education, while also strongly supporting the provision of free Malay schools. He advocated for, but failed to gain, state funding for Chinese-language schools and education. But this failure did not undermine his firm belief that language underpins the survival of a culture. As MCA president, he ensured that Chinese schools, especially in the “new villages”, were subsidized by the MCA. Tan read widely and owned a large collection of eastern and western classics. He was rooted in Buddhist teaching, steeped in Confucian philosophy, and guided by their fundamental concepts, such as loyalty and filial piety, ancestral worship, observance of traditions, and close familial ties. While his world views and values — a blend of western and eastern philosophies — were largely influenced by his readings, his fouryear sojourn with his family in Switzerland (to facilitate his wife’s recovery from a debilitating illness) from 1935–39, and another four in India (from 1942–46 when he and his family evacuated to escape the Japanese Occupation of Malaya) reinforced his abiding faith in multiculturalism in a western-style democracy. Tan had been criticized for abandoning the country at a critical time during the war. But he was vindicated subsequently by the fact that the Japanese had looked for him, as for other Chinese who were prominent public figures and businessmen, soon after they captured Malaya, to coerce them into raising funds for the Japanese war effort.

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As early as 1926, at the meeting of the Straits Settlements Legislative Council on 1 November 1926, Tan, a nationalist and visionary, mooted the concept of selfgovernment. But it was an uphill task for the Chinese population was divided by dialect, occupational and educational differences, as well as income. Tan repeatedly appealed to Malayan Chinese to sink their differences and declare their allegiance to Malaya and not China. In 1943, while in India, he founded the Overseas Chinese Association, the precursor of the MCA. There he wrote and sent to the Colonial Office in London his treaties entitled “Memorandum on the Future of Malaya” which laid out a model for an independent Malaya. He fought unsuccessfully against the dismantling of the Malayan Union set up in 1946, even resorting to using the hartal (closure of shops and offices — one of Indian nationalist Gandhi’s tactics), and its imminent replacement by the Federation of Malaya in 1948. The same year, he attempted to reconstitute it into the Malayan Chinese League. His dream for Chinese unity culminated in the formation of the MCA on 27 February 1949 at a historic meeting with sixteen other Chinese leaders. At the most crucial time in Malaya, he rallied the Malayan Chinese to oppose the communist insurgency, known as the “Emergency” that lasted for twelve years (1948–60). He mooted the idea of protecting vulnerable Chinese in small towns and rural areas from the influence, coercion, and attacks of the communist guerillas, a proposal later appropriated by the colonial administration into the “Briggs” plan that created “new villages” into which the Chinese were cordoned off. In these new villages, Tan and the MCA worked tirelessly to alleviate the hardship of the residents, by, for instance, providing agricultural land and building amenities and schools, which

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greatly helped to turn the odds against the Communist insurgents. Tan’s strong stand against the communists made him a target; he was injured in a hand-grenade attack on 10 April 1949 during a speech he gave to MCA members in Ipoh. This incident did not deter his unrelenting anti-communist campaign. At the same time, it catapulted him into the mainstream of multiracial politics in which he was the acknowledged leader of Malayan Chinese who were anti-communists. In October 1949, in his presidential address to the MCA, he reiterated his call for Malayan independence of “one country, one people, one government”, expounding a peaceful and harmonious multiracial and democratic Malaya where all ethnic groups — Malays, Chinese, Indians, and others — would have equal rights. He recognized the handicap of the Malays in economic development and exhorted the Chinese and the MCA to initiate and support necessary measures to alleviate their disadvantage. The call for “one government” was because in the new Federation of Malaya structure, implemented in 1948, the British had left out Singapore. The Malaya he envisioned would include Singapore. He later won the trust and support of the British, the Malay political elite, and other Chinese leaders, and this facilitated the negotiations that led to independence for Malaya. Tan and the MCA had fought successfully for citizenship eligibility for nonMalays, based on the principles of jus soli (right by birth), which thus increased the electoral franchise potential from 10 to 50 per cent. Amongst the rights he and the MCA bargained for were freedom of religious practice and the right to elementary mother-tongue education. In return it was agreed that Islam, the Malay language and the special position of the Malays, would be accorded official status in the Malayan Constitution.

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The basis of these negotiations and bargaining was rooted in the informal Communities Liaison Committee that brought Tan together with other Malay, Chinese, and Indian leaders in late 1949 through to 1951. Tan was awarded the Commander of the British Empire (CBE) by King George V in 1933. In 1952 he was knighted (Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire — KBE) by King George VI, which carried the title “Sir”. In 1949, the sultan of Johor honoured him with the award “Dato’ Paduka Mahkota Johor” (DPMJ). In 1958 the Yang diPertuan Agong (King) of Malaya bestowed on him one of the country’s highest awards, the Seri Maharaja Mangku Negara, with the title “Tun”. His legacy has been commemorated through the Tun Tan Cheng Lock Scholarship, at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, by his daughters Alice Scott-Ross and Agnes Tan; the Assunta School of Nursing, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, by his son Tun Tan Siew Sin; the Baba House in Singapore by Agnes Tan; and the Tun Tan Cheng Lock Memorial, by the National Archives of Malaysia. Two roads are named after him in Malacca and Kuala Lumpur. Tun Tan Cheng Lock died in Malacca on 13 December 1960 at the age of seventyseven. He was accorded a state funeral on 20 December, the first to a non-royalty. Ch’ng Kim See R E F E R E N C E S Heng Pek Koon. Chinese Politics in Malaysia. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1988. Oong Hak Ching. Chinese Politics in Malaya, 1942–55: The Dynamics of British Policy. Bangi, Selangor: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, c2000. Purcell, Victor. The Chinese in Malaya. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1967. Scott-Ross, Alice Tan Kim Yoke. Tun Dato Sir Cheng Lock

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Tan, a Personal Profile by His Daughter Alice Scott-Ross. Singapore: Alice Scott-Ross, 1990. Tregonning, K.G. “Tan Cheng Lock, a Malayan Nationalist”. In Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 10, no. 1 (March 1979). Yeo Siew Siang. Tan Cheng Lock: The Straits Legislator and Chinese Leader. Kuala Lumpur: Pelanduk Publications, 1990.

Tan Chi’-Loong, Benedict ( , Chen Zhilong, 1967– ) Sportsman, sailor, Singapore

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n avid sailor, Benedict Tan received his education at the National University of Singapore and the Australian Institute of Sports. He is best known for excelling in both sailing and in the academic arena. Indeed, he pursued his studies in medicine simultaneously with his interest in sailing. Many still recall Dr Tan’s adept juggling of his medical career as well as his competition at international level in the Laser Sailing. Sailing since the age of 12, Dr Tan dedicated much of his time on and off the water to the development of what pundits have called his trademark consistency of performance. His systematic training and adroitness gave him a comfortable advantage in competitions. As a result, it was with relative ease that Dr Tan won the Laser Gold Medal in the 12th Asian Games in Hiroshima without needing to sail the last race. This win marked the end of a fourteen year medal drought in sailing for Singapore. He also won gold medals in sailing in four consecutive Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Kuala Lumpur 1989, in Manila in 1991, Singapore 1993, and Chiang Mai in 1995. His consistent performance and dedication to the sport of sailing were acknowledged at international platforms when he participated

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in the Laser World Championships and the International Yacht Racing Union (renamed the International Sailing Federation in 1996) World Championships. Dr Tan’s competitive spirit and steady performance at those events kept him within the top 50 sailors in the official world rankings in 1995. He won the gold at the Laser World Championships in 1989, 1991, and 1993. Due to his outstanding performance at Hiroshima and at various SEA Games, Dr Tan came to well respected in the sailing world. Singapore acknowledged his achievements by naming him Sportsman of the Year three times in 1992, 1995, and 1996. As a testament to his skill and consistency on the water, he managed to finish mid-fleet in a field of pre-qualified Olympic-level sailors in the hurricane-prone venue of the 1996 Olympic Games in Savannah in the United States. For his outstanding performance at the Asian Games, Dr Tan was the first recipient of the $250,000 cash award from the Singapore National Olympic Council’s Multi Million Dollar Award Programme. To honour his achievements in the sporting arena, the Singapore Government awarded him with the Public Service Medal in 1993, the Public Service Star in 1995, and the Singapore Youth Award in 1995. He was also formally inducted into the Singapore Sports Council Hall of Fame. His consistency on the water is still much admired today. Recently, Dr Tan was placed by Time Sport magazine in the top 10 on their Millennium Series on Singapore’s Sporting Greats. Although he is now retired from competitive sailing, Dr Tan continues to unite his passion for medicine as well as the sport in being a physician-cum-sports scientist for athletes. For much of his competitive sailing career, he was also a medical student. He did not allow either his academic pursuits or his

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sporting prowess to falter. He demonstrated his mettle at balancing both studies and sports when he clinched a gold medal in the Manila Southeast Asian Games in 1991 and graduated with his medical degree from the National University of Singapore in the same year. He followed up his education in medicine by reading a master’s degree in Sports Medicine at the Australian Institute of Sport. This Master’s degree was obtained in 1997. Still a keen sportsman, Dr Tan worked at the Sports Medicine and Research Centre of the Singapore sports so as to keep an eye on the health and wellbeing of the country’s athletes. He also demonstrated his dedication to both sports and medicine when he served as Team Physician for the Singapore’s sporting representatives at the 1998 and 2002 Asian Games, and the 1999 and 2001 Southeast Asian games. At present, he is the Medical Director of the Singapore Sports Medicine Centre as well as the Head and Senior Consultant Sports Physician at Changi Sports Medicine Centre in Changi General Hospital. Dr Tan has maintained his passion for sailing even though he no longer competes in the sport. His book, Complete Introduction to Laser Sailing, is testament to both his love for the sport as well as his interest in introducing it to the general public. The book has been moderately successful and is sold worldwide. It has also been translated into Mandarin, Japanese and Polish. Currently, he still contributes to the Singapore sporting scene and the sport of sailing through his numerous appointments. At present, he is Vice-Chairman of the Medical Commission of the International Sailing Federation (ISAF), President of the Singapore Sailing Federation Executive Committee, Chairman of Athletes’ Commission, executive committee member of the Singapore National Olympic Committee (SNOC), Chairman of the High Performance

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Sailing Committee, executive committee member of the Football Association of Singapore, Adviser to the Singapore Ice Skating Association, Chairman of the Sports Safety Committee, and Resource Panel member of the Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) for the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS). He is also Sports Patron of the Singapore Disability Sports Council and former president of the Sports Medicine Association of Singapore, and Council Member of the Singapore Association for the Study of Obesity. He has published a popular book on weight loss management titled, ‘Fight the fat — What You Must Know and Do to Lose Weight’. Likewise, his interest in sports medicine led him to publish original research material in international peer reviewed medical journals. In honour of his contributions to the sports scene in Singapore, Dr Tan was presented with the NUS Outstanding Young Alumni Award in 2006. Presently, he keeps fit by running marathons recreationally. Since 2002, he has completed over ten marathons, including the Boston and Berlin Marathons. At the Standard Charted Singapore Marathon on 7 December 2008, Dr Tan completed the 42 kilometre run in 2 hours 56 minutes 20 seconds. It is a personal best time for him, and he was the third fastest Singapore runner in that marathon. He attributes his success in marathons to the structured support offered by training partners. His achievements in sailing, medicine, and marathons have cemented Dr Tan’s place in Singapore sporting history as an all-round high achiever. Indeed, Dr Tan still continues to inspire many young Singaporeans today with the dream that is possible to juggle both academia and sports at the same time. Sharon Loo

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R E F E R E N C E S Les Tan. “Ex-national sailor Ben Tan is third-fastest Singapore marathoner after coming in behind Daniel Ling and M. Rameshon”. Red Sports, 7 December 2008.

(accessed 16 December 2010). “Local Sports Hero making waves at Changi Sports Medicine Centre”. Caring Newsletter, Issue No. 77, February 2003. (accessed 16 December 2010). National Heritage Board. “Tan, Benedict”. In Singapore: The Encyclopedia, Tommy T. B. Koh, et al., ed. Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2006, p. 535. Singapore National Olympic Council. “Benedict Tan Chi’Loong”. Singapore: SNOC, 2010. at (accessed 16 December 2010). “Singapore Sailing’s New Committee Elected”. Singapore Sailing Federation, 28 June 2010. (accessed 16 December 2010). Singapore Sports Council. “Sporting Heroes — Hall of Fame: Benedict Tan”. Singapore Sports Museum, 2007, (accessed 16 December 2010).

Tan Chin Tuan ( , Chen Zhenchuan, 1908–2005) Banker, political leader, philanthropist, Singapore

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man of many facets, Tan Chin Tuan was best remembered for his long-time chairmanship of the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC). He was also active in public affairs, being a member of the Straits Chinese British Association, the Straits Settlements (Singapore) Association, Municipal Commission, and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce. Tan Chin Tuan was born in Singapore on 21 November 1908 to Tan Cheng Siong and Lee Guay Eng. He was educated first at Methodist Girls’ School and then at Anglo-Chinese School where he completed

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his Junior Cambridge Certificate. Owing to the sudden death of his father, Tan left school after this to start work at the Chinese Commercial Bank on 1 March 1925, starting out as a clerk and then being promoted through the ranks. When the Chinese Commercial Bank merged with the Overseas Chinese Bank and Ho Hong Bank to form the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation in 1932, Tan was appointed manager of the bank’s property arm, Eastern Realty Company. In 1933, he became the company’s managing director. Like many ambitious and politically conscious Straits-born Chinese, Tan joined the Straits Chinese British Association (SCBA) as well as the Straits Settlements (Singapore) Association. In August 1939, he was invited to serve on the Municipal Commission. When Britain declared war against the Axis Powers in 1939, the colonial government in Singapore established a Passive Defence Council to oversee the island’s civil defence preparations. The Municipal Commission nominated Tan and Lazarus Rayman as their representatives on the council. Among other things, Tan helped Kenneth K. O’Connor draft the Passive Defence Regulations for the colony. He was also appointed Division Commander of the Passive Defence Force and tasked with recruiting local personnel for civil defence work, constructing air raid shelters, and supervising air raid drills. With war looming on the horizon, OCBC’s management decided to remit part of its funds, as well as a set of its records to the Bank of New South Wales in Australia (now Westpac Bank) for safekeeping. At the same time, Tan was appointed co-managing director of the bank with Tan Ean Kiam, and given the task of re-establishing and reregistering the bank in non-occupied British territory during the Japanese Occupation

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(1942–45). On 4 February 1942, Tan evacuated from Singapore and headed for Rangoon, but was eventually sent to Australia as the boat he was travelling in came under fire. He later registered OCBC’s headquarters temporarily in India. After the war, Tan returned to Singapore and relocated the OCBC’s headquarters there. He took over as the bank’s sole managing director as Tan Ean Kiam had died during the war. When civilian rule was re-established in 1946, he continued to play an active role in public affairs, being appointed to: the Governor’s Advisory Council, the Singapore Legislative Council Reconstitution Committee; the Municipal Constitution Committee; the Finance and Revenue Committee; the Legislative Council; the Executive Council; the Singapore-Malaya Joint Co-ordination Committee and the Rendel Constitutional Commission. In 1947, Tan also became a justice of the peace. In 1951, he was appointed deputy president of the Legislative Council in 1951, the highest post open to a local person in Singapore then. As deputy president, Tan ranked second in protocol to the governor who was the president. He withdrew from public office to concentrate on his commercial responsibilities in 1955. In recognition of his contributions to public service, Tan was made a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (1951) and presented with the Queen’s Coronation Medal (1953). He is credited with building OCBC into one of the world’s soundest banks. The bank which started in 1932 with an issued capital of $10 million, saw its shareholders’ funds soar from approximately $15 million in 1945, when Tan was sole managing director, to $70 million when he assumed chairmanship in 1966. By the time Tan retired in 1983, the funds had exceeded

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$1.1 billion, and the bank’s market capitalization stood at a then record $5.3 billion. Over the years the OCBC stable of companies included: Fraser and Neave, Malayan Breweries, Straits Trading Company, United Engineers Limited, and Wearnes Brothers Limited. For his contributions to banking and finance, Tan was made the first Asian fellow of the Australian Institute of Management, and of the Institute of Bankers in London. In 1975, the OCBC commemorated fifty years of its service by endowing the Tan Chin Tuan Visiting Professorship in Banking and Finance in the University of Singapore. In 1991, the National University of Singapore (NUS) honoured Tan with an honorary Doctor of Law degree. The following year, the Curtin University of Technology in Australia conferred on Tan the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters, in recognition of his distinguished leadership in international banking and business. In 2005, the Tan Foundation of which he was life chairman donated $29 million to the National University of Singapore to endow four Tan Chin Tuan Centennial professorships. The administrative wing of the new university hall was named in his honour. Tan died on 13 November 2005 after a brief illness. His wife, Helene Wee (the sixth daughter of banker Wee Theam Seng), whom he married on 18 September 1926, had predeceased him, as had his son, Keng Siong. He is survived by his two daughters, Kheng Lian and Kheng Choo, several grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Kevin Y.L.Tan R E F E R E N C E S Ang, Dennis et al. Hearts, Hopes and Aims: The Spirit of the Anglo-Chinese School. Singapore: Times Books International, 1986.

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Lee, Lynn. “Tan Chin Tuan Made OCBC a Household Name”. The Straits Times, 14 November 2005. Lee Su Yin. Rock Solid: The Corporate Career of Tan Chin Tuan. Singapore: Landmark Books, 2006. Macbeth, Mike. Quiet Achiever: The Life & Times of Tan Sri Dr Tan Chin Tuan. Singapore: Times Editions, 2003. Wilson, Dick. Solid as a Rock: The First Forty Years of the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation. Singapore: The Corporation, 1972. Yen Fen. “Bank Pioneer Tan Chin Tuan Dies”. The Straits Times, 14 November 2005.

Tan Chong Tin ( , Chen Zhongdeng, 1948– ) Neurologist, medical educationist, Malaysia

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an Chong Tin is a well known neurologist and dedicated medical educationist. He is also a clinical scientist who has made significant contributions in the research of Nipah virus encephalitis and other tropical neurological diseases and his research discoveries have been well received in Southeast Asia and the international arena. He holds several key positions in medical research such as professor of neurology at the University of Malaya, vice-president of the International League Against Epilepsy, and editor-in-chief of the Neurology Asia journal. He has also contributed to the Malaysian Chinese community at large and is is past president of the Centre for Malaysian Chinese Studies, and chairman of the Malaysia Bible Seminary. Tan was born in Penang, Malaysia, in 1948, the eighth child of his parents’ eleven children. His father, Tan Whye Choon, came from Fujian province in China and was a trader in hardware. The elder Tan passed away when Chong Tin was thirteen years old. Despite losing his father at an early age,Tan had already

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learnt the importance of discipline, integrity, and thrift from him. He attended Chung Ling High School in Penang before heading to Australia to read medicine, and graduating with a bachelor degree in medicine and surgery (MBBS) from the University of Melbourne in 1972. After graduation, Tan returned to Malaysia and worked as houseman in Johore Bahru. He later worked as a medical officer in Internal Medicine in Kluang, Johore. In 1976, he left for Glasgow in the United Kingdom to take part in the Membership of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP [UK]), a postgraduate medical diploma. After passing the examination, he remained in the United Kingdom and worked in Sheffield. Whilst there, he began his training in neurology. He returned to Malaysia in 1977 and joined the Department of Medicine at the University of Malaya as a lecturer. In 1982, he was a Commonwealth medical fellow in clinical neurophysiology and neurology at the Institute of Neurology, located in Queen Square in London which is one of the foremost neurological centres in the world. After much hard work, Tan obtained his doctorate of medicine from the University of Malaya. He was promoted to associate professor at the University of Malaya in 1984. By 1992, he had become a full professor. He has also been a senior professor at the University of Malaya since 2003. During the time when Tan was at the University of Malaya, he became head of neurology in the early nineties. In the thirty years he has been there, he has helped shape the University Malaya Medical Centre as the premier neurology centre in Malaysia for patient care, teaching, and research. Tan’s contribution also extends to the development of studies in neurology in the country. When he first joined the University of Malaya’s

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teaching hospital, there were only a handful of neurologists in the country. And at the time, all these neurologists were located in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. By 2008, the number of neurologists in Malaysia had slowly grown to more than sixty. However, the neurologist to population ratio in Malaysia is still very low according to standards of the developed world. Tan has shaped the field of neurology in Malaysia, and many neurologists in the country have had some training with him. His general contribution to the development of neurological science studies in the country is also reflected in his role as chairman of the Accreditation Committee for Neurology in the National Specialist Register. He has had that post from the committee’s formation to the present and is also one of the founders of the Malaysian Neuroscience Society as well as its former president. Tan is also one of the leading clinical scientists in Malaysia and his most celebrated work is on Nipah virus encephalitis.The Nipah virus caused an outbreak of fatal encephalitis among pig farm workers in Malaysia and Singapore in 1999, resulting in billiondollar losses in the pig farm related industry. The Faculty of Medicine at the University of Malaya received the Mahathir Science Award in 2006, Malaysia’s most prestigious science award, for its scientific work on Nipah encephalitis. The award honours contributions to the tropical sciences and is open to scientists and institutions worldwide. Tan is the leader of the Nipah Encephalitis investigation team that won the award in 2006. His other work is on multiple sclerosis, a disease common in the western world, but was at the time, believed not to exist in Malaysia. Tan meticulously studied some forty patients. and his study demonstrated that the manifestations of multiple sclerosis were different in Malaysians.

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He also studied cryptococcal meningitis, a fatal fungal infection of the brain, and was the first to hypothesize that high intracranial pressure (which caused blindness in meningitis) was treatable. As a result, he proposed aggressive measures to relieve the high pressure even though brain imaging appeared normal. Tan’s research interest has been on neurology in Asia. He proposed that neurology in Asia be a discipline of study in medicine and defined neurology in Asia as a field of medical sciences pertaining to the neurological diseases peculiar to Asia. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of Neurology Asia, a journal formerly known as the Neurological Journal of South East Asia, and the official journal of the ASEAN Neurology Association. Neurology in Asia is the chief focus of Neurology Asia. It was first published in 1996, and is now the foremost regional neurology journal. Tan has opined that state boundaries between countries are often arbitrary. According to him, it is good to have concerns transcending one’s own ethnic group, language, and religious beliefs. He also believes that it is important to have concerns transcending national boundaries. It is through this mode of progressive thinking that his research work has gained international recognition. Tan is currently the vice-president of the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE). He also chairs the Asian Epilepsy Academy, which promotes epilepsy education in the region through workshops and fellowship exchanges. He is chairman of the Pan-Asian Committee on Treatment, Research and Investigation of the Multiple Sclerosis (PACTRIMS) Inaugural Congress, and was the previous chairman of the Multiple Sclerosis Asia Pacific Study Group. He is also the founder and previous chairman of the ASEAN Neurological Association. His contributions to creating greater awareness of epilepsy internationally were acknowledged

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when the ILAE named him “Ambassador for Epilepsy” in 2004. Tan is also a Christian leader in Malaysia and has been chairman of the board for the Malaysia Bible Seminary for over twenty years. He is an elder of the Chinese Brethren Church in Petaling Jaya as well. As a Christian leader, he is a strong advocate for reaching out to society at large and integrating the Christian faith with the marketplace and has written four books in Chinese on these themes. Tan believes that professionals should also contribute to the community at large, as evinced by his long time involvement with the Centre for Malaysian Chinese Studies. In addition to promoting research on cultural and socio-political issues of the Malaysian Chinese community, he also advocates greater communication between the medical profession and the public. He was one of the first physicians to organize medical lectures for patients and the public in Malaysia. He has likewise travelled to many small towns, educating the public about health care. He has also written three books in Chinese explaining common neurological diseases in layman’s language. Tan has two sons with his wife,Yek Siew Hong, a biology graduate from Sarawak. Ho Khai Leong R E F E R E N C E S Heng, Thay Chong and Chong Tin Tan. “The Syndrome of Acute Encephalitis”. In International Neurology: A Clinical Approach, edited by Robert Lisak, Daniel Truong, William Carroll and Roongroj Bhidayasiri, pp. 314–30. Oxford, the United Kingdom, and New Jersey, the United States: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. “Professor Dr Tan Chong Tin, Curriculum Vitae”. No date. (accessed 15 July 2011). Voon, Phin Keong (ed.). Malaysian Chinese and Nationbuilding: Before Merdeka and Fifty Years After. Kuala Lumpur: Centre for Malaysian Chinese Studies, 2007.

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Tan Chye Cheng (C.C. Tan, , Chen Caiqing, 1911–91) Lawyer, Singapore

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an Chye Cheng (better known as C.C. Tan) was born in 1911, the only child of Tan Guan Chua. The Tans were a wellto-do Straits Chinese family. Tan’s grandfather, Tan Yong Thiam, was a well known trader, and his father, a prominent businessman who was active in the local football association and on the Chinese Advisory Board. He studied at his father’s old school, St Joseph’s Institution, in Bras Basah Road, completing his studies in 1928. The year he completed his studies, Tan won a scholarship to study at the St Joseph’s Academy in Blackheath, London, along with his classmates, Koh Cheng Yam and Vivian la Salle. While in London, he was honorary secretary and later president of the Alumni Association of Brothers’ Schools in Malaya, and the Malayan Students’ Union. One of his best friends in London was Ong Hock Thye, later to be chief justice of Malaya. He was the best man at Ong’s Ipoh wedding in 1935. Tan was admitted to read law at the Middle Temple in 1928. He passed his Bar final in July 1931, but being under the age of twenty-one, had to wait till 1932 to be called to the English Bar. He returned to Singapore and was called to the Bar on 13 January 1933. He first joined the firm of Aubrey Davies & Company with offices at 15 Bonham Building before moving to Rodyk & Davidson where he specialized in conveyancing, equity and company law. He practised at Rodyk & Davidson till the outbreak of the second world war. While in practice, Tan was actively involved in a number of civic organizations, especially the Christian Brothers Old Boys’

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Association, the Island Club, where he was a very keen and able golfer, and on the Bar Committee as well. In respect of the latter, he was elected to the Bar Committee in 1941, serving under H.D. Mundell as chairman. In 1939 Tan married Joyce Lim Chin Lien, the daughter of Lim Cheng Kung of Penang. Lim was the brother of lawyer Lim Cheng Ean and at one time served as secretary to the Chinese Legation in London. During the war, Tan and his family evacuated to India, returning only after the Japanese had surrendered. In 1946 he was nominated an unofficial member of the Singapore Advisory Council under Governor Sir Franklin Gimson. This was a singular honour as only the most trusted and respected locals were invited to be part of what was effectively, the governor’s cabinet. In 1947, together with A.P. Rajah and Cheah Heng Sin, Tan formed the law firm of Tan Rajah & Cheah. That same year, he founded the Progressive Party (PP) with John Laycock and Nazir A. Mallal, and was later joined by A.P. Rajah,Thio Chan Bee, and John Ede. Tan was elected president of the party and was Singapore’s first local-born election candidate. He was also active in the nine-man commission headed by Sir George Rendel to review the state’s Constitution in 1954. Most of Tan’s contemporaries viewed him with great respect even though they thought him a little austere. He was not a very communicative man, but was able to dominate most proceedings on account of his intellect and high social standing among the Englisheducated Chinese and establishment figures. He was not an effective public speaker and tended to be slow to develop his ideas while on his feet. But this did not deter him in the least. Men such as Tan had great integrity and, more importantly, were loyal to the British. They were not radicals seeking instant solutions, but

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were prepared to cooperate with the colonial masters to work towards self-government. Another contemporary felt that the British Establishment had the “highest respect” for him as he was very intelligent, well educated, and had a great sense of history. He was, however, “never a fire-brand” and was possibly “too much of an intellectual” such that he could not “win an election by speech-making and propaganda”. Notwithstanding these caveats, C.C. Tan was the dominant figure in Singapore politics from 1947 to 1955. In the election of 1948, the Progressive Party won three of the six elected seats, and in 1951, they won six of the nine elected seats. However, by the early 1950s, the climate was changing and the PP’s small electoral base and elitist profile alienated it from the public. The PP’s dominance ended with the automatic registration of voters in 1954. This immediately increased the number of voters from 76,000 to 300,299, the bulk of whom had never even been on the PP’s radar screen. This was the age of mass politics and the PP was totally unprepared for it. Its leaders did not expect to have to mobilize support from the masses to remain in power. C.C. Tan himself did not feel it necessary to go around electioneering; his reputation and standing should have been sufficient, he thought. Alas, it was not. In any case, Tan was “just not that type of person to go out shaking people’s hands and tapping people on their heads — doing the things that politicians have to do”. In the 1955 general election, not one of the PP candidates won a seat. C.C. Tan himself lost his seat and resigned as chairman of the party, which eventually joined forces with the Democratic Party to form the Liberal-Socialist Party (LSP), with Tan as its leader.The LSP did

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poorly in the 1959 general election and C.C. Tan retired from active politics thereafter. Although he was ultimately unsuccessful in politics,Tan served his profession well, both in the Bar Committee, the Advocates & Solicitors Society, and the Law Society, for many years. He also served on the Presidential Council for Minority Rights in the 1970s, was chairman of the Straits Times Press (1966–82); and president of the Singapore Olympics and Sports Council (1951–62). Tan also left a significant legacy in the form of the Central Provident Fund Act, which he sponsored during his service on the Legislative Council. In 1966 the Legal Profession Act was passed to create the first Bar Council of the Singapore Advocates and Solicitors Society (later Law Society). At the election in 1967, Tan was elected its first president. Previously he had been chairman of the old Bar Council for three terms. Later he became the first president of the Law Society, serving in 1963, 1964, and 1967. He was an avid sportsman and a keen golfer and served as president of the Singapore National Olympic Council and president of the Singapore Island Country Club (1964–67). When he retired from politics, Tan was made chairman of the Straits Times Press. He retired from his post in 1982 at the age of seventy, after sixteen years of service. He was also chairman of United Engineers and in 1988, retired from the board of directors of Robinsons department store. Tan continued going to his law office till the day he died on 6 March 1991. His daughter, Margaret LengTan, is a leading figure in the avant-garde classical music world, being an exponent of the prepared piano and toy piano. His son, Tan Chin Seng, followed in his footsteps and continues to practise at Tan Rajah & Cheah. Kevin Y.L.Tan

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R E F E R E N C E S Alec Crowther. Fergusson. Oral History Interview, Reel 8 (no transcript). Sim, Victor. Biographies of Prominent Chinese in Singapore. Singapore: Nan Kok Publication Company, 1950. The Straits Times. “Lawyer CC Tan dies of heart failure”. 7 March 1991. Yeo, Kim Wah. Political Development in Singapore: 1945–55. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1973, p. 103.

Tan, George G. (Tan Chong Gok, , Chen Zhang’e, 1899–1981) Sportsman, educator, Philippines

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n accomplished athlete, George G. Tan was a rare person who looked upon the development of sports as a reflection of a nation’s development and wealth. He exerted himself in cultivating an enthusiasm for sports in China despite the poverty and adverse conditions there. He made a similar effort when he moved to the Philippines pouring his energy into training athletes, writing about sports, and collecting a wealth of data about the Olympic Games. He was one of the athletes mentioned in 2008 (at the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games) for his contributions to the promotion and development of sports in China and the Philippines. For the Chinese in general, the 2008 Beijing Olympics was not just a matter of China hosting the event but also a matter of national pride. After all, the Chinese had been subjected to national humiliation and insult since the opium wars of 1840–42. They were insulted and dubbed “the sick men of East Asia” ) by the westerners and in particular ( by the Japanese at a time when China was a

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backward nation and the Chinese performed poorly in sports. But the 2008 Olympics put an end to all that and China has emerged as a power strong in sports. On 8 August 2008, the opening day of the Beijing Olympics, Xinhua.net posted an article paying tribute to the overseas Chinese who had contributed to Chinese sports and the 2008 Olympics. Two Chinese in the Philippines: George G. Tan ( Tan Chong Gok) and Peter M. Lim ( Lim Chu Kong) were given mention. Tan’s contributions, however, were not only to China’s sports but also to physical education in Southeast Asia particularly the Philippines. Born in Xiamen on 11 November 1899, Tan received his physical education from the American Tongwen Institute ( ) in Xiamen, China. In 1915 he made an impressive showing in the first inter-school sports competitions in Xiamen. In May, 1919, he was Captain of the China Team in the 4th Far Eastern Games held in Manila, Philippines. He was an active member of the basketball, football, volleyball, and track and field teams of the Tongwen Institute in 1914–1919. The sports competitions in which he had made his mark include: •

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All-round Track & Field Championships in South China Athletics Meets, 1915– 1919; First Honors in 100-yards, 880-yards Mile Run, and Decathlon in China National Tryouts for the 4th Far Eastern Games, Shanghai, April, 1919; Three first honors in Track & Field, American College of Physical Education, 1923–1924, Chicago, U.S.A.; High Jump honor and Decathlon Championship at George Williams

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College and Chicago Intercollegiate Athletic Meets, U.S.A., 1924–1927. It was Tan’s passionate wish to raise the standards of sports in China to be at par with the best in the world. He went to George Williams College (the former Young Men’s Christian Association College) and the American College of Physical Education, both in Chicago, Illinois, for further studies, and obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in physical education from both colleges in 1927. Immediately upon graduation, he returned to China to teach physical education at the Jinan University in Shanghai. In the 1930s, he went back to Xiamen and taught at Xiamen University. In 1934, he helped organize the Xiamen athletic club to develop sports activities in the city. He served as chief trainer and judge at the Xiamen City Athletic Association. He also held numerous positions in various capacities in a number of Chinese universities and sports organizations in China. In April 1938, Xiamen fell during the Japanese invasion. Tan left China for the Philippines where he became the one and only scholar in sports and physical education in the Chinese-Filipino community while serving Philippine mainstream society. He taught at the University of the Philippines while pursuing his further education and was awarded his Master’s degree in 1941 by the University of Manila. He was a candidate for a doctorate at the University of Santo Tomas in 1942 when Japan occupied the Philippines. Aside from teaching, Tan headed the Chinese Athletic Federation where he supervised the development of sports and athletics in the Chinese-Filipino community. He was the founder, publisher, and editorin-chief of the bilingual (English-Chinese) Physical Education Today Magazine (《 》, Taiwan-Manila, 1953).

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Even before World War II, PhilippineChinese players had excelled in basketball as exemplified in the national games held in Wuhan, Hubei, China in 1926 where the Philippine-Chinese team won all the matches. The team was started and supported by Tan’s contemporary, philanthropist and sports patron, Peter M. Lim Chu Kong. Lim was the team leader, as well as organizer and financier of the first ever basketball team to play in the United States representing China in 1929. This team was in fact made up mostly of PhilippineChinese players from the Chinese community in the Philippines. Tan continued to get help from Lim in his endeavors to promote sports competitions in various Chinese schools at the time. The wealth of Tan’s experience and expertise led to the publication of his book, A History of the Ancient Olympic Games in 1952. In his foreword, he said that at the time of his writing, no books on ancient Olympics had been written in Europe and America. He went on to publish 15 other books including A Study of Sports Stamps since 1896 (published in 1953), A Study of Marathons since 1896 and The World Champions of Decathlons, the last two in 1959. From 1963 to 1966, he had a stint with the Department of Physical Education at the National University of Singapore. Before he passed away on 19 November 1981, he was the owner of a 3,000-stamp collection with a focus on Olympic events, part of which was donated by him to China through the Chinese ambassador. Both George Tan’s father, General Tan Bu Chai, and grandfather, General Tan Kim Tong, served in the Chinese armed forces in the Qing dynasty. George Tan’s daughter, ), MD, a pediaDr Tan King-king ( trician, is outstanding in her field. She currently serves as Associate Medical Director at the

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ChineseGeneral Hospital and Executive Director at the College of Nursing, Chinese General Hospital Medical Center in the Philippines. She headed and taught the Department of Pediatrics of the Far Eastern University and the Nicanor Reyes Medical Foundation in the country. As an alumnus and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Philippine Cultural High School, Dr Tan King-king is engaged in raising the quality of education in Chinese schools in the Philippines. She has also given scholarships to students in physical education and medicine at the Xiamen University in China in memory of her late father. Ang Chak Chi R E F E R E N C E S “A complete curriculum vitae of George Tan” provided by Dr Tan King King. 〈 》，2008 8 17 ， 6。 《 ，1998， 93。

〉，《 

》。

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Interview with Dr Tan King King (George Tan’s daughter), 2011.

Tan Hong Boen (Ki Hadjar Sukowijono, , Chen Fengwen, pen names: Im Yang Tjoe; Im Jang Tju, 1905–83) Journalist, writer, Indonesia

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an Hong Boen was a versatile writer. He compiled an encyclopedia of prominent Chinese in Java and also wrote some interesting novels, some of which reflect their historical backgrounds. Less known is his successful pharmaceutical invention, Pil Kita, allegedly conceptualized while meditating on the slope of a mountain.

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Born in 1905, Tan came from an affluent family in Slawi; his father was the owner of a tea plantation. It is not known what school Tan Hong Boen attended, but he seemed to have been fluent in Chinese, Dutch, and English, and, after 1945, also Bahasa Indonesia. He was special in that he used different pen names for his writings and the only work that bears his real name is the encyclopedia of prominent Chinese in Java entitled, Orang Tionghoa jang terkemoeka di Java (Who’s Who?). This book contains the biodata, educational background, occupation, and achievements of the famous figures. It was published in 1935, but is today still considered an important publication on the Chinese of that period. For his historical novels, Tan used the pen name, Ki Hadjar Dharmopralojo; for a romantic story about a native Indonesian girl and a Chinese boy, he used the exotic name, Madame d’ Eden Lovely. Of all, his noms de plume, his favourite Im Yang Tjoe, which he used for most of his works written from 1925 to 1950. In 1950, he stopped writing novels and devoted himself to writing wayang (theatrical shows) stories for which he used the name, Kihadjar Sukowiyono. As a journalist, he used to travel in Java and Bali on a bicycle to find subjects to write about. His stories could be read in magazines such as Liberty and Penghidoepan and he won several prizes for his works. His first award was for a short story entitled, Boeroeng Pedasih di moesim dingin (The pedasih bird in the cold season), which was published in Sin Po Weekly. His second work, also a short story, was Boengah Trate di Rawa Peloeng (Lotus flower in Rawa Peloeng) and this was awarded a gold medal from Liberty weekly of Surabaya. The third work was a novel entitled Oh, Penghidoepan, (Oh, Life), which won first prize in a writing contest of the literary monthly, Penghidoepan,

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for the best story about the meaning of life. This last story is reminiscent of the Daoist stories, where a wanderer encounters people during his journey and each of them has a certain meaning for him. Besides working as journalist for the Soemanget daily in Bandoeng, he was president of the The Biographical Publishing Centre in Solo. He also published a literary monthly, which he called Boelan Poernama (Full Moon) in 1929. It came out on the fifteenth of each month of the lunar calendar, when the moon was full. In an introduction to this new monthly, he announced that he wanted to publish the best reading materials for society. Most of the publications were written by himself, and only a few were by others such as Nyoo Cheong Seng and Tan King Tjan. There were also some by a Japanese writer named Harakawa Mashida, and a Javanese writer, R.P Tjondrowinoejoeng. Inspite of its popularity, as reflected in the letters which came from readers from as far as Palembang and Irian to the editor, the monthly came to an abrupt end in 1932. The only plausible reason for this was his political imprisonment by the colonial government. Not only had he criticized the government in his capacity as a journalist, but also as novelist, for instance in his stories about life during the construction of the Grote Postweg (The Great Post Road). It was during his imprisonment in Sukamiskin, near Bandung, that he met Ir Soekarno, who was imprisoned for his antigovernment activities. He was able to interview Soekarno, and the result was a biography on Soekarno published in 1933. In 1935, we see the name, Tan Hong Boen, appearing for the first and last time in the pre-war period — on his three volumes of Orang-orang Tionghoa terkemoeka di Java (Who’s Who), published in Solo. After the war, he wrote a number of short stories and novels and

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a wayang story, which was discontinued after two episodes in the Pantjawarna monthly. His novels, written under the name, Im Yang Tjoe, were less critical of the government; he instead attacked immoral men and women. He also tried to introduce readers to the mystic world of the Javanese culture by writing about the different creatures that could influence lives. One such creature was the gandaruwo, which liked to disturb happy families; however, there were benevolent creatures such as the brahala, which was a protector of pretty, kind-hearted, and unselfish girls. His wayang stories were not conventional stories, but those he had gathered during performances in the villages. They were usually full of humour and criticisms of the government. While writing, he was also busy manufacturing a drug, which he called Pil Kita. He claimed to have obtained the formula for this herbal drug through meditation. The drug was especially popular among truck drivers, who claimed to have felt refreshed and energetic again after taking it. In the late 1970s, he founded a company, P.T. Marguna Tarulata APK Farma, to manage his newly established factory that manufactured his Pil Kita. His last years were spent in Slawi where he could be seen surrounded by people listening to his wayang stories — which he told like a dalang (storyteller) without the puppets and screen or, just walking alone in the tea plantation, or meditating. He died in 1983, leaving behind a will which stipulated that 40 per cent of the shares of his factory should go to a foundation that he had established. The foundation was tasked to identify intelligent but needy students eligible for scholarships. It was to pick forty-five elementary school pupils, seventeen secondary school students, and eight high school students for this scholarship. The numbers were taken

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off the date of Indonesia’s Independence Day — 17 August 1945. Myra Sidharta R E F E R E N C E S Nio, Joe Lan. Sastra Indonesia-Tionghoa. Djakarta: Gunung Agung, 1962. Salmon, Claudine. Literature in Malay by the Chinese of Indonesia. Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de I’homme, 1981. Two documents from the Yayasan Kihadjar Sukowijono Foundation. Slawi, Central Java, 1983.

Tan Howe Liang ( , Chen Haoliang, 1933– ) Sportsman, weightlifter, Singapore

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an Howe Liang has the distinguished honour to be the first ever Singaporean to win a medal at the Olympic Games. He is still remembered as one of Singapore’s foremost weightlifters in the lightweight category. Born on 5 May 1933 in Swatow (present day Shantou) in Guangzhou, China, Tan was the third of seven children. Although Tan Howe Liang was born in China, the stirring political turbulence in the country gave his family cause to seek greener pastures elsewhere. Indeed, Tan’s father had tried to make his fortune in Hong Kong and Vietnam before moving to Singapore. The Tan family relocated to Singapore in 1937, where they lived in Chinatown. However, tragedy soon struck, for Tan’s father died in a death-house at Sago Lane. Tan was only 14 years at the time. He attended Tuan Mong Secondary School for a year. During that year, Tan played any sport that he could. Owing to the fact that he had to help support the family,

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he did not focus on pursuing any one sport. The necessity of supporting his family also resulted in him leaving school after a year of secondary school education. It was only after the Second World War that Tan developed an interest in weightlifting. While walking past the former Gay World Amusement Park with his friends one day, Tan witnessed a weightlifting competition. It was then that his attention was drawn to the sport and he decided to try weightlifting ‘just for the fun of it’. Armed with only his interest and a single set of barbells, Tan trained in earnest with no formal coaching. He subsequently joined a weightlifting club in 1952. A year later, aged 20, Tan’s dedication to the sport paid off when he won both the National Junior and Senior Weightlifting Championship titles in the lightweight category. Owing to the lack of financial support, Tan had to pay for his own training needs and expenses. Despite working hard as a mechanic and a clerk at Cathay Organisation, he continued to pursue the sport. This is because he had promised his father in his early youth to be “the strongest man in the world.” Though these words may be attributed to a young boy wishing to prove himself useful to his family, Tan appeared to take this promise very seriously and continued to train himself in the sport. His hard work paid off when he participated in the 1954 Asian Games in Manila, Philippines, and distinguished himself by taking fourth place. Spurred on by his moderate success there, Tan tried for a medal in the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne. While that venture was unsuccessful, he had firmly established himself as one of the foremost weightlifters in Singapore. Despite blacking out after his first attempt, Tan still managed to place ninth out of 18 contenders. After that achievement, Tan grew from strength to strength and came to dominate the

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lightweight category of the sport. He went on to distinguish himself in the Commonwealth Games in Cardiff in 1958 by clinching both a gold medal as well as establishing a world record in the jerk with a lift of 347 lbs. Later that year, he lived up to expectations and won a gold medal at the third Asian Games in Tokyo. He also walked away with top honours at the first Southeast Asian Peninsular (SEAP) Games in Bangkok in 1959. Despite his successes in the sport, Tan still lacked sponsorship. He was forking out his own funds to pay for his training. As the 1960 Olympic games loomed closer,Tan realised the salary he drew as a store clerk could not cover his living expenses and the cost of weight training. Fortunately, Tan’s so-called godfather, the President of the Singapore Amateur Weightlifting Association, Chua Tian Teck, helped him out by paying for some of Tan’s expenses. These financial difficulties notwithstanding, Tan’s determination to improve his form shone through.As a result, he was fielded in two subsequent Olympics in 1960 in Rome and in 1964 in Tokyo. These forays into the Olympics and his achievement of the silver medal after lifting 380 kg in the underweight category in September 1960 made him Singapore’s sole Olympic medallist. As the Russian competitor, Viktor Busheuv, had already broken the world record and clinched the gold medal. It came down to a contest between Tan and Abdul Wahid Aziz from Iraq for the silver medal. Tan had one more clean and jerk lift left when he felt some pain in his legs. However, he disregarded the doctors’ advice to return to the Athlete’s Village for treatment. Due to his determination not to withdraw from the competition after coming so far, he beat thirtythree rivals for second place. For this feat, he was awarded with a meritorious service medal in 1962. Additionally, the leotard and belt he

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wore on the occasion are now on display in a glass case in the Singapore Sports Council Museum. The silver Olympics medal was only one of Tan’s numerous successes in weightlifting. He remains the only Singaporean to have walked away with medals in the major international games of the Olympics, Commonwealth Games, Southeast Asian Peninsular Games,and Asian Games.He was also the first weightlifter in the world to be awarded the International Weightlifting Federation Gold Award in 1984. To commemorate his Olympic silver medal in the 1960 Rome Olympics, he was inducted into the Singapore Sports Council Hall of Fame in 1983 and was awarded with a Silver Pin by the International Olympic Committee in 1988. Following his win at the Olympics, Tan returned to Singapore where he tried to run a restaurant business. This enterprise unfortunately failed and he later became a taxi driver. Despite his formal retirement from competitive weightlifting, Tan returned to the sport in 1974 as a weightlifting coach. In November 1982, he was hired by the Singapore Sports Council (SSC) as a gym supervisor at the Kallang Family ClubFitt. In his capacity as weightlifting coach, Tan trained young weightlifters such as Chua Koon Siong who won a gold medal at the first ASEAN Weightlifting Championship. Indeed, his coaching methodology is considered remarkable for his protégé, Chua Koon Siong broke the Commonwealth record with his performance. Another of his trainees, Tung Chye Hong, also clinched a silver medal at the same game. Under his tutelage, Teo Yong Joo won a SEA Games gold in 1983 and a Commonwealth Games bronze in 1986. To this day, his achievements in the sport are still remembered. The image of him lifting weights was cast on one side of

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a commemorative medallion produced by Singapore Mint on 26 June 1996 to mark the occasion of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. The gruelling feat he endured at the 1960 Olympics is still remembered internationally, for he was featured as one of Singapore’s sporting greats in Time magazine’s Millennium series.Tan was also nominated for “Spirit of the Century” in 1999 and “Singapore’s Greatest Athlete”. His modesty, however, meant that he graciously conceded the award to former badminton champion, Wong Peng Soon. He was also voted second greatest athlete of the twentieth century by the media in 1999.The President of the Singapore National Olympic Council, Teo Chee Hean, honoured Tan’s achievements as Singapore’s first Olympic medallist by awarding him with the “Sport: An Inspiration to Youth” trophy in 2010. As these awards demonstrate, Tan still remains a role model for aspiring weightlifters in Singapore today. Sharon Loo R E F E R E N C E S National Heritage Board. “Tan Howe Liang”. In Singapore: The Encyclopedia, Tommy T. B. Koh, et al., ed. Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2006, p. 540. Olympic.org. “Highlights of the Week”, official media news from the Olympic Movement, 23 July 2010. < h t t p : / / w w w. o l y m p i c . o r g / e n / c o n t e n t / M e d i a / ?articleNewsGroup=-1&articleId=94858> (accessed 16 December 2010). Sharon Teng. “Tan Howe Liang”. Singapore Infopedia, National Library Board, Singapore, 15 August 2002. (accessed 16 December 2010). Singapore National Olympic Council. “Tan Howe Liang”. Singapore: SNOC, 2010. (accessed 16 December 2010). Singapore Sports Council. “Sporting Heroes — Hall of Fame: Tan Howe Liang”. Singapore Sports Museum, 2007. (accessed 16 December 2010).

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“Tan Howe Liang”. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, c. 2010. (accessed 16 December 2010).

Tan Joe Hok (Hendra Kartanegara, , Chen Youfu, 1937– ) Leading badminton player, Indonesia

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an Joe Hok was the first Indonesian to win the All England Championship and he did so in 1959. During the 1958 Thomas Cup competition, he was the youngest member of the Indonesian team and was also a team member in 1961 and 1964. Indonesia then came to be known as the kingdom of badminton and went on to dominate the badminton world for one and a half decades. Tan was born on 11 August 1937 into a Chinese family in Bandung,West Java. He went ) in Bandung to Nanhua Xuexiao ( for his junior middle education and Huaqiao ), also in Bandung, for Zhongxue ( his senior middle school education. His father, Tan Tay Ping, was a petty textiles trader and travelled frequently in order to sell his textiles. Both his parents were badminton enthusiasts; his father even turned the front yard of his modest home into a badminton court. The young Tan began playing badminton when he was eleven or twelve, (depending on the sources). At the age of fifteen he was discovered by a badminton coach from the Blue White Club in Bandung, Lie Tjuk Kong, who invited him to join the club. Tan got up at 5 am every morning and started running for two hours. One day, while watching a boxing match, he was greatly impressed by the fast foot movement and excellent coordination of the hands and feet of the boxers. He was inspired by what he saw in the performance of the boxers and took

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up skipping as part of his regular training. He trained hard every day and, at the age of sixteen, won the local championship (Bandung). At the age of seventeen he defeated Njoo Kiem Bie, a more senior player known for his powerful smashes. Two years later, in 1956, he defeated Eddy Jusuf, another well known player, and won the Indonesian national title. Tan was known for the spartan training he went through and his powerful smashes which left a mark on the badminton scene in Indonesia. That same year he participated in both the Selangor (Malaya) and Singapore tournaments, and began to be exposed to the international scene. The following year (1957) he took part in the East Indian international competition and won the championship. In 1958 he joined the Indonesian Thomas Cup team as its youngest member.The team also included Olich Solihin, Lie Po Djian,Tan King Gwan, Tjan Kiem Bie, and Ferry Sonneville. It is worth noting that it was a multi-ethnic/ multiracial team, but the majority happened to be Chinese Indonesians. In the competition Tan played in the men’s singles and doubles and defeated two powerful players from Denmark, namely, Erland Kops and Finn Kobbero in singles matches. There was no doubt that his participation in the Indonesian Thomas Cup team contributed to the Indonesian victory. It was the first time in badminton history that Indonesia won the Thomas Cup. The Indonesian victory was cause for major celebrations in the country.The Thomas Cup players were welcomed as heroes when they arrived home in Jakarta, the capital, where both the Cup and the players were paraded; it became the Indonesian national event. Tan thought that it was the most memorable moment in his life. He felt that he was Indonesian and accepted by the population as their hero. For the next two Thomas Cup competitions: that is, in 1961 and 1964, he

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continued to play and help win the Cup for his country. In 1961, after Indonesia won the Thomas Cup for the second time, Tan was awarded the Satya Lencana Kebudayaan (Cultural Medal). He received the award from Soekarno who said to him: “I am so proud of you. We have so many doctors and engineers, but people who can represent and bring fame to the nation and country like you are very few.” As an individual player, Tan won the All England singles in 1959. This was the first Indonesian winner in the history of the All England championship. The same year, he also won both the Canadian Open and U.S. Open championships, and his victories were reported in the sports magazines of the two countries. Tan was dubbed a “Giant Killer” by one of the sport magazines. After the first Thomas Cup championship of 1958,Tan was awarded a scholarship to study at Baylor University in Texas at its pre-medical school, majoring in chemistry and biology. Hence after winning the All England singles, he went straight to Texas for this. Only when there was a need for him to join the Thomas Cup team and the Asian Games did he return to Indonesia for training.And after winning the competitions he would return to his university to study again. In 1963 (one source says it was 1967) he finished his Bachelor degree, but did not pursue a higher degree as he realized his interest was still in badminton. In 1965 Tan married Goei Kiok Nio, an ex-national badminton player. In 1969 and 1971, he went to Mexico and Hong Kong to work as a coach, returning to Indonesia in 1972 and starting the pest control business. However, he later returned to badminton and became a coach in a local badminton club. When the Indonesian Thomas Cup team was preparing for the 1984 Thomas Cup in 1983, Tan was involved in training

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the members. The team was able to win the Thomas Cup back from China and Tan was considered to have made a major contribution. He was awarded the title of “Best Coach of the Year” in 1984. In 1965 Soekarno was overthrown and General Soeharto came to power. At the end of 1966, the new authorities introduced the name changing regulation which was implemented in 1967. Tan, who was already well known by his Chinese name, was asked to use a new name. An army general suggested “Hendra” for his first name, and he himself created Kartanegara as a surname. He felt a bit unhappy about the name changing as Ferry Sonneville, another Thomas Cup player who was of Dutch Indonesian descent, did not have to change his Western name to an Indonesian sounding name. Apparently, only Chinese Indonesians were required to change their names. Tan felt that the rise of the Soeharto regime signified the rise of racial discrimination in Indonesia. During the Soekarno era, Chinese Indonesians were considered Indonesians,but in the Soeharto era, Chinese Indonesians were no longer seen as such; they had to be completely assimilated into the so-called indigenous population. The year 1998 was a “memorable year” for him. In February his wife died, and in May there were large-scale anti-Chinese riots in Jakarta and Surakarta. Concerned with the safety of his son and daughter, Tan frantically looked for flight tickets for them to leave Indonesia, thinking he would not be able to protect them. Unable to get the tickets, and faced with no alternative, the three family members gathered in the living room the whole night, expecting the worst. Fortunately, the situation came under control and the threat to their lives was lifted. After the fall of Soeharto,Tan was involved in the anti-discrimination movement.Together with many well known Chinese Indonesians, he

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appealed to the new Indonesian Government to abolish laws and regulations which were discriminatory in nature. Tan is now retired. Leo Suryadinata R E F E R E N C E S Apa dan Siapa: Sejumlah Orang Indonesia 1985–1986, pp. 388–90. Jakarta: Grafitipers, 1986. Sabaruddin, Sa. Apa dan Siapa Sejumlah Orang Bulutangkis Indonesia, pp. 323–25. Jakarta: Jurnalindo Aksara Grafika, 1994. Nurhayati, Nunuy. “Tan Joe Hok Perintis di Pentas Bulu Tangkis”. (accessed October 2011). Guoji Ribao (Jakarta), 24–25 May 2009.

Tan Kah Kee ( , Chen Jiageng, 1874–1961) Community leader, promoter of educator, entrepreneur, non-partisan political leader, philanthropist, Singapore and Malaysia

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outed as Malaya’s rubber king and the “Henry Ford of Malaya”, Tan Kah Kee (Chen Jiageng) is best known for investing all his personal fortune in education. He was a key founder of the Singapore Chinese High School (1919) and the sole founder of Amoy University (1921), both of which are still thriving today. Born on 21 August 1874 in Jimei (Chi Mei) village,Tong An district in Fujian province in China,Tan Kah Kee was the eldest son of Tan Kee Peck (1840–1909) who had emigrated to Singapore prior to 1874 with his two other brothers. The three of them became successful businessmen, specializing in the rice trade and pineapple canning. Tan Kah Kee received rudimentary Confucian classical education

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for nine years (1882–90) which put him in good stead as a literate migrant. In 1890, he joined his father in Singapore to begin his own business training, first as an apprentice, and then as manager to his father’s rice and pineapple canning firm, Soon Ann. The experience in business dealings and accounting practices he accumulated enabled him to branch out on his own in 1904 by establishing a rice firm called Khiam Aik, with a capital of $7,000 (Straits currency). In 1906, he ventured into the rubber plantation industry by planting some 180,000 rubber seeds in his pineapple estate in Singapore.This meagre and chance investment of a mere $1,800 laid the economic foundation of his vast business empire till 1934.The rise of the modern motor car industry in the United States saw a steep rise in rubber prices which turned Tan Kah Kee into a millionaire in 1911. He became a multimillionaire during the First World War (1914–18) by going into maritime shipping, which made him a net profit of $4.5 million. After the war, Tan having immense faith in rubber as a commodity, ventured into the complete line of the industry, from planting, milling,trading,rubber goods manufacturing,to retailing. At the pinnacle of his business career in 1925, he made a net profit of $7.8 million. It was during the 1920s that he was showered with such tags as Malaya’s “rubber king” and “Henry Ford of Malaya” by the public media. It was also during the 1920s that Tan & Co. became one of the largest employers in British Malaya, estimated to have employed between 10,000 and 30,000 people daily. Deeply imbued with Confucian values such as fulfilment of social responsibility to make a difference, Tan supported charitable works and funded numerous educational projects. In Singapore, he became a founder of a host of Chinese schools, including Tao Nan (1907), Nanyang Girls’ School (1918), the Singapore Chinese High School

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(1919), Nanyang Fishery and Marine School (1939), Nanyang Normal School (1941), and Nan Chiao Girls’ High School (1947). Furthermore, Tan also promoted English education in Singapore, donating $30,000 to Anglo-Chinese School (1919) and $10,000 to the Raffles College (1929). However, Tan Kah Kee devoted much of his own time and energy, not to mention much of his fortune, to educational development in his home district in Fujian province. His Fujian educational endeavours were largely driven by his passion and commitment to produce talents in all fields for the modernization of China after the fall of the Manchu regime in 1911. His Fujian educational blueprints were well thought out and were implemented step by step. Starting in 1913, Tan Kah Kee first founded Chi Mei Primary School and then followed by Chi Mei Normal School (1918), Chi Mei Kindergarten (1919), Chi Mei Marine School (1920), and Chi Mei Commercial School (1920), all catering to students from South China and Southeast Asia. More schools were established in the ensuing years. In 1927, Tan streamlined all his educational institutions in Jimei under ten schools, namely, a boys’ primary school, a girls’ primary school, a men’s normal school, a boys’ secondary school, a marine and navigation school, a commercial school, a girls’ secondary school, an agricultural school, a kindergarten teachers’ training school, and a specialized school for learning Chinese. The various Chi Mei schools have survived to this day, with the Chi Mei secondary schools producing 57,293 graduates between 1913 and 1983. While the founding and funding of these Chi Mei schools already enhanced Tan’s social status in South China and overseas, his establishing the Amoy University in 1921 single-handedly boosted his reputation as an educational promoter nationally and internationally. During his lifetime, Tan

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contributed a sum estimated to be over $10 million (Singapore currency) towards his educational ventures in Fujian province alone. Education aside, Tan also provided a sum of $500,000 to various charities before the Second World War (1939–45). More importantly, he personally led five major fund-raising campaigns for charity during the interwar years, including the 1917Tianjin Flood Relief Fund, the 1924 Fujian-Guangdong Flood Relief Fund, and the 1935 Bukit Ho Swee Fire Relief Fund, among others. Tan was a noted social reformer who attempted to strengthen community structure and provide leadership, and was capable of meeting needs in times of crises. In 1923, he became the president of the Ee Hoe Hean Club, a millionaires’ club, and quietly embarked on social reforms within the club and in the community at large.Within the club premises, he set up a library from scratch to cater to the needs of members. By improving the reading skills of its members and increasing their interest in current affairs, Tan hoped that members would be more responsive to the needs of the Chinese people in the colony and in China. Another of Tan’s important moves was to broaden its membership base by inviting non-Fujian community leaders to join it. By so doing, he believed that the Chinese community in Singapore would be more united and coherent because their leaders were better informed and more ready to provide leadership to effect change. In 1929, Tan took over the leadership of the Singapore Fujian Huiguan (Hokkien Huay Kuan), the top organization of the Fujian people in Singapore. Again, he restructured the organization by adopting a new and more democratic constitution for electing office bearers and installed in them a stronger sense of social obligation towards its members and the Fujian community in Singapore at large. The reorganized

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association had forty office bearers to man two committees (executive and supervisory) and five departments (general affairs, economics, education, construction, and welfare). The education department, for example, promoted efficiency in funding Chinese education by controlling three Chinese schools and subsidizing eight others in Singapore. The construction and general affairs departments jointly carried out extensive campaigns for modernizing old Chinese rites and customs. As president of both the Ee Hoe Hean Club and the Singapore Fujian Huiguan, Tan made two bold attempts, in 1929 and in 1939, to reform the Chinese community. He proposed that the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce be replaced by a more representative and democratic body, such as a Chinese Association, which would accept members from all walks of life and not just from the mercantile sector of the community. According to him, the new association would establish amenities such as a public library, a swimming pool, and a large public hall to cater to the needs of members on all occasions. However, his proposals were rejected by the colonial authorities which had endorsed the Chamber’s constitution in 1906 and had established sound relationships with the Chamber’s leadership. Being a Chinese-educated immigrant, Tan was naturally passionate about Chinese education, culture, race, and the national survival of China under duress. He seldom shied away from China politics and had never been far away from the spotlight of China politics. He resented the loss of Taiwan at the end of the first Sino-Japanese War (1894–95) and became an overtly ardent nationalist during the second Sino-Japanese War (1937–45). To protest against the tottering Manchu regime for all China’s woes, Tan clipped off his pigtail in 1910 and joined the Singapore branch of the Tongmenhui (T’ung Meng Hui) (the United

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League) which aimed at the overthrow of the Qing dynasty by force.After the fall of the Qing dynasty, he became deeply involved in China politics through raising funds for various relief campaigns for China of a charitable and political nature. These relief funds included the Fujian Protection Fund (1912), the Shandong Relief Fund (1928–29), the Singapore China Relief Fund (1937–46) and the South Seas China Relief Fund Union (1938–49). Each campaign involved the mobilization of manpower for the collection of funds. In order to raise more funds, fund collectors invariably resorted to propagating the ideals of Chinese nationalism. As a result, the Chinese in Southeast Asia in general, and Singapore and Malaya in particular, became more thoroughly politicized amid real foreign threats in China and British Malaya. As Tan was neither a member of the Malayan Guomindang (Kuomintang, KMT) nor the Malayan Communist Party, he regarded his own leadership in these campaigns to be non-partisan, and hence more acceptable to the colonial authorities and more capable of providing a united-front leadership to the Chinese community for achieving designated goals. Indeed, the British authorities often gave Tan’s non-partisan leadership official blessing mainly because both the Guomindang (KMT) and Malayan Communist leaderships would be more threatening and damaging to their colonial rule. Tan’s prolonged involvement in leading various fund-raising campaigns greatly helped enhance his reputation, power, and influence, as well as earn considerable British trust. A case in point was Sir Shenton Thomas’ (governor of the Straits Settlements) numerous pleas to Tan on the eve of Japanese invasion of Singapore to head the Singapore Mobilization Council to assist in the civil defence of the island. After the war, Sir Shenton charitably acknowledged

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that both Tan and the Singapore Mobilization Council had done much useful work in terms of watch and ward, and in providing needed labour for the civil defence of Singapore. During the Japanese Occupation of Singapore and Malaya, Tan escaped to East Java where he made a major contribution by writing and compiling a 300,000-word memoir, Nanqiao-huiyi-lu (Nan-ch’iao hui-ilu), which provides a body of primary sources for the study of Singapore and Malayan history of the colonial era. After the war, Tan returned to Singapore and became a rather controversial political figure because he jettisoned his nonpartisan political leadership of the pre-war years by siding with Mao Zedong in the Chinese Civil War (1946–49). This shift in political loyalty away from Chiang Kai-shek’s Guomindang regime had its roots in 1940 when Tan led a fifty-men China Comfort Mission to comfort the wounded and to assess wartime conditions in China. His nine-month political odyssey in China took him to both Chongqing and Yenan and allowed him ample opportunity to meet with the leaders of both the Guomindang and the Chinese Community Party. In Chongqing, Tan found Chiang Kai-shek to be more hostile towards the Chinese communists than the Japanese. In Yenan, he found the Communist leadership clean and efficient, and hell-bent to drive out the invading Japanese. Moreover, Tan appreciated Yenan’s spartan lifestyle and Yenan communism at work. Soon after he left Yenan, Tan was delighted to inform some members of the Comfort Mission that he had found in Mao Zedong the saviour of the Chinese people. Tan’s political leanings towards Yenan had untold personal and regional political repercussions. It split the immigrant Chinese community in Southeast Asia into pro-Chiang and pro-Mao forces in China politics. For Tan personally, his 1940

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Comfort Mission enlarged his political role in the post-war era. Together with the outbreak of the Cold War and the Malayan Emergency (1948–60), which created distrust on the part of colonial authorities towards a partisan Tan, the 1940 mission paved the way for his exit to China in 1950 to help reconstruct the country of his birth. After his return to China in 1950,Tan held various government positions, including being a member of the People’s Political Consultative Conference (1949–53) and its vice-chairman (1954–61), an executive member of the People’s National Congress (1954–61), and a member of the People’s Government and of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission (1956–61). He helped complete the repairing and rebuilding projects of the Amoy University and the Chi Mei Schools. When he died in Beijing in 1961, he was honoured by the Communist leadership with a state funeral. Tan left behind many enduring legacies in both China and Southeast Asia, the most important being the various educational institutions, his so-called “Tan Kah Kee Spirit” as a guide for human action, and a number of worthy successors to perpetuate the tradition of philanthropy for the good of mankind. Ching Fatt Yong R E F E R E N C E S Yong, C. F. (ed.). Tan Kah-kee: The Making of an Overseas Chinese Legend. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989, reprint. ， ，1986。 《

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，1947。

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Tan Keng Yam, Tony ( , Chen Qingyan, 1940– ) Politician, banker, Singapore’s 7th President

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r Tony Tan has straddled the fields of academia, politics, and banking. Abandoning an earlier career as a university don, Tan took up banking before turning his attention to politics where he rose to the position of deputy prime minister of Singapore. In 2011, he was elected Singapore’s 7th President. Tony Tan Keng Yam was born in Singapore on 7 February 1940 to Tan Seng Hwee and Jessie Lim Neo Swee. He was educated at St Patrick’s School (1947–56) and St Joseph’s Institution (1957–58) where he was a top student and won a state scholarship to study physics at the University of Singapore. There he graduated with a first class honours in physics in 1962 and then proceeded to do postgraduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under an Asia Foundation Scholarship, obtaining an MSc in operations research in 1964. He returned to Singapore and taught at the Physics Department of the University of Singapore for a year before being awarded a Research Scholarship by the University of Adelaide to study for a Ph.D. in applied mathematics. He obtained a Ph.D. in applied mathematics in 1967 and then returned home where he was appointed lecturer in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Singapore. In 1969 Tan resigned from his teaching post and took up the position of sub-Manager

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at the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) which was then headed by his uncle, Tan Sri Tan Chin Tuan. By 1978,Tony Tan was the bank’s general manager. In January 1979, a series of seven by-elections were held in Singapore. These by-elections were prompted by the People’s Action Party’s (PAP’s) renewal process as well as by the death of Anson constituency’s P. Govindaswamy. Nomination day was on 31 January 1979 and polling day on 10 February 1979. Tan was persuaded to stand as the PAP’s candidate for Sembawang constituency. The other constituencies being contested were Anson, Geylang West, Mountbatten, Nee Soon, Potong Pasir, and Telok Blangah. Tan had no problem overwhelming his opponent, the United People’s Front’s Harbans Singh, securing 78.4 per cent of the 16,714 votes. He was immediately appointed senior minister of state for education and thus had to resign his position at the OCBC. On 1 June 1980, Tan was promoted to minister for education and concurrently served as vice-chancellor of the newly created National University of Singapore (NUS), a post which he held for only a year. The NUS had been formed by a merger of the former University of Singapore and the former Nanyang University. In 1981, Tan was appointed minister for trade and industry and although he relinquished his vice-chancellorship and education portfolio, he continued to oversee the development of higher education in his capacity of ministerin-charge of the NUS and the new Nanyang Technological Institute. In October 1983, Tan became minister of finance in addition to his concurrent appointment as minister for trade and industry. In January 1985,Tan was again appointed minister for education, a post he retained till he stepped down from the cabinet in 1992 to return to banking. During his tenure as

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education minister, Tan introduced pastoral care and career guidance in Singapore schools and also established independent schools that were given much greater autonomy. As a former academic, he was also concerned with academic research and encouraged this through tax incentives and grants through the universities. Tan’s return to the private sector — as chief executive officer of the OCBC, his former bank — was regarded as a major loss to the government. Indeed, former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew considered Tan so capable that Tan was his first choice to succeed him as prime minister. Tan remained a member of parliament for the Sembawang Group Representation Constituency. In 1995, when both deputy prime ministers — Lee Hsien Loong and Ong Teng Cheong — were diagnosed with cancer, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong asked Tan to rejoin the cabinet as his deputy. Tan was minister for defence from 1995 to 2003 and deputy prime minister from 1995 to 2005. In 2003, Tan was appointed coordinating minister for security and defence till his retirement from politics in August 2005. Throughout his political career, Tan was known for his scholarly and measured speeches and gentlemanly demeanour. In December 2005, he succeeded Lim Chin Beng as nonexecutive chairman of the Singapore Press Holdings Group. In June 2011, Tan confirmed widespread rumours that he was re-entering politics by contesting the presidential elections scheduled to be held at the end of August that year. On 23 June 2011, he resigned from his posts at the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) and Singapore Press Holdings to offer himself as a candidate for the presidency. The ensuing elections were the hotly contested since the office was made competitive in 1991. Running against

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Tony Tan were his former PAP colleague, Dr Tan Cheng Bock, Tan Kin Lian and Tan Jee Say. Tony Tan, who described himself as ‘Tested, Trusted and True’, campaigned on the platform that his vast experience will enable him to help steer Singapore through the anticipated financial uncertainty ahead. His candidacy was supported by the 10,000strong Federation of Tan Clan Associations; leaders of 19 NTUC-affiliated unions; the leaders of the Singapore Federation of Chinese Clan Associations and the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce & Industry.When the votes were counted after the 27 August 2011 election, Tony Tan received 35 per cent of the 2.1 million votes cast, narrowly defeated Tan Cheng Bock (by just over 7,000 votes) and became Singapore’s 7th President. He was sworn in on 1 September 2011. Other non-government positions he has held include chairman of: NTUC Investment and Cooperatives Committee (1979); NTUC Income Board of Trustees (1980–91); EDB International Advisory Board; and the Singapore-U.S. Business Council. He was also patron of the Singapore Dance Theatre. In 1994, the Loughborough University in the United Kingdom conferred an honorary Doctor of Science degree on Tan. This was followed the next year by the award of an honorary Doctor of Laws degree by Murdoch University in Australia, and another honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Sheffield University in 1998. In 1997,Tan was also made honorary fellow of the Singapore Institute of Physics and in 2005, he was honoured with the inaugural Eminent Alumni Award by the NUS, as well as with the Centennial Torch as a symbol of his inspiring leadership in higher education and research in Singapore. The following year the Academy of Medicine inducted him into its portal with an honorary fellowship of the academy.

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Tan married Mary Chee Bee Kiang in 1964 and they have three sons and one daughter. Kevin Y.L.Tan R E F E R E N C E S Business Times. “Tony Tan to Join OCBC as Chairman and CEO”. 7–8 September 1991, p. 1. ———. “Tony Tan to Retire From Cabinet”. 30 December 1991, p. 24. Chua Mui Hoong. “Tony Tan to Rejoin Government”. The Straits Times, 29 Jan 1995, p. 1. ———. “Tony Tan: Why I Agreed to Return”. 30 January 1995, p. 1. Financial Times. “Tony Tan Elected Singapore President”. 28 August 2011. Low Kar Tiang. Who’s Who in Singapore, pp. 383–84. 2nd ed. Singapore: Whos’ Who Pub, 2003. Sreenivasan, Venerable “Tony Tan Returns as DPM, Defence Minister”. Business Times, 29 June 1995, p. 1. The Straits Times. “The Man Who Could have been PM”. 6 September 1991, p. 5. ———. “Man Who Tailored Education System to Singapore’s Need”. 3 January 1992, p. 125. ———. “Tony Tan to Rejoin Cabinet”. 18 December 1992.

Tan Koon Swan ( , Chen Qunchuan, 1940– ) Entrepreneur, politician, Malaysia

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colourful figure in his own right, Tan Koon Swan rose from humble beginnings to become general manager of Genting Highlands Bhd. and president of the Malaysian Chinese Association. Tan had a very acute sense of what the well-to-do and those in a position of power had the capability to do to improve the life of the less fortunate. This stemmed from his childhood. He was born on 24 September 1940 in Puchong New

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Village, Selangor to a poor family and had to help out at his parents’ hawker stall whilst still in school. Despite these hardships, he worked hard and on completing his secondary school education, joined Lembaga Lektrik Negara as a clerk.While thus employed, he also sought to study part-time for his High School Certificate. His big break came in 1970 when he became general manager of Genting Highlands Berhad. His entrepreneurial vision helped ensure that the resort was a success. Soon afterwards, he attended a senior management course at Harvard University in the United States. Later, he became a laboratory technician with LLN before moving on to be an investigator of the Inland Revenue Department and then a tax consultant with Esso. Tan’s involvement in politics began in 1977 when he accepted an invitation by the then MCA president, Tan Sri Lee San Choon, to head the Koperatif Sebaguna Malaysia (KSM). He was initially called in to spearhead Chinese participation in all spheres of economic development in Malaysia, and to this end, was appointed managing director of Multi-Purpose Holdings Bhd. (MPHB). Although this venture began as a purely economic and business-oriented one, it eventually led Tan to participate in politics. He must have felt that he would have been able to do more for the less fortunate and less well-to-do Malaysians if he had been able to change things at the state level. So it was that Tan formally entered politics on 8 July 1978 in the general elections in which he won the Raub parliamentary seat in Pahang. This in turn led to his officially joining the MCA Central Committee in 1979. Soon afterwards, his passion for liaising with the citizens resulted in his appointment as chairman of the MCA Wilayah Persekutuan State Liaison Committee. In the 1982 general elections, he again won a

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parliamentary seat in the Democratic Action Party (DAP) stronghold of Damansara. However, the MCA’s electoral successes did not foreshadow similar successes within its party for it was soon plunged into a leadership crisis in 1984 following the issue of phantom membership. The matter only came to be partially resolved when a group of Central Committee members held a seven-hour meeting on 17 March and demanded a task force to investigate the existence of phantom membership. When the demand was rejected, fifteen Central Committee members wanted an extraordinary meeting of the general assembly to be convened on 22 April so as to adopt a resolution to elect a committee to investigate the matter of phantom membership. The party’s inability to resolve the matter during the 17 March meeting led to the dismissal of Tan from the Wilayah Persekutuan Liaison Committee on 19 March. The troubles Tan faced and endured during this time did not dampen his spirit. He must have been well respected within the MCA for on 21 March 1984, a group of central delegates placed advertisements in the newspapers calling for all central delegates to demand a meeting to be held on 29 April to reinstate all who had been expelled, as well as to call for a special committee to probe into the phantom membership allegation. These advertisements also demanded the suspension of branch and divisional elections (which were to be held from March to May) to allow for the checking of the party’s register. The calls for tighter scrutiny and a thorough investigation met with overwhelming support. Within 48 hours, 1,499 signatures were collected, representing 59 per cent of the total 2,517 central delegates. Unfortunately, the proposed meeting was blocked. In order to settle matter, the case was brought before

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the Ipoh High Court where the MCA was exposed for having 21,693 fake members in ten “controlled” divisions.This discovery led to forty-five MCA Members of Parliament and state assembly persons, with the support of 80 per cent of divisions and branches, including those of Wanita MCA (the women’s wing of the MCA) and MCA Youth, to call for reforms within the party. The crisis finally came to an end after twenty months when Deputy Prime Minister Ghafar Baba proposed that the MCA hold a fair and clean election. Thus, on 24 November 1985, a party election was held and Tan became the new president. Keeping his pledge to transform the MCA into a more liberal and democratic party, Tan organized a special delegates conference on 2 March 1986 to amend the party constitution so as to limit the presidential power in expelling members. Despite his political acumen, Tan was unable to keep a firm grip on his private business dealings. When he was charged in Singapore over his private business dealings, Tan sought to resign from the MCA presidency.This could be because he felt that a political leader should be free from any kind of scandal. However, his attempts were repeatedly rejected by the Central Committee.When the Singapore High Court finally made its verdict against him, Tan tendered another resignation. Although an MCA Central Committee delegation was dispatched to Singapore to persuade him otherwise, he refused. Thus, On 27 August 1986, the Central Committee accepted Tan’s resignation with regret. On his resignation, Dr Ling Liong Sik, who was then the MCA’s deputy president, took over the leadership of the party in accordance with the new party constitution. Despite Tan’s resignation, his legacy in reshaping the structure of the MCA lives on as Ling

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continually pushed forward his predecessor’s plans for a more democratic and liberal MCA. Ho Khai Leong R E F E R E N C E MCA website. Entry on Tan Koon Swan. (accessed April 2011).

Tan Lark Sye ( , Chen Liushi, 1897–1972) Community leader, educational promoter, political rights campaigner, rubber magnate, Singapore and Malaysia

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an Lark Sye was a businessman who played many roles in modern Singapore and Malaysian society. However, he is best remembered as founder of the Nanyang University in Singapore in 1956, then the first and only Chinese-medium university outside China. Between 1959 and 1980, the year Nanyang University was amalgamated with the Singapore University into the National University of Singapore, it produced twentyone batches of graduates, numbering some 12,000 persons. Born on 7 June 1897 in Chi Mei, Tung An district, in Fukien province, China, into a farming family with seven sons, Tan Lark Sye was the second youngest. In 1902, both his parents passed away and so did his eldest brother a few years later, leaving the Tan household’s youngsters to fend for themselves. With the exception of him and his second eldest brother, they all migrated to Singapore for better economic conditions. At the age of nineteen in 1916, Tan arrived in Singapore to join his other brothers, after having received a few years of free education at Chi Mei Primary

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School, founded by his clansman and uncle, Tan Kah Kee (1874–1961). Tan Kah Kee had been a fellow emigrant himself, and since 1890 had built up an array of business enterprises involving pineapple canning, rubber planting, milling and trade. It was no surprise that four of the five brothers sought employment with him after their arrival. Tan Lark Sye first toiled at Tan Kah Kee’s rubber mills and was then promoted to a foreman. Before long, Tan Kah Kee showed his appreciation of Tan Lark Sye’s leadership qualities and work ethics by posting him back to the head office as a headquarters employee. Tan Lark Sye quickly learned the intricacies of the rubber trade, ranging from accounting, finance, and the import and export business. A few years of rigorous training sharpened his business acumen, broadened his own business networks, and hardened his determination to succeed in Singapore’s commercial world as a rubber trader. His association with Tan Kah Kee and other staff members obviously helped lay the foundation for his own emergence as a rubber magnate from the 1930s. In 1924, Tan Lark Sye and his brothers began to branch out on their own by forming a partnership in a rubber trading firm, Lien Ho Co. Under his brothers’ management, Lien Ho Co. did rather poorly until he lent a hand. In 1925, a fully fledged Tan Lark Sye officially parted with Tan Kah Kee to establish a second rubber firm, Aik Ho Co., in direct or indirect competition with all other rubber traders in Singapore. Under Tan Lark Sye’s management, Aik Ho Co. expanded from merely doing rubber trading to rubber milling and planting in a fiercely competitive but increasingly depressed commercial world. Partly because Aik Ho Co. was not overextended and thus did not become indebted to local banks, it survived the Great Depression (1929–34) which destroyed many

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rubber firms, including Tan Kah Kee’s business empire. By 1937, Aik Ho Co. had more than recovered from the slump and Tan Lark Sye was hosting a lavish banquet for visiting American rubber merchants, local business leaders, and friends.There were some 380 guests invited for the occasion, a memorable event well reported by the local public media. In 1938, Aik Ho Co. was transformed into Aik Ho Co. (Private) Ltd. with a capital of $1 million (Straits currency). In 1940, its capital was increased to $2 million, signalling ambitious business expansion. Indeed, from 1938 onward, Aik Ho Co. (Private) Ltd., had ventured into neighbouring countries by establishing branches in Malaya, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Tan Lark Sye’s firm rivalled Lee Kong Chian’s Lee Rubber Co. Ltd. as two of the largest Chinese rubber firms in British Malaya. After the Japanese Occupation of Malaya and Singapore (1942–45), Tan and his brothers rebuilt Aik Ho Co. (Private) Ltd. which peaked during the Korean War (1950–53) with rubber prices skyrocketing.Apart from rubber,Tan also had extensive interests in banking, insurance, and various manufacturing industries. He was a founder of Overseas Union Bank Ltd. in 1949, a board of directors member of the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Ltd., and chairman of board of directors of both the Asia Insurance Co. Ltd. and Asia Life Insurance Co. Ltd. During the 1960s, Tan invested heavily in Malaysian paper mills and cement manufacturing companies and had extensive interests in the hotel and building construction industries. Tan was a public man and community leader in his own right over a long period of time. He drew much of his support and influences from various business or community organizations, such as the Rubber Trade Association of Singapore, Singapore Rubber Manufacturers’ Association, the

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Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce, the Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan, the Ee Hoe Hean Club, and the Tanjong Rhu Club. Each of these organizations often served as his power base, pressure group or lobbying body to effect economic, educational, and political changes. As president of the Rubber Trade Association of Singapore in 1953, for example, Tan fought tooth and nail against government legislation to set up rubber export registration boards, allegedly to oversee the quality of rubber exported overseas. Tan and many Asian rubber traders firmly believed these quality control measures and procedures actually undermined the interests of Asian interests vis-a-vis those of European and American importers. A scrutiny of the minutes of Rubber Trade Association of Singapore between 1947 and 1956 will confirm that Asian rubber traders struggled against local European interests and rigid government control and restrictions on rubber trade. In a nutshell,Tan and fellow Asian traders championed free trade with less government control and interference in their business operations. In 1950, Tan became president of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce for a two-year term against the backdrop of a decolonization process and the rise of communist China. Tan was blessed in having a united group of leaders within the Chamber to help him map out new strategies for educational and political change.This group of leaders consisted of Lee Kong Chian, Lien Ying Chow, Tan Chin Tuan, Ng Yik Huan, Ko Teck Kin, Tan Siak Kew, and Yap Pheng Geok who saw the need for the Chamber to take a more active political role in late colonial Singapore. They cleverly picked citizenship, the Chinese language and education issues to campaign for the political rights for residents who had been disfranchised.

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In February 1951, the Chamber submitted a memorandum to the governor of Singapore, suggesting that citizenship conditions should be made easier for applicants. On 11 May 1951, Tan brought the citizenship and political rights issues to the open by urging overseas Chinese (hua-ch’iao) to demand for political rights, including the rights to elect members to the Legislative and Municipal Councils. He stressed that the Chamber would help residents apply for citizenship and become eligible voters. From 1952 to 1955, Tan repeatedly encouraged immigrant Chinese to become Singapore citizens or Singaporeans, loyal to the land of their adoption. After years of agitations and campaigns on the part of the Chamber, the number of registered voters increased sixfold from 48,155 in 1950 to 300,299 in 1955. However, the citizenship rights issue was not settled to the satisfaction of the Chamber until 1957, two years before Singapore achieved self-government. Tan Lark Sye was best known by far as an educational promoter by founding Nanyang University in Singapore in 1956. The idea of founding a Chinese-medium university had been mooted in 1946 by Tan, Lee Kong Chian, and Ng Yik Huan. The three of them had consulted Tan Kah Kee at the Ee Hoe Hean Club on the proposal, but was rejected by the latter. Tan Kah Kee argued that immediate post-war economic conditions were hardly ripe for launching such a large project. In any case, he urged Chinese secondary school graduates to further their tertiary education at his Amoy University.The concept of a Chinese university remained dormant until 9 September 1950 when Tan Lark Sye, then president of the Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan, revived the issue without providing concrete plans. His idea only received lukewarm response from the print media. On 16 January 1953, Tan made a formal proposal for the founding of a university,

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later known as Nanyang University, with a donation of $5 million from him personally. His 1953 proposal finally came to fruition in 1956 with a Jurong campus in Singapore. Initially, the Colonial Office and the Malayan Government were vehemently opposed to its establishment, but a set of historical circumstances and key personnel got the university over the hurdles: popular Chinese community support, the U.S. Government endorsement, the Singapore Government’s reluctance to reject it outright, and the laudable rationale by the commissioner general for Southeast Asia and chancellor of the University of Malaya, Malcolm MacDonald that the new university should be judged by its academic standard and not on political grounds. As the Nanyang University was born during the era of the Cold War, the Malaya Emergency, and decolonization, it was inevitable that the new university was subject to control and influence by contending political forces of its times. From 1956 to 1965, student radicals provided strong leadership and enjoyed the lion’s share of power and influence on campus, often to the chagrin of the colonial and Singapore Governments. Radical student activitism and its impact have yet to be properly assessed and documented. It is worth noting that Tan also endorsed English education in Singapore and Malaya. A case in point was his donation of $300,000 in March 1950 to the University of Malaya’s Foundation Fund. In 1953, the governor of Singapore, Sir John Nicoll, awarded him a Singapore Certificate of Merit for his education endeavours. On 22 September 1963, the People’s Action Party government rescinded Tan Lark Sye’s citizenship seemingly on the grounds that the latter had become involved in party politics by siding with the opposition in the 1963

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general elections. Tan had done so because quite a number of Barisan Sosialis candidates were graduates of the Nanyang University. On 11 September 1972, Tan Lark Sye passed away in Singapore, leaving behind nine sons, three daughters, and numerous grandchildren. Ching Fatt Yong R E F E R E N C E S Nanyang Siang Pau. 12 September 1972; 18 September 1972. Yeo Kim Wah. Political Development in Singapore 1945– 1955. Singapore: Singapore Univerisity Press, 1973. Yong, C.F. Tan Kah-kee: the Making of an Overseas Chinese Legend. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989, reissued. 《 ，1989。

》。

《 ，1997。 《 ，1955–2005》。 ，2005。

：

》。

：

： ：

Tan Lo Ping ( , Chen Luoping, 1920–2007) Chinese chess master, Philippines

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an Lo Ping was the co-founder of the Asian Chinese Chess Federation which he served as secretary general for twelve years. He later became vice-president and honorary president of the Asian Chinese Chess Federation. He was born on 6 December 1920 in Manila. At thirteen years of age, he was sent to Jimei in Xiamen, Fujian, to study. He stayed there for seven years. Chess was quite popular in Xiamen at the time and he used

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all his leisure time either to play chess or in the library reading the Chinese chess column edited by Zhou De Lu in the Hong Kong Daily. He studied the columns meticulously and read up on the classical references to chess. His real name was Tan Ing Lue, but in February 1940, at the age of twenty, he joined a national chess competition for the first time, unbeknown by his father, who disapproved of his joining chess competitions. As he did not let his father know about this, he entered the competition using a different name. He not only won spectacularly in that competition, but he also broke records. When the papers reported the news, his father did not know it was he who won. From then, he always used Tan Lo Ping as his name since playing chess stayed with him his whole life. In 1982 he was vice-chairman of the World Chinese Chess Federation where he served in the committee to standardize rules in international Chinese chess tournaments. Drawing from competition rules from different countries, the committee succeeded in working out standard rules — an invaluable contribution to the world of Chinese chess. Tan gained world renown and recognition when he was chosen as expert judge in world Chinese chess. He also spent time writing about chess for popular consumption, including editing a chess journal and chess bulletin from 1947 until his death. In his columns he gave examples of traps and tricks that could be adopted in the opening stage, moves to gain advantage during the middle stage, and more tricks and moves for the ending stage. His special skill is in the ending stage. He explained in his columns the advantages and disadvantage of moves made by players in a particular game. He persisted in churning out his weekly columns in a Chinese language daily continuously for sixty years without receiving

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any remuneration. His work was done in a spirit of volunteerism, sparked by his desire to share his expertise with a greater audience. In November 1997, at the age seventyeight, he won the championship for overseas participants in the Cheng Du world invitational chess tournament. He established the Fei Hua Xiangqi Hui (Philippine Chinese Chess Club, currently Philippine Federal Chess Enthusiasts Association, Inc.) in 1948 and he became its lifetime secretary general. In this role, he singlehandedly planned chess competitions many times. Later he also helped spread interest in chess outside Manila and was co-founder or initiator of the xiangqi hui (chess club) in Cebu City (1951), Davao City (1953), and Cagayan de Oro City (1957). In 1960 he began to organize the first tournaments outside the country — in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Other countries such as Singapore and Malaysia soon followed. In 1976 a tournament in Beijing, China, was held, followed by tournaments in western United States in 1980 and 1989. A year later, the Philippine Federal Chess was the first country that invited China’s chess players to the Philippines. Tan’s biggest contribution to world chess was the founding in 1978 of the Asian Chinese Chess Federation in Kuching, East Malaysia, which he served as secretary general for twelve years and later became its lifetime honorary president.The present name of the organization is Asian Xiangqi Federation. After the Asian Federation was organized, member countries held a tournament every year and a conference every two years. These activities served to promote friendship and deeper relationships among the chess players, their countries, and the association. Tan saw to it that he attended all the activities of the federation.

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In 2001, Tan co-edited Shijie Xiangqi ) published Paiju Daquan ( in March 2001. His by (Liaoning, China), co-editors were (Hubei, China), and (the United States). This book is a collection of writings from famous creators of Chinese chess puzzles ) all over the world so chess players ( around the world can sharpen their skills in solving puzzles. A memorable event in his life as Chinese chess master occurred from 25 September 1991 to 2 November 1991 when the Philippines hosted the Women’s World Chess Championship Match where Xie Jun (of China) was pitted against the thirteen-year reigning champion, Maya Chiburdanidze (of USSR). Tan took extra care of young Xie Jun and looked out carefully for her health, especially in the hot Philippine climate. Xie Jun won the match and wrested the queen title on 29 October 1991. Tan was ecstatic and organized a surprise party for Xie Jun at the Emerald Garden Restaurant near Rizal Park the next day which happened to be her twenty-first birthday. Tan’s last column appeared on 3 June 2007, two days before he passed away. In his last column, he told his readers that for the last sixty years since 1947, he had continuously produced his columns, with the support of chess lovers. “But then due to unavoidable circumstances, I have to say goodbye and to thank all my supporters.” He appeared to have a premonition of his demise. His contribution to Chinese chess is something we bow our heads to. His whole life was that of a chess master, ans for his last ten years, he had chess as his companion, as his organization, his family, his great passion, and honour. Tan was revered not just for his skills and expertise that surpassed others, but

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also — perhaps more — for his significant contributions to the development of chess. Not only was he renowned as a chess master in the Philippines, but his unstinted contributions and sacrifices for the promotion of Chinese chess worldwide remain unparalleled. Siu Su Co R E F E R E N C E S 〈 News《

〉，World 》，2009 6 5 ， 25。

Personal interview with Ganny Tan Chungan, son of Tan Lo Ping. 30 May 2009, 1 June 2009, and 5 Feburary 2010.

Tan Lok Han ( , Chen Luohan, 1911–96) Musician, Malaysia

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an Lok Han, real name Chen Chengxin ), was born in 1911 in Fujian ( Province, China and came to Malaya with his relatives when he was nine years old. During the Second World War, he changed ) and his name to Chen Liangmin ( ) to disguise his later Tan Lok Han ( identity from the Japanese army as he had taken part in the campaign to propagate songs of anti-Japanese war. He was a self-taught musician, violinist, cellist, clarinettist, pianist, and composer, and had devoted his life to promoting music education and composition. His works were included in the albums Dai Ni Zou Jin Yi Pian Ge Sheng ( ) (Leading You Into the Realm of Songs), ) Shi Jie Ming Ge Gai Bian ( (Rearrangement of Famous Songs Around ) the World), Han Li Bao Ge Ju ( (Hang Li Poh The Opera), etc. However, many of his compositions have not been compiled into collections yet.

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Tan Lok Han’s exposure to music started in 1920 when he was in primary school. He was allocated a piccolo when he joined the school band and brought it home and explored the wonderful and beautiful world of music all by himself. He was then irrevocably committed to music since. Tan was considered to be a music genius of his time, learning brass music, Chinese orchestra, symphony, bamboo flute, Chinese vertical flute, violin, cello, and piano all by himself. Not only that, but he also discovered the distinct characteristics of each instrument and blended them together in his musical compositions of light musicals, choruses, suites, accompaniment music, even school songs, and official songs for associations. ) (Hang Li Poh) Han Li Bao ( and Zhong Guo Gua Fu Shan ( ) (China’s Widow Mountain) were two musical extragavanzas composed by Tan. The former was indeed his blood, sweat, and tears, and also his greatest consolation, and it took him four years (1966–70) to complete and was over a hundred pages thick. In 1971, when Han Li Bao was performed for the public at the Kuala Lumpur City Hall, the auditorium was packed to the brim without an empty seat for nine consecutive evenings. It earned rave reviews from all circles. On 17 November 1979, a special concert featuring Tan Lok Han’s works held at the auditorium of the Institute of Language and Literature was yet another recognition of this musician’s contributions. In 1981, he led the Ren Jing Theatrical and Choir Troupe ( ) to perform in Hong Kong and Taiwan, creating history as the first ever Malaysian choir to perform overseas and to showcase local compositions on the international stage. In 1993, during the Asian Music Festival in Singapore, Han Li Bao was performed for the second time and again it won a unanimous accolade from the audience.

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Tan Lok Han’s compositions have been performed in many countries such as Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, America, Italy, etc. They were never meant to make money. In all these decades when his works were selected to be featured in any concert or singing competition, he never rejected the request or intervened in their rendition. Tan had continuously written over forty school songs or official songs for associations all over the world. Other than composing songs, he had also rearranged countless famous songs from around the world, folk songs, and Malay rhymes for choirs. The characteristics of his composition are their natural and smooth flowing melody with strong contrast and clearly defined levels. Tan Lok Han’s contribution to promoting music education and popularizing music has been recognized in many ways, including being awarded the honorary title of “PJK” by the Sultan of Selangor in 1974. He was also one of the recipients of the 1st Chinese Cultural and Art Award from the Malaysian Chinese Cultural Society in 1992. In 1995, his biography was included under the Local Studies subject of the Chinese Primary School Year 5 syllabus and the Teacher’s Guide by the Malaysian Ministry of Education, and both books started to be used in 1997. In 1995, he also received the Highest Honorary Award in the category of Local Compositions in the 1st Malaysian Performing Arts Xin Chuan Award. Tan Lok Han had many students and disciples, such as famed baritone Xu Qingqiang ) (Richard Hooi) who resided in ( Canada; famed local sopranos Lee Shuilian ) (Lillian Lee Chooi Lean) and Zhuo ( ) (Angela Chock); tenor Chen Ruyan ( ) (Armando Chin Yong), pianist Rong ( ) (Chen’s nephew) Chen Zhangyao ( etc. On 9 July 1996, Chen succumbed to a

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heart complication and his eighty-five years of life in music came to an end. Chong Siou Wei R E F E R E N C E 《

15》。

：

，1996 。

Tan, Lucio ( , Chen Yongzai, 1934– ) Business leader, community leader, philanthropist, Philippines

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ucio Tan is known today as one of the wealthiest and most influential men in the Philippines, and even in Asia. He is among the first successful Chinese-Filipino businessmen to control a true conglomerate that includes companies in the most diverse fields of endeavour, including food and beverages, chemical products, tobacco, airlines and aviation-related businesses, hotel and tourism related businesses, real estate and property development, banking and finance, agri-business, hospital, publishing, and education. His business, wealth, and influence span continents. He is also renowned for his community leadership and his philanthropy in support of indigents in general, and education in particular. Tan and his family came from humble beginnings and it took him a lifetime of struggles, hard work, courage, and risk taking to reach his present stature. Born on 17 July 1934, he is the eldest son of Tan Yan Kee and Chua King Ha. As with many families of southern China at the time, life was difficult and resources were scarce. Tan was just four years old when he travelled with his parents

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from their hometown in Qingyang in Jinjiang, Fujian Province, to the Philippines. They escaped the ravages wrought by the invading Japanese Imperial Army. War caught up with the family when Japan invaded the Philippines in 1942. Tan’s philosophy and attitude in life were forged by the hardships and challenges that the war brought to them. They had to compete for scarce resources, find ways to stay together, and survive the persecution and hardships of the Japanese Occupation. After the war, the young Tan first lived with his uncle in Naga City in Bicol, in southern Philippines, then finished secondary school in 1955 at Chiang Kai Shek High School. His father worked as an employee of Cheng Ban Yak Company’s tobacco factory. Being the eldest in the family, Tan had to work while studying to help support his family. He worked with Bataan Cigar and Cigarette Company to save up for his university degree. His job entailed buying tobacco leaves from farmers in Ilocos, in northern Philippines. Not only was he exposed to the dealings between the company and the farmers-suppliers, but he also learned the many aspects of the daily operations of the tobacco company. He took up chemical engineering at the Far Eastern University and later became the chemist of the cigarette company. In the late 1950s, he started two small companies, an electronic shop and a cornstarch factory. Both businesses failed, but Tan was determined to learn from these experiences. When the cornstarch company closed, he tried his luck with chemicals, starting with the production of glycerine. Tan realized that glycerine, a main ingredient in cigarette manufacturing that was then imported, is made up of coconut oil and caustic soda, which were readily and cheaply available in the Philippines. Tan’s enterprise, Himmel Industries, succeeded

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beyond expectations and became the leading supplier of glycerine. It expanded into manufacturing and trading other chemicals and food and beverage additives. Tan expanded his enterprise with the knowledge and experience he gained as a very young employee of the Bataan Cigar and Cigarette Company. In 1965, he set up his own cigarette company, Fortune Tobacco. His success in this endeavour led him to many other fields and businesses, but not without first suffering a huge setback. A super typhoon destroyed most of Fortune’s facilities in 1968. With the help of his workers, they salvaged what they could and Tan used this chance to modernize the equipment and facilities that finally made the company on a par with the world’s top cigarette makers. In 1970, Tan ventured into the agriculture business and acquired a state-of-the-art hograising facility in Taiwan which he placed on his property in Tanay, Rizal. This became Foremost Farms, one of the largest hog farms in the country and in Southeast Asia. In 1977, Tan bought the ailing General Bank and Trust Company, and infused it with new resources and better management to make it into what is now Allied Bank. The bank currently has a network of more than 250 branches, including some in London, Xiamen, Singapore, Guam, and Bahrain. It also expanded into loans insurance, leasing, and finance. A year later, Tan acquired Riverside Steel, Inc., the Philippine subsidiary of Kawasaki Steel, one of the biggest steel companies in Japan. It was renamed “Grandspan Development Corporation” and went into large-scale building and construction projects. The quality of its steel fabrication attracted partners from Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan, which enabled it to go into large-scale steel production that fabricated the steel rails of the

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Metro Rail Transit, the longest highway in Metro Manila, running the whole stretch of Epifanio de los Santos Acenue (EDSA). One of Tan’s boldest business ventures was to challenge the monopoly of San Miguel Beer Corporation, the biggest beer producer in the country, with the establishment of Asia Brewery in 1982. Using advanced technology and facilities, he introduced new products and brands of beverages and beers (Beer Hausen, Carlsberg, Budweiser, Colt 45, among them) to end San Miguel’s long-standing monopoly of the Philippine beer market. In 1988, Asia Brewery was complemented with the acquisition of Tanduay Distillery, one of the oldest and biggest manufacturers of rum in the world, established in 1854. With greater zeal, Tan expanded Tanduay’s business through a modernization of its machinery. Tan also acquired the 500-room, five-star Century Park Hotel in 1985, which is now a favourite of visiting dignitaries, including top ), China leaders such as Zhu Rongji ( ), and Jia Qinglin ( Jiang Zemin ( ). Complementing the hotel and tourism venture was the establishment of Macro Asia in 1995, which provides catering, ground handling, and engineering and maintenance services to over twenty international airlines landing in the Philippines. Two rather controversial business ventures which Tan went into against the advice of his family and business advisers were the rescue of the country’s flag carrier, Philippine Airlines (PAL), in 1995, and the Philippine National Bank in 2000. Both were on the verge of collapse, beset as they were with labour problems and huge debts. Tan’s quixotic decision to rescue PAL arose from the fact that he could not stand by and see the pride and symbol of the Philippines, Asia’s first airline, being swallowed up by

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foreign owners. He infused US$400 million to purchase forty new planes and rehabilitate the company. His relentless efforts paid off. In 2000, for the first time in a decade, the airline registered a profit. His success in PAL led to his boldness in acquiring the debt-laden Philippine National Bank, again due to his quixotic desire to protect a national interest. Tan’s affinity to his origins in China did not preclude him from his loyalty to and fierce love for the Philippines, the country of his hopes and fulfilment of his dreams. Today, the Lucio Tan Group of companies, made up of more than a hundred companies, has diversified into at least forty sectors, giving employment to 50,000 workers and a million farmers. Tan himself is a workaholic who puts in sixteen to eighteen hours a day. From 1999 to 2000, Tan was elected 23rd president of the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce. His twenty years at the federation was marked with his efforts at promoting better Philippine-China relations. He led the federation in its first official visit to China in 1994, and again in 1997. He also donated hundreds of schoolhouses, under the Operation Barrio School Building Programme of the Federation, through the Tan Yan Kee Foundation, set up in 1986 in honour of his father. The foundation is also involved in building hospitals in sustained programmes aimed at strengthening health and social welfare needs, livelihood, sports, and in anti-crime and anti-drug campaigns. And as a community leader, on 12 June 2000, Tan spearheaded the Chinese-Filipino community’s first grand celebration of Philippine Independence Day, a practice continued to this day. Tan’s commitment to education includes the establishment of the Foundation

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for Upgrading the Standard of Education (FUSE). It has programmes to raise the teaching skills of educators, in the specific subjects of English, science, and mathematics. To date, FUSE has trained more than 15,000 teachers in sixteen regions of the country. Tan also sends physicians abroad for further studies and specialization through the Asia Brewery Medical Scholarship Program. His only condition is that the scholars return to the Philippines to serve their less fortunate countrymen. To implement his vision of education at the university level, Tan, in 1990, acquired the University of the East and the U.E.-Ramon Magsaysay Medical Center, both in Manila. Investing heavily in this education institution, he was able to improve the quality of education through better facilities, training, and management. From 2001 to the present, he supports Tsinoy students on a five-week intensive Chineselanguage learning course. In 2002, the Tan Yan Kee Library was built and now boasts of a collection of 50,000 volumes. Tan’s life has indeed touched many people — scholars, the homeless, aged, abandoned and sick; and his success has also inspired and encouraged many other budding entrepreneurs. Carmelea Ang See and Anna Katarina Rodriguez R E F E R E N C E S Entrepreneur Philippines. Success Secrets of the Country’s Top 50 Entrepreneurs (collector’s edition). Quezon City: Summit Books, 2006. Esplanada, Jerry E. “Kapitan’ Steers a Fortune toward Education”. In Philippine Daily Inquirer, 8 July 2008. Lee Flores, Wilson. Business for all series: Lucio C. Tan. Manila: De La Salle University Press, 1997. 》 《 ，2001 11 。

《

》。

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Tan, Mary Christine RGS (1930–2003) Religious leader, human rights advocate, Philippines

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ister Christine Tan ( ), a sister of the Religious of the Good Shepherd, was many things to many people in the Philippines. She was a human rights advocate, a nationalist activist, a religious leader. But most of all, she was a true friend of the poor. She broke through class boundaries and, like the model of the Good Shepherd, strode into untested waters to reach out to the last, the least, and the lost. The outpouring of affection and appreciation after she died from those who had experienced her goodness was proof of her zeal and the breadth of her embrace. “I have no regrets,” Sr Mary Christine Tan said shortly before she died in 2003. “I have given my all.” In prayer and in the bosom of the poor, she said, she had found the “pearl of great price”. In many ways, Sr Christine was controversial, unconventional and unorthodox. Though she was always in the thick of things, she remained deeply spiritual and would often withdraw to connect through prayer with her personal god, the god “with a thousand names”. She loved silence and was known to be a woman of few words. Together with several Good Shepherd Sisters, she lived and worked among the poor for almost twenty-five years starting in 1979. They gave up the material comforts most religious enjoyed and journeyed with the dispossessed, fighting alongside them, praying with them.

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With her fellow nuns, Sr Christine founded the Alay Kapwa Christian Community and set up cooperatives and livelihood projects for the poor in Manila, Cavite, Quezon, and Cebu. She encouraged the poor to come close to God through prayer, by living the gospel, and reaching out to their fellow poor. She wanted them to discover their dignity as Filipino citizens and children of God. Sr Christine came from a family of comfortable means. Born on 30 November 1930 in Manila, she was christened Amanda Justina and nicknamed Mengie. She was the fifth of seven children of Judge Bienvenido Tan Sr and Salome Limgenco. Her father, though part Chinese, was raised in the traditional Filipino way. Her mother was pure Chinese. Sr Christine’s paternal grandfather, Tan Ut Ko, was born in Yu Hue in Zhangzhou, China on 12 January 1852. His real family name was Go, but he took on the Tan name after the Tan family in China adopted him.The Tans maltreated him so he stowed away on a boat to the Philippines. There he married a Filipino woman who bore him two sons. After his first wife died he married his sister-in-law, Clemencia. He was baptized a Catholic and took on the name Gonzalo Arceo Tan. Clemencia and Gonzalo had three daughters and two sons. One of their sons, Bienvenido Sr, was Sr Christine’s father. Sr Chrstine’s grandfather on her mother’s side was Lim Uy Geng, born 14 November 1871 in Quanzhou in Xiamen, China. He came to the Philippines when he was in his early teens and worked as a coolie. His name was changed to Antonio Heras Limgenco when he was baptized a Catholic. (His godfather’s name was Antonio Heras.) Antonio Limgenco’s wife was Tomasa Victorino Dee whom he met in a cigar factory.

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The union produced ten children. One of them, Salome, was Sr Christine’s mother. Sr Christine’s parents did not have an easy courtship. Salome came from a wealthy Chinese family while Bienvenido Sr was a lawyer whose father, though wealthy at one time, had lost his fortune during the SpanishAmerican War. Beinvenido Sr and Salome had one son — Bienvenido Jr, who became an outstanding public servant and headed the Bureau of Internal Revenue during the presidency of Corazon Cojuangco Aquino from 1986–92, and six daughters — Consuelo, Caridad, Teresita, Amanda (Sr Christine), Leticia, and Angeles. The young Amanda attended St Scholastica’s College in Manila where she graduated with a liberal arts degree, with a major in mathematics. In 1954, one year after she graduated, she joined the Religious of the Good Shepherd. She spent her novitiate in Los Angeles, the United States, and was given the religious name, Sr Mary Christine. She returned to the Philippines in the late 1950s. In 1970, she was elected the first Filipino provincial superior of the Religious of the Good Shepherd of the Philippine Province (which included Korea, Hong Kong, and Guam at the time). Invoking the statement of the First Asian Bishops Conference on making an “option for the poor”, Sr Christine pushed open many doors and urged more sisters to go out to the materially poor and live among them. She was ever thankful that “a man named John”, had come along (referring to Pope John XXIII who made possible radical changes in the Church through the Second Vatican Council). When President Ferdinand Marcos imposed Martial Law in 1972, Sr Christine, who was at the time chair of the Association of Major Religious Superiors of Women in the Philippines, and other leaders in the religious

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sector, organized themselves to fight military abuses and prevent arbitrary detention, torture, and involuntary disappearances. They set up task forces to address the crying need for justice work, communication, and organizing in rural and urban areas. Those were dark and dreadful years that required strong and daring leadership. When her term as provincial superior was over in 1976, Sr Christine continued to serve various sectors through non-profit organizations and human rights movements. But it was for the materially poor that her heart bled most. When she and a handful of nuns moved to the slums in Leveriza Street in Manila’s Malate district in 1979, there was only stark poverty. Many things have changed since then — not just in the physical landscape but, more importantly, in the hearts of many. Her good friend, former President Corazon C. Aquino, said of her: “She possessed the qualities I was looking for — integrity, patriotism, selflessness and dedication. I think Sr Christine was a great woman. She had clearly shown by example how we should love God and our neighbor.” In 1986, after the Marcos dictatorship ended through People Power, President Corazon C. Aquino appointed Sr Christine to the commission that drafted the 1987 Constitution. Later, under the Estrada administration, she served on the board of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, where she stirred a hornet’s nest when she exposed irregular fund disbursements that involved members of the Estrada family. Her fellow Good Shepherd nuns paid her tribute for breaking ground during “the angry 70s” and for “bringing new wineskins for new wine”. She not only sent poor kids to school on scholarships, but she also personally tutored them in the afternoons.

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Sr Christine never thought of her lifestyle as severe. Sleeping on the hard floor was good for the back, she said. What’s bad, she said, was the drunkenness of men. She admired the women. “It’s the women who are strong. At first we tried to help everybody but we created parasites. The hardworking we help, the lazy are left to die, ignored completely.” It is in prayer that she found the meaning of everything. “In prayer,” she confided, “when you go deep into the silence, you actually feel God. You and God are merged as one. In that utter stillness you could feel the light, and the fire and tight embrace, and the tenderness enfolding you. Then you become strong like a bull, you go straight like an arrow.” Sr Christine died on 6 October 2003 after a seven-month bout with cancer. Her body was cremated immediately. On 10 December 2004, Human Rights Day, her name was engraved on the Wall of Remembrance at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani (Monument for Heroes). She was hailed for her uncommon courage and leadership during the dark days of martial rule, for her nationalist stance, and for her compassion and love for the poor. She was also conferred the Bukas Palad Award by the Ateneo de Manila University. When she was alive, she had also received a number of citations for her courage, among them the Chino Roces Award. Ma. Ceres P. Doyo R E F E R E N C E S Doyo, Ma. Ceres P. “Sr. Christine Tan: Friend of the Poor”. Sunday Inquirer Magazine, 16 April 2000. Doyo, Ma. Ceres P. “On a Road Less Traveled: Interview with Sr. Christine Tan”. Filipinas Magazine, May 1995. Doyo, Ma. Ceres P. “Cory, Christine and the spirit of Ka Chino”. Philippine Daily Inquirer, 6 July 2000. Sta. Romana, Neni, Karina Bolasco, Ma. Ceres P. Doyo, Paulynn Sicam (eds.). Daughters True: 100 Years of

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Scholastican Education. Manila: St Scholastica’s College, 2006. Tan, Sr Christine. “My friend Geny”. Sunday Inquirer Magazine, 18 July 1999. Zobel de Ayala, Jaime. Filipino, Portraits by Jaime Zobel de Ayala. Makati: Gabriel Books, 1987.

Tan, Mely G. (Tan Giok Lan, Sociologist, Indonesia

, Chen Yulan, 1930– )

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an Mely G., commonly known as Mely, is one of the first women social scientists of Chinese descent who received her Ph.D. from the University of California (UC), Berkeley. She is a leading expert on Chinese Indonesians and has been active in promoting the movement of anti-violence against women. Tan was born on 11 June 1930, the third child of five children, and second daughter of a Peranakan father who, as a young man, moved from Manado (North Sulawesi) to Java and eventually to Batavia (now Jakarta), where he met and married his Peranakan wife. Tan was sent to the Hollandsch Chinese School in Jakarta for her primary education. She went on to the Hogere Burger School (HBS) — also in Jakarta — for her secondary education. Due to this basic training and the daily use of Dutch at home, she is fluent in the language. Although she learnt Mandarin at the Department of Sinology, she never really mastered it. She was the first woman in her family to study abroad. In 1963, two years after she finished her M.A. degree at Cornell in July 1961, she was the only woman among twelve persons recruited as part of the institutional development program funded by the Ford Foundation of the Center for Economic and Social Research of the Indonesian Council

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of Sciences (renamed Indonesian Institute of Sciences in 1967) to continue studying for her Ph.D. in Sociology at UC, Berkeley. Since then, her career as a researcher and scholar has become very clear. Tan is a scholar who, according to Charles Coppel (2008, p. ix), is known for “the objectivity of her sociological analysis as well as for her attention to detail”. Actually, according to Tan herself, her career as a researcher started when she was a thirdyear student in the Department of Sinology, University of Indonesia. She joined a science writing competition organized by the Catholic Scientific Circle, and won the prize for her paper on the ethnic Chinese in Jakarta. Her interest in research was motivated further by the arrival in 1957 of G. William Skinner, a professor of anthropology from Cornell University, who, through Professor Tjan Tjoe Som, the head of the Sinology Department, involved her in his project on Chinese Indonesians. The study she did in Sukabumi that became her M.A. thesis at Cornell — like Donald R.Willmott’s study on the Chinese in Semarang which was published in 1960 — is now one of the few studies on a local ethnic Chinese community of that period. As mentioned above, between 1963 and 1968, she studied at U.C. Berkeley to obtain her Ph.D. degree in sociology, and on her return to Indonesia, became the first woman with a Ph.D. in sociology. Due to the scarcity of qualified people, despite her “triple minority” status — as a woman, an ethnic Chinese, and a Roman Catholic – Tan was able to get a leading position. Besides being recognized as an expert on Chinese minority issues, she is also known as an expert on development indicators and changes in social stratification, on women and health, and on women and empowerment. Her first health-related project was a joint project of LEKNAS-LIPI and the

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Directorate of Nutrition of the Department of Health, sponsored by UNICEF in 1970, on “Social and Cultural Aspects of Food Patterns and Food Habits in Five Rural Areas in Indonesia”. Her work on women started in 1973, and in 1976, she became co-author of the Occasional Monograph Series ICP Work Agreement Reports of the Smithsonian Institute on “Women in Jakarta: Family Life and Family Planning”, in Cultural Factors and Population in Developing Countries. Since then, she has worked consistently on four issues: ethnic Chinese, societal development, women and empowerment and women and health. On the last topic, she made a study with Budi Soeradji, and published Ethnicity and Fertility in Indonesia in 1986 by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. Tan has travelled extensively for scientific and academic meetings and assignments, which include being a guest lecturer at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur in 1989. She was also a visiting scholar at the CSEAS of Kyoto University in 1986–87, and a member of the task force on psycho-social research of the World Health Organization from 1977 to 1981, and again from 1990 to 1993. For her continuing work as a dedicated researcher, scholar, and civil servant, she received the Bintang Mahaputera Pratama from President Abdurachman Wahid in August 2000. After she retired from LIPI in 1997, she was invited to become head of the Research Institute at Unika Atma Jaya until December 2001. At present, she is a lecturer for the Graduate Program on Police Sciences at the University of Indonesia.Throughout her career of almost fifty years as a sociologist, she wrote a great number of articles on ethnic Chinese, societal development, women and health, and women and empowerment which were published in Indonesia and abroad. Her latest

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book — launched together with a festschrift on the occasion of her seventy-eighth birthday which was organized by the Lembaga Penelitian dan Pengabdian Masyarakat (LPPM) Unika Atma Jaya — is Etnis Tionghoa di Indonesia: Kumpulan Tulisan. It is a collection of her selective writings on ethnic Chinese written in Indonesian between 1990s and 2004. The book was published by Yayasan Obor in 2008, with a preface by Charles Coppel. In that book,Tan also included her career history as an Indonesian social scientist, titled “Indonesian Odyssey: Jakarta, Cornell, Berkeley, Jakarta”. Her works on the Chinese, as Coppel indicated, have moved from her earlier concerns with the question of assimilation to focus more on discrimination and how to end this (2008, p. x). The shifting perspective is particularly obvious in her writings after the 1998 May riots, and can be seen in chapters 10 and 11 of her latest book. In chapter 10, she talked about the social and cultural dimensions of gender-based violence in Indonesia, which is, in her opinion, “the result of compound or multiple discrimination, or what is now referred to as intersectionality in discrimination” (Mely G. Tan 2008, p. 250). According to her, “[t]o stop this process from continuing, there should be the realization that Indonesian society is multicultural, which in turn requires the acceptance of a positive view of diversity as leading to the enrichment of all… and [t]here should also be the realization that discriminative behaviour towards particular groups in society is indicative of a mindset that is basically unjust” (Mely G. Tan 2008, p. 258). “To establish this type of attitude and behavior,” she continued, “there needs to be an enabling environment. This means legal reform, changing the mindset of society…” (Tan 2008). I think it is in relation to her idea of how to end discrimination that she then explores the issue of “transitional justice” in

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chapter 11 of the same book, as an effort to put right the discrimination in race, ethnicity, and religion (Tan 2008, pp. 277–78). Thung Ju Lan R E F E R E N C E S Coppel, Charles A. “Preface” In Mely G. Tan, Etnis Tionghoa di Indonesia: Kumpulan Tulisan, pp. ix–x. Jakarta: Yayasan Obor Indonesia, 2008. Tan, Mely G. Etnis Tionghoa di Indonesia: Kumpulan Tulisan. Jakarta: Yayasan Obor Indonesia, 2008. Tan, Mely G. “Indonesian Odyssey: Jakarta, Cornell, Berkeley, Jakarta”. In Mely G. Tan, Etnis Tionghoa di Indonesia: Kumpulan Tulisan, pp. 260–98. Jakarta: Yayasan Obor Indonesia, 2008. This article was originally published in Kathryn P. Meadow and Ruth A. Wallace, eds., Gender and the Academic Experience. Berkeley Women Sociologists (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994), pp. 85–98.

Tan, Michael L. ( , Chen Wanjie, 1952– ) Medical anthropologist, educator, Philippines

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ichael Tan is among the foremost experts in Philippine anthropology. Tan’s work as an educator has benefited thousands of students who have entered his classroom. As a writer in one of the leading broadsheets in the country, he offers insight that have reached millions of Filipinos. As a public health professional, he embarked on forays that took him from the mountains of the Cordilleras to the boondocks of Mindanao. It seems natural for the young, curious Tan to have started out as a veterinarian as his family loved animals, especially dogs. He wanted to care for them, and hence took up the veterinary medicine course in college. However when he was doing volunteer work in the rural areas, the contrast between the

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rich and poor pained him, and he therefore got more involved in community projects, especially those in public health. This exposure led him to take a doctorate degree that focused on medical anthropology so that his interests in both medicine and community work would find a happy marriage in his career. Today, he is chair of the Anthropology Department of the University of the Philippines, as well as a member of the Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences, and is also serving in the Faculty of the Ateneo de Manila College of Medicine. Additionally, he also serves as Philippine country adviser for the David and Lucile Packard Foundation (California); a member of the International Working Group on Sexuality and Social Policy, Columbia University (New York); and a member of World Health Organization’s Expert Advisory on Drug Policies and Management. He has written more than a thousand articles analysing and explaining the behaviour of Filipinos in more than one of the leading dailies in the country and has authored many books and articles, often focusing on indigenous medical beliefs, sex and sexuality, reproductive and sexual health (particularly HIV/AIDS), pharmaceuticals, and health policy issues. Tan was born on 12 September 1952 to Chinese parents and raised in Manila. The maternal side of his family imposed a predominantly Chinese environment for them, which resulted in a “very strong Chinese upbringing in the sense that people spoke Hokkien, ate Chinese food, and observed many Chinese rituals on birthdays and deaths”. This same maternal side brought Tan and his siblings to the Fujian province during their vacations, where they were exposed to the lifestyle there. Tan remembers that his father, who spent many years in China, also tried to stress the Chinese side, but being an internationalist basically,

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he emphasized English as the lingua franca at home. Tan’s mother tended to mix Chinese and Filipino cultures. Tan and his siblings were exposed to Chinatown culture but also had a strong dose of Filipino culture, especially of the Catholic religion.This dichotomy in his cultural upbringing presented a unique perspective for the young Tan: he underwent strong schizophrenia initially, then learnt to appreciate his mixed background and upbringing. This same background emphasized the need to be more open.Tan defines himself a multicultured person and is proud to be so. He extends this thinking into what he sees as an exaggeration of how people tend to label themselves. At the same time, his consciousness of his heritage has never been an issue for the good doctor. From the very beginning, Tan saw himself as a Filipino, primarily; his Chinese heritage has only strengthened his identity. “Multiculturalism is always an advantage because you are able to draw on a larger store of transmitted wisdom, which is what culture is all about.” This openness to other cultural orientations spurred Tan towards the desire to reach out and know why people act the way they do. His forays into community health brought him to far-off places — into the boondocks of the Cordilleras even — where he came across people very different from himself. There he understood that there is more to this thing called “culture” than how much of one’s “blood” percentage is Chinese or Filipino or whatever else. This evolution brought Tan to the crossroads of his career. Knowing that he loved medicine, anthropology, and writing, he decided not to choose, but to integrate all three. He now sees himself as primarily an educator and his efforts at reaching out to youth through the academe has borne fruit. “We have a very high demand for our courses. Students don’t usually know too much about anthro when

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they enter UP but if they happen to take one anthropology course as an elective, they tend to keep coming back. Others even shift to our courses. On average, we get only about 10 to 15 new anthro freshmen each year, but about 20 to 25 shiftees or transferees from other courses. People do appreciate the importance of cross-cultural understanding, once they’re exposed [to it].” He adds that, “anthropology can contribute in terms again of appreciating our cultural diversity as a strength, rather than as a hindrance. The United States would not have developed as it has without cultural diversity; we need to recognize that asset too in the Philippines.” To do this, Tan suggests a middle ground of sorts, “Today, we speak more of integration, retaining Chinese culture even as we become Filipino. It’s happening anyway, whether we recognize it or not; for example, the Chinese spoken in the Philippines is losing its tones, incorporating many Filipino words. There are even variations like Cebuano Hokkien and Ilokano Hokkien, depending on where the Tsinoy is growing up.” Tan sees the Filipino culture as a continuing evolution. This and his consciousness of his social responsibility keep him busy professionally, “There are just so many needs in public health, in education that one’s work will never be enough.” Tan’s father, Julio Tan, is himself a scholar who worked as a journalist and served as Secretary-General of the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Inc. He also helped in anticrime activities of the community and was appointed a commissioner of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission in 2002 to 2010. On the home front, Tan does his best to live up to the principles he has learned

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from being the product of more than one culture. “We all leave our imprint by what we do, rather than we say or write. I try very hard to walk the talk with ethical living, from being pesco-vegetarian (fish and vegetables, and I’m working on reducing the fish part too), using less of the car, using solar heating, even using organic diapers for the kids (I did try cloth ones but had to give up; it was too difficult). I’m a converted Quaker and our principles are simplicity, integrity, peace and justice. We don’t believe, however, in preaching, but in witness [sic.], i.e. living out our principles. (Even writing that I’m Quaker already makes me uncomfortable.) I do recognize my Catholic heritage as well, which remains important to me.” He also imparts this knowledge to his own children.“I am raising them as Tsinoys and Tsinays but want them to be Filipino foremost. I also want them to be Filipino but with a global outlook, appreciative of the wonders of cultures throughout the world.” In looking at Tan’s life, one will realize — this doctor-educator isn’t just living up to his principles, he is serving as an example to everyone else. Tan does not rest on his laurels; rather, he sees the world around him and understands that we are what we are, and there is so much more to life than mere labels and terms. Life for this multicultural individual is an evolution and it will always reveal new things about people. And so his works continue to leave a mark for posterity. Ginnie Faustino-Galgana R E F E R E N C E S Tan, Michael. Pinoy Kasi: Columns published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Retrieved February 2012 from . ———. “Pinoy Kasi: Vet Med at 100”. Philippine Daily

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Inquirer, 18 June 2008. Retrieved February 2012 from . ———. Revisiting Usog, Pasma, Kulam. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2008. Personal interview in July 2009.

Tan, Paulino Yu ( , Chen Zhongcheng, 1946– ) Computer scientist, educator, Philippines

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t is a tremendous achievement to build another level of innovation on an existing structure with a deep foundation. On the other hand, to be one of the people who actually helped lay the foundation for that same structure is an even rarer thing. Dr Paulino Yu Tan holds the distinction of being the latter — as one of the pioneers who helped develop information technology education in the Philippines, as well as one of the principal movers in charting its course throughout its very young history in the archipelago. The youngest of six children, Tan, who was born on 22 June 1946, grew up in the historic district of Quiapo, Manila, where his father, Tan Chi King, ran a shoe store called King’s Shoes that specialized in the famous Marikina shoes, Tan became exposed at an early age to a mixed business and family environment common to many Chinese-Filipinos. Living above the shoe store meant constant exposure to this environment of “consistent, diligent hard work” which, he notes, eventually became an integral part of his way of life. His mother,Yu Beng Jit, took care of family-related work while his father, with the help of his siblings — particularly his eldest brother and sister — would work from early morning to late evening running the store. When he grew older, he eventually helped out

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in the store. Instead of the customary route of preparing him to work for the family business eventually, his father encouraged him to focus on his studies and make something of himself on his own. Possessing a keen intelligence that leaned towards more quantitative fields, he chose to focus on engineering. He attended what was then the De La Salle College (now De La Salle University), which was among the top engineering schools at the time. His only option within engineering was between mechanical engineering or chemical engineering. Tan humbly admits that since he was poor at drafting, he opted for chemical engineering. Far from being a mere default course, his choice proved the right one. With diligence and hard work, he eventually graduated summa cum laude in 1967. Unfortunately, right after graduation, he could not take the board examinations for chemical engineering because he was considered a Chinese citizen having been born to Chinese parents. President Ferdinand Marcos’s mass naturalizaton act of 1975 later allowed him to become a Filipino citizen. He was then permitted to take the board exams in 1976 and promptly topped them. His transition from chemical engineering to information technology seemed highly unlikely given that in the 1960s, no courses on information technology were being offered even in other countries, let alone the Philippines. Tan recalls that his first encounter with information technology came through a fellow DLSC alumnus, an engineering graduate, who gave a talk on it after returning from the United States.This passing encounter proved to be the precursor to what would later become his lifework. The University of Notre Dame in Indiana, the United States, accepted him on scholarship for further studies in chemical engineering and he completed

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both his master’s degree in 1969 and Ph.D. in 1971 here. A number of teaching/research assistantships undertaken for the school also helped him complete his studies. The professor of his chemical reaction kinetics class at Notre Dame first introduced him to the practical applications of a computer in the real world. During one session, the professor introduced a problem where the solution was quite time consuming, repetitive, and mind-numbing, if done by the human hand and brain. The professor demonstrated how a computer could be used to solve the problem. This example of using the computer as a machine that helps humans perform their tasks became Tan’s constant model rather than a paradigm of the computer being the end-all in itself.As he asserts,“IT is an enabler technology. It improves efficiencies and expands services. It empowers a person to do more. All these result in developing and building the nation towards improving the standard of living of its people.” On his return to the Philippines in the early 1970s, his transition from engineering to information technology began. As he was one of the few people at the time who was knowledgeable about computers, SM (his wife is the sister of Henry Sy, owner of SM or Shoemart, now SM Malls) hired him as a consultant to convert their manual in-house credit card system into an electronic based one. At the same time, with his teaching position at the De La Salle Chemical Engineering Department, he helped introduce computer use in engineering by initiating a course in “Numerical Methods for Engineers” that connected the engineering department to a time-sharing computer. A small Ford Foundation grant expanded the teaching of computers to De La Salle faculty, which resulted in other departments offering their own subjects for computer use. In 1981 Tan became an active participant in

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developing the Philippines’s first ever fullfledged computer science course programme at De La Salle. The university also pioneered the use of computers for administrative purposes. This pioneering computer science programme eventually grew into one of the largest fields of study and application in the country and in the world today, with institutions such as Tan’s own Asia Pacific College offering it as their primary educational foundation. In hindsight, he analysed that in 1960s and 1970s, “IT practitioners were mostly technology or business based individuals who shifted to IT. They managed to understand IT principles experientially and applied them to an ever-expanding field. In the 1980s, more advanced development of IT required a deeper understanding of computer science”. Coming from both lines of IT practitioners gave Tan the unique position of combining and applying an extensive technical academic foundation that prepared him for the sudden changes, innovations, and instabilities within this very new field; learning new things from experience; as well as testing and applying these different kinds of knowledge in real world situations. He rose steadily in his academic ranks at the DLSU and eventually became Executive Vice President of the university in 1988, the first Chinese-Filipino to attain this highest rank in a prestigious academic institution. After leaving De La Salle in 1991, IBM approached him to create short-term training programmes for a training school it wanted to establish to add manpower to its pool of IT workers. Tan convinced IBM to form an educational partnership with the SM Group of Companies to establish a school that offered both short-term training and baccalaureate education. Both groups asked him to head this school and thus the Asia Pacific College (APC) was born.

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At Asia Pacific College, Tan continues to place himself at the perfect venue for sharing his principles on IT: “a focus on business and industry linkage, and not purely on academic teaching. This emphasis is on IT as a platform and a tool to do one’s work in any field”. He does this through methods such as Projectbased Learning, whereby a student group worked on the same project over different subjects spread out over a whole academic year, and through its pioneering programme — a six-month, full-time internship in companies for APC students. Just as business and family were both components of the environment he grew up in, industry and education are now two of the key components of much of his life. Tan’s influence in IT education reaches far beyond his pioneering and formative experiences with De La Salle and his current captainship of APC. Since the early 1990s, he has been a consultant for government’s IT education policies. Most significantly when the Commission on Higher Education was formed in 1995, he headed the institution’s policymaking body — Technical Panel for Information Technology Education. Perhaps the most significant framework developed by this body are its three main tracks of IT education: a theoretical field or B.S. Computer Science; an application field or B.S. Information Technology; and where the IT relates to the business and industry setting, B.S. Information Management, now known as Information Systems. These categories streamlined Philippine IT by helping to eliminate confusion between different fields of IT specialization within the academe, as well as the professions or industries these courses could eventually lead to. For his pioneering contributions to the field of education, he was given an award for excellence in the

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2007 Dr Jose P. Rizal Awards for Excellence organized by The Manila Times and Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran. In 2008 the Department of Science and Technology celebrated Tan as one of the “50 Great Men and Women of Science”. A modest man, he commented on the award as “an honor to be recognized, especially considering the company of the men and women in the list”. This man’s so-called “modest” contributions to the improvement of IT education have helped influence directly and indirectly possibly thousands of students who have passed through IT educational courses over the last three decades. In turn, the impact of these students who eventually went on to IT professions has been staggering as IT permeates through much of everyday life. Jan Philippe V. Carpio R E F E R E N C E S Businessweek. “Executive Profile Paulino Y. Tan”. 3 May 2007. Retrieved December 2009 from . Congressional Commission on Science and Technology and Engineering website. Interview with Tan, Dr Paulino Yu, 20 May 2009. Retrieved December 2009 from . Lee-Chua, Queena. “EUREKA! Masters of science education”. Philippine Daily Inquirer, 29 September 2008. The Manila Times, “DOST names 50 top Pinoys of science”. 6 June 2008. Retrieved December 2009 from . Tulay. “Education key to development”. The Manila Times, 31 March 2007. Retrieved December 2009 from . Personal interview, June 2009.

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Tan, Samuel K. ( , Chen Qingfeng,1933– ) Scholar, educator, Philippines

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amuel K. Tan has devoted almost his entire life to the academe: teaching, doing research, and writing. He started teaching in Siasi Academy, Jolo, in 1956 and at Ebenezer Bible College and Seminary in Zamboanga where he later became the dean of men. For more than three decades, he was a professor at the History Department, University of the Philippines (1963–96), and served as its chairperson from 1977–1982. Tan has taken the way of the scholarwarrior — where the pen is mightier than the sword. As a historian, he has spent a lifetime writing on the Muslim Filipinos in the larger context of Philippine history: their origins, aspirations, and struggles as a people confronted by the advent of Spain’s cross and sword, and America’s “manifest destiny”. He has examined the impact of Spain on Muslim Filipinos and the beginnings of the conflict between the Muslim community and the Spanish colonial regime, a conflict that has continued to the twenty-first century with successive Christian-dominated Philippine governments. Notably, he has focused on presenting the Muslim Filipinos’ perceptions of their own history and culture; the historical roots of the Muslim-Christian problem; the armed struggle of Muslim Filipinos from the Spanish period to the present, and the internationalization of the Bangsamoro struggle. His works have also explored the preHispanic world of the sultanates of Sulu, and the Muslim world at the turn of the century. He has also written on Islam in the Philippines,

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Muslim literature, and the Jawi tradition in the Philippines. He gives us an interesting glimpse of the lives of Muslims during the early period of American rule in “Letters of the Sultanate of Sulu”, a compilation of letters by well known Muslims in Sulu, in original Jawi, (a type of Arabic script adapted for writing Malay and other Austronesian languages) in Tausug, and in English. In his short book, A History of the Philippines, Tan notes that he has tried “to give to the cultural communities, ‘the other Filipinos,’ a space they deserve in Philippine history”. He further writes that, “unless a new spirit of nationalism and Filipinism changes the neo-colonial tendency to ignore the legitimate cries of the cultural communities the foundation of national unity and peace will remain fragile”. In another book, The Filipino-American War 1899–1913 (2002), he reiterates “the need to re-emphasize in our national consciousness the known story of the Filipino struggle for freedom from colonialism in a new national perspective that integrates the rationale of the non-Christian resistance against American rule”. “By reinterpreting history from the perspective of the ‘cultural communities’ a new strand is added into the historical fabric of the Filipino-American War, to make it really the struggle of the national community regardless of ethnic origin and religious-cultural differences,” he says. Through his numerous books and publications, he has made a substantial contribution to the understanding of the Muslim Filipinos and the Mindanao conflict. He puts in perspective the historical and socioeconomic dimension of the continuing struggle of the Muslim community in the Philippines for independence — a fundamental reality that has remained active in Muslim consciousness,

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stated Tan in a paper, “Understanding the Mindanao Conflict”, presented at the Cotobato City Peace and Development Forum (July 2000). “That independence was still the underlying essence of autonomy for all social movements (MNLF, MILF, etc.) regardless of differences.” He has also stressed the reality of the Muslim Filipinos’ spirit of resistance that has not changed an iota to this day. In fact, he has noted that the struggle has strengthened amidst a new generation of young Muslim Filipinos who have been marginalized and radicalized even further. Furthermore, he noted in the same paper, “the ultimate hope of the Muslim community in the Philippines for progress and prosperity lies not in the Christian-dominated state but in the dynamic relation and linkage to the Islamic world”. The Mindanao problem has generated to this day a cycle of violence, peace talks and negotiations, truces, and more violence on both sides: the Christian Filipinos versus the Filipino Muslims. According to the United Nations Development Programme, the Mindanao conflict has resulted in a conservative estimate of 160,000 dead and two million displaced people. Tan’s works on Mindanao and the Muslim Filipinos serve as a beacon of history that guides us on the path that must be taken in order to find a practical and acceptable solution that would bring genuine peace and order to Mindanao and its people. His books include Sulu Under American Military Rule, 1899–1913 (1967); The Filipino Muslim Armed Struggle (1977); Selected Essays on the Filipino Muslims (1982); A History of the Philippines (1988 & 1998); The Critical Decade (1993); The Internationalization of the Bangsamoro Struggle (1993); The Filipino American War, 1899–1913 (2002); Annotated Bibliography of Jawi Materials of the Muslim South (1996);

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Filipino Muslim Perceptions of Their History and Culture as Seen through Indigenous Written Sources (2003); and Letters of the Sultanate of Sulu, Vols. I & II (2005). He co-authored Surat Maguindanaon (2002) with Samier M. Bakuludan; and TawiTawi: The Philippines’ Southernmost Frontier (2001) with Bona Elisa O. Resurreccion and Noli C. Gabilo. He serves as the convenor of the Mindanao Studies Program of the Center for Integrative and Development Studies, University of the Philippines, in Diliman, Quezon City. He was the chairperson and executive director (October 1997–March 1999) of the National Historical Institute. Tan has also worked as a consultant in various government offices and international organizations: Office of the President, Malacañang Palace (1974–84); Office of the Governor, Tawi Tawi (1986), and Office of Senator Santanina Rasul (1987–92). He headed the National Committee on Historical Research of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts from 1992–95. He was involved with a National Library project (1981-83) and led the Mindanao team that published four volumes: Region IX-Haylaya; Region X-Linibung; Region XI-Bagani; and Region XII-Darangen, as part of the Land and People series. He was the coordinator of a UNESCO project on “Civilization Related to Rice Cultivation”, (1979-80), and a member of the UNESCO Advisory Committee for the Study of Southeast Asian Cultures (1982–84). In 1998, he was conferred the title of Paduka Datu by the Grand Assembly of the Western Mindanao Kadatuan for his contribution to the cause of the Muslim people. Tan was also the recipient in 1998 of the University of the Philippines Alumni

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Association’s Outstanding Professional Award for History. In 2007, he was awarded the third “Dangal ng Haraya” Award for Cultural and Historical Research by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts. Samuel K. Tan was born on 30 December 1933 in Siasi, Sulu, of TausugSama-Chinese parentage. Later a professor, scholar, historian, and specialist on the Filipino Muslim armed struggle, he had spent his elementary years in Siasi, graduating as the class valedictorian in 1949. He finished his high school in Zamboanga City High School in 1953 and graduated with two university degrees — a bachelor of theology from Ebenezer Bible College (1960) and a bachelor of arts in history, summa cum laude, from Zamboanga A.E. Colleges (1962), in Zamboanga City. He obtained a master of arts in history (1967) from the University of the Philippines, Diliman, and a Ph.D. in social science interdisciplinary (1973) from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University in New York. Rosa Concepcion Ladrido R E F E R E N C E S Tan, Samuel K. A History of the Philippines. Quezon City, Philippines: Manila Studies Association, Inc. and Philippine National Historical Society Inc., 1997. Tan, Samuel K. “The Bangsamoro Struggle and the Philippine Revolutionary Heritage”. Resistance and Revolution: Philippine Archipelago in Arms, edited by Bernadita Reyes Churchill, pp. 200–11. Manila, Philippines: National Commission for Culture and Arts, 2002. Tan, Samuel K. The Filipino-American War 1899–1913. Quezon City, Philippines: Cavite Historical Society and the University of the Philippines Press, 2002. Tan, Samuel K. “Understanding the Mindanao Conflict”. Cotobato City Peace and Development Forum. 20 July 2000. Retrieved May 2012 from .

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Tan Siew Sin ( , Chen Xiuxin, 1916–88) Politician, government minister, businessman, Malaysia

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un Tan Siew Sin, founder member and president of the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) (1961–74), minister of commerce and industry (1957–59) and minister of finance (1959–74), was the most prominent Chinese public leader of postindependence Malaysia. As the country’s second and longest serving finance minister, he played the dominant role in setting the country’s economic agenda over a fifteenyear period that laid the foundation for a robust economic expansion in which Malaysia emerged as a major trading country in the international economy. The last MCA figure treated as an equal by United Malays National Organization (UMNO) leaders, Tan, who enjoyed the full confidence of Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, wielded much greater influence than any other Chinese political leader since independence. While he had been universally lauded as the first architect of Malaysia’s economic prosperity, he was often faulted by the Malaysian Chinese for not having sufficiently advanced Chinese education and language interests. He consistently held that Chinese interests could be best advanced through a free market economy where Malays and nonMalays would compete on a level playing field. By putting less emphasis on Chinese education and language interests while vigorously promoting the welfare of the Chinese business community, Tan’s support from Chinese educationists and the Chineseeducated was notably lacking.

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Born in Malacca on 21 May 1916 to a Straits Chinese family with roots in Malaysia dating back to the 1770s, he was the only son of Tun Tan Cheng Lock, the ideological father of the MCA, and Toh Puan Yeo Yeok Neo. His great-grandfather, Tan Choon Bock, had established one of the earliest steamship services in Malacca, and his father, Tan Cheng Lock, was a successful rubber planter. Tan was educated at the Malacca Methodist Chinese Girls School, Malacca High School, and Raffles College in Singapore before pursuing a year of legal studies in London in 1938.After returning to Malaya from India, where he spent the years of the Japanese Occupation (1942–45) with his parents and siblings, Alice, Agnes and Lily, he worked for the family rubber company, United Malacca Rubber Estates. He married Lim Cheng Neo in 1947. Tan started his political career in 1946 as a commissioner in the Malacca municipality. He was appointed to the Federal Legislative Council in 1948, and elected a member of parliament in the country’s first federal elections in 1955. He successfully contested his Malacca-based parliamentary seat in every subsequent election until 1974 when he retired from active politics. As he was his father’s closest confidant and adviser, the political fortunes of both father and son were intimately tied. During their India exile, inspired by the Congress Party’s fight for independence from the British,Tan helped his father conceive the idea of a party, the Malayan Chinese League, to protect Chinese political and economic rights, promote interracial harmony, and work with Malay political organizations to attain self-rule. In February 1949, due primarily to British encouragement of leading Chinese business leaders (especially Tun H.S. Lee and Tun Leong Yew Koh) to mobilize Chinese support behind the government’s counter-insurgency

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initiatives during the Emergency declared in the wake of the communist insurrection, the MCA was formed with Tan Cheng Lock as its first president, and Siew Sin as a Central Working Committee member. From mid-1950 to 1952, Tan supported the joint efforts of his father and then UMNO president Datuk Onn bin Jaafar to decommunalize Malayan politics by opening the MCA and UMNO to non-Chinese and non-Malay members respectively. When their efforts failed in the face of opposition from their parties, father and son backed Onn’s initiative in establishing the multiracial Independence of Malaya Party (IMP). Preferring to campaign for the IMP in the country’s first municipal elections in Kuala Lumpur in 1955, the junior Tan did not play an active role in the formation of the UMNO-MCA alliance, an initiative launched by Selangor MCA stalwarts, Ong Yoke Lin (later Tun Omar Ong) and Tun H.S. Lee. It was when the IMP failed so dismally in the elections that he turned his full attention to the consolidation of the Alliance Party. During the independence movement, he frequently served as his father’s proxy (especially after 1955, when the latter suffered a debilitating stroke) in MCA committees tasked with negotiating the terms of independence with UMNO and the British. He was a major player in conceiving the so-called “social contract” between the UMNO, MCA, and MIC, a deal in which non-Malays born after independence were entitled to citizenship based on jus soli in exchange for non-Malay acceptance of Malay special rights, Malay as the sole national language, and Islam as the state religion. In addition, Tan and his MCA colleagues obtained constitutional guarantees for non-Malays to preserve, practise, and propagate their religions, cultures, and languages freely, and for safeguards governing non-Malay “legitimate interests”.

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From 1957 to the outbreak of the race riots in May 1969, Tan was arguably the third most powerful man in Malaysia, after Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman and his deputy, Tun Abdul Razak bin Hussein. Wielding undisputed authority over the country’s economic life, he fiercely upheld Chinese economic interests and successfully fought back efforts by Malay economic nationalists to launch a far-reaching Malay special rights policy, notably an attempt in 1963 by Abdul Aziz Ishak, minister of agriculture and cooperatives, to replace Chinese-dominated rice milling enterprises with state run cooperatives. Although his ability to advance Chinese business interests waned after the New Economic Policy (NEP) was promulgated to distribute wealth more equitably between Malays and non-Malays in the wake of the May 1969 race riots, he used his authority as chairman of the powerful Capital Investment Committee to blunt the full force of the NEP. Most notably, the Industrial Coordination Act — which required non-Malay businesses to comply with the 30 per cent Malay equityrestructuring objective — was not promulgated until he stepped down as finance minister in 1974. Compared with his many fine achievements as finance minister, his performance as MCA president drew mixed reviews. An English-educated Baba Chinese who did not speak Mandarin and who gave top priority to Chinese business interests, Tan was widely perceived to have been overly accommodating of UMNO’s stance on Malay education and language issues. During the 1960s, the party’s predominantly Chineseeducated leadership and grass roots became increasingly critical of his failure to push for the recognition of Mandarin as an official language, and to set up a Mandarin-medium university (Merdeka University). While he

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did not play up issues of Chinese race and language to boost his party’s popularity ratings, in contrast, Chinese opposition parties — the Democratic Action Party and Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia — campaigned strongly for equal cultural and economic rights for non-Malays. When the MCA suffered heavy electoral losses in the May 1969 elections, Tan considered, but decided against, taking the party out of the Alliance government. In the politically constrained post-1969 environment, when power became even more heavily concentrated in UMNO, he sought to restore Chinese confidence in the MCA. Initiatives to revitalize the party included the Chinese Unity Movement and the Perak Task Force, which focused on rebuilding the party’s New Village support base in that state. The MCA’s standing improved when he obtained government approval and partial funding for the establishment of the Tunku Abdul Rahman College. Since its inception in 1972, the TAR College has produced thousands of Chinese graduates, most of whom had failed to gain admission to state universities due to stringent admission policies for non-Malays. When Tan stepped down as MCA president in April 1974 after undergoing major lung surgery, he left behind a revitalized party. His successor, Tan Sri Lee San Choon, was the first Chineseeducated president to have risen to the party’s top post. After Tan relinquished his cabinet and party positions for health reasons, he continued to serve as financial adviser to the government, a position created for him by Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak. He was nominated by Tun Razak’s successor, Prime Minister Tun Husein Onn, as chairman of Sime Darby, a major government-linked corporation. Tan also served as chairman of the United Malacca Rubber Estates, the company founded by his father. In addition, he sat on the boards

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of several other companies, including Unitac, Siemens, Pacific Bank, Highlands and Lowlands, and Guardian Royal Exchange Assurance. His involvement in philanthropic causes included establishing and funding the Women’s Aid Organization in 1982, the first NGO in the country dedicated to providing shelter, counselling, and financial assistance to battered women. The many awards he received attest to his reputation for integrity, incorruptibility, and steadfast service to his country and community. In 1969, he was awarded the Seri Setia Mahkota, the highest award for Malaysian commoners, which carries the title “Tun”. Tan and his father, Cheng Lock, remain to date the only father and son recipients of this award. Other honours include the Grand Cross Order of Leopold II of Belgium (1967), a French knighthood (1967), Order of Sikatuan of the Philippines (1968), and the Bintang Mahaputera Kelas Dua of Indonesia (1970). When he died on 17 March 1988, he, like his father, received the accolade of a state funeral, the first father-and-son non-Malays to be so honoured. In September 2001, a road in Kuala Lumpur adjoining Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock was renamed Jalan Tun Tan Siew Sin. Heng Pek Koon R E F E R E N C E S Heng Pek Koon. Chinese Politics in Malaysia: A History of the Chinese Malaysian Association. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1988. Lee Kam Hing and Chow Mun Seong. Biographical Dictionary of the Chinese in Malaysia. Petaling Jaya: Pelanduk Publications, 1997. Morais, J. Victor (ed.). Blueprint for Unity: Selected Speeches of Tan Siew Sin. Kuala Lumpur: MCA Headquarters, 1972. Morais, J. Victor. Tun Tan: Portrait of a Statesman. Singapore: Quins, 1981.

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Tan Siok Choo. “Tun Tan Siew Sin: A Benchmark for Integrity”. The Star, 12 March 2001.

Tan, Sofyan (1959– ) Educator, physician, Indonesia

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ofyan Tan ( ) is well known as the Chinese-Indonesian who advocated the “integrated school system” (sekolah pembauran) in Sunggal near Medan, Sumatra, which produces high quality students. His students are multi-ethnic/multireligious and he is regarded by many indigenous Indonesian leaders as more “Indonesian” than some indigenous Indonesians. Even Professor B.J. Habibie, who was critical of the Indonesian Chinese community, acknowledged in 1994 that Tan was a true member of the Indonesian nation (putera bangsa). For his hard work, Tan received the title, “Fellow Ashoka for Ethnic Relations and Education” in 1989, and the Wiyata Mandala award for education in 2002 from North Sumatra Governor Rizal T. Nurdin. Tan whose Chinese name is said to be Tan Kim Yang (not yet verified) was born on 25 September 1959 in the Sunggal district on the fringe of Medan. He was the youngest of ten siblings. His father was a tailor who became a petty businessman dealing in grocery and then went bankrupt when Tan was studying in medical school at the Universitas Methodis. The young Tan therefore gave tuition to high school students to support himself. After graduating from medical school, he did not practise medicine, but went on to build his dream school instead. Tan had an ideal — which was to build a multi-ethnic and multireligious school in the area where poor Chinese Indonesians lived.

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At one time he set up a yayasan perguruan (educational foundation) and started to raise funds in Jakarta, but managed to get only 500,000 rupiah. In 1988 he started to build his dream school in stages. He borrowed sixty million rupiah from the local bank to build the classrooms and by 1995 his debt had increased to 500 million rupiah. The school was a three-storey building comprising kindergarten, primary, and secondary sections (SMP & SMA). The secondary school section is linked to a local savings bank so that students studying economics and commerce can practise in the bank. Apart from the building, the school has its own free clinic for the students, a playground, and a school bus. The school is called Sultan Iskandar Muda, named after the first sultan of Aceh. The full name of the school is Yayasan Perguruan Sultan Iskandar Muda, abbreviated as Sekolah YPSIM. The school is unique. It is not an ordinary Chinese Indonesian school, but an assimilated school whose students are multi-ethnic and multireligious. There are Chinese, Malays, Bataks,Tamils, and non-Tamil Indians. Unlike other Chinese Indonesian schools whose students and teachers are mainly ethnic Chinese, the YPSIM school’s student composition is almost half Chinese and half indigenous Indonesians, and the majority of the teachers are indigenous. In 1995, for instance, non-indigenous Indonesian students (mainly Chinese) made up 53.5 per cent of the student population, and the indigenous students, 46.5 per cent, while 90 per cent of the eighty-seven teachers were indigenous. Therefore, there was inevitable mixing between the Chinese Indonesians and the non-Chinese. In this integrated school, various religious festivals are celebrated and all students are required to participate in them. They are encouraged to

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learn about other ethnic group’s customs and traditions and to respect one another. Moreover, the school encourages good students from poor families to enrol. To many people’s surprise, Tan’s school has been a success and produces students who are well qualified. Many have been able to gain admission into local universities without having to sit for an entrance examination. For his achievement Tan was awarded the “Pioneer Youth” (Pelopor Pemuda) by the North Sumatra Governor in 1990. He was also commended in 1993 by the minister of environment, Ir. Sarwono Kusumaatmadja, for his dedication and the sacrifices he has made. As someone trained as a doctor, he could easily have practised as one and earned enough money to live a comfortable life, but he chose to be the founder of a school and live a less comfortable life. When asked by Kompas reporters why he had made that choice, Tan replied that there were many doctors, but very few people would contribute to the development of education. He felt that he would be able to help integrate/ assimilate the Chinese Indonesian community into Indonesian society this way. By going to the same school children of different communities would grow up together as friends and accept one another.The Chinese community felt that the indigenous people were unfriendly towards the Chinese, but his own experience during the anti-Chinese riot in Medan on 10 November 1966 had given him a different impression. On that day there was the killing of the Chinese Indonesians who were believed to have been involved in the 1965 coup. The mobs were gripped by frenzy and were not selective about their targets; as a result, many innocent Chinese Indonesians became victims of the violence. Their houses were burnt down and people were beaten up and killed.To Tan’s surprise, his

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house was safe and was even guarded by some indigenous youths. He noted that his parents mixed well in the Sunggal areas where many villagers knew him and his family members. Tan thus felt that not all indigenous people were hostile towards Chinese Indonesians. He decided then that he had the obligation to promote ethnic/racial integration. For Tan to establish an integrated school was not easy, especially with regard to the funding, but he never gave up. He has a group of dedicated friends who wanted to make the project a success. Eventually he got support from the local government, local community, business groups, and foundations. In order to get good students from poor families, he went to the villages and interviewed the good students. He convinced their parents to send their children to his school which was free of charge. He introduced the “adopt a child” system, and appealed to individuals, companies, and foundations to “adopt” one or a few of his school children from poor families and pay their education expenses. This plan has yielded results. In 1994 Minister of Research B.J. Habibie adopted twenty-five students and donated 25 million rupiah to the school.Political leader Marwah Daud, entrepreneur Anthony Salim, and foundations such as Yayasan Prasetya in Jakarta also participated in this project. In 1995, for instance, out of 1,105 students, 112 were “adopted children”. Interestingly adoptive parents often pick students not of their own ethnic groups. Tan’s school in general has been able to produce high quality graduates. Students in the “adopted children” scheme have also obtained good results. Tan has attempted to use education as a means to bring about integration/assimilation (the term in Indonesian is pembauran). He also believes that integration/assimilation should be implemented in the economic field, especially in small and medium enterprises

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(Usaha Kecil dan Menengah, or UKM). Not surprisingly he has become an entrepreneur himself and has also been involved in a local koperasi (cooperative) to improve the economic conditions of the poor. He has served as chairman of the Forum Nasional UKM (National Forum for SMEs). In addition to this, he was interested in local politics and contested in the 2004 elections for membership in the local parliament, but lost. Tan is married to Eliner, a Chinese Indonesian. They have two daughters, Tracey and Cindy, and one son, Felix. Leo Suryadinata R E F E R E N C E S Mondagng, DR Simanjuntak and Efix Mulyadi. “Dokter Sofyan Tan”. Kompas, 6 August 1995. Setyautama, Sam. Tokoh-Tokoh Etnis Tionghoa di Indonesia, pp. 381–82. Jakarta: KPG, 2008. Suryadinata, Leo. Prominent Indonesian Chinese: Biographical Sketches, p. 177. Singapore: ISEAS, 1996. Yusrinlie’s blog. “dr. Sofyan Tan’s Assimilation Style”. (accessed January 2012).

Tan Swie Hian ( , Chen Ruixian, 1943– ) Artist, sculptor, poet, calligrapher, translator, Singapore

T

an Swie Hian is recognized as the cultural icon of Singapore and Southeast Asia. Not limited to any single mode of artistic expression, his art appears in multiple media, straddling and fusing painting, sculpture, printmaking, calligraphy, seal carving, and dramatic performances. He is the author of poetry, essays, stories, criticism, and translations

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and the editor of literary and Buddhist publications. He has exhibited worldwide and participated in group shows, and designed costumes, masks, and stage for performances. His work has earned him international recognition and numerous awards. He is also the only living artist to have two private museums dedicated to him. Tan Swie Hian was born to Tan Chan Pok and Lee Soe in Pulau Halang, Sumatra in Indonesia on 5 May 1943 and came to live in Singapore as early as 1946. After completing his primary and secondary education in Hwa Min Primary School and Singapore Chinese High School, he studied modern languages and literature at the Nanyang University of Singapore, majoring in English language and literature, with French and Malay as selective subjects. After graduating in 1968 he started his career as the press attache at the French Embassy. After twenty-four years in the position he gave it up to devote all his time to art. He married Hao Hsiao Fu in 1971 and has a son, Pe Chen, and a daughter, Chiao Joan. As a member of the second generation of a Chinese family that settled in Southeast Asia, Tan sees himself as a descendant of the Chinese cultural tradition. But he will not be contained. His fascination with different civilizations has led him to explore the cultures of India, Southeast Asia, and the western world. He is attracted to both the new and the old, the East and the West, and tries to combine the spirit of ancient Chinese philosophy, Indian philosophy, particularly Buddhism, and the feelings and thoughts of a Chinese Singaporean. Tan likes to describe himself as a hummingbird to show how a free mind functions by flying forward,backwards,sideways, as it soars, swoops, or remains stationary in the air. Art could be the rainbow that leads to the ultimate great white light and the universe.

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Tan first burst upon the local scene in 1968 with The Giant, a collection of poems considered the culmination of the Chinese modernist literary movement in the history of Chinese literature in Singapore and Malaysia. To date, he has fifty published works of poetry, essays, stories, criticisms and translations to his credit. He has extensively translated works by great Indian philosophers such as Ramana Marhashi, J. Krishnamurti, Sri Aurobindo, and N. Chaitanya. Being multilingual,Tan is the first to have translated works by such literary giants as A. Huxley, H. Michaux, J. Prevert, S. Beckett, V. Nijinsky, and M. Sorescu into Chinese. Tan Swie Hian experienced spiritual illumination for the first time in 1973 and has been a spiritual seeker for the past few decades. He has studied and practised the art of Buddhist meditation and, through the process, destroyed desires and attained spiritual liberty. Since then his creations have never been the same again. Buddhism has become his motivation for creation and his source of inspiration.Through meditation, he acquires cosmic visions which he expresses in his art. Just as it liberates his mind, religion also liberates his art. He has developed a style that defies definition because it breaks down all forms and conventions and makes everything possible. As a result, his work has a freshness that continues to surprise. Tan held his first exhibition in 1973 and since then has exhibited his paintings in oil, Chinese ink and acrylic, as well as sculptures, calligraphy, “cartogravures”, prints, and seal engravings in twenty solo shows and numerous group shows in Singapore and worldwide. In 1987, he was conferred the Singapore Cultural Medallion. He went on to win a Gold Medal in Salon des Artistes Francais, Paris, in 1995, and the Seoul International Calligraphy Gold Medal in an international calligraphy exhibition to mark the Korea/Japan World Cup 2002. He was conferred the prestigious Crystal Award by

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the World Economic Forum for outstanding artistic achievements and contribution to crosscultural understanding in 2003. The same year, the president of Singapore conferred on him the Meritorious Service Medal, which is the highest honour for a cultural personality in the republic. He published the five-volume Selected Works by Tan Swie Hian in China in 1993 and the calligraphy of Tan’s preface to the Museum of World Famous Chinese Artists’ Works along the Yangtze River in China was inscribed in a stele in 1996 and erected at the museum’s entrance. Two years later in 1998, he won the Marin Sorescu International Poetry Prize from Romania and was elected by the United Nations, together with ninety-seven other established artists from all over the world, such as Hockney, Christo, Lichtenstein, Boey, Matta and Tapies, to illustrate a new edition of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to mark the 50th Anniversary of its adoption by the world body. Then in 2004, he was among thirty-nine artists from around the world invited to work with Nelson Mandela on a series of lithos for a charitable cause. In 2000, his essay and calligraphy to celebrate the birthday of the Yellow Emperor was inscribed on a boulder and erected in the Imperial Mausoleum, Shanxi, which is the Number 1 Ancient Tomb in China. Exhibitions he held in 2003 include exhibition of oils, inks and acrylics at the Congress Hall, World Economic Forum, Davos in Switzerland, the Tan Swie Hian Mulpa Exhibition at the Mulpa Art Centre, Seoul, Korea, and an exhibition of oils, inks and acrylics in United Nations, Geneva, in Switzerland. Since 1987, Tan has been the first and only Southeast Asian artist to be elected as a

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correspondent-member to the oldest and most prestigious artistic institution in the world — The Academy of Fine Arts of the Institute of France.To honour his contribution to FrenchSingapore relations in the artistic field, he was first decorated by the French Government in 1978 when he received the title of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 1989, he was conferred another prestigious honour — the title of Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite. On 5 June 2006,Tan was conferred the title of Officer (Officier) in the National Order of the Legion of Honour by Jean-Paul Réau, the French ambassador to Singapore, who presented the award on behalf of President Jacques Chirac.The Legion of Honour (Légion d’Honneur) is an order of chivalry established by Napoléon Bonaparte in 1802. It remains the most senior order in France today and is conferred on individuals, including noncitizens, for outstanding achievements in areas such as culture, science, industry, and trade. Back home, his collector, Tan Tien Chi, a Singapore businessman, built the first private art museum in Singapore — The Tan Swie Hian Museum — in 1993. Since 2001, work has started on the world’s first earth art museum, The All-Wisdom Gardens: Tan Swie Hian Earth Art Museum, which sprawls over two square kilometres on a mountain range in Qingdao, China.Tan also completed a gigantic enamel mural and an immerse granite floor calligraphy in 2003 for the subway station in Chinatown at the historical heart of Singapore. In 2006, Tan donated more than 6,500 books, manuscripts, and artefacts to the National Library, and the Tan Swie Hian Collection is located on the tenth floor of the National library Building. Tan has worked with choreographers, dancers, and dramatists for numerous performances. He is also a stage and costume designer. Through the collaboration with the

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Singapore Chinese Orchestra, Tan Swie Hian has demonstrated on stage his art of Chinese calligraphy during the performance of the SCO when “Singapore Season” was held in England in 2005, and in China in 2007. In February 2008, Tan did a 2.4m by 1.2m ink painting, while hoisted on a platform 12m up in the air, for the finale of the Chingay Parade, as the Singapore Chinese Orchestra played. On 8 September 2003, he received an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) — presented by the university’s chancellor, Singapore President S. R. Nathan — in recognition of his many literary and artistic achievements. He was also NTU’s 2005 Nanyang Distinguished Alumni Award winner. Zhou Zhao Cheng R E F E R E N C E S Tee, Kim Tong. “Autonomization: A Belated Modernist Literary System — The Case of Tan Swie Hian”. In “Literary Interference and the Emergence of a Literary Polysystem”, A Ph.D. dissertation submitted to the Graduate Institute of Foreign Languages and Literatures, National Taiwan University, 1997. 《

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：

《

，2001。 》。

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，

2004。 《

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：

，

2002。 《 ，1990。

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Tan Tai Bin ( , Chen Taimin, 1927–83) Historian, Philippines

G

raduating from Adamson University with a degree in chemical engineering in 1952,Tan Tai Bin was one of the earliest

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scholars to devote himself to the systematic study of the Chinese in the Philippines and on Philippine-China relations. His pioneering work in Chinese on Philippine-China Relations and Huaqiao in the Philippines ( , Manila, 1961) became classic references on the subject matter at a time when there was an extreme dearth in studies about the Chinese community.The book collated his articles and writings published in the Chinese ) from 1958 to Commercial News ( 1961. The extensive collection of articles was originally planned to fill up ten volumes, but due to his early demise, only the first two volumes of articles that he had already edited and updated were ready for publication. Two years after his death in 1983, the first volume was combined with the second volume and published in Hong Kong as a tribute to, and in commemoration, of his life’s works. Shortly after his first book was published, two more books saw print in Hong Kong in 1961: Vignettes on the Philippine Chinese History ) and Philippine Myths, ( Legends and Folk Tales. Tan almost died from his first heart attack in 1965 due to physical stress. In 1967, he went into banking and was designated branch manager of Consolidated Bank branches in Legaspi, Zamboanga, and Paco, Manila. He retired from his bank job early due to heart disease. He became ill again in 1970 and 1977. In 1979 he retired completely from his bank job and rested at home. From then, he devoted his time to research and writing a regular column in a Chinese newspaper. During the Martial Law period, he continued to write weekly columns for the Amity Newsletter (an official publication of the pro-China Amity Club ] since its in the Philippines [ inception in 1975). In 1981, when the World ) started publication, he was News (

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responsible as editor of foreign news and later became its editor-in-chief. When he started writing his columns in 1958, his whole time and attention were focused on research on the history, issues, and problems concerning the Chinese in the Philippines.The entire second floor of his house and his room were filled with books, magazines, journals, and news clippings — important references for his articles and columns. Back then, he could have been the only Chinese-Filipino who already owned the complete 54-volume Blair and Robertson’s The Philippine Islands and had a subscription to the Philippine Studies Journal. Tan was born on 15 January 1927. His father, Tan Ying Yee, was a well known textile merchant in Manila and his mother was So Siok Ching of Butuan in Mindanao. He finished his elementary school at St Stephen’s High School (then known as the First Chinese Girl’s School) in Manila and his secondary school at the Philippine Chinese High School. The school was closed during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. Tan was sixteen then. While still at school, teachers and school officers encouraged students and school personnel to participate actively in anti-Japanese resistance activities. Five years before the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, ethnic Chinese in the Philippines were well known to have actively participated and helped in anti-Japanese resistance in China, including organizing the nationwide “boycott Japanese goods” movement. These young students did not only learn resistance against an aggressor, but their activities also provided them with the chance for widespread cultural enlightenment and theoretical learning. Tan Tai Bin was an active element in this student movement and this became the cornerstone that laid the foundation for his subsequent literary achievements and academic

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research. He devoured studies in social science and social economics, which later nurtured his interest in history and theory. During the 1942 Japanese invasion of the Philippines, a hundred thousand Americans surrendered and abandoned the Filipinos to suffer at the iron hands of the Japanese. Those were the darkest hours for both Filipinos and Chinese-Filipinos who suffered from torture, persecution, slavery, and starvation. However, for every persecution there was a counter resistance. Several anti-Japanese resistance guerilla units were organized as their members wished to avoid being slaves of the Japanese. The Youth Resistance Grand Alliance against Japanese Aggression ( , for short) was organized or Qing Kang, and not too long afterwards, Tan was recruited and became one of the youth leaders. The youth who joined Qing Kang were imbibed with stalwart principles and determined to sacrifice themselves if necessary. They conducted underground activities under the very noses of the enemy and without any thought of danger to themsleves. Tan came from a well off family, but he still joined the underground movement, undertook dangerous work, and was sorely tested in the three years of anti-Japanese struggle. Being a youth leader, he was able to influence a huge number of young people who were recruited to join the cause in defence of freedom. Manila was devastated as an aftermath of the war and mainly because of the massive bombardment by the Americans during the liberation of Manila. Epidemics broke out as hungry children and refugees filled the refugee camps. Tan joined the groups working to help the refugees day and night, and in medical and relief missions. After the war, he headed the education group of Qing Kang. They used the Philippine Chinese High School as their base to convene the Social Science

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Research Forum on two occasions, with Tan as one of the speakers. This forum had a long lasting influence on the pursuit of research and further education among members of the youth groups. After liberation and the return of public order, Tan went back to school to continue his studies. In 1950, he graduated from Adamson University as a chemical engineer. The immediate post-war Chinese community was rocked by long periods of unrest and uncertainty. First came a dark period of accusations and counter-accusations for collaboration with the Japanese. Members of the Chinese community were summarily executed on suspicion of being Japanese collaborators. It was a period of great unrest because some of the executions were unjustified. Some of the suspected collaborators only showed a pro-Japanese front, but were in fact actively supporting the underground guerrilla movement. The collaboration issue was shortly followed by the anti-communist witch hunt in the early to late Fifties. There was a mass arrest of Chinese-Filipinos in a dark episode which the Chinese media branded as jinqiao). Many suspected communist an ( sympathizers were accused, persecuted, arrested, and deported, some, unfairly. Staff and contributors of the pro-China Chinese Commercial News, and former members of the anti-Japanese resistance movement were the most affected. The case against the Chinese ), which erupted in Commercial News ( 1961 and went on till 1963, was an offshoot of this communist paranoia. Many were pursued, persecuted, and forced to go into hiding. It was as if the entire community had lost its equilibrium and played into the hands of communist witch hunters. Tan was both an anti-Japanese guerrilla and a contributor to the Chinese Commercial News. As such he

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was of course not spared and was among those arrested, detained, and prosecuted. He suffered a huge personal loss due to this incident — the manuscript for the second volume of Huaqiao in the Philippines was already bound and ready for printing, but it was scattered during a raid at his house. Fortunately, the original drafts were still intact. The case against the Chinese Commercial News went through long litigation, but in the end was dismissed because the evidence presented was deemed insufficient. While the criminal case was dismissed, the trauma of the psychological persecution and attack had a long lasting impact on the Chinese community at the time. Many suffered unfathomable loss, not just of money and resources due to the long litigation, but also the loss of trust and confidence of fellow businessmen and customers who distanced themselves from those accused out of fear. Tan, however, refused to be discouraged by this trial.When the situation normalized, he went back to work and continued to pursue his life’s interest in social science research and in writing about the Philippines, China, and the Chinese community, up to the time of his untimely demise. He died of a heart attack on 30 May 1983 at the age of fifty-six. Colleagues and friends considered his early demise an irreparable loss to the Chinese-Filipino community. Teresita Ang-See R E F E R E N C E S Clippings in various Chinese language dailies from 4 June to 7 June 1983, published on the death of Tan Tai Bin. Clippings in various Chinese language dailies, 3 August, 12 August, 23 August 1983, eulogizing the life of Tan Tai Bin. 《

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《 ：

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）。

，1985。 《 ，1961。

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。

：

》，1983 9 7 。

Tan Thoon Lip, John ( , Chen Chunli, 1910–59) Lawyer, Singapore

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ohn Tan Thoon Lip was a leading lawyer and the first Asian registrar of Supreme Court of Singapore. Tan was born in Singapore on 22 February 1910, the son of Tan Kwee Swee (great grandson of pioneer Tan Tock Seng). His only other sibling was his sister, Maggie. He was educated at the AngloChinese School where he showed himself not only to be an excellent student, but also an accomplished pianist and musician. At the age of just sixteen, he formed an amateur orchestra that gave regular concerts. Known as Tan Thoon Lip’s Orchestra, the amateur group received good reviews for its performances. Tan himself was an excellent pianist and regularly gave concert performances, handling such difficult works as Beethoven’s late sonatas. He was also a capable and enthusiastic tennis player, competing regularly in tournaments and competitions. Tan later transferred to Raffles Institution where he enrolled in the special Queen’s Scholarship class. A popular student, he was head Prefect of the school. In 1929 he won one of the two Queen’s Scholarships, alongside Ong Tiang Eng of the Penang Free School. His achievement led to a great day of celebration at Raffles Institution, which had failed to produce a single Queen’s scholar since it was

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reintroduced in 1924. A school holiday was proclaimed on 24 January 1930 in celebration of Tan’s outstanding achievement. In August 1930 Tan left Singapore on board the Kaiyan to read law at St John’s College, Cambridge. That year, his younger sister, Maggie, became the first woman ever to win the Queen’s Scholarship and proceeded to London to study medicine. Tan obtained his LLB in 1933 and was called to the English Bar in January 1934. On his return to Singapore, Tan was selected as one of the first two appointees to the Straits Settlements Civil Service (the other being Stanley Stewart). On 3 September 1934 he was appointed Assistant Official Assignee, Singapore. He was called to the Singapore Bar on 9 August 1935. In December 1936 he was transferred to Malacca, also to serve as assistant official assignee, for a year. On his return to Singapore, he was appointed the first Chinese magistrate in Singapore, succeeding CFJ Ess, as fifth magistrate on 1 March 1937. Ess was the first Eurasian in Singapore to be appointed a magistrate. In August 1940, Tan was appointed assistant official assignee for Singapore once again. Tan’s career was then interrupted by the onset of war. At the beginning of the Japanese Occupation, he worked in the Office of Enemy Property, but in late 1942, was accused of corruption, arrested, beaten, starved and waterboarded, and forced to make a confession to a baseless accusation. He was released after two months and asked by the Japanese to become registrar of the Syonan Koto-Hoin or Supreme Court. Despite his misgivings, Tan accepted the post for his own safety. He wrote about his wartime experiences in a book entitled, Kempeitai Kindness, and testified against his chief tormentor — Sgt Major Toyoda Akiichi — in the post-war war crimes trials. Akiichi

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was sentenced to death for causing the death of two civilians. After liberation in 1945,Tan was recruited by the British Military Administration as second district judge to hear cases of food profiteering and black market sales. In October 1947 he was appointed assistant registrar, and then deputy registrar of the Supreme Court, and sheriff of Singapore. In 1948 he acted briefly as commissioner for workmen’s compensation, but returned to being a judge in 1949. This made him only the third Singapore-born Asian to be elevated to the Colonial Legal Service. He was also one of the first two Chinese to be so promoted. The other was Tan Ah Tah, who later became the first Asian to be appointed judge of the Supreme Court. In 1955 the chief minister of Singapore, David Marshall, sent Tan to New South Wales to study the free legal aid system there, with a view to introducing a similar system in Singapore. Tan spent three months studying the system before returning home to make his recommendations to the government. Legal aid was introduced in Singapore through the Legal Aid and Advice Ordinance in 1956. Outside his work in law, Tan was a keen tennis player and member of the YMCA, serving as its president from 1948 to 1950. In 1948 he also formed a music circle to “sponsor a love of music”. Concerned that young boys were idling and wasting their time, he formed the Katong Boys’ Club in 1946 and served as its president and benefactor for many years. He was also the first chairman of the management committee of the University Club of Singapore. In 1948 Tan founded and became the first president of the Singapore Film Society. He was also interested in orchids and, for a time, served as the first secretary of the Malayan Orchid Society after it was revived in 1956.

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Tan retired in January 1957 from his post as registrar of the Supreme Court on account of his failing health. He died on 14 March 1959 after a long illness and was buried at the Bidadari Christian Cemetery. A life long bachelor, he was survived by his mother and only sister, Maggie. Later that year an orchid hybrid (Vanda memoria Tan Thoon Lip) was named for him. In 1967 his sister donated over 700 books to the National Library in his memory. Kevin Y.L.Tan R E F E R E N C E S Malayan Law Journal. “The late Mr Tan Thoon Lip: In Memoriam”. 1959, vol. 25, p. xxii. The Singapore Free Press & Mercantile Advertiser. “First Chinese Magistrate in Singapore”. 27 February 1937, p. 6. The Straits Times. “Free Legal Aid Plan in Singapore”. 19 June 1955, p. 3. ———. “Promotion for Chinese Lawyers: Raised to Colonial Legal Service”. 24 October 1947, p. 5. ———. “Singapore Success: Raffles Institution Takes a Holiday”. 24 January 1930, p. 14. ———. “SS Civil Service: Queen’s Scholar Selected for Appointment”. 14 July 1934, p. 18.

Tan Tian Zhen ( , Chen Tianzhen, 1912–92) Businessman, community leader, Brunei

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ike any other early Chinese who had gone to Brunei in search of livelihood, Tan Tian Zhen had experienced a difficult process of hard struggle since uprooting from China, his birth place, at the age of 17. His was a typical case of striking out on his own and creating a glorious career out of hard work and tenacity. After having established himself

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in his career, he never forgot to give back to the society. He earned due respect for his long term contributions to the Chinese education and community. Tan was born on 24 May 1912, in the West ), Jinmen Residence of Lieyu Village ( ) of Fujian province, China. He county ( was the youngest among the 4 brothers. He was not educated formally, and helped in the family farm since young. Having heard stories about seeking livelihood in Nanyang (the South Seas), he harbored the idea of setting out to the south to earn a living since young. This desire was finally materialised in 1929 when he was 17, following a friend’s family to Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of Brunei by boat. Tan first worked in a grocery shop named ), and was earning a meager Jian Fa ( monthly salary of 5 dollars. He later moved on to another grocery shop, Jin Cheng Chun ), and though there was an increase ( in pay, the working hours were long, starting from 6 in the morning till almost midnight daily. In 1935, when he was 23 years old, Tan married the daughter of the owner of Jian Fa ). Having a family meant an increase in ( daily expenses, and so he had no choice but to leave Jin Cheng Chun to look for a better job. He managed to earn more by plying trade by boat in the Kampung Air (Water Village), situated on the opposite side of the capital daily, it was hard work but he was awarded with increased salary. During the Japanese occupation, Tan started to work in the countryside cutting rubber trees, planting rice and vegetables. He was later commanded by the Japanese to work in the salt producing business until the departure of the Japanese. After the Japanese had surrendered, Tan ventured into the business of making

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rubber shoes, taking advantage of the easy accessibility to rubber saps from his father-inlaw’s rubber plantation. Later, he went back from the countryside to live in Kampung Air and took up the old trade of doing business in his boat again. The year 1947 marked the turning point in Tan’s life, when he bought a shop with his wife’s brother, and named it “Chop Chin Seng” ). It started with just sales of groceries ( and tailoring, as the business grew, it gradually expanded into the food and beverage business, cold storage, soft drink factory and real estate. By the late twentieth century,Tan had gained a firm financial footing for the next generation to take over. Though not adequately educated, Tan nonetheless knew the importance of the education of mother tongue and the cultural heritage. He felt that the Chinese in Brunei could only be vitalised with the identification and comprehensive grasp of its own culture, and also the only way to ensure the Chinese culture to be disseminated and passed on to the succeeding generations. As such, the propagation and passing on of Chinese education had always been his top priority. As Member of the Directorial Board of Brunei Chung Hua Middle School, he consistently made large donations to the School, and appealed the public to do the same. His children were impelled by this spirit and in turn supported the Chinese education enthusiastically, especially his eldest son, Chen ), who was nominated Xian Long ( Chairman by the Board of Directors of Chung Hua to lead them to scale greater heights. ), Tan’s second son, Chen Xian Fu ( had also been working at the Board for more than a decade and was instrumental in helping to raise funds for the School. Besides providing ardent support for the School, Tan contributed to Chinese

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community as well. Due to his outstanding performance in business and his impeccable conduct, he was nominated as the Chairman of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Bandar Seri Begawan. He was also deeply concerned about the only Chinese temple in the capital, Teng Yun Dian ( ), and was its financial controller, helping the temple to resolve many of its administrative matters. His outstanding contributions in many areas had earned Tan the title of P.S.B, conferred by the Brunei Sultan in 1982. Tan was amiable, helpful and charitable. He treated everybody equally, regardless of race and ethnicity. He never took advantage of anybody and was not bothered by personal gains or losses, and was deeply respected by all. He instilled upon his children the value of good attitude and never resorting to unscrupulous means to get what they want, and to be honest and trustworthy. Because of this philosophy, his company Chop Chin Seng won the trust of suppliers and customers and enjoyed a good reputation. Words spread and his business flourished day by day. Under the influence and stewardship of Tan, his descendents propagated the tradition of trustworthiness of the business and carried it to the next level. Tan passed away in Brunei Darussalam on the 28 July 1992, at the age of 80. He was ); survived by his wife, Lin Jin Huan ( three sons, Xian Zhu ( ), and the two mentioned above; and two daughters, Mei Jin ( ) and Mei Zhu ( ). Niew Shong Tong R E F E R E N C E S “Tan Tian Zhen: A Distinguished Chinese in Brunei Darussalam”. e-huawang.com (易华网), Brunei, 2010. Interview with Tan Tian Zhen in 1989.

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Tan Tjeng Bok ( , Chen Qingmu, 1899–1985) Keroncong singer, stage and movie actor, Indonesia

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an Tjeng Bok was a leading actor in Indonesian popular opera and movies before the Second World War and he continued to work even after Indonesia became independent, both in movies and on TV. Tan, nicknamed Item (Black) as he had dark skin, was born in Batavia (Jakarta) sometime between 1899 and 1901. His father was a migrant from China, a petty merchant who ran a sundries shop. His mother, Darsih, a Peranakan Chinese, was from Jakarta. When Tan was two years old, his mother gave him away to her younger sister who then raised him. His stepfather,Tan Soen Tjioe, was a petty merchant and the family moved to Bandung. The young Tjeng Bok was sent to the Tiong ) school for only Hoa Hwe Koan ( a year and was then transferred to HCS, a Dutch school for Chinese Indonesians. He was already twelve years old when he was still in primary two.Tan was often absent from school and spent his time watching performances of keroncong (Indonesian music characterized by the jingling of bells and believed to have been influenced by Portuguese music). He had aspirations of becoming a keroncong singer and his idol was Oey Beng Oen, a popular keroncong singer at the time. He even joined a keroncong group without the knowledge of his stepfather. Tan’s wish to become a keroncong singer was strongly opposed by his stepfather, who took the view that being a singer was not a respectable occupation in local Chinese society at the time. However he insisted on becoming a singer which resulted in his expulsion from home. He then joined the Keroncong Hoot

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Visen. Being blessed with a good voice, he was popular in keroncong circles and would become much more popular than Oey Beng Oen. Around this time, he also joined a Peranakan Chinese opera group, Soei Bian Lian, and performed in operas in Malay (Indonesian). based on Chinese classical stories. Before long he joined a theatre that travelled between Krawang and Jakarta, and was put in charge of film projectors. Still, his real interest was in singing and acting on stage. Later, Tan, then better known as Item, came to know the owner of a well known travelling drama troupe called Dardanella. The leading actress of Dardanella was an Indonesian opera actress named Devi Dja, who was married to the owner of the troupe, Piedro (Pyotr Litmonov), a European of Russian descent. Being tall, dark, and blessed with a good voice, Tan gradually emerged as a leading actor. This time, he used his real name, Tan Tjeng Bok, as it was respectable to have a Chinese name then. According to one source, he had an affair with Ivera Litmonov, the mother of Pyotr Litmonov. They eventually got married, but divorced before long after which Tan left Dardanella and joined another travelling drama troupe called “Miss Riboet Orient”. Towards the end of the 1930s, or perhaps in 1940, he was discovered by the Peranakan Chinese movie producers, The Teng Tjoen and Tan Tjoei Hok, and began playing leading roles in Indonesian movies. Before the Second World War, the movie industry in Indonesia was in an embryonic stage pioneered by Peranakan Dutch and Peranakan Chinese. In fact, the latter played a major role in the industry and formed a few film companies. Many producers and directors were from the Peranakan Chinese community. Tan had acted in at least twenty movies before World War II as a leading star. Because he

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played the role of a hero in most of the pre-war movies, he was called the “Douglas Fairbanks of Java” (Douglas Fairbanks van Java). Some of his better known movies included, Srigala Item (Black Wolf, 1941), Tengkorak Hidoep (The Living Skeleton, 1941), Si Gomar (A Man called Gomar, 1941), and Singa Laoet (Sea Lion, 1941). It was reported that Tan became the most highly paid actor, but he also had a lavish lifestyle and had squandered most of his income before long. During the Japanese Occupation, the movie industry in Indonesia went into decline and most of the companies closed down. In order to make a living, Tan established a drama association in Bojonegoro (East Java) called Tjahaja Merdeka to put up performance of songs and dances. It was apparently not a success. He also went on to organize some travelling drama troupes in East Java. After Indonesia became independent, Tan moved to Jakarta where he continued to perform on stage until 1954, when he was given another opportunity to do films again. But by this time, he could no longer play the leading role. He co-starred in a number of Indonesian movies, for example, Melarat Tapi Sehat (Live in Poverty but Healthy, 1954), Djudi (Gamble 1955), Peristiwa Surabaja Gubeng (The Incident of Surabaya Gubeng, 1956), Badai Selatan (Southern Storm, 1960), Bengawan Solo (The Solo River, 1971), Si Rano (A Man called Rano, 1973), and Donat Pahlawan Pandir (Donat — A Stupid Hero, 1978). Apart from acting in movies, he also appeared on many TV programmes in cooperation with Komedia Jakarta and Senyum Jakarta. Both were comedian organizations. In these TV programs, Tan usually played a husband and his “stage wife” was Fifi Young (alias Tan Kiem Nio, 1912–75), a veteran actress who was a Peranakan Chinese herself, and

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a colleague of Tan in the Dardanella before World War II. Tan married — the first time in 1917 — and divorced many times. His last wife was Sarmini with whom he had two children. They lived in a kampung house and the wife manned a kiosk in order to make a living. Tan led a very simple life at the time. It was reported that two reporters had interviewed him in his kampung house and seen a picture of him together with President Soekarno in the palace. In the picture a smiling Soekarno was pointing his finger at Tan while facing a group of artists. Tan told reporters later that President Soekarno was telling the other artists who were present at the palace that he liked Tan’s singing and asked the group to sing together. When asked about Soekarno’s singing skills, Tan said that he sang well. Tan continued to work until the late 1970s. He then fell ill and had to be hospitalized. In 1982, he suffered from a liver disease, but could not afford to have an operation. Sinar Harapan, a Jakarta newspaper, then launched the “Dompet Tan Tjeng Bok” (Tan Tjeng Bok Pocket) campaign and raised funds for him. Many readers donated money which enabled him to have an operation and buy a decent house. Tan died of a heart attack in 1985 in Jakarta. Leo Suryadinata R E F E R E N C E S Sinematek Indonesia. Apa dan Siapa Orang Film Indonesia 1926–1979. Jakarta: Yayasan Artis Film dan Sinematek Indonesia, 1979, p. 493. “Tan Tjeng Bok (1899–1985): Seniman Tiga Zaman”. In Junus Jahja, Peranakan Idealis: Dari Lie Eng Hok sampai Teguh Karya. Jakarta: KPG, 2002, pp. 31–35. Tan Tjoei Hok and Evi Fadjari. “Tan Tjeng Bok ‘Buaya Keroncong’”. In Pelangi Cina Indonesia. Jakarta: Inti Sari, 2002, pp. 110–25.

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Tan, Vidal Arceo (1893–1978) Scholar, educator, Philippines

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r Vidal Tan ( ) was a renowned university professor of mathematics. He was a pioneer in the crafting and publication of mathematics textbooks for use locally in colleges and universities nationwide. His rise through the ranks at the University of the Philippines (U.P.) culminated in his being president of the State University from 1951 to 1956, the first Chinese Filipino to be distinguished with such a high honour.Tan also held the distinction of being among the first batch of U.P. graduates in civil engineering, the first Filipino to get a doctorate in mathematics, the first Filipino to become dean of the U.P. College of Engineering. Moreover, Tan, with his accomplishments, was offered good opportunities abroad but he chose to serve his native land. His students remember in particular his exhortation to them that graduating from the university would not mean a thing if they did not do anything to improve the lives of their fellow countrymen. Tan was born on 28 April 1893 to Gonzalo Tan and Clemencia Santeco in Bacolor, Pampanga. He attended the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, and earned a bachelor of arts degree in 1913. Shortly after graduation, he worked as an assistant instructor in the Mathematics Department prior to taking a civil engineering course at the College of Engineering. However, this was cut short when he qualified as a government pensionado and went to Cornell University, where he continued his civil engineering education. Despite the fact that he completed his engineering degree abroad,

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the U.P. College of Engineering listed him as one of the institution’s first batch of civil engineering students, recording him in the university’s history. He then taught as associate professor of mathematics before becoming a full-time professor, and subsequently headed the Mathematics Department in 1920. Later, he went to the University of Chicago and earned a doctoral degree in mathematics, becoming the first Filipino to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics in 1925. That same year, he returned to U.P. and served as chairman of the Mathematics Department. He was concurrently part-time consulting civil engineer at the Metropolitan Water District from 1925 to 1928. In 1926, U.P. president Rafael Palma gave him the additional appointment of handling student registration. From 1931 to 1933, he was a member of the board of regents, to which he would return with a concurrent status while serving as U.P. president from 1951–56. Later, he was appointed dean of the College of Arts and Letters, and in 1938, when the University of the Philippines, Baguio, was opened, he was appointed head of the College of Arts and Sciences. In 1939, he became the sixth dean of the College of Engineering, the first Filipino to be appointed, as his predecessors were all Americans. At the same time he was appointed head of the Department of the Mechanics and Engineering Drawing. On 3 October 1949, he resigned as dean and went over to the Far Eastern University in Manila as its fourth president, a role he held until 1952, when he went back to the UP to serve as its eighth president. On 4 April 1951, when he succeeded U.P. president Bienvenido Gonzales, the university undertook several corollary programmes that further bolstered its status as one of the premier learning institutions in Asia, including the improvement of the quality of its instruction, the development

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of the faculty, its physical expansion and addition of new units, the strengthening of research, and cultural development. A great leap for the U.P. College of Engineering was made in 1953 when it implemented the new engineering curriculum that required five years of study instead of four. The additional year accommodated the inclusion of several social science and humanities subjects and the legislated requirement of twelve units of Spanish. The advance of technology at the time required the addition of new subjects and laboratory courses. One of the challenges Tan faced as U.P. president concerned the university chapel, which was shared between Catholic and Protestant students. With the growing population of students on the campus, Tan’s attention was called to requests that separate chapels be built for the two groups. Thus, he allocated parcels of land in the non-academic section of the university. These were trying times for Tan as he dealt with issues of academic freedom, the threat of sectarianism, fraternity and sorority violence. It was in the middle of this maelstrom that the idea for a “saucer” type chapel started. In May 1954, the Protestant chapel was the first to have its construction started and its modern structure by university architect Cesar Concio was completed a year later. The Protestant Chapel of the Risen Lord was funded by donations from the United States. The Catholic chapel, named “The Chapel of the Holy Sacrifice” was not as lucky and had to scrounge and scrape for funds raised entirely by the U.P. congregation. Students missed their lunches and faculty donated portions of their salaries to the fund in order to complete the said Catholic Chapel. People remember Tan for his initiative to have two distinctive chapels within the U.P. Diliman campus built. Student welfare was another area to which Vidal Tan gave his personal attention.

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On receiving complaints from the university’s alumni and students about the teachers’ “meanness”, he addressed the members of the university faculty through a memo dated 26 June 1952 and asked each member to look into his method of teaching and his attitude towards students. He cited a case in which a student who was an outstanding medalist from a previous school, failed repeatedly his mathematics subject. The student then left U.P., went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States, and was ranked close to the top on graduation. Tan emphasized that the lack of instructional efficiency and effective methodology did not motivate the students enough for them to excel. He called for more patience towards, and sympathy for students. He cited that education often failed because of valid complaints and criticisms about teachers’ inability to reach out to the students and motivate them to appreciate a subject more. Likewise, it was also Tan, authorized by the board of regents, who opened the U.P. Preparatory School in 1954. It was a unique, first-class high school in Manila, with a curriculum designed for students with the aptitude and talent for university-level education. It has since then graduated highly talented students and is now known as the U.P. Integrated High School, located in a part of the U.P. Diliman campus. Tan published books in mathematics, among which, are Modern High School Arithmetic for the Philippines (1924), Applied Arithmetic for Philippine High Schools (1934), General Mathematics (authored with F. Perez, 1940), Plane and Spherical Trigonometry with Solid Geometry (1950), First Course in College Algebra (1956), and Arithmetic for Community Living (1961). He was also an accomplished playwright and essayist. His plays include the popular The Husband of Mrs. Cruz, The Meeting

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of the Town Hall, “Souls in Torment” (which is part of his Glimpses of ‘Noli Me Tangere’), The Waves, A Daughter of Destiny, and Penpals Wanted (a one-act comedy). Tan articulated his philosophical ideas on education through his essays. Foremost among them are: “The Role of Our State University”, an inaugural commencement address he delivered when he took his oath as president of the University of the Philippines on 8 April 1952; “Our Philosophy of Education; and Role of Science in Man”. His only poem sketched on a piece of paper did not see print, but echoes his longing for a peaceful departure, and ends with a prayer for his country and countrymen. Tan breathed his last breath on 7 February 1978 at his residence in San Juan, Metro Manila. He and his wife Teresa Yulo, had only one child, Lieutenant Vidal Lorenzo Y. Tan, Jr., who died at age twenty-five, as a hero of World War II. He was a scholar, a promising lawyer, a talented poet, and essayist, whose works have been collated in a book titled, Message of Quiet: A Collection of Poems and Essays. Angelo B. Ancheta R E F E R E N C E S Alcazaren, Paulo. “Chapel of Sacrifice”. 21 December 2005. Retrieved 30 June 2010 from . College of Engineering, University of the Philippines. “Alumni | College of Engineering”. Retrieved 30 June 2010 from . College of Engineering, University of the Philippines. “The First Decade” (1910-1920). Retrieved 30 June 2010 from . National Historical Commission of the Philippines. “Vidal S. Tan: Seventh President of the University of the Philippines”. 21 October 2008. Retrieved 30 June 2010 from .

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Ramirez, Ramon. “Tan, Vidal. Engineering Education”. Retrieved 30 June 2010 from . Viloria, Manuel “In Abiding Faith”. 3 October 2006. Retrieved 30 June 2010 from .

Tan Wee Hin, Leo ( , Chen Weixing, 1944– ) Marine biologist, educationist, Singapore

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eo Tan Wee Hin was born on 19 October 1944 in Singapore, the son of Leo Kok Soon, an accountant and Maisie, a nurse. He was educated at St Joseph’s Institution and then at the University of Singapore where he graduated with a BSc (Hons) in zoology. By his own admission, Tan was a good but not outstanding student and it was not till his second year at university that he really blossomed as a scholar. He did well enough to be awarded a research scholarship to pursue his doctorate in zoology (marine biology) at the University of Singapore. In 1973, while still writing up his doctoral dissertation, he was appointed Senior Tutor at the University. The following year, he graduated with a PhD in marine biology and while undergoing his deferred National Service stint, he was invited by University of Singapore Vice-Chancellor Dr Toh Chin Chye to become a Lecturer at the Zoology Department at the University of Singapore. From 1973 to 1986, Tan taught at the Zoology Department and was promoted to the post of Senior Lecturer in 1982. In 1982, Tan joined the Singapore Science Centre as director while concurrently continuing his teaching at the University. The idea for establishing the Science Centre Singapore (SCS) was first mooted in 1969 by the Science Council of Singapore. At the time, the

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Singapore Government was keen on promoting scientific education and it was decided that the scientific collection of the National Museum would form the core of the new Science Centre. It was officially declared open in 1977 and its first director was Dr R.S. Bathal. When Bathal resigned to take up a research position in Australia in February 1982, Tan took over as Director, having been seconded from the University. In 1986, Tan became full-time Director of the Singapore Science Centre and once again shot to national fame. To many Singaporeans, Tan was already a familiar face. For 7 years (1975–81), he was quiz-master in the annual television schools’ science quiz and challenge. His great enthusiasm for teaching science and for bringing the subject to the masses endeared him to many who saw the Science Centre grow into one of the best public educational institutions in Singapore. At the Centre, he began a series of pocketsized guides on nature for the layperson; organised regular talks and exhibitions and was responsible for the building of the Laser Theatre, the $18 million Omnimax Theatre (1987) and the $1.5 million Observatory. Tan served as Director of the Centre for a decade and his name became synonymous with the institution and continues to be closely identified with it despite his having left the Centre for over two decades. During his tenure at the Centre, Tan raised visitorship from 90,000 to 900,000 with a blockbuster dinosaur exhibition in 1991, his last year as Director. In 1991, when the Government decided to establish a Science Faculty at the new National Institute of Education (NIE),Tan was invited to be its Foundation Dean. Returning to academia, which is his first love, Tan got down to work quickly and put his formidable administrative skills to work. He was appointed

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full Professor just a year later. In 1994, Tan succeeded Professor Gloria Lim as Director of NIE. Under his leadership, the NIE grew into a teacher education institution of high regard. The NIE became turnkey consultants to Abu Dhabi (2002) and Bahrain (2007) to build colleges of education on the model developed by NIE. In 2008, Tan left NIE and returned to NUS as Professor and Director of Special Projects in the Dean’s Office, Faculty of Science. Among his duties is to set up a joint master’s programme for science communications. Returning to NUS also gave Tan the opportunity to return to his original love — marine biology. He was very much involved in Project Semakau, a three-year project to document the unique species of marine flora and fauna on Palau Semakau, an artificial landfill. The project was undertaken by the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research and was funded by HSBC Bank and supported by the National Environment Agency. After Tan’s return to NUS, he was appointed by the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity as chairman of its fund-raising committee to build a standalone natural history museum. The current museum — a modest set-up housed in the NUS Science Faculty — is home to one of the world’s most famous and important natural history collections. Over the next three years, Tan and his team raised S$46 million to build the Lee Kong Chian Museum of Natural History, to be located at the new University Town of the NUS. Beyond academia,Tan has also been active in many civic organisations: Chairman of the National Parks Board; President, National Academy of Science, Singapore; President, Federation of Asian Scientific Academies and Societies; Honorary Fellow, Singapore Institute of Biology; Founder member, Science Council

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of Asia; Chairman of the National Youth Achievement Award. Among his many decorations and awards are: Public Administration Medal (Gold) (1995); Public Service Medal; Public Service Star (2001); National Science and Technology Medal (1999);Green Leaf Environmental Award (1997); National Order of Merit (Officer) France; Distinguished Friend of Ngee Ann; Distinguished Science Alumnus NUS; Public Administration Medal (Gold)(Bar) (2007); and President’s Award for the Environment (2007). Tan is married to Dr Wong Chor Chon, an opthalmologist, and they have two sons, Lionel and Lester. Kevin Y.L.Tan R E F E R E N C E S “Heart of the Centre”. The Straits Times, 15 April 1991. M. Nirmala. “The entrepreneurial teacher’ Straits Times, 21 July 2000, p. 58. “Science dean Leo Tan chosen as NIE head”. The Straits Times, 29 January 1994, p. 27. Tania Tan. “3-Year census of marine life on Semakau”. The Straits Times, 15 November 2008. Victoria Vaughan. “$46m raised for natural history museum”. The Straits Times, 23 July 2010. “Zoologist to head the Science Centre”. The Straits Times, 16 March 1982, p. 1.

Tan Yoke See, Henry ( , Chen Yushu, 1943– ) Bowling pioneer, Singapore

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enry Tan Yoke See was the first Singaporean ten-pin bowler to achieve iconic status. The game was introduced in 1964, when Jackie’s Bowl Orchard opened its doors. Tan was one of the first customers to book a lane to play. Already a good sportsman

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with an interest in table tennis and athletics, he developed an individual, left-handed bowling style that brought him local and then international success. Within five years Tan had confirmed his place as a local bowling legend. He ousted local champion S.P. Loh, and went on to win the individual silver medal at the World Games in Copenhagen in 1970. A multiple winner of the Sportsman of the Year award, he also achieved acclaim as a coach and role model. Tan was born in Singapore on 26 September 1943, the fourth son of five siblings. His father,Tan Kah Woon, migrated to Singapore from Hainan Island (China) in the early 1930s. As the popularity of the game increased rapidly, the name Henry Tan appeared regularly in the results columns of the newspapers. Local leagues and competitions, including playing teams from Ipoh and Penang, were an important feature of Tan’s early exposure to a career. Within two years he was recording the highest individual series scores in league competitions. A major landmark was his selection to represent Singapore in the International Masters regional finals in Bangkok in October 1967. Consistent high scores during the next two years enabled him to compete internationally. In 1969 he earned a taste of international success at the Asia Invitational in Hong Kong where he won a silver medal. He appeared in individual and doubles tournaments and narrowly missed out on an all-expenses paid, round the world trip when coming second in an international 120-game doubles marathon in Kuala Lumpur in early 1970. As a prelude to a later stunning success, Tan took the top honours on the first day of the First Federation Internationaledes Quilleurs (FIQ) Asian Zone bowling championships. With his partner, S.P. Loh, he won the pairs competition, defeating a Japanese pair by 75 pinfalls.

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Shortly before the World Games success, local writer Anthony Ramasamy highlighted some of Tan’s notable characteristics. Magnanimous in defeat, he was described as a humble winner, though sometimes pessimistic about his prospects in a competition. In November 1970, Tan was convinced there was a jinx on him when he came in second in the World Cup. In the final play-off against Klaus Müller of West Germany, he was defeated by 651-581. It was a major achievement, but to Tan, facing reality meant to acknowledge that Müller was the better bowler and that chance often plays an important role in competition. He averaged 201 pinfalls during the tournament. The following year Tan experienced additional fame by being the subject of a television feature. His second place in Copenhagen and the Sportsman of the Year award made him a worthy celebrity. In 1973 the Wold Cup was staged in Singapore and he was selected to represent Singapore. He was unable to repeat the 1970 success, finishing in fifth place. If Tan had once considered himself to be a born loser, his attitude must have changed dramatically in 1975. His old adversary, Loh Sin Yun, had to pull out of the World FIQ Championships in September. Tan was the reserve and travelled to London. First, with Denis Tay, he claimed second place in the pair’s event, losing narrowly to the English team. Then he shattered the world record with a total of 298 pinfalls out of a possible 300 in the singles event. Singapore High Commissioner Yong Nyu Lin led the celebrations in London. Bowling was included in the Southeast Asian Peninsular (SEAP) Games for the first time in 1975 in Bangkok and Tan took the All-Events gold medal, finishing with identical 238 scores in the final two games.These three major successes ensured that he would again win the Sportsman of the Year award.

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An injury, first sustained in 1974, limited Henry’s participation in competition from 1976 to 1978, but he was still able to achieve record breaking performances, notably, a 219 average at Jackie’s Bowl in June 1976. He made a full comeback in 1979 when he won the Masters title at the National Championships. Tan took on more coaching responsibilities at the beginning of the 1980s, combining his work with personal preparations for competition. The 12th SEA Games were held in Singapore in 1983 and these represented an opportunity for Henry to crown a glorious career. He was both a competitor and a coach at the Games. He was a member of the teams of three and five which clinched gold medals. The team as a whole took seven out of the twelve gold medals available. This outstanding performance with the younger bowlers led to his selection by the Singapore National Olympic Council as Coach of the Year. He was an inductee to the Singapore Sports Council Hall of Fame in 1985. Over the next ten years, Tan continued to coach members of the national bowling team at the Katong Centre. One of his most illustrious students was Grace Young, who started bowling relatively late, but also became an iconic figure in bowling in her own right. Young has reflected on the nurturing side of Henry’s personality and described him as a survivor who loves life and what it offers. He is a coach who knows his protégé with his heart and a friend she can call on, whatever the time. In 1993 Tan played a significant role in establishing bowling as a curricular activity for schools. He retired from managing Jackie’s Bowl (Katong) in 2002, but continued to be involved in the game. His coaching activities included guiding the St Andrew’s Junior College team. His approach to this type of task did not relate exclusively to the skills and techniques of bowling. In 2005 he said that

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coaching young bowlers was not just about teaching the game, but also about creating a positive environment for them to learn about life through sport. Tan joined Singapore Bowling (Federation) as one of the national head coaches in 2006, but has also spent time working in Indonesia. More recently he continued to impart his knowledge to the team and was instrumental in the nation’s bowling success in the 1st Asian Youth Games, which were hosted by Singapore in 2009. The bowling team secured a total of eight medals. In January 2011 Tan received a Singapore Bowling Federation Commendation Award in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the local bowling scene and the bowling fraternity. Just four months later, as one of the three national head coaches, he was again named Coach of the Year in the Singapore National Olympic Council Sports Awards for 2010. Nick Aplin R E F E R E N C E S “Major Achievements: Singapore Bowling”. (accessed February 2012). The Straits Times. “Where are they now? Henry Tan”. 1 May 2005, p. 36. Personal Interview (2011).

Tancaktiong, Tony ( , Chen Juezhong, 1960– ) Entrepreneur, Philippines

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ilipino taste comes first. This is the most potent ingredient behind Jollibee Restaurants’ success. A mix of honesty, hard work, integrity, humility, discipline, frugality, and other traditional Confucian

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virtues is the recipe Tony Tancaktiong uses in his chain of food service business ventures, Jollibee Foods Corporation. Starting from a tiny ice cream parlour three decades ago, Tony Tancaktiong slowly built his business to become one of the leading companies in the Philippines today. “Jollibee” has become a household word throughout the country. Truly, a Filipino family outing, or a balikbayan’s (expatriate) homecoming, is never complete without a Jollibee meal. Most importantly, the presence of a Jollibee restaurant in any place has now become a benchmark for that particular area’s growth. Tancaktiong’s beginnings are as humble as the lives of some of the people Jollibee serves everyday. Born on 7 October 1960, he and his siblings first studied at the Philippine Sakya Academy, a Buddhist school in Manila, because his father was a cook in a Chinese temple. His father’s employment got them scholarships to study in the school for free.Tancaktiong and his siblings did well in school and lack of money was not a hindrance to their getting top grades or enjoying a close-knit family life. When Tancaktiong was eleven, the whole family moved south to Davao where his father was invited to set up a Chinese restaurant. Tancaktiong finished his high school education at Davao Chinese High School. It was also in Davao that he and his siblings were first introduced to the food business. Brothers and sisters waited on tables, cleaned up, and learned how a restaurant is run when school was out for the day. He admitted that at times they created more mess than help but they all learned the tasks in a restaurant business. Tancaktiong graduated from secondary school as one of the top three mathematics students. Among his siblings, he was the only one who moved to Manila for a university education. There he took up chemical engineering at the University of Sto. Tomas.

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His intention to work overseas after graduation was set aside when he got married right after university and felt the need to make a living immediately to support his new family. Inheriting his father’s entrepreneurial flair, Tancaktiong saw a poster in school about the Magnolia Ice Cream Parlor looking for franchisees. His father lent him the initial capital and he immediately set up two Magnolia ice cream parlours in two of the busiest districts of the metropolis — one in Cubao, Quezon City, and the other in Quiapo, Manila. Typical of Chinese families, his siblings left Davao for Manila to help him out. Tancaktiong and his wife managed the Cubao branch, while his brother and a sister handled Quiapo. Summers in the Philippines being hot and humid, ice cream parlours were a hit at the time Tancaktiong opened his. They were not just places to cool off and have dessert, but were also the “in” thing where classmates, officemates, friends, and families would gather for special occasions such as birthdays. The newly introduced parfaits, ice cream concoctions and milkshakes were especially savoured when enjoyed in the company of friends and relatives. Tancaktiong soon found an opportunity to serve not just ice cream but simple snacks for those who wanted to offer their friends a bigger treat. Since his sister had a good recipe for hamburgers, the parlours started selling these too. Through word of mouth, the sales of the burgers soon outpaced ice cream. This recipe remains a closely guarded secret. The few people in the company who know the secret are required to sign confidentiality agreements. The family changed the restaurant’s name to Jolly Bee in 1978. This was later shortened to Jollibee, which still meant happy bee. The bee symbolizes industriousness as well as the

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spread of sweet things. The choice of the word “jolly” is very appropriate for Tancaktiong, who admits he rarely gets angry. Jollibee’s range of offerings “capitalizes on the unique Filipino taste that is sweet and oozing with flavorful smell”. “We knew something important all along: Filipino taste is sweet. This is very Filipino — very Asian. We may not be conscious of it, but we tend to prefer the sweet side of food,” he reveals. Tancaktiong recognizes that aside from the penchant for sweet tastes, Filipinos love to smell their food before they go for their first bite. Guided by this concept, coupled with the right attitude to challenges and competition, he has made Jollibee Foods Corporation the great establishment it is today. News reports say that from a measly two million pesos in sales in its first year in 1978, Jollibee reached the 500-million peso annual mark in annual sales in 1984, just six short years later. This feat propelled the company into the list of the Top 500 Philippine Corporations. In 1987, the company landed on the list of Philippines’ Top 100 Corporations. It is the first fast food chain to break the one-billion peso sales mark in 1989. Sometime in the mid1990s, Jollibee acquired Greenwich Pizza and Delifrance franchises. In 1993 Tancaktiong’s growing company became the first food service establishment to be listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange. The following year, it was cited as one of Asia’s leading companies in the Far Eastern Review, while the Asian Business magazine named Jollibee Employer of the Year in 1998, and Most Admired Company in the Philippines in 2000. In 2000 the company additionally bought out Chowking Foods Corporation. Later it also took over Tom’s Teriyaki, Amici di Don Bosco, as well as the majority shares in Yonghe, a fast food chain in China. In 2010 Jollibee acquired

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a 70-per cent stake in the country’s biggest chicken barbecue chain, Mang Inasal. Today Jollibee is the Philippines’ biggest homegrown fast food conglomerate, with more than a thousand outlets of its own and those of franchises in the country. The Jollibee outlets alone now number more than 600 local branches and there are also over fifty international stores located in countries such as the United States, Hong Kong, and Brunei. In recognition of his achievements, Tancaktiong has deservedly received various awards in entrepreneurship. He was named Ernst and Young’s World Entrepreneur of the Year (EOY) in 2004 after besting thirty-one other finalists from around the world. During the award ceremony in Monte Carlo, Monaco, the distinctive red bee that is Jollibee’s logo was cited as the Philippine symbol for happiness. Tancaktiong was chosen by an international panel composed of nine judges who were all past participants in their respective countries’ EOY awards. They particularly took notice of Jollibee’s “ability to fund its own growth by reinvesting profits”. Says Howard Stevenson, professor of entrepreneurship at the Harvard Business School and chair of the judging panel, “[Jollibee] is a success story based on solid foundations, not a meteor that will burn itself out.” Jollibee was moreover hailed by the WEOY organizers for its astronomical growth from an ice cream parlour to a leading fast food restaurant in just a matter of years. They recognized the company as “an unofficial measure of the health of the wider Filipino economy”. Tancaktiong was also given a special award for Business and Entrepreneurship in the 2006 Dr Jose P. Rizal Awards for Excellence, organized by The Manila Times and Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran, a leading Chinese-Filipino organization.

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Certainly, these achievements are clear proof that a Filipino company can compete with foreign firms and that there is hope for the Philippine economy to develop further. Over 40,000 people have jobs, hundreds of suppliers have income opportunities, and many entrepreneurs have gained access to a thriving food service venture through its franchise scheme. Even before the Jollibee Foundation was set up in 2004, the company had already been making significant contributions to the reshaping of national values. Jollibee’s “Kaya mo, Kid” social development programme, foster positive values in children. Advertising campaigns also highlight strong national pride, good family values, and faith in the Filipino. Another programme, “MaAga ang Pasko,” is the longest running Christmas gift collection drive in the country. Meanwhile, the “Nurture the Future” programme provides supplemental feeding to malnourished children nationwide. Jollibee’s social commitment is also evident in projects with Habitat for Humanity Philippines (a poverty housing project) and the Give-ALife Charity Foundation (which aims to raise funds for the purchase of desperately needed life-saving medicines and hospital equipment for indigent paediatric patients). Tancaktiong’s and his family’s standard of living remains conservative as he grew up in a household that upheld a frugal lifestyle. His son who finished his computer and business studies, is now working in China, while his eldest daughter teaches English, also in China. The youngest Tancaktiong offspring is still studying, while Tancaktiong’s wife remains a valuable adviser at Jollibee although she no longer gets involved in the day-to-day operations. For all his honours and achievements, Tancaktiong remains his humble self. He has been quoted as saying, “We share with our people any honor and success that come our

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way.” He credits his mother’s resourcefulness and optimism for fostering in him his hardworking attitude in life. In another interview, Tancaktiong also attributes his restaurant’s accomplishments to what his father instilled in him many years ago: “If you’re a tailor, you make sure the shirt fits your client. If you’re in the restaurant business, you make sure your food tastes good.” Ruth Manimtim-Floresca R E F E R E N C E S Jollibee official website . Quimpo-Espino, Margie. “This Jolly man deserves his ‘langhap sarap’ success”. Inq7money.net, 26 June 2004. Retrieved July 2009 from . Samante, Maria Theresa S. “A Salute to Outstanding Tsinoys”. 28 June 2006. Retrieved July 2009 from . “The Story of A Bee Making the Buzz in Pinoy Business”. 2 July 2004. Retrieved July 2009 from . Tulay Fortnightly. “Tony Tan Caktiong”. XVIII, nos. 25 & 26, 20 June 2006.

Tang Choon Keng ( , Dong Junjing, 1901–2000) Businessman, entrepreneur, Singapore

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ang Choon Keng, better known as C.K. Tang or the Curio King, was a pioneer of Singapore’s retail industry and best known as the founder of Singapore’s famous home-grown departmental store C.K. Tang. Tang Choon Keng, alias Tang Un Tien, was born in Guihu, Chaoyang in Guangdong in 1901 to an itinerant Presbyterian preacher. He grew up with his nine other siblings at the back of a church in Shantou (Swatow) where

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part of his time was spent helping church members wash, iron, and pack the lace and embroidery for which Shantou is famous before they were sent to fellow Teochews overseas to sell. It was probably during these sessions that he heard stories about places such as Rangoon, Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Singapore which motivated him to try his luck in Singapore at the age of twenty-one. With the encouragement and blessing of his parents, he embarked on the journey to Singapore after buying drawnwork lace, bedsheets, tablecloths, napkins, napery, and handkerchiefs in preparation for their sale at his destination. After packing all his goods into a leather suitcase and a metal box which he kept till the end of his life, he paid $16 for the difficult voyage to Singapore on board the Hong Seng, where he slept in the hold of the vessel, and ate his meals from a wooden bucket of rice and vegetables shared by other hold passengers. On his arrival, Tang received help from members of the Presbyterian Life Church in Prinsep Street in renting a room at Arab Street for $10 a month. He hired a handcart for his linen goods and began his new life in Singapore as a door-to-door salesman, using simple Malay which he had picked up after his arrival to approach European households along Tanglin Road, Holland Road, and in areas such as Bukit Timah, Katong, and Pasir Panjang. Realizing that Singapore was a British colony and that the Europeans preferred to deal with salesmen who were honest, he adopted his lifelong philosophy of fair and consistent pricing in his business, which earned him recommendations and referrals from his customers and became the cornerstone of his business dealings. Having built up a base of a regular clientele and made arrangements for a regular supply of linens and drawnworks products from Shantou, Tang was able, within a decade, to rent a retail

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shopfront in River Valley Road. His business was so good that it quickly expanded from one floor in a shophouse to three shop units. He also became an employer of five to six shop assistants, including his younger brother, Tang Guang Hock, who had came to Singapore to study. Even in his retail business, he maintained the same philosophy of honesty and fair pricing which kept his customers returning to him. After eight years in Singapore, he returned to China to get married, although he made it a point to return quickly to Singapore to ensure he didn’t lose any of his customers. After a short stay of four months in China, Tang returned to Singapore with his new wife, mother, and extended family, right in the throes of the Great Depression. But as he recalled, his business was, in fact, not very much affected by the poor economic climate as his clients were still mostly European and despite the Great Depression, continued to receive their salaries and were thus able to continue to buy linen products from him. By the eve of the Second World War,Tang was able to amass enough capital to buy a piece of land at the corner of Jalan Mohamad Sultan and River Valley Road and build his own three-storied property. He named the building Gainurn Building, after his father, Tang Gan Urn, and used two floors in the building for his business while his family resided on the third floor. However, less than nine months after they moved in, the Japanese marched into Singapore and this marked the end of the first phase of his business. During the Japanese Occupation, Tang closed his business and even almost lost his new shophouse to the Japanese who had initially wanted to requisition his premises as barracks. He was also called up for inspection by the Japanese during the Sook Ching operation and while he managed to escape, his elder brother was not so lucky. Tang relied

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on some local clients for survival during the Japanese Occupation and afterwards was able to restart his business quickly after the war as the Japanese had left most of his goods untouched. The skyrocketing prices of goods in the immediate aftermath of the war enabled him to accumulate capital which he sought to reinvest in property since the volatile situation in China then also meant that a new supply of linen goods was difficult to obtain. The real estate which caught his eye was along Orchard Road where, according to him, prices were similar to pre-war levels. At that time, the land along Orchard Road was not popular with investors due to the existence of the Tai San Ting cemetery. Yet Tang, with Singapore’s future tourism sector in mind, was able to foresee that Orchard Road, being in a central location, would become a prime district of Singapore. The land along Orchard Road was then owned by the Jews and he made contact with someone called Nassim who put him in touch with Jewish owners of the properties. The independence of Israel in 1949 had attracted many Jews in Singapore who were eager to move to Israel and so many of the landowners, including the Manasseh family, sold their land and houses along Orchard and Scotts Roads to him very cheaply, at the cost of one to three dollars per square feet. These purchases were to prove the turning point of his career. Tang then embarked on the next phase in his retail business career by building a new retail building known as the House of Tang at the Orchard Road site, modelling the architecture of the building after the Imperial Palace in Beijing. He personally made a trip to Beijing to inspect and observe the old-style buildings there, and on his return, worked closely with his contractor to achieve the look and style he wanted, going to the extent of ordering green roof tiles from Malacca. The original House

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of Tang cost him $200,000 to build and was completed in 1958. With the new start and the growth of his retail business, Tang continued to oversee his business personally, monitoring sales figures every three hours from his office and walking all the shop floors. Even though he employed managers and assistants, he remained a very hands-on boss, making decisions on what to sell, devising selection tests for job applicants, hand-picking and teaching his employees. Known affectionately among his long-time staff as “Ah Gong” or grandfather, his handson management style extended to the shop floor, where his frugality was also legendary — he used to instruct his sales staff to recycle price tags as well as boxes and strings for gift wrapping and exports. In addition, C.K. Tang stood out from the other retailers in Singapore with his decision to close the business on Sundays, due to his philosophy that as profits could always be made, a day of rest each week would not dent earnings much. It was a practice that would be maintained by the company till 1996 when the competitive retail scene forced a change of policy. As an employer of more than a hundred employees, Tang was unable to escape the labour unrest of the 1960s in Singapore. In his oral interview, he recalls how his workers were instigated by two Indian men to go on strike, causing so much disruption to the business that he decided to wind it up in 1960. A year later, however, he re-registered the business and started all over again. From then on, the business grew and underwent several changes of names from C.K. Tang (Singapore) Limited in 1961 to C.K.Tang (S) Private Limited in 1969 and as the publicly listed C.K. Tang Limited in October 1975, with a authorized capital of $50,000,000 and a management board of four directors, including Tang himself, his eldest sonTangWee Cheng, his

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nephew Tang Wee Hee, and Dr Ee Peng Liang. The initial public offer of 4,260,000 ordinary shares in October 1975 was oversubscribed by 12.9 per cent, an indication of the public interest in the company. The decision to go public was made in the long-term interests of the company so that it would, in comparison to other Chinese companies which lasted only a few decades, last longer. Tang was aware that if the company remained privately owned and managed by the family, differences of opinions would sooner or later cause a break-up. Even so, despite enlarging the pool of professionals in his employment, the top management positions in C.K.Tang continued to be dominated by his sons, and Dr Ee remained, for many years, the only outsider on its board of directors. The first four years after the public listing of C.K. Tang Limited were profitable ones for the company which rode on the boom in the retail industry, so much so that in his chairman’s statement of 1977, Tang declared that the company was embarking on what he called a “great leap forward in expansion” for more retail space.With an eye on the booming tourism industry in Singapore, he also took a step into the unknown by announcing plans to build a new House of Tang, comprising a hotel-cum-shopping commercial complex, costing a total of S$70 million.The completion of the entire project was celebrated with the grand opening of the new departmental store and the newly opened Dynasty Hotel on the fitting occasion of the company’s golden anniversary in 1982. Tang retired in 1987 at the age of eightyfive, after fifty-five years at the helm, handing the reins of C.K. Tang Limited to his younger son, Tang Wee Sung, who was assisted by a younger management team of professionals. His retirement was marred by a long-running family feud among his sons which ended in 1994 with the closure of the Dynasty Hotel,

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which eventually reopened as the Marriott Hotel.Two years later, in 1996, C.K.Tang finally ended its long practice of closing on Sundays. In 2000, C.K. Tang Limited was estimated to be worth S$37.4 million. Tang died at the age of ninety-eight in September 2000 and was survived by his second wife, eight children, twenty-two grandchildren and thirteen great-grandchildren. Ivy Maria Lim R E F E R E N C E S Chew, Melanie. Leaders of Singapore, pp. 55–60. Singapore: Resource Press, 1996. C. K. Tang Ltd. Annual Reports, 1975–89. National Archives of Singapore. “Oral Interview of Tang Choon Keng”. 1 December 1982. The Straits Times. “C.K. Tang Over-subscribed”. 25 November 1975. Boo, Kirst. “Curio King C.K. Tang Dies, Aged 98”. The Straits Times, 4 September 2000, p. 1. Rashiwala, Kalpana. “Family Feud Brings an End to the Tang’s Dynasty Hotel”. The Straits Times, 14 April 1994.

T’ang Leang-Li (Thung Liang Lee, , Tang Liangli, 1901–75) Reporter, writer, politician, Indonesia

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’ang Leang-Li,better known in Indonesia as Thung Liang Lee, was a legendary figure who was a reporter, a writer in Dutch, English, and Malay (Indonesian). He became a politician in Kuomintang (KMT) China, serving as a secretary to Wang Ching). T’ang eventually wei (Wang Jingwei, returned to Indonesia and worked for the Indonesian Foreign Ministry. As a Dutcheducated Chinese Peranakan from Java who spoke Dutch, Malay, and English, T’ang was

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able to communicate with the elité in China, possibly in English rather than Chinese. Perhaps he later learned Chinese and was able to speak it, but his command of the language was definitely limited and he published no books in the Chinese language. In later years, he even claimed to be a descendant of a Banten aristocrat who had joined a Chinese family in Bogor to escape the persecution of the Dutch colonial government. This story cannot be verified. Descended from a prominent Peranakan family in Bogor, West Java, he studied at a Dutch High School (HBS, Jakarta) and received a B.Sc. degree in economics at the University of London (1926). He also attended the University of Vienna. His subsequent career took him between China and Europe, where he was a journalist and correspondent for the KMT Central Executive Committee (in 1929–30) and worked for the Sozialdemokratischer Pressedienst Deutschlands (Berlin), the Daily Herald and the New Leader (both London), and Sin Po (Jakarta, Indonesian language edition).Later in Beijing he was a correspondent of the New York Times. T’ang was a prolific writer in English (and German), as the number of books he wrote and edited listed below shows. His first book was China in Revolt, which was published in 1927. Another book of his, China’s New Currency System, published in 1936, was later referred to by Milton Friedman, a Nobel Prize winner in economics. He worked with and wrote a political biography of Wang Ching-wei, who later became a Japanese collaborator during the Sino-Japanese War. T’ang’s best known work, The Inner History of the Chinese Revolution (London, 1930), betrays his admiration for Wang Ching-wei, and like Wang, he was sympathetic to the left wing of the KMT. While acting as managing director

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of the China United Press and editor of the People’s Tribune (published 1931–41), he also was English-language secretary to Wang and in 1934 became minister without portfolio in Wang’s cabinet. When war broke out between China and Japan in 1937 Wang, revolted by the “scorched earth” policies pursued by the retreating Chinese troops, decided to seek accommodation with the Japanese invaders. T’ang followed him into the “collaborationist” government later established in Nanking. Not much is known about the life of T’ang towards the end of the Wang Ching-wei regime. One source says that he was arrested by the government, but was eventually released. After the end of the war, T’ang returned to Indonesia where he lived in Jakarta. There he joined Liem Koen Hian, a pre-war founder of the Indonesian-oriented Partai Tionghoa Indonesia (PTI), in founding the Persatuan Tenaga Indonesia (also abbreviated as PTI) in 1950, and worked for the Indonesian Ministry of Information. He also wrote for local newspapers and, after Soeharto came to power in the 1960s and the new government announced the name changing regulation, he changed his name to Tubagus Pranata Tirtawidjaja. He helped found the Indonesian Institute of International Affairs in Jakarta and was editor of its journal, Indonesian Review of International Affairs, after 1969. According to Thung family records, he was married to Bernardin Lien and died in 1975. Books by T’ang Leang-li include: China in Revolt: How A Civilization Became A Nation (London: N. Douglas, 1927) (also published in German in 1927); The Foundations of modern China (London: N. Douglas, 1928) (published in Indonesian as Fundamentnja Tiongkok jang

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modern = Foundations of modern China [Batavia: Sin Po, 1930]); The Inner History of the Chinese Revolution (London: Routledge, 1930); Wang Ching-wei: A Political Biography (Peiping: China United Press, 1931); The Chinese National Revolution: Essays and Documents (Peiping: China United Press, 1931) with Wang Ching-wei; The Japanese Invasion and China’s Defence: A Symposium (Shanghai: Publicity Department of the 19th Route Army, 1932), with Chi-yuen Wong; Suppressing Communist Bandits in China (Shanghai: China United Press, 1935. China To-day series no. 1 (also in German); Reconstruction in China (Shanghai: China United Press, 1935) China To-day series no. 3 (also in German and French); The Puppet State of “Manchukuo” (Shanghai: China United Press, 1935) China Today series no. 4) (also in German and French); The New Social Order in China (Shanghai: China United Press, 1936) China To-day series no. 6 (also in German); China’s New Currency System (Shanghai: China United Press, 1936) China To-day series no. 8; Fundamentals of National Salvation: A Symposium (Shanghai: China United Press, 1942), with Wang Ching-Wei; American Imperialism in China (Shanghai: China United Press, 1943), with the Research Institute for International Affairs. (This was translated into Japanese in 1943, Chinese in 1944 and republished in Beijing in 2007.) Books edited by T’ang Leang-li include: Hu Shih, Lin Yutang,Wang Ching-wei. China’s Own Critics: A Selection of Essays (Peiping:

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China United Press, 1931), with John P. Chang; Wang Ching-wei. China’s Problems and their Solution (Shanghai: China United Press, 1934), China To-day series no. 2 (also in Chinese, German, French, and Dutch); Cheng Lin. The Chinese Railways: A Historical Survey (Shanghai: China United Press, 1935), China To-day series no. 5); China Facts and Fancies (Shanghai: China United Press, 1936); China To-day series no. 7; Sun Yat-sen,Wang Ching-wei, Seishiro Itagaki, China and Japan: Natural Friends— Unnatural Enemies: A Guide for China’s Foreign Policy (Shanghai: China United Press, 1941). Mary Somers Heidhues and Leo Suryadinata R E F E R E N C E S Thoeng family genealogy (stencil, Riddekerk NL). Suryadinata, Leo. Prominent Indonesian Chinese: Biographical Sketches, pp. 196–97. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1995. Various library catalogues.

Tang Pui Wah ( , Deng Peihua, 1933– ) Sportswoman, Singapore

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ang Pui Wah holds a unique dual distinction. She was not only the first female athlete to represent Singapore at the Olympic Games, but was also the first ever Southeast Asian female athlete to participate in the Olympic Games. As such she became the object of close public attention during the 1950s — a dubious honour. Her career in athletics provides a reference point for contemporary debate on “foreign talent”. Given a different political climate during the

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late 1940s, she might well have represented China rather than Singapore. Tang was born on 11 October 1933 in Singapore and spent her infancy in Tanjong Pagar Road. Adopted by Tang Peng Hung, the owner of a soya sauce factory, she spent her early years close to Cross Street. Like other privileged youngsters she spent time quietly reading comics and watching the hustle and bustle of Chinatown; she attended Fairfield Girls’ School in Neil Road, later. Nanyang Girls’ High School in King’s Road, and for a brief period, attempted to sharpen her English by attending Raffles Girls School. It was at Nanyang that she made a name for herself as an all-rounder — first as a high jumper, then a hurdler and sprinter. Her height and speed gave her an advantage at the Chinese Schools athletics meets. Because she needed only three steps between the hurdles, instead of five, she won the races. She may have had the advantage of size and age, but she also had determination and drive and represented her school against a visiting Philippines women’s basketball team in 1950. Tang competed regularly during a nineyear period from 1948–56 and benefited from the sponsorship provided by wealthier supporters. Her victories at meetings organized by the Singapore Chinese Amateur Athletic Federation were featured regularly in the Chinese and English press. She owed no particular allegiance to the two main athletic clubs (Achilles and Swifts were run by predominantly English-speaking officials), being content, initially, to attend different training sessions arranged on her behalf by the Chinese section of the sporting fraternity. Over a period of eight years, she was associated with four track coaches — Tay Kai Teck, Ng Liang Chiang, Tan Eng Yoon, and Goh Teck Phuan. Each played his part in transforming an

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initially reticent Tang into an internationally recognized athletics star. The defining moment for Tang occurred in 1948 when she was vying for a place in the team to compete in the China Games. She desperately wanted to travel to China, but was denied the opportunity when she was eliminated from the high jump competition by a school friend. Athletes such as Tang looked to China, not within the British colony, for inspiration. The failure did not dampen her competitive spirit — she did not want to be second anymore, she wanted to be first. She did not go to China in 1950, but she did become an All-China record holder later. Tang broke the China Olympic record for the 100-metre hurdles event in 1949 at the age of fifteen. A year later she created a new All-China record in the 80-metre hurdle challenge with a time of 13.3 seconds. In 1951, at the age of seventeen, she won the Malayan Games 100-metre sprint and was selected to represent Singapore in the First Asian Games held in New Delhi the same year. She came third in her heat and fourth in the final, behind two Japanese stars and Englishwoman Laurie Dowdeswell, an Armed Forces sergeant based in Singapore. It was during these games that Neo Chwee Kok won four gold medals in swimming and the water polo team also brought home the gold. Tang became a legend of her time in the interstate competitions that were the testing grounds for young athletes. At the 1951 Malayan Amateur Athletic Association (MAAA) sports meet in Kuala Lumpur, she was the “Triple Crown” winner: gold in the 100-yards race, 220-yard race, and 80-metre hurdles. Based on these results, newspaper correspondent Ken Jalleh confidently named her the “best Chinese woman athlete” of her day.

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At the XVth Olympic Games held in Helsinki in 1952. Tang’s experience was anticlimactic. In the cool, rainy environment of the Finnish capital, she recorded disappointing times. She registered 13.8 seconds in the 100metre sprint. Her time of 12.8 seconds for the 80-metre hurdles was much better, relatively speaking, but there was still a distance to catch up. The strange track and the enormity of the occasion proved to be too much for her to deal with, but her enjoyment of the Games in the company of fellow athletes far outweighed any disappointment. Little has been recorded about these experiences, but it is apparent that Tang was already at a disadvantage in terms of the coaching expertise available to her at the time. She had developed a rather upright style leading over the hurdles and probably spent too long in the air and not enough time on the ground. She later recognized those limitations, but amusingly reflected that the solidity of the wooden hurdles somewhat discouraged a lower trajectory. After the Games, the Helsinki girl dominated the Singapore Chinese Interschools championships and was successful in the 32nd Malayan AAA Championships. Tang broke the record for the 80-metre hurdles event, coming in “at least 10 m ahead of the field”. However in the 100-metre sprint, she was defeated by Annie Choong and Fay Siebel of Selangor. Tang continued to improve on her performances in local and state meets. In 1953 she set two new records at the MAAA Championships, which were held again in Kuala Lumpur. Her crowning moment came in 1954 during the 2nd Asian Games in Manila. The 80-metre hurdles race produced a bronze medal although there were some unpleasant moments to endure. Even before the event, she was emotionally weakened. Her mother had

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just passed away. Then came the drama of the finals in Manila. Tang was penalized for a false start in the finals. She believed that the starter cheated by accusing her of starting too soon. To her it was the girl from the Philippines who had beaten the gun. She became nervous and lost fractions of a second when the race finally began. Two Japanese hurdlers, Iwamoto and Miyashita, took the gold and silver medals respectively. The girl from the Philippines, Cinco, was in fact disqualified, thus causing ugly crowd scenes. New challengers were emerging from the track and field scene in Singapore and Malaya. So for Tang the sport represented a transition phase in her life. Unable to maintain her speed over the sprint distances, she was gradually overtaken by younger girls who saw her as their inspiration, but also a target. In 1956 the Singapore Olympic and Sports Council set a qualifying time for the Olympic hurdles event that was to prove beyond her capability. Rather mysteriously, she failed to join the state team for the 35th Malayan Championships held in Penang. Tang’s career ended in 1956, after she had blazed the way for girls to take their rightful place in competitive sport in Singapore. What is often overlooked is that her pioneering efforts for women in sport brought with them a considerable burden. As the focal point of public interest she attracted more attention than her male counterparts because she was one of a few women in a man’s world. Happily for Tang, she was one of the stars of the Golden Age of Sport in Singapore who had been able to contribute actively to the sporting education of younger Singaporeans. Trainee teachers at the National Institute of Education have been entertained and enlightened by the candour and humour of Singapore’s pioneer female Olympian. Fifty-seven years after receiving

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her Asian Games medal, she still demonstrates physical and mental agility. In May 2011 she was presented with a medallion to commemorate her appearance at the Helsinki Olympic Games. As one of Singapore’s 167 acknowledged Olympians since 1936, she has been assigned the number 10 in the chronology created by the association known as Olympians Singapore. Nick Aplin R E F E R E N C E S Aplin, N.G. “Beyond the Boundaries of Propriety: Singapore’s Pioneers Women Olympians”. Olympika, vol. IX (2000): 91–114. Aplin, N.G., D.J. Waters, & M.L. Leong. Singapore Olympians: The Complete Who’s Who 1936–2004. Singapore: Singapore National Olympic Council, 2005, p. 487. Tan, Guan Heng. One Hundred Inspiring Rafflesians: 1823–2003. New Jersey; Singapore: World Scientific, c2008, p. 273.

Taw Sein Ko ( , Du Chenggao, 1864–1930) Archeologist, Myanmar

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aw Sein Ko was the first archaeologist in British Burma and a prolific writer. Born in 1864, Taw was both a racial and cultural hybrid. His father was a Hokkien migrant and his mother, a Shan princess. He therefore had a Sino-Burmese upbringing because of this mixed parentage. However, he received a British education and sojourned in London and Peking. As a result, he became a bearer of three cultures: Chinese, British, and Burmese, which, in many ways, put him into the fuzzy border zone that resisted colonial attempts at demarcation and division. He was also a bridge between two eras, that of

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the indigenous, traditional literati or the “old order”, and the new one which emerged in the wake of colonialism. In his formative years Taw received a Burmese monastic education and grew up among the aristocratic community in Mawlamyine of the Mon State in Lower Myanmar. That developed his familiarity with the Pali and Burmese languages and literature. He later spent a year in 1892 at the Inner Temple in London and Christ’s College in Cambridge. On his return to Burma in 1893 he was appointed assistant secretary and government translator and as such he undertook and completed his first archaeological tour throughout the Burmese Mon countryside. He advocated the preservation of the Mon language through the conservation of manuscripts and relics at the Bernard Free Library and Pharye Museum, as well as the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, and the British Museum. In the 1880s and 1910s, he emerged as a key advocate for the establishment of a university for Burma and for women to receive formal education. He frequented Chinatown and its temples and in his later life called his Mandalay home “Peking Lodge”. He was fluent in spoken and written Burmese, conversant with Jataka tales, and keen to promote Pali education. His familiarity with the folklore and legends of Burma was due to his Burmese mother, and the Buddhist monastic education which he received in his youth, which gave him the orientation and a localized dimension in his deep attachment to and admiration for Mandalay. He wrote Archaeological Note on Mandalay (first printed in 1917), which became very popular and was reprinted recently. In 1886, he wrote Maung Po: A Product of Western Civilization. In his numerous articles and speeches, he advocated education reform

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and popularized knowledge of Burmese culture and history. In an early essay on “Moral Education” (1884), he welcomed the expansion of state schools under British rule, but expressed strong reservations at the lack of Buddhist education and the unavailability of Burma’s traditional books on morals. Taw also translated the Kalyani Pali inscriptions, which were recorded on ten sandstones at the Kalyani Thein historical Ordination Hall erected by King Dhammachedi of Mon Kingdom in Pegu (now known Bago) in 1476, into English, and had it published in 1893 in Bombay. (A Preliminary Study of the Kalyani inscriptions of Dhammachedi, 1476 A.D., 1893, 601 pp. + plates). He reportedly was the first to translate the Kalyani inscription into English among scholars. In 1894 George Morrison, an Australian sinologist, visited Burma and came to know Taw, who accompanied him on a tour to Rangoon’s Chinese quarters. Morrison was impressed by Taw who was fluent in Burmese, Pali, Hindustani, and Chinese. In 1896, two years after the first SinoBritish Boundary Treaty (1894) was signed, Taw was sent to Peking to study the Chinese language and literature. On his return to Burma in 1898, he was appointed adviser on Chinese affairs, which enabled him to play a significant role in the Sino-Burmese Boundary Commission and to negotiate the second SinoBurmese Boundary Treaty of 1897. In May 1899, the establishment of an archaeological department was sanctioned. However, it was not realized until December 1901 when Lord Curzon visited Pagan and Mandalay. He was then appointed government archaeologist, a role he held in conjunction with other posts until 1916. In particular, Taw served as an intermediary for European views of temple conservation.

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By 1910 he enforced a government ban on using temple maintenance funds for traditional merit-seeking activities. He was more active in religious temple conservation, indicating that the preservation of the “national culture” had become more important than religious practices of holding temple celebration. That became his point of contention with Buddhist authorities commonly associated with Burma’s nationalist movement. In Burma’s nationalist mantra, ah-myobhartha-thatenaa (race-language-religion), coined by the Young Men’s Buddhist Association in 1906, language took the principal position. Language and literature became central preoccupations of the young, western educated elite.Their efforts to identify and conserve a body of especially Burmese cultural and national traditions owed much to individuals such as Taw. Between 1883 and 1913, many of his writings were published in popular journals and magazines, such as Buddhism, Rangoon Gazette, Journal of the Burma Research Society, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Transactions of the Ninth Oriental Congress (1892), Indian Antiquary, Epigraphia Indica, and the Asiatic Review. The majority of his articles were compiled into the book, Burmese Sketches (Bibliotheca Orientalise: Burma, Vol. I & II) published by Rangoon’s British Burma Press in 1913, and reprinted in 1999 by Thailand’s Orchid Press. The writings reflected Taw’s keen interest in Burmese tradition and culture, such as Burmese ethnology, Burmese language and literature (Chinese works in the Burmese language), Burmese history, archaeology, biographies of Burmese kings, superstition and folklore, Burmese religion and Chinese folk religion, education in Burma, criticism of Burmese Buddhist law, and fiction. Being a Burmese of Chinese descent, he was concerned with Chinese education and

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the preservation of Chinese-Buddhist rare manuscripts in the Chinese community in Burma. His contributions towards the Chinese community in Burma can also be traced in overseas Chinese records. Taw, together with ), the founder of Ch’ng Yeen Aun ( , one of the Kwang Wah Yit Poh ( world’s oldest surviving Chinese newspapers), and supporters of Tung Meng Hui (Sun Yat Sen’s revolutionary organization), established , 1906), the first Zhong Hua Yi Xue ( Chinese school in Myanmar. As an official witness, he was instrumental in the negotiations with the colonial museum administrator to preserve 791 volumes of the Chinese-Buddhist scripture of the Tripitaka , Qing dynastic version) in the ( colonial museum. The Tripitaka was bestowed by Empress Dowager Cixi of the Qing Court to the Chinese community of Burma in exchange for a Mandalay marble Buddha image in 1899. The thirty cartons of scriptures were brought by Venerable Ming Guan ( ) to Rangoon. (The Tripitaka Buddhist scriptures were returned by the British colonial government when the Chinese temple, Zang Jing Luo, in Bahan in north central Yangon, was completed in 1940). U Mya Han R E F E R E N C E S Burma Gazette. 6 December 1919. Nyiri Pal and Joana Breiden (eds.). “Penny Edwards, Outside In: Sino-Burmese Encounters”. In China Inside Out: Contemporary Chinese Nationalism and Translationalism, edited by Pal Nyiri and Joana Breiden, pp. 205–36. Hungary: Central Central European University Press, 2005. “The Career of Mr Taw Sein Ko”. In Burmese Sketches II, pp. 219–22. Rangoon: British Burma Press, 1920.

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Wright, Arnold (London). Twentieth Century Impressions of Burma. Rangoon: Llord’s Greater Britain Publishing Company, Ltd., 1910, pp. 100–01. 《 》，《 (1911–1951)》。 ，1951，页4、34。

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Tay Chong Hai ( , Zheng Zonghai, 1931– ) Leading physician, Singapore

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ay Chong Hai is the discoverer of hereditary disease, trichothiodystrophy or Tay Syndrome. He was the first doctor in Southeast Asia to have a disease named after him. Tay Chong Hai was born on 11 August 1931 in Malacca. Both his grandparents and parents had gone to Malaya from China and were in the wine and distillery business. He attended the Anglo-Chinese School in Malacca, but his education was interrupted by the Japanese Occupation. After the War, the Tay family moved to Kuala Lumpur and the young Chong Hai enrolled first at Batu Road School and then at Victoria Institution where he studied from 1947 to 1953. He was a good student and gained entry into the University of Malaya in Singapore in 1954. Tay graduated in 1959 and commenced his housemanship at the Singapore General Hospital (SGH). Thereafter, he was appointed house physician first at SGH, and then later at the Kandang Kerbua Maternity Hospital. In 1964, being keen on further studies, he sold his car and resigned his job to go to London. He applied for jobs in small provincial hospitals there while reading for his Membership of the Royal College of Physicians examinations which he cleared in 1967. Although he was

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keen to remain in the United Kingdom, he was urged to return by Professors Seah Cheng Siang and Khoo Oon Teik who told him that they were very short of doctors with higher qualifications. He returned to Singapore in 1967 and was appointed Senior Registrar of at Toa Payoh Hospital where he joined Medical Unit II under Professor Seah Cheng Siang. It was, he said, a ‘blessing in disguise’ as he was treated as an academic doctor, just like the university staff and was able to do a great deal of research and teaching as well. Tay subsequently obtained his Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians of Glasgow and Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. While working at the Skin Centre with Dr Khoo Oon Teik in 1971, Tay discovered a congenital illness that would later carry his name. He saw a young patient with rough and brittle hair, red and dry skin, abnormal finger and toe-nails, and initially thought that it might be a variation of Melatine syndrome. On closer examination of the hair sample, Tay concluded that this was something different altogether. He wrote it up and sent it to the American skin journal, Archives of Dermatology and it was published. Thereafter, Tay noted that similar instances were reported in a lot of other publications and journals, all variations of the disease he discovered. It was a German friend of his that suggested that it should simply be referred to as Tay’s Syndrome since he was the first to discover it. The name stuck and was subsequently noted up and referred to in textbooks and journals. Since 1994, all major dermatological textbooks uniformly use the name ‘Tay’s Syndrome’ to describe the disease technically known as trichothiodystrophy. In 1971,Tay was promoted to Consultant Physician and a year later, he identified the

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first outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) among children in Singapore. He was alerted to the epidemic by his general practitioner wife who was seeing a lot of babies with sores in their mouths.That year, he also discovered the presence of arsenic in some traditional Chinese pills and this made national headlines when the Ministry of Health issued a warning to the public not to buy Sin Lak pills for asthma. In 1972, Tay became one of the 12 founder-members of the Dermatological Society of Singapore. Originally called the Singapore Dermatological Society, it functioned under the auspices of the Singapore Medical Association. The name was changed after it became independent. In 1975, Tay was promoted to Head and Senior Physician of Changi Hospital. He remained in government only till 1978 when he left to establish a private practice. As a private practitioner, Tay specialized in dermatology and rheumatology. His work on rheumatoid arthritis has earned him the epithet of “Father of Rheumatology”. In 1984, Tay established the National Arthritis Foundation and served as its chairman for the next 14 years. Following his retirement from the Foundation’s chairmanship, an annual lecture organized by the Foundation was named after him. In 1999, Tay discovered yet another condition known as eosinophilic arthritis. The symptoms of this form of arthritis are similar to those of common arthritis except that the usual anti-inflammatory drugs have no effect on the patient. Tay discovered that patients suffering from this form of arthritis had unusually high count of eosinophil — a type of white blood cells — and the count rises further in cases of allergies or infections.Tay discovered that 5 out of 8 patients responded well to steroid pills.

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Despite his advanced years,Tay remains in active practice and is determined to encourage younger generations of physicians to do more research into diseases. At the 185th anniversary celebration of SGH, he donated $100,000 to establish a Nobel-prize type fund to encourage greater research. To keep fit, he plays golf. He is married to another physician and has two children, one of whom is also a doctor, and the other, Guan Hin, a famous creative advertising personality. In his spare time,Tay indulges in his love of writing poetry. In 1977, he published a collection of his original poems entitled, The Birth of a New Day. In 2005, Tay received a special Lifetime Award from President S.R. Nathan. Kevin Y.L.Tan R E F E R E N C E S Chua Mui Hoong. “Doctor and life-saver”. The Straits Times, 3 November 2007. Dr Tay Chong Hai. Oral History Interview, 15 June 2001. Singapore: National Archives. Evelyn Yap. “At last, a disease named after him”. The Straits Times, 5 August 1994, p. 2. Wendy Tan. “Doctor discovers new disease that hits joints”. The Straits Times, 1 October 1999.

Tay Kheng Soon ( , Zheng Qingshun, 1940– ) Architect, educator, Singapore

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ay Kheng Soon was born in 1940, one year before the Japanese occupation of Singapore. He is the younger brother of politician Tay Eng Soon. He enrolled at the Singapore Polytechnic as one of its first students in 1959. During his formative years as young architecture student, he was strongly influenced by Lim Chong Keat,

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a dynamic young graduate of the Manchester University and MIT who formed the Malayan Architects Co-Partnership (MAC) with William Lim Siew Wai and Chen Voon Fee in 1962. Lim Chong Keat taught for two years at the polytechnic and Tay worked for him on a house in Binjai Park. Another lecturer who greatly stimulated Tay was Lee Kip Lin. Tay’s “Malayanism” was strongly influenced by both of them. In 1964 he was one of the first five students to graduate with a Diploma in Architecture from the polytechnic and was filled with a strong desire to create a modern tropical Malayan architecture. He joined the Malayan Architects Co-Partnership and was an associate a year later when he became a registered architect. The year 1965 was also when Singapore seceded from Malaysia and became an independent nation. In 1966, he embarked on a world study tour to gain further understanding of architecture and be inspired and went as far as the Haifa University in Israel. Tay, with William Lim and Koh Seow Chuan, next founded a new firm called Design Partnership (DP) in 1967, but left this firm in 1973. He had worked on the design of the Tanglin Shopping Centre, Katong Shopping Centre, and People’s Park Complex from 1967 to 1970. It was the era of the Brutalist style, when architecture expressed the determination and confidence of the new nation of Singapore. In 1970 Tay became chairman of the Singapore Planning and Urban Research Group (SPUR), an independent group set up in 1965, critically examining urban environment and active in proposing innovative solutions for Singapore. He had expressed his criticisms on the housing policies in Singapore in Rumah (journal of the Singapore Institute of Architects) entitled “Public Housing in Singapore” in 1966, and also in a paper,

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“Environment and Nation Building”, delivered to the Democratic Socialist Club at the University of Singapore in September 1967. He advocated the idea of giving people opportunities to participate in building their own homes in the form of cooperativehousing, and compact, high-density, mediumrise housing for communities. SPUR proposed many ideas, some of which were accepted by the government, but most of the critical ones were drawn into controversy that the group was dissolved in 1971. Tay continued to voice his criticisms in various forums. In view of his public activities, in 1974, the partners in Design Partnership decided to dissolve the company and to re-establish it as DP Architects without him. He then left Singapore and played with the idea of giving up architecture, but finally decided to set up an architectural practice in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. His passion to explore alternative low-rise and high-density housing forms became possible in Malaysia. He designed groundbreaking low-rise, highdensity, low-income housing projects in Cheras (completed in 1976), and Setapak Jaya in Kuala Lumpur (completed in 1978). He returned from Malaysia to Singapore in March 1976 from to form Akitek Tenggara with Chung Meng Ker and Woo Tchi Poung (d. 1982). The first project was the Ming Arcade (designed in 1977, completed in 1983), and it was awarded the Singapore Institute of Architects Design Merit Award as an endorsement to good architecture on tight budgets. In 1980 Akitek Tenggara was commissioned to design the 447-unit Dairy Farm Condominium (completed 1985) for the Kuok Brothers, one of the largest developers in the region. Through these and other projects, Tay embarked fully into developing the new tropical design language of line, edge, and shade in an urban context.

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In 1982, he delivered a paper at the Australian Institute of Architects Conference in Singapore entitled, “The Architecture of Rapid Development”. The following year, he contributed another paper entitled, “Cultural Identity in Architecture as Perceived from a Singapore Viewpoint”, at a seminar organized by the Aga Khan Award for Architecture and the Malaysian Institute of Architects (PAM) in Kuala Lumpur. In 1984 through a paper entitled, “Innovative Technology: Implications on the Search for a Relevant Approach to Architecture”, delivered at the Asian Congress of Architects, Tay drew attention to the intellectual debate on Asian architecture and the need to question Western thoughts. He elaborated further on Asian tropical urbanism and the need for “decolonizing the mind” in his paper, “The Tropical City”, presented at an international conference organized by the Malaysian Institute of Architects (PAM) and the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Studies at Harvard University and MIT, in Kuala Lumpur, 1985. Akitek Tenggara produced several important modern tropical architecture buildings in Singapore, such as: Parkway Builders’ Centre (1985), Cecil Court office tower (1986), Serangoon Gardens Country Club (1986), and Chancery Lodge Townhouses (1986). In 1987 Tay completed the Chee Tong Temple in Hougang, another important development for a design language for the tropics addressing issues of tradition. In 1988 he won a competition for the redevelopment plan of Kandang Kerbau Hospital in Singapore. The new hospital project was completed in March 1997 and he won in the competition of the Nanyang Technological University Hall of Residence No.V with his energy efficient design (1989). In October 1988 Tay was invited by the School of Architecture of the National

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University of Singapore to conduct a student workshop on the Intelligent Tropical City. He was appointed research associate at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) from 1988 to 1989, and visiting scholar for the Aga Khan Program at MIT, in the United States in 1986 and 1989 respectively. The results from the workshops and research fellowships were helpful to him in his publication of Mega-Cities in the Tropics by (ISEAS) in 1989. The publication of this book led to an invitation by the Singapore minister of National Development to prepare a Development Guide Plan (DGP) for a 76hectare site on the fringe of the central area of Singapore known as Kampong Bugis (1990), but at the end of the day, the government selected the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) version. In 1990 Tay wrote his seminal essay on “The Architectural Aesthetics of Tropicality”, which summarized the progress to date in developing a design language for tropical Asia. The same year he produced the Victoria Street Concept Plan, an urban study which developed upon his Kampong Bugis DGP proposal. In 1989 Akitek Tenggara won a competition for the design of an Institute of Technical Education (ITE) in Bishan (completed in 1993). The design language of line, edge, and shade had arrived at a new level of refinement. Tay was appointed as president of the Singapore Institute of Architects from 1991 to 1993. He was invited to be a judge, along with Sir Norman Foster, Sir Richard Rogers, and Philip Cox, of the prestigious Quaternario Awards the same year. In 1995 he took on a major role in organizing the 8th Congress of the Architects Regional Council of Asia (ARCASIA) “Asian Cities in Asia’s Century”, and presented a paper on urbanization patterns in the region. In November 1996 he delivered a paper in Kumamoto, Japan, entitled, “Architecture of the Future: the Challenge to

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Asia and the West”, which acknowledged the interconnectedness of the global economy and global ecology. In 1995 and 1996 Akitek Tenggara completed work on three school projects: Elias Park Primary School, Clementi Town Secondary School, and Beatty Secondary School. It is a continuation of the process of developing an architectural language for the tropics and emphasizes the interaction of children with the natural environment. Tay is also a Forrest Ecology expert, and former Singapore Scout Commissioner for four years. He designed and owned the Mawai Eco Camp in Malaysia, which is operated by EDU Outdoor Activities Pte. Ltd. The camp provides professional corporate training and development, training venues and logistics, ecotours and adventure, and outdoor education for schools. As a radical and critical intellectual, Tay continues to court controversy. However his standing as an architect and educator is recognized internationally. In 2005 he was the principal awardee of “The Golden Award for Excellence in Architecture — Singapore” by a+d (the only national design magazine in India), and Spectrum Foundation (India) and he received this at a presentation ceremony in Kuala Lumpur, in April 2006. He was presented with the PLEA 2007 award in recognition of his pioneering efforts in promoting good design and sustainable architecture in Singapore at the 24th International Conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture organized by PLEA and NUS in November 2007. In 2008 Tay promoted the ground breaking idea of Rubanisation on an attempt to solve the current most pressing issue of rural-urban dichotomy. Tay was appointed adjunct professor at the RMIT School of Architecture in Australia in 1996, and in 1998, adjunct associate professor

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of the MA(UD) programme at National University of Singapore (NUS). He was then adjunct professor of Architecture at the same university in 2000, while continuing to practise as principal partner at Akitek Tenggara (Singapore/Malaysia). Tay Kheng Soon was one of 100 distinguished individuals to be conferred the Singapore Scout Association Centenary Gold Medal (2010) for his substantial contributions to the development and growth of Scouting in Singapore. He was also awarded SIA Gold Medal 2010 by the Singapore Institute of Architects.This Award is given to a senior architect who has attained a respected standing in society, to recognise his lifetime of sustained and substantial contribution to architecture and his distinguished service to the architectural profession. Johannes Widodo R E F E R E N C E S Edu Outdoors Activities website. (accessed February 2012). Powell, Robert. Line, Edge & Shade — The Search for a Design Language in Tropical Asia. Singapore: Page One, 1997. “Tay Kheng Soon”. Akitek Tenggara. (accessed February 2012).

Tay Lian Soo ( , Zheng Liangshu, 1940– ) Academic, Malaysia

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ay Lian Soo was also known as Zheng Bai ). His ancestral hometown Nian ( is Chao’an city of Guangdong, China. He was born in 1940, Johor Baru in Johor, Malaysia and went to Taiwan University to further his studies in 1960. He completed

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his first and master’s degrees here and after a short half-year teaching stint at Foon Yew High School, he went back to Taiwan for his Ph.D. In 1971, with his thesis on A Study of ) (Tactics of the Zhan Guo Ce ( Warring States), he graduated with a doctorate degree and was the first overseas Chinese to be conferred such a title.The eleven years of study in Taiwan University was a very important period for him as it enabled him to establish the groundwork of his academic quest there. An avid Chinese literature enthusiast, he had personally learned from many renowned scholars in Taiwan University such as Wang ), Qu Wanli ( ), and Tai Shumin ( ), etc. From them he learned Jingnong ( precious methodologies in scholarly research, which formed the solid foundation of his unique research techniques. After returning to Malaysia with a Ph.D. qualification, Tay served as a Chinese Studies lecturer at the University of Malaya, then as an associate professor and a department head, as well as other designations for seventeen years. During his attachment with University of Malaya as a Chinese Studies lecturer, he also started his education and community work,such as getting involved in improving the Chinese textbooks of primary schools, conducting research on the history of the Malaysian Chinese, initiating the culture of organizing academic conferences, etc. During this period, his two most significant achievements were completing two colossal historical fiction works on Chinese history, Qing Yun Chuan Qi ) (The Legend of Qing Yun) and Shi ( ) (Shi Le Crisis), as well Le Feng Yun ( as creating a unique “Three-Dimensional” research method. The latter helped him establish his academic standing as a scholar in the study of the pre-Qin era. One of his representative works, Shang Yang Ji Qi Xue Pai ) (Shang Yang and His School (

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of Thought) was completed using this method and it proved the effectiveness and significance of his method. Thanks to the reputation of this book in academia, Tay was invited by the Chinese Thinker Research Centre of Nanjing University to author Shang Yang Ping Zhuan ) (A Critical Biography of Shang ( Yang) as part of the Zhong Guo Si Xiang Jia Ping Zhuan Cong Shu ( ) (Collected Critical Biographies of Chinese Thinkers). Tay was also the first overseas scholar invited by the biographies’ chief editor to contribute to the collection. In 1982 and 1983, Tay was invited by his alma mater, Taiwan University, to be the guest professor for the course on “Ancient Text Discrimination ), which was the first Studies” ( literature discrimination course in Taiwan. Till today,Tay is the only Malaysian Chinese who is a world renowned scholar in sinology and also the only Malaysian ever invited to be a guest Chinese Studies professor in Taiwan University due to his academic achievements and this feat indeed brought pride and honour to the Malaysian Chinese community. In August 1988, Tay flew to Hong Kong to embark on another phase of his academic quest to do more research on sinology and gather more precious academic materials. He held the posts of Chinese Studies senior lecturer, professor, etc. at the Hong Kong University. During his attachment in Hong Kong, his academic research matured and his achievement was even more outstanding as he was immersed in an environment of Chinese culture. Other than attending international conferences on invitation, he also completed his third historical fiction on Chinese history, entitled Rou Fo De Xin Shu Guang ( ) (The New Dawn of Johor). Though residing in Hong Kong, he still cared very much about the development of culture and education in Malaysia. Since 1998, he

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has successively published four volumes of The History of Malaysian Chinese Education ) in Malaysia, ( systematically discussing the historical development of Malaysian Chinese education from its infancy till early twenty-first century. After retiring from the Hong Kong Chinese University in 2002, he accepted the invitation of Shue Yan College of Hong Kong to become its guest professor and department head for a short period of time. After that, he returned to Malaysia to be the guest professor of Chinese Studies at Southern College, Johor. From May 2003 to the present, he has been holding the post of director of the Research Institute of Chinese Ethnicity and Culture at Southern College. In 2006, he became a guest professor of Malayan University. Tay Lian Soo frequently attends international academic conferences and presents research papers. He has also become the adviser and research fellow for many academic societies in China, and is, for example, the senior adviser of Beijing China Research Society of Sun Tzu’s ‘Art of War’ ( ), honorary adviser of Henan ), senior adviser Laozi Society ( of Tianjin Research Society of Sun Tzu’s ), special ‘Art of War’ ( research fellow of the Academy Overseas Chinese Studies of Guangzhou Jinan ), University ( guest research fellow of Tianjin Academy of ), special Social Sciences ( research fellow of the Overseas Chinese Research Centre of Zhejiang Normal University ( ), etc. Tay’s expertise is in writing prose and Nanyang historical fiction. He also loves calligraphy and traditional Chinese painting. In 1984, he co-organized his first art and calligraphy exhibition with his wife Li Shihua ) in Kuala Lumpur. Later in 1991 and (

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again in 1997, he organized his art exhibitions in Hong Kong. He has a wide range of published works and research areas, including more than thirty published books, as well as many papers, short articles, and satirical essays published in books and periodicals. Chong Siou Wei R E F E R E N C E 《 2002。

》。

：

，

Tee Han Kee ( , Zheng Hanqi, 1879–1943) Doctor, supporter of Sun Yat-Sen, Philippines

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he Tee Han Kee (later known as Teehankee in the Philippines) family has a special position in Philippine history. Tee Han Kee, who was a doctor, served as public health officer in the Philippines, one of his sons, Claudio Teehankee, served as justice secretary and later Chief Justice in the Supreme Court; and one of his grandsons, Manuel Teehankee, was justice undersecretary. It is rare in the Chinese-Filipino community to have three generations of a family fulfilling a life of service to the Philippines. The Teehankee family tradition of service started with its patriarch,Tee Han Kee. He was the first ethnic Chinese doctor to be appointed in government service in the Philippines. As public health officer, he was assigned to attend especially to the issues of health, sanitation, and hygiene in the Chinese community, and he carried his position for twenty years. Tee’s family was originally from Xiamen, Fujian. Tee himself was born in Manila in 1879, but in 1891 at the age of twelve, was sent back to China to study and graduated from Fuzhou Anglo Chinese School. Upon

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graduation, he studied medicine at the Hong Kong Medical College from which he obtained his medical degree in 1902, after which he returned to the Philippines. He immediately took the Philippine medical board examinations, passed them and was thus allowed to practise on these islands. He was first Chinese appointed assistant surgeon in the Philippine Health Service. Tee was the first director of the Chinese General Hospital during the hospital’s inauguration in 1921. The same year, he also founded the Chinese General Hospital School of Nursing. With the help of three other physicians, he set up the training school and requested the Sisters of the Immaculate Concepcion in Hong Kong and Canton, through the archbishop of Manila, to assist in the early stages of the operations of both the hospital and the school of nursing. The sisters, understanding the great need, readily agreed to render their services, as they were impressed with Tee and his team. The hospital served mainly the Chinese community which, at the time, numbered about 40,000. At the same medical school in Hong Kong, Tee was classmate to Dr Sun Yat Sen, Chinese revolutionary, political leader, foremost pioneer of Nationalist China, and referred to as the founding father of Republican China. They served together as doctors at the St Elizabeth Hospital in Hong Kong and, as a result, he greatly supported Dr Sun’s aspiration for China to be emancipated from the shackles of misrule and oppression by the imperial Qing Dynasty. He followed closely the course of Sun Yat Sen’s revolution, established the Pu Ji Shu Bao ) to promote revolutionary She ( causes, and served as head of the organization for twenty-one years. In 1911 Tee helped establish the Tongmenghui Branch in Manila and, in October the same year, co-founded

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the Kong Li Po ( ) as the official organ of the revolution. He served as managing editor of the newspaper, helped in the translation of news and, through the paper, helped organize fund-raising activities to support the revolution. Subsequently he was elected president of the Philippine Branch of the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) in the Philippines. Tee was a co-founder of the Manila Chinese Chamber of Commerce in 1904, became the first president of the FilipinoChinese Medical Society, and was chairman of the Chinese General Hospital. He was an acknowledged expert on bubonic and cholera plagues that afflicted the Chinese community above all because of its lack of hygiene and sanitation. He enforced strict sanitation rules such as burning all the belongings of patients who died of the infectious diseases and disinfecting the households where these patients stayed. With this expertise, he was appointed medical supervisor of the Infectious Diseases Department of the Chinese General Hospital and served as a consultant on infectious diseases for the Philippine Health Service. Besides being a co-founder of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce,Tee was also a director of the Chinese Charitable Association and the Huaqiao Educational Association. He established the Chinese Protestant Youth Association as well. During the Japanese Occupation of the Philippines, he was appointed vice chairman of the Japanese-sponsored Chinese Association and tasked to administer the affairs of the Chinese community and raise funds from them in support of the Japanese. He was therefore branded a collaborator and, in 1943, was assassinated by anti-Japanese guerrillas. It was only during the war crimes trial after World War II that it was proven that Tee, instead of being a collaborator, in fact secretly supported

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war efforts against the Japanese. His clinic had a hidden chamber where he would secretly treat guerrillas and other casualties of Japanese atrocities. His clinic also served as a front for the distribution of propaganda materials. Tee was married to Julia Ong Sangroniz and they had several children. His seventh ), was child, Claudio Teehankee ( associate justice in the Supreme Court (during the Marcos era) who upheld the rule of law and defended citizens’ rights. He supported the People Power Revolution and was made chief justice after Cory Aquino assumed the presidency. Claudio Teehankee’s son, Manuel Teehankee is also a lawyer and economist and has followed in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps in joining the Philippine public service. He first served as justice undersecretary (2000–04) and then in May 2004, as Philippine special envoy for international trade, as well as permanent representative to the World Trade Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. He is now the country’s ambassador in Switzerland. Angelo B. Ancheta R E F E R E N C E S Chinese General Hospital College of Nursing and Liberal Arts. “Historical Background”. Retrieved 20 October 2010 from . Leo Soeurs Missionnaires de I’immaculé Conception website. “Our First Mission in the Philippines.” Retrieved 20 October 2010 from . The Permanent Mission of the Republic of the Philippines to the World Trade Organization. “Philippines WTO Team Profile”. Retrieved 20 October 2010 from . Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. “Nationalist Citizen’s Party”. In Wikipedia. Retrieved 20 October 2010 from . WikiPilipinas: 2007. “Iginuhit ng Tadhana”. Retrieved 20 October 2010 from .

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《 · ，2001， 701–02。

》。

：

Teehankee, Claudio M. ( , Zheng Jianxiang, 1918–89) Chief Justice, defender of citizen’s rights, Philippines

A

s a member of the Philippine Judiciary, Claudio Teehankee was one of the few noteworthy justices, who was an indefatigable defender of citizens’ rights against repressive authoritarianism. During his active years in the judiciary, Teehankee was known as the “dissenting activist justice” due to his opposition to policies that curtailed people’s liberty. He was called the “conscience of the Supreme Court.” His son, Manuel Teehankee, who was trained in international law, has also followed in his footsteps to serve in the Philippine Government. Claudio Teehankee was born in Manila on 18 April 1918, the seventh child of Dr Tee ) and Julia Ong Sangroniz. Han Kee ( He attended the Ateneo de Manila University where he completed a bachelor of arts degree summa cum laude in 1938. He then took law at the same university and likewise graduated summa cum laude in 1940. He topped the law bar exams that year, setting the record as the very first bar top-notcher of Ateneo Law School with an excellent average of 94.35 per cent. In 1941 he entered private practice with a firm of prominent attorneys, Araneta, Zaragosa and Bautista. One partner in the law firm was a founding member of the Philippine Civil Liberties Union (CLU), an organization that combined activism in support of civil liberties with nationalist and progressive politics. Teehankee later joined the CLU and

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frequently chaired its meetings. He actively took on pro bono cases for the CLU and for detainees held by the military due to alleged participation in underground movement against the government. In 1946 he joined the law partnership of Lorenzo Tañada — who was to become a senator a year later — and Emmanuel Pelaez — who would be elected Philippine vice president in 1961. These two partners were among the country’s most important post-war nationalist politicians. In 1957 he co-founded the Nationalist Citizen’s Party along with Senators Claro M. Recto and Tañada. Teehankee’s career took a drastic turn when he switched from private practice to government service when he defended the movie, Iginuhit ng Tadhana: The Ferdinand E. Marcos Story against censorship.Then President Diosdado Macapagal sought the banning of the movie, which was deemed a propaganda film favouring the career of Marcos.Teehankee, however, brought the case to the Supreme Court which ruled in favour of Marcos. When Marcos became president, Claudio Teehankee was appointed justice undersecretary on 15 January 1966, and justice secretary a year later. In the latter role, he introduced institutional changes to improve the delivery of justice, such as conceptualizing the formation of circuit criminal courts, thereby paving the way for the holding of court sessions in safe and accessible venues for those involved in the proceedings. He also reduced to six days the period for pre-trial investigations and issued a directive stopping the wholesale granting of search warrants. As justice secretary, Teehankee was also duty bound to advise the president especially on matters of national interest. These included the issue of economic exchange with communist and socialist countries, and the Retail Trade

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Nationalization Law, whose implementation by the ppresident he advised. Although Teehankee’s stint with the Justice Department was brief and despite his lack of substantial judicial experience, Marcos appointed him associate justice of the Supreme Court in December 1968. He distinguished himself when he upheld the rights of the people especially during the martial law period. He often dissented from the majority opinion of his colleagues in court and accused Marcos and the military of human right abuses. He also authored the opinion questioning the jurisdiction of military commissions over civilians, such as the one that tried former Senator Benigno S. Aquino Jr. When he became a senior member of the Supreme Court, Teehankee moved for the overturning of the acquittal of generals allegedly involved in the assassination of Senator Benigno S. Aquino Jr. The Teehankee Court also declared invalid Marcos’s secret decrees and reversed a martial-law ruling that allowed military tribunals to try civilians. This turned his relationship with President Marcos sour so he was bypassed twice for the position of chief justice — violation of the protocol that the senior associate justice succeeds the retiring chief justice. Teehankee’s political opponents often cited his father’s Chinese citizenship (thereby putting his own citizenship in supposedly murky waters) in efforts to oust him from government positions. He had to fend off rumours and accusations that were intended to bring to an end his rising career as a public servant. Besides this, as most justices were graduates of the University of the Philippines College of Law who were mostly supporters of President Marcos, who sees himself an alumnus of the University of the Philippines, Teehankee, being the first Ateneo law graduate to be appointed to the Supreme

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Court, was often alone in defending what he believed was right. During the People Power Revolution, in his capacity as associate justice, he swore Corazon Cojuangco Aquino in as president of the Philippines at Club Filipino, San Juan, at 10:00 am in 1986, two hours before Ferdinand Marcos’ similar oath-taking at Malacañang on 25 February at noon. In April 1986 Teehankee was named chief justice. His integrity, his opposition to tyranny in favour of the rule of law, and his courage in risking his life and liberty, eventually won the recognition of the institutions of higher learning in the Philippines. For example, in 1986, his alma mater, Ateneo de Manila University, conferred an honorary doctorate of humane letters upon him, and the following year, the University of the Philippines conferred on him an honorary doctorate of laws. After his retirement, he was appointed to the United Nations as Philippine ambassador and died on 27 November 1989 in Manhattan, New York. He was interred at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Memorial for Heroes) in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City. Teehankee was married to Pilar Javier Angeles Duldulao, with whom he raised nine children, namely Claudio Teehankee Jr., Roberto Teehankee, Evelyn Teehankee Zulueta, Priscilla Teehankee Gamboa, Ramon Teehankee, Gonzalo Teehankee, Jose Raul Teehankee, Manuel Teehankee, and Ricardo Teehankee. Following in his footsteps into government service is one of his sons, Manuel Antonio Javier Teehankee, the eighth child. He presently chairs the Working Group on Trade and Transfer of Technology in the World Trade Organization, and serves as coordinator of the Core Group of Developing Countries in the Negotiating Group on Trade Facilitation. He was recently nominated for the associate justice post at the Supreme

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

Court and will soon be retained by President Benigno Aquino III as ambassador. Manuel Teehankee studied at the Ateneo de Manila and completed degrees in economics and law. He was the top law graduate in his batch and ranked first in the bar exams of 1993, following in the footsteps of his father. In 1986 he went to Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor to complete a master of laws degree, specializing in GATT Law (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade). A year later, he studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science, earning a master’s degree in law for the second time on a scholarship grant. In 1987 Manuel obtained the necessary licence to practise law in New York. He spent ten years doing international litigation at Baker & McKenzie and LeBoeuf Lamb Greene & MacRae. As a private practitioner, he represented clients before the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal at The Hague, the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris, and the WTO in Geneva. In 1998 he returned to Manila as the international counsel of the Romulo Law Office and at the same time rejoined the Ateneo Law Faculty. While Manuel Teehankee was actively serving as justice undersecretary (2001–04), he concurrently headed the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel, with special responsibilities for the privatization efforts with the energy sector. Importantly, he represented the government in the case over a disputed contract awarded to the Philippine International Air Terminals Co. Inc. (PIATCO) consortium which built and originally owned the US$650-millionNinoy Aquino International Airport’s (NAIA) Terminal 3. He moved towards the nullification of government contracts awarding

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NAIA 3 operations to PIATCO, which sought international arbitration afterwards when the Philippine Government voided its contract in 2002 for being illegal, a decision which the Supreme Court upheld in 2004. PIATCO’s German-based principal investor, Frankfurt Airport Services, then filed a suit at the World Bank’s International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington D.C. to recover its $424-million investment. PIATCO also brought a separate case for compensation to the Singaporebased International Chamber of Commerce Arbitration Tribunal. Both cases were resolved in favour of the Philippines, with the Singapore tribunal clearing the way for the NAIA to complete its facilities at Terminal 3. Teehankee also took responsibility for the government’s 2004 debt-to-equity deal between the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage Systems and the Lopez-owned Maynilad Water Services, Inc. Under this setup, 8 billion pesos in unpaid concession fees were converted into a 61-per cent government stake in Maynilad. He has also led government efforts in important pursuits involving, among others, UNCITRAL (United Nations Commission on International Trade Law) and ICSID-based arbitration and litigation. In May 2004, he was appointed Philippine special envoy for international trade as well as permanent representative to the World Trade Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, and has been a distinguished permanent representative. He is now the country’s ambassador in Switzerland. Angelo B. Ancheta R E F E R E N C E S Coronel, Sheila S. “The Dean’s December”. Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. Apr–Jun 1997. Retrieved 20 October 2010 from .

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National Historical Institute. “Claudio M. Teehankee: Defender of Eloquent Rights”. 02 August 2006. Retrieved 20 October 2010 from . Permanent Mission of the Republic of the Philippines to the WTO website. “Philippines WTO Team Profile”. In The Permanent Mission of the Republic of the Philippines to the World Trade Organization. Retrieved 20 October 2010 from . Supreme Court E-Library. “Chief Justice Claudio Teehankee”. 9 February 2001. Retrieved 20 October 2010 from . Tate, C. Neal. “Judicial defense of human rights during the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines: The careers of Claudio Teehankee and Cecelia Munoz Palma”. In Judicial protection of human rights: Myth or reality?, edited by Mark Gibney and Stanislaw Frankowski, pp. 13–36. CT, USA: Praeger Publishers, 1999. 《 · 》。 ，2001， 699、701–02。

：

Teh Hong Piow ( , Zheng Hongbiao, 1930– ) Banker, Malaysia

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eh Hong Piow was born on 14 March 1930 in Singapore and attended the Anglo-Chinese School there. He obtained three degrees in all: one at the Pacific Western University, and two honorary PhDs, one each from Clayton University and the University of Malaya. He has been married to Tay Sock Noy since 1956 and they have four children. He joined the 3rd Singapore Company of the Boys’ Brigade and was active from 1947 to 1951, rising from rank and file to sergeant, before being appointed second lieutenant (now known as warrant officer). The Boys Brigade of Malaysia has been around for 124 years and Teh has attributed the moulding of his character and personality

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partly to the discipline training of the Boys’ Brigade. Teh’s career in banking took off in 1950 when he was a bank officer at Singapore’s Overseas-Chinese Banking Corp. Ltd. Ten years later he moved on to Malayan Banking Bhd. where he was made a manager. Later in 1964, he was promoted to the position of general manager at the young age of thirtyfour. He left Malayan Banking in 1966 to set up Public Bank, which currently has 241 domestic and three overseas branches. Public Bank is currently the country’s second largest lender and is setting its sights on regional markets.Teh was awarded the “Tan Sri” title in 1983, and numerous other titles of recognition including “Dato Sri” and “Dato”. His net worth is estimated by Forbes to be US$3 billion, making him the fourth richest in Malaysia and 287th in the world in 2008. Teh has received numerous lists of awards and recognition in his own name and his institution’s for his outstanding achievements. In July 2007, Public Bank received the “Best Company in Malaysia for Corporate Governance 2007” award from Asset Magazine. Tan Sri Teh was also named “Best CEO in Malaysia 2004”, “Malaysia’s CEO of the Year 1998”, “Malaysia’s Business Achiever of the Year 1997”, “Asean’s Most Astute Banker 1994”, etc. In August, Public Bank was named Alpha South East Asia’s “Best Bank in Malaysia” and also received the same award and “The Best Managed Company in Malaysia” awards for 2007 from FinanceAsia. It was also named for the ninth time by Euromoney to be the “Best Bank in Malaysia 2007”. In 2008, Teh received the Honorable Medal for National Contribution in appreciation of his contribution of one unit of five rooms at Hun Sen Prasat Secondary School in Khum Prasat, Srok Sontok, Thom Province, Cambodia. Prior to that, he was also awarded the Medal

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“For the Course of Vietnamese Banking” by the State Bank of Vietnam in 2002 for his contributions to the Vietnamese banking industry over the past years. Teh is a fellow of several institutes such as the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrator, Australia; Institute of Bankers, Malaysia; the Chartered Institute of Bankers, the United Kingdom; the Institute of Administrative Management, the United Kingdom; and the Malaysian Institute of Management. He also served in various capacities in public service bodies in Malaysia, such as member of the Malaysian Business Council from 1991–93 and a panel member of the National Trust Fund from 1988 to 2001, a founder member of the Advisory Business Council since 2003, and a member of the IPRM Accreditation Privy Council of Malaysia. He was conferred the Doctorate of Laws (Honorary) from the University of Malaya. Teh has long been respected for his prudent management of Public Bank, being chairman of both Public Bank and Public Bank Group, which is reputable for being the most efficient domestic bank with asset quality and returns on equity. He holds directorships in several other companies in the Public Bank Group. He has also been chairman of LPI Capital Bhd since September 1971 and Lonpac Insurance Bhd. since its operation on 1 May 1999. Teh also heads several finance and investment related companies in Malaysia and the Asian region. A banker with an astute sense of timing, he expects Public Bank Bhd. to continue with its high organic growth strategy. The Public Bank Group’s acquisitions of former Hock Hua Bank (completed in March 2001) and former Asia Commercial Bank (completed in May 2006) had proceeded very smoothly. Recently, Public Bank signed a ten-year strategic regional alliance with the ING Group to distribute ING’s life, health,

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and personal accident products in Malaysia and other countries in which Public Bank has a business presence. The strategic alliance opens the door for Public Bank to develop jointly with the ING Group the bancassurance and takaful businesses, wealth management and cobranded credit card services. Meanwhile Public Mutual has been targeting investments in the Southeast Asian and Asian markets aggressively. It’s wholly owned subsidiary, Cambodian Public Bank, opened its ninth branch in December 2007 and is targeting to be the largest lender in Cambodia, having more than doubled its loans portfolio by 2008. Public Financial Holdings Limited (formerly known as JCG Holdings Limited) is an investment holding company incorporated in Bermuda under the Companies Act 1981 on 16 August 1991. It is a 73.5 per cent owned subsidiary of Public Bank Berhad. Its shares are listed on the The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited and the Hang Seng HK Small Cap Index. The major subsidiaries of Public Financial are Public Finance Ltd., Winton Ltd. and Public Bank (Hong Kong) Limited (formerly Asia Commercial Bank Ltd). Teh has set up several awards and fellowships. In line with the corporate social responsibility goals of aiding nation building, a “Tan Sri Teh Hong Piow Resident Fellowship Programme” allows scholars to pursue research interests using resources available at the Perdana Leadership Foundation to develop a deeper understanding and appreciation of Malaysia’s history and rich intellectual heritage that will eventually lead to the promotion of global understanding and achievement of peaceful resolutions. He also donated a total of RM3.5 million to Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman and Tunku Abdul Rahman College for the setting up of two student loan funds to provide financial assistance to needy and deserving students in tertiary education. Other

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recipients include the National Heart Institute Foundation, the Girl Guides Association of Malaysia, and the Kuala Lumpur Traffic Police Club. Continuous improvement in productivity and efficiency has always been the cornerstone of Teh’s philosophy and strategies to leverage capability in expanding their multidelivery channels, and to remain the top Chinesecontrolled anchor bank in Malaysia. He has demonstrated his personal and professional development of exceptionally high standards of growth, performance, and premiums. Beh Loo See R E F E R E N C E S Malaysian Business. 16–29 February 2008. New Straits Times. 16 April 2008. Public Bank. (accessed September 2010). The Star. 6 February, and 15 December 2007. “Teh Hong Piow”. Wikipedia. (accessed March 2012).

Teo Bak Kim ( , Zhang Muqin, 1937– ) Leader writer, Malaysia

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hang Mu Qin, originally from ), Raoping, Guangdong ( is one of the most prominent and prolific Chinese writers in Malaysia. Born on 31 October 1937 in Kota Tinggi, Johor, Zhang Mu Qin later migrated to another town in Johor, Skudai. During the Japanese Occupation, he and his family settled in the nearby area of Tangkak, Johor. After the Second World War, Zhang’s father and uncle formed a joint venture to start a retail shop. However, the

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retail business was short-lived when Zhang’s father and a group of residents were suspected of being Communist supporters and arrested under the Emergency Ordinance. Zhang’s father was imprisoned in Kluang Camp and was on the waiting list of detainees ), China. to be shipped to Chaozhou ( However after three years, he was released and exiled to the city of Muar.The outcome of the sentencing resulted in, yet again, the uprooting of the entire Zhang family to Muar. Zhang was an extremely hardworking and intense student. Being an ardent admirer ), of the famous poet, Li Bing Ren ( he immersed himself in Li’s collection by reading a roomful of Li’s books. Aware of his diligence, his teacher, Xie Qing Sheng ( ), saw his potential and urged him to acquire the Malaysian Cambridge Education (MCE) certificate. After finishing secondary school, he spent two years preparing for the MCE exams. During this time, he polished his English reading and writing skills which proved to be valuable in his career later. Zhang completed his primary and secondary education in Zhong Hua School, ), in the 1950s. In one Muar ( of his articles, he reminisced about his student activist days which were greatly influenced by the Chinese education leader, Lim Lian ). In 1957 in his Geok (Lin Lian Yu, final year at high school, Zhang was actively involved in the student movement at the time. During this period, student movements were regarded as improper and quite unacceptable. Consequently, Zhang was nearly dismissed from high school. Fortunately with the intervention and goodwill of the board of directors, Zhang was let off with a stern warning. Armed with the MCE certification, Zhang stepped into the working world as a temporary teacher for a short period of time. When Nanyang Siang Pau conducted

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interviews in Muar, he was one of the many who turned up for the openings. He was offered employment and decided to join the paper as a reporter from 1961.This marked the beginning of a thirty-year long service with the Chinese media. Starting as a reporter, he was promoted and steadily rose through the ranks to the positions of an editor, leader writer, chief leader writer and finally, editor-in-chief. When he joined the paper, Zhang’s first posting was to Kluang, Johor, where he met and interviewed the brilliant Opposition ). In 1962, leader, Dr Wei Li Huang ( he was transferred to Johor Bahru where he crossed paths with another well known figure, the Labour Party chief, Tan Kai Hee (Chen ). Kaixi, In the highly charged political scene at the time, Zhang did not receive a warm welcome from the left-wing party. At one time, Tan Kai Hee politely but firmly, barred him for entering the office of the Party building. In 1969 Zhang was posted to Malacca to take charge of editing the paper’s southern edition. He was later promoted to editorial ) in 1975. When Chua Chee chief ( ) retired from office in 1984, Chuan ( Zhang assumed the position of editor-in-chief on 1 January 1985. In 1990, the Nanyang editorial board underwent a drastic restructuring, which included the abolishment of the editor-in-chief post. In another extreme move, the out-offavour general manager, Guo Long Sheng ( ), named himself the lead editor. Zhang was appointed chief leader writer. These new changes did not sit well with some employees and there was a general sense of discontent. In October 1991, Guo, faced with a vote of noconfidence in the union, was forced to resign. Also in 1991, Zhang won the Wong Kee Tat Media long-service award. He left Nanyang Siang Pau and was offered the chief

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position in Xin Tong Bao (《 》) in 1993. He was appointed editorial director and editor-in-chief. But things were not going very well for the press company. Poor circulation and weak financial performance left a RM10million debt which led to the shutting down of Xin Tong Bao on 3 August 1994. With the closure of the company, Zhang retired from the media industry at the age of fifty-seven. Zhang Mu Qin is well known for his razor-sharp observations and ingenious flair in presentation techniques. He published numerous books, including Minzu Xianfeng 》 National Pioneer, Zhige (《 first edition in 1984, reprint in 2002), 》 Heaven Tianshang RenJian (《 》 on Earth 1995), Tan Hua Ting (《 Chamber for Seeing Flowers, 1997), Jianhu 》 To Pray for Safety ShaoXiang (《 1999), Heeren Street in Setting Sun (《 》, 2000), LiuHuaTing (《 》 Another Chamber for Flowers, 2004), 》 Unexpected, Congpang shachu (《 》 2005), and also Liulian Dangtou (《 Durian Season, 2007). Yong Sun Yongand and Tey Tai Sin R E F E R E N C E S 《

》。 《

》。

：

，2000 。 ：

，

1996。 《

》。

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，2004。

Teo Eng Hock ( , Zhang Yongfu, 1871–1957) Businessman, revolutionist, Singapore

T

eo Eng Hock was a prominent Straits Chinese Teochew businessman, Chinese patriot, and revolutionary activist.

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He was born in 1871 in Singapore, the son of the well-known Teochew merchant, Teo Lee, and his wife, Tan Poh Neo. The elder Teo had been a humble cloth peddler when he first started out in the east coast of Malaya. His excellent business acumen allowed him to build up a network of trading companies in Trengganu, Kelantan, and also Bali. He then moved into real estate and had a knack for picking choice properties, thus making a fortune. His wife also came from a well known family. Her grandfather, Tan Hong Khuay, was mayor of Muntok in Sumatra. Teo was bilingually educated at home. His work career began with him helping his father run his various trading companies and he clearly inherited his father’s excellent business sense. He focused on the textile division of his father’s business and, together with his brother, Bah Tan, started investing in rubber plantations and dealing in rubber. Before long, it was the rubber division in Teo’s stable of businesses that reaped him the best profits. Not satisfied with merely growing rubber or trading it as a commodity, Teo decided to go into manufacturing, specializing in rubber shoes. His foray into shoe manufacturing brought him into direct competition with Malaya’s rubber pioneer, Tan Kah Kee. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the entire rubber shoe manufacturing industry was dominated by Teo and Tan. Teo’s inherited wealth, coupled with his hard work and instinct for business, made him and his brother very wealthy. Like his father, Teo Eng Hock had a natural affinity with the property market. A scan through old newspapers will reveal numerous purchases by Tan of property in choice locations. The most famous of all his many properties is Wan ), later known as Qing Yuan Villa ( Boon Ching Villa, which he bought in 1905 for his mother. Today, this building has been

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transformed into the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall. Beyond business, Teo was socially and politically engaged. An intellectual, whose circle included men such as Tan Chor Nam ) and Lim Nee Soon ( ), Teo ( became involved in revolutionary activities to overthrow the Qing Government in China. As many of the meetings with his like-minded business friends often took place at the Xiao , literally, Tao Yuan Club ( “Little Peach Garden”), they were known as the Xiao Tao Yuan revolutionaries. To further the republican cause, Teo and Tan Chor Nam established the newspaper, Thoe Lam Jit Poh ), in 1904, with Teo himself as ( editor. The newspaper received a lukewarm response from Singapore readers, was a commercial failure, and closed down after just two years of operation. Even so, the paper, which promoted Dr Sun Yat Sen’s republican ideas and revolution, caught the attention of Dr Sun when he was in Hawaii. Impressed by its contents, he got in touch with the Singapore group through an intermediary and eventually established a branch of the Tong Meng Hui ) in Singapore. ( The Tong Meng Hui (Chinese United League or Chinese Revolutionary Alliance) was an underground movement which Sun organized together with Song Jiaoren in Tokyo in 1905. The Nanyang branch of the Tong Meng Hui was established in Singapore in February 1906, following Sun’s visit to the island the year before. Teo became the deputy head of the Tong Meng Hui, and Wan Qing Yuan served as the headquarters for Chinese republicans in Southeast Asia. Following the establishment of the Chinese Republic in 1911, the Tong Meng Hui became the Kuomintang (National People’s Party) in 1912, with Teo as its leader.

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In June 1906, when Sun returned to Singapore and reorganized the Tong Meng Hui, Teo was officially elected its head. To promote the revamped Tong Meng Hui’s activities, Tan Chor Nam, Lim Nee Soon, and Teo established the Chong Shing Press ( ) in July 1907, which published the ), with the view Chong Sing Yit Pao ( to promoting Sun’s republican ideas. Teo also publicized Sun’s revolutionary cause through public speeches and the Sin Chew Reading Room Mass Media Publishing Company. His revolutionary base was Wan Qing Yuan villa. Teo eventually donated the villa to Dr Sun for his use as a revolution headquarters. The establishment of the Chinese Republic in 1911 strengthened Teo’s commitment to politics. He shifted his attention to China where he was on the board of several banks, most notably, the Central Bank of China in Swatow (Shantou). By 1914 the Kuomintang organization in Singapore was riven by factionalism. In disgust, Sun formed the Chinese Revolutionary Party (CRP) to replace the Kuomintang. Teo was president of the CRP till it shut down in 1919. The Kuomintang made a spectacular comeback in 1920 and Teo rejoined the organization. In 1926, the colonial government dissolved all branches of the Kuomintang in Malaya. Teo then felt that he could play a more meaningful role in China’s future by going there and participating directly in Chinese politics. He therefore went to China in 1932 and became the Mayor of Swatow and head of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Bureau. He decided to return to Singapore in 1937 and became a member of the conservative faction of the Kuomintang, but disagreement with local rulers led him to leave the party and join the pro-Japanese Wang Ching-wei puppet government. After World War II, Teo was captured and classified as a traitor

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by the Kuomintang. He later retired to Hong Kong where he died on 5 April 1957, aged eighty-eight. Teo’s burning revolutionary involvement in politics led him to neglect his businesses and this, coupled with the collapse of rubber prices in 1920, caused him to lose most of his fortune. His daughter Teo Soon Kim, was the first woman lawyer to be called to the Singapore Bar. Teo’s contribution to Sun Yat Sen’s revolution is now immortalized in a painting in the SunYat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall (Wan Qing Yuan), showing Sun standing together with Teo and his mother. Wang Qing Yuan was purchased by admirers of Sun and transformed into a memorial hall in 1940. His great-grandnephew, Teo Chee Hean, became deputy prime minister of Singapore in 2009. Kevin Y.L.Tan R E F E R E N C E S C.F. Yong & R.B. McKenna. The Kuomintang Movement in British Malaya 1912–1949. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1990. Huang, Jianli and Hong Lysa. “History and the Imaginaries of ‘Big Singapore’: Positioning the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall”. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 35, no. 1 (2004): 65. Song, Ong Siang. One Hundred Years of the Chinese in Singapore. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1984. 《 ，1995。

》。

：

Teo Soo Cheng ( , Zhang Siqing, 1925– ) Entrepreneur, business and community leader, Malaysia

T

eo Soo Cheng was a prominent corporate figure and successful businessman. In addition to having a successful business

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empire, he was actively involved in association, community, and education work. His efforts in creating a conducive and excellent living environment in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, are highly praised. Teo came to Kuala Lumpur in 1936 to help his father and brothers in the eggs and groceries business. He gradually ventured into a variety of businesses and is one of the most successful top business tycoons in the country. Initially he was called the “Rice King”, but was later transformed into a famous entrepreneur in land property development. He is also committed to developing higher education. He claims that family education and strong family bondage play key roles in all his achievements. Teo Soo Cheng was born in Chao Yang, Guangdong, in 1925, the second child among ten siblings. His father, Zhang Han San ( ), came to Kuala Lumpur alone in 1922 to start a business to retail ducks and chicken eggs. Teo received two years of education in China and then studied for two months at an evening school in Malaya. He stopped schooling at the age of twelve. On 15 January 1943, he ). They have married Zhong Yu Feng ( three sons and four daughters. His father had emphasized the principles of “hard work” and “thriftiness” and Teo also forbids his children from involved in “immoral activities” and “gambling”. He values highly the importance of a good relationship with his children and he treats them equally. Although not highly educated, Teo was hard-working, thrifty, down-to-earth, and careful in his businesses. He always demands of himself “to be better than others”. He thinks that “if other can sell, I can too” and has the confidence to think “if others are successful, I can be successful too”. In the 1960s, he ventured into the land and property business. His first major land development project was Taman Paramount. Although he faced many

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obstacles initially, with his perseverance, he managed to overcome all difficulties and created a conducive and comfortable living environment. He subsequently developed Taman Berkeley in Klang; Damansara Jaya, Damansara Utama, and Bandar Utama in Petaling Jaya. These developments have successfully transformed Petaling Jaya into a well developed area.The Bandar Utama project resulted in the winning of many awards. It is a highly valued and much sought after housing area in Malaysia. This township includes shopping malls, hypermarkets, a cineplex, offices, a five-star hotel, schools, and a central garden. In future, there will be medical facilities, high-end nursing homes, condominiums, and so on. To date Teo has built more than 30,000 houses and developed more than 3,000 acres of land. He has transformed Petaling Jaya into a modern city and his projects will run well into 2017. Despite his age, Teo is still very actively running his business. He is the executive chairman of See Hoi Chan Holdings Group, Bandar Utama Development Sdn. Bhd., First Nationwide Landbank Sdn. Bhd., and Bandar Utama City Centre Sdn. Bhd. Although he is now assisted by his three sons, he still goes to work and is attending meetings and the planning of his companies. He has managed to ensure the continuity of his business empire by training his children into successful businessman in their own right and stature. Now, his eldest son, Zhang Chang Guo ), is managing the One Utama ( shopping mall which is the country’s premier shopping mall. His second son, Zhang Chang ), is in education and running Liang ( the Utama College (KBU) which is also one of the country’s leading private institutions of higher learning. The third son, Zhang Chang ), manages One World Hotel Hung ( and several plantation properties. Teo has high

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regards for family bonding and relationship and he practises what he preaches to set a good example to his children. According ), to his daughter, Zhang Qi Zhen ( “my father keeps a very low profile. What he sees [as] very important are two things, our education and whether we are polite to others. He wants us to be honest, sincere and highly respected by others.” Teo was also active in the associations and his contributions were invaluable. Some of his involvements were as vice-president of The Chinese Chambers of Commerce & Industry of Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, founder of Selangor Importers & Exporters Association, founding president of the Malaysian Housing Developers Association (1973), president and honorary president of The Selangor and Kuala Lumpur Teo Chew Association, president and honorary president of the Malaysian Teo Chew Association, president of Kuala Lumpur Tung Shin Hospital (since 1982), director of Petaling Jaya Puay Chai Chinese Primary School (since 1962), director of Kuala Lumpur Kuen Cheng High School (since 1972), director of Chong Hwa Independent High School Kuala Lumpur, honorary president of The Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Che Huan Khor Moral Uplifting Society and the Singapore Che Sen Khor Moral Lifting Society, Teo is also the founder of KDU College and he set up the Teo SiQing Foundation to aid students from poor backgrounds. In recognition of Teo’s achievements and contributions are acknowledged. He was conferred the Johan Setia Mahkota (JSM) honorific in 1969 and the Panglima Setia Mahkota (PSM) honorific with the title of “Tan Sri” in 1999 by the Yang di-Petuan Agong. The Sultan of Selangor awarded him the Setia Mahkota Selangor (SMS) in 1978 and Dato’ Paduka Mahkota Selangor (DPMS) gave the title of “Dato” in 1979. Besides these,

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he was awarded honorary doctorates by the University of Nottingham Trent in 1996 and the University of Anglia Ruskin in 1997. In 1999, he was named Property Man of the Year by the International Real Estate Federation. Teo is a well known philanthropist. During the 1969 May 13 incident, he offered rice and other food to help 3,000 people who were stranded at the Merdeka Stadium. In 1970, when Kuala Lumpur was flooded, many rice stores were affected. More than 150,000 packets of rice were damaged and Malaysia was in the midst of a rice shortage,Teo stood up to help the country import rice from Singapore to overcome solve the crisis. According to Teo, doing good deeds for others is a must,“I believe, in order to receive, we must give first. When I was young, we were poor. We had no money to go to school. No money to see the doctor when we were sick. Therefore, now when I have money, I must help the poor. My father came from China to start a business here. It was hard work.Therefore it is my responsibility to develop and expand it and not to spend recklessly.” “I didn’t study much. But I remember my father’s teaching: [I] must do everything ), [be] down to earth by myself ( ), hardworking and thrifty, [and] ( must learn even until I am old.”Therefore, hard work, thriftiness, the insistence on going to work every day, and doing everything himself, have become Teo’s life motto. In work, Teo emphasizes diversification and innovation. He takes good care of his workers and understands his clients’ needs. He is ambitious and was very meticulous in planning every single detail. He emphasizes creativity, pointing out that: “When others are building single storey houses, I go for double storey. When others build offices, I build high class finance mall[s]”. He sets endless objectives and targets and all these contribute to his

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business empire. He is indeed another shining example of a Malaysian Chinese businessman who has made it in the business world and also in the Chinese community. Lee Yok Fee R E F E R E N C E S 70

〈

〉，《

》，2006 6 29 。 〈 1990 10 15 。

〉，《

〉，《

〈 》，1990 10 14 。 〈 《

》，

50

〉， 》，2007 9 21 。 〉，《

〈 》，2007 11 3 。 〈 2003 1 11 。

〉，《

》，

Thái Thaïch (Thái Traán Thaïch, , Cai Chenshi, 1901–67) Business and community leader,Vietnam

T

hái Thaïch was a leader of the Fujian ) Congregation ( in Saigon (present Ho Chi Minh City) from the 1930s to the 1950s. His grocery business, which catered reliably to the quotidian needs of the French, was a successful enterprise. His contributions to education and health care of the Chinese community were well known. He was one of ten directors of the Phúc Thieän ), chairman of Hospital ( ), established by Chengzhi School ( the Fujianese congregation of Saigon, as well as vice-chairman of the Sino-French School ), which nurtured French speakers. ( He further played a political role in facilitating

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negotiations between the Kuomintang (KMT) ) who retreated to Vietnam with soldiers ( French officials at the end of the civil war in China. His mediation resulted in the safe settlement of the stranded soldiers on Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam, for about three years from March 1950 to June 1953. The Vietnamese name of Cai Chenshi (Thái Traán Thaïch) was Thái Thaïch. Originating from Tong An county of Fujian province ), China, he began his early ( schooling at a village school. At the age of sixteen, he followed other villagers who left his hometown in hordes for Southeast Asia. His destination was Saigon in French Cochinchina, where his father’s younger brother operated a grocery store. He secured a job assisting his paternal uncle in the day; at night, he learnt French, which he recognized as an important commercial lingua franca in an economy monopolized by French enterprises, except for the import-export trade, that was one of the niches of the Chinese. Nurturing his desire to gain access to the French network, he made efforts to acquire competence in the French language and soon became a fluent speaker. Thaïch was married in 1923, after which he was given more responsibilities in the management of his uncle’s business. He enjoyed amicable relations with the French and thus was often able to obtain first-hand information on the arrival of new cargoes at the waterfront of the Saigon River. At the age of twenty-seven, he established an import and export business called Tân Chaán ) in Rue Catinat in downtown Phát ( Saigon, which is today’s Dong Khoi Street (Ðöôøng Ðoàng Khôœi). It was common in those days to find bilingual individuals, especially those who acted as “middlemen” between the French and the locals, showing an air of haughtiness. However,Thaïch was said to have a humble, “down-to-earth” attitude and was also

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frugal. His sound reputation of being reliable propelled his business to success. His parents and kin from his lineage in Tong An county joined him in Saigon after he became financially independent. Several male relatives from his lineage later aided him in his business expansion; for example, Thái Thuïc ) managed the wine section Thöông ( ), and Thái of the enterprise ( ), an inn. His shop named Thuïc Thieát ( Alimentation Générale “Thai-Thach” (Thai-Thach Grocery) in Rue Catinat (renamed Ðöôøng Töï Do, or Liberation Street between 1954 and 1975) was a prominent landmark.The spacious European-styled shop boasted a wide array of food items, ranging from dairy products such as cheese, to seafood flown in regularly from Phan Thieát, a fishing area in the south-eastern region of Vietnam. The shop, complete with wines and a cheese counter, was often thronged with French housewives and chefs working in French households, who would drop off their lists of groceries at the shop and return to pick up their packed orders. Thaïch did not ensconce himself in his office armchair after attaining economic success. He actively advocated education and became involved in social projects. He was vice-chairman of the Sino-French School which offered French and Mandarin classes and was established in 1907 by the Fujianese, ), Xie Mayan (see entry on Taï Mã Vieãn with prominent French businessmen. Thaïch was also chairman of Chengzhi School, the secondary and high school school established in February 1925 by the Fujian bang (clan) of Saigon at No. 5 Boulevard Kitchener (renamed Nguyeãn Thái Hoïc Road in 1955). At the Chinese Congregation of ) in 1954, he was Saigon ( elected chairman of the congregation, but chose to serve as vice-chairman. He was head of the Fujian Congregation in Saigon which

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), owned the Phúc Thieän Hospital ( the third hospital to be built with Chinese funds. It was opened in 1909 and directed by a fifteen-member board of management; Thaïch served as one of ten directors. Originally dispensing only traditional medicine, the hospital expanded to incorporate a department administering western medicine from 1946. On average, this spacious hospital had eighty warded patients daily. It rendered its services free of charge. The initiative to use western medicine in the hospital was a response to the urgent need for dealing with rampant cases of cholera and beriberi that erupted immediately after World War II.Vitamin-B1 tablets brought into Vietnam by British soldiers were the catalyst in the treatment of beriberi. A devastated infrastructure, disrupted traffic, galloping inflation, and a rapidly increasing population in Cholon (Chôï Lôùn) were dire conditions urgently pressing for a quick supply of medicine and medical care.The death toll was soaring in the densely populated Chinese enclave where impromptu medical facilities were built to cope with these ailments while undertakers thrived on the swiftest influx of business. The owner of the traditional Chinese medical hall, Nhò Thiên Ðöôøng ( ), came forward and donated two large tents, hoping to shelter over a hundred patients on an empty plot of land at the Guangzhao ). Hospital (Beänh Vieän Quaûng Trieäu Western medicine was administered in these tents, which were managed by the five Chinese congregations (bang or “clan”) comprising the Cantonese, Chaozhou (Teochew), Fujianese, Hainanese, and Hakka. They marked the birth of a new hospital, the Trung Hoa Western Hospital (Beänh Vieän Trung Hoa ). Medical facilities soon became limited, prompting Thaïch and the consul general of the Republic of China in the Republic of

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Vietnam, Yin Fengzao ( ), to propose leasing the premises of the Phúc Thieän Hospital. The hospital generously donated its warehouses that were located within its compound instead. The Trung Hoa Western Hospital then relocated to these warehouses and was renamed the Trung Chính Western Hospital (Beänh Vieän Trung Chính ), in honour of President Chiang Kai-shek ), or Jiang Zhongzheng ( ), ( leader of the Chinese nationalists. Thaïch served as a committee member at the Kuomintang Main Branch in Annam, ) led by secretary general, Lin Zechen ( (see entry on Dieäp Truyeàn Anh). In 1950, at the end of the civil war between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Communist Party of China, several troops of the national army of the Republic of China retreated southward to Vietnam, led by General Huang ). Yin Fengzao, the consul general, Jie ( solicited the help of Thaïch in negotiating a safe stay for the Chinese nationalist army that was stranded in Vietnam with the French Government. The negotiations resulted in the settlement of the Chinese national army on Phu Quoc Island for three years. Thaïch was also the driving force behind the establishment of the first fabric factory that tapped into Chinese capital in the Republic of Vietnam. He successfully pooled funds for the investment within the Chinese community in 1956, in response to the incentives offered by the Vietnamese Government to encourage ethnic Chinese to venture into large-scale industrial production at a time when most Chinese community leaders were engaged in the distribution and wholesale business. The factory yielded handsome revenue for its investors, but Thaïch, despite having favourably evaluated the lucrative prospects of the investment, had only invested a small capital in it himself and had also rejected director posts.

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Thaïch passed on in 1967, leaving six sons and three daughters. His eldest son, Phúc ), continued his father’s community Laïi ( role as vice-head of the Fujian Congregation in Saigon before migrating to the United ). States with his brother, Phúc Caên ( ), Phúc Sôn The other sons, Phúc Minh ( ), Phúc Tài ( ), and Phúc Thaéng ( ), left for Canada. His eldest daughter, ( ), and the youngest, Minh Minh Lý ( ), resided in Taiwan, while the Gia ( ), settled in second daughter, Minh Ðào ( Sweden with her husband. Grace Chew Chye Lay R E F E R E N C E S Création Mallet/Toudy. “Saigon le perle l’extreme orient”. Bienvenue sur le site de Saïgon-Vietnam website. (accessed January 2010). 《 ：Royal Kingsway Inc., 1992， 80。 《 1955， 46–47, 50, 74。 〈 》。 ： 268–73。

》。

〉，

《 ，1986， 192。

》。 ：

，

《 ，1987， 》。

：

Thaksin Shinawatra ( , Qiu Daxin, 1949– ) Telecommunications magnate, former Prime Minister,Thailand

P

olice Lieutenant Colonel Dr Thaksin Shinawatra was Thailand’s twenty-third Prime Minister. His premiership of 9 February 2001 to 19 September 2006 ended with a bloodless military coup d’état led by Army commander General Sonthi Bunyaratkalin.

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

Remaining in exile for most of the period since that coup, Thaksin returned to Thailand only for a brief period in 2008. Thaksin was born in Chiang Mai Province, Northern Thailand, on 26 July 1949 to Loet Shinawatra and Yindi Ramingwong. The Shinawatra family was descended from Khoo ), a Hakka merchant who Soon Seng ( emigrated from Meizhou, Guandong Province, to Siam in the 1860s and made a fortune as a tax collector in Chanthaburi Province before moving to Chiangmai to undertake a range of businesses. Thaksin’s mother’s family belonged to the house of Thipphachakkrathiwong, which ruled the Chiangmai kingdom from the eighteenth century until its annexation by Siam and the discontinuation of the title of “King of Chiangmai” after the death of chao Kaew Nawarat in 1939. Thaksin began school in Chiang Mai’s Sankamphaeng District and moved to Montfort College in Chiangmai town as a third-year primary-school student. He was admitted to the Thai military’s Pre-Cadet School as a member of Class 10 in 1969 and entered the Thai Police Academy as a member of Class 26 in 1973. At the latter institution, he was the top student in his class. In 1974, he received a Thai government scholarship to study criminal justice in the United States, where he earned a master’s degree from Eastern Kentucky University in 1975 and a doctorate from Sam Houston State University in 1978. Returning to Thailand, he started his police career as head of Section 6, Research and Planning Division, Bangkok Metropolitan Police Command. He was later promoted to deputy superintendent of the same command’s intelligence centre and staff lecturer at the Police Academy. He married Photchaman Damaphong, the daughter of a police general, in 1980.They have one son, Phanthongthae, and two daughters, Phinthongtha and Phaethongthan.

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Thaksin ventured into various businesses in the early 1980s, including the silk trade, film distribution, cinemas, and condominiums. These initial ventures failed, leaving him near insolvency. In 1983, he founded Shinawatra Computer Co., Ltd. (originally ICSI Limited Partnership), which focused on corporate computer leasing and expanded into profitable services like pagers and mobile phone operations, as well as fully integrated satellite and telecommunications services. Thaksin resigned from the Police Department in 1987. His company was listed on the Securities Exchange of Thailand (SET) in 1990 and later renamed “Shin Corp. Plc.” In 1994, Thaksin stepped down as chairman of Shin Corp and transferred his equity stakes to family members and other trusted proxies so that he could plunge into politics. He joined the Phalang Dharma Party (PDP) with the support of Major General Chamlong Srimuang. His first ministerial post was foreign minister in the government of Chuan Likphai in 1995. He assumed the leadership of the PDP from Chamlong and subsequently served as deputy prime minister in the governments of Banharn Silpa-archa in 1996 and of General Chawalit Yongchaiyut in 1997. On 14 July 1998, Thaksin launched the Thai Rak Thai Party (TRT) and became party leader, a position that catapulted him to the premiership on 9 February 2001. Cultivating the image of a brash, nononsense prime minister in a hurry, Thaksin was credited with many new projects targeting low-income groups, but these initiatives were criticized by others as populism. His social and economic policies, dubbed “Thaksinomics”, focused on stimulating domestic consumption as a parallel track to export promotion and on introducing various social welfare programmes. Major programmes included the OTOP (One Tambon, One Product) scheme

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and the Village Fund Project to provide rural communities with access to financial resources for investment in income generation; a threeyear debt moratorium for small-scale farmers; a programme to provide rural families with a million water buffaloes; a housing programme for low-income families; and the 30-baht universal health-care plan. During his premiership, Thaksin attempted to raise Thailand’s international profile by promoting his version of regional cooperation as well as bilateral free trade arrangements with trading partners. Thailand’s cooperation in America’s “war on terror” also saw Thailand achieve the status of a “major non-NATO ally” of the United States. However, Thaksin’s reputation was tarnished by his hard-line approach to many issues and resultant human right abuses. Extra-judicial killings on the part of the Thai police during the Thaksin government’s war on drugs resulted in the deaths of 2,500 people suspected of being involved in the drugs trade. By the end of his premiership, renewed insurgency in Thailand’s southernmost provinces had resulted in the death of some 1,400 people. Thaksin’s policies toward the far South were blamed by many for leading to the escalation of violence there. The Thaksin government was also notorious for conflicts of interests and for corruption scandals. Public disappointment culminated in a campaign aiming to drive him from office after Thaksin and members of his immediate family and of the Damapong family sold their stakes in Shin Corp to the Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings on 23 January 2006.The still poorly understood 73.3-billion-baht deal involved transfers of 1.49 billion Shin Corp shares, or 49.59 per cent of the firm’s total equity, at 49.25 baht per share. It was the single

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biggest share transaction in the history of the SET. Amendments made to stock-trading regulations a few days prior to this transaction were seen by many as an attempt to exempt Thaksin and his family from the capital gains taxes that other Thais paid. The anti-Thaksin movement grew exponentially in subsequent months under the mantle of the People’s Alliance for Democracy. Thaksin decided on 24 February 2006, to dissolve parliament and to call a snap general election for 2 April 2006. Opposition parties, led by the Democrat Party of Abhisit Vejjajiva, boycotted the election. TRT’s victory at the polls was declared invalid by the Constitutional Court on the grounds that the lay-out of polling places violated voters’ right to a secret ballot. A new election was set for 15 October 2006 but never took place, as the Thai military staged a coup on 19 September 2006 while Thaksin was attending the UN General Assembly meeting in New York. Thaksin’s TRT Party was also dissolved in May 2007 for violation of electoral laws. His family’s assets in Thailand were frozen on the junta’s orders. After the coup Thaksin did not return from self-imposed exile until 28 February 2008, when he flew back to face charges of corruption. He left Thailand again to attend the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and did not return to Thailand to hear the final sentence of the Thai Supreme Court. He applied for asylum in the United Kingdom but was refused. He moved from one country to another and eventually settled down in Dubai. In October of 2008, the Supreme Court found him guilty of a conflict of interest and sentenced him in absentia to two years’ imprisonment. At present, Thaksin mainly relies on his overseas financial assets of around US$100 million, which he has invested in gold mines, diamond

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polishing, and lottery licences in a number of countries. In June 2007, he bought Manchester City Football Club but sold it to investors from Abu Dhabi United Group in September 2008. In November 2009, he was appointed an economic adviser to the Cambodian government, a position that he held only until August of the following year. Despite his exile, Thaksin has maintained his involvement in Thai politics from afar mainly through his family and pre-existing networks. Former TRT members formed a new party, the People’s Power Party (PPP) in 2007, and Thaksin was reported to have called veteran politician and former Bangkok governor Samak Suntharawet to offer him leadership of the party. The PPP won the Thai parliamentary elections of December 2007. Becoming prime minister, Samak admitted that he was a “nominee” of Thaksin. The PPP government continued the TRT government’s populist socio-economic policies. But Samak was disqualified from holding office by the Constitutional Court in September 2008. Somchai Wongsawat, Thaksin’s brother-in-law, succeeded Samak as premier. However, the Somchai government lasted only until December 2008, when the Constitutional Court dissolved the PPP for vote buying. The Democrat Party assumed leadership of the government with the support of the military and conservative political forces. Abhisit Vejjajiva became Thailand’s prime minister. Thaksin continued to play a crucial role in Thai politics from overseas. He became the icon of the Red Shirts (largely members of the National United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship) during the political crises of 2008–10, broadcasting his views to Red Shirt rallies against the military and the conservative elite then in power. Following

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the dissolution of the PPP in 2008, Thaksin supported his former TRT members as they formed the Phuea Thai Party (PTP). The PTP contested Thailand’s July 2011 election under the leadership of Thaksin’s youngest sister, Yingluck Shinawatra. Winning 265 out of the 500 seats contested, her party joined with five smaller parties to form a 300-seat coalition government. Prime Minister Yingluck has been criticised for trying to grant amnesty to her brother so as to allow him to return to Thailand. Thaksin remains influential both in the Yingluck government’s policy formulation and in its selection of cabinet members. In just over a decade, he has thoroughly transformed his country’s politics, though the ultimate consequences of that transformation must remain unclear for now. Pongphisoot Busbarat R E F E R E N C E S Askew, Marc, ed. Legitimacy Crisis in Thailand. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2010. Funston, John, ed. Divided over Thaksin: Thailand’s Coup and Problematic Transition. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009. McCargo, Duncan, and Ukrist Pathmanand. The Thaksinization of Thailand. Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2005. Matichon. Thaksin atsawin phu kha tua eng [The Knight Who Killed Himself]. Bangkok: Matichon, 2006. Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker. Thaksin: The Business of Politics in Thailand. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2004. Plate, Tom. Conversations with Thaksin. Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2011. Sorakon Adunlayanon. Thaksin Shinawatra atsawin kluen luk thi sam [Thaksin Shinawatra: Knight of the Third Wave]. Bangkok: Matichon, 1994. 〈 〈 14，《

〉，2005 7 2 ， 2； 〉，2005 7 3 ， 》。

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Thaw Kaung (1937– ) Historian, chief librarian, Myanmar

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Thaw Kaung is a scholar who pioneered historical research in Myanmar, and was a leader in librarianship in Myanmar. He has written academic papers and published books on library science, bibliographies, and culture and has been duly recognized in his field of work and research, being the first Southeast Asian librarian to have obtained the Honorary Fellow Award of the Library Association (Hons. F. L. A.). A second-generation, Myanmar-born Hokkien, U Thaw Kaung was born on 17 December 1937 in Yangon and has no Chinese name. His father, Sithu U Kaung, whose surname was Saw ( Su), was director for education during the British colonial administration (1945–55). His mother, Daw Thein, had the maiden surname of Teoh Zhang). Their ancestors had migrated ( ), China. U Thaw Kaung from Quanzhou ( is the eldest son. In 1947, his father was sent by the General Aung San Interim Government to England to manage Burmese scholars there. The young Thaw Kaung accompanied his parent there and through an arrangement made by his father, was taught by a female tutor from Cambridge University while he was in England. In 1950 he returned to Yangon with his parents, but could not go to school because he had suffered from poliomyelitis since young. His parents did not subject him to strenuous work, and had devoted much care to him to ensure that he would be well taken care of later in life. From 1952–54, Thaw Kaung attended the Methodist English High School (now No. 1 State High School, Dagon township,

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Yangon), and passed with distinctions in English and geography. He started his career in 1959 when he obtained the bachelors of Arts (First Class Honours) degree in English at Rangoon University, and won the U Po Hnit Gold Prize. From 1960–62, he was in England on a state scholarship a diploma course in library science at the School of Oriental and African Studies. He specialized in Oriental Bibliography and graduated with distinction. Between 1966 and 1984, U Thaw Kaung concurrently led the Department of Library and Information Studies and the Myanmar Language Commission where he was chairman. He was also vice-chairman of the National Literary Awards Committee. He devoted his studies to librarianship and attended the postgraduate diploma course at the University of London from 1960 to 1962. In 1963, following his graduation, he was elected chartered librarian and appointed an associate of the Library Association of the United Kingdom. Then in 1971 he founded the Department of Library Studies at the University of Rangoon (now Yangon) and established a postgraduate curriculum in Library and Information Studies. Five years later, he obtained a Certificate of Library Studies awarded by the Associate of Australian Library and Information Association (A.L.I.A.) from the Western Australian Institute of Technology (currently known as the Curtin University). In 1984, he became, as mentioned above, the first Southeast Asian librarian during the post-war period to have obtained the Hons. F. L. A. For two terms, 1984–85 and 1991–92, U Thaw Kaung was consultant for the British library in Yangon, Oriental and India Office Collections. From 1995 until the present, he has been a member of the Pakkoku U Ohn Pe Literary Awards Selection Committee, responsible for the selection and promotion of literary and cultural materials in Myanmar.

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In the years following 1993 until 2000, he was a sought after speaker and presenter on Chinese culture and heritage in Myanmar, and represented Myanmar in several conferences in India, Japan, London, Malaysia, and Thailand. In 1999, he was conferred a doctor of letters, degree, an honorary degree, by the University of Western Sydney. These days, he would occasionally present talks on his experience in preserving and assessing old texts from palm leaves and Parabike manuscripts.His most recent presentation was at a workshop organized at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, on 23 October 2008. In January 2002, U Thaw Kaung was visiting professor to the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka, Japan. Concurrently, he was selected as a permanent member of the Myanmar Historical Commission, which is involved in the keeping of records and developments in Myanmar. In 2005, he was awarded the 16th Fukuoka Asia Culture Prize by the Secretariat of the Fukuoka Asian Culture in Japan for his work on the preservation of traditional Pali texts. In particular, he was credited with the preservation of various 1,000-year-old palm leaf and paper Parabike manuscripts. In the citation on his award, U Thaw Kaung was acknowledged as having pioneered historical research in Myanmar. A year later, he was appointed a member for the National Convention, which was tasked to draft the National Constitution of Myanmar. U Thaw Kaung has written several articles and published books; among them, “Preservation and Conservation Work in the Universities Central Library” (1997); “Bibliographies Compiled in Myanmar” (1998); “Post-Colonial Society and Culture: Reflections in Myanmar Novels in the last 50 Years” (1999), and “The Ramayana Drama in Myanmar” (2001). His earlier works include the Library Handbooks and Manuals, published

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by Sarpay Beikman (Institute of Literature) in Yangon in 1973, and a chapter on Cataloguing and Cataloguing Rules for Myanmar writers. He has also co-authored works to his credit, such as the Bibliography of Works on Myanmar Literature, published by Sarpay Beikman (Institute of Literature) in 1983, and co-written with U Than Htut and Daw San San May. U Thaw Kaung married Daw Khin Than (nicknamed Su Su) in 1964. They have three sons: Min Thaw Kaung, Thant Thaw Kaung, and Myat Thaw Kaung, all of whom are married. U Thaw Kaung and his wife currently live in Bahan Township,Yangon, with their two elder sons and their families. The youngest son is a chartered accountant, who having obtained Singapore citizenship, now lives in Singapore with his family. Daw Win R E F E R E N C E S Ma Khine Thandar Aung. “U Thaw Kaung’s Sources”. Department of Library and Research, Yangon, 2003. Myanmar Historical Commission. “Biographies of Members of Myanmar Historical Commission”. Myanmar Historical Commission’s Golden Jubilee, Yangon, 2004.

The Teng Chun (Tahyar Ederis, , Zheng Dengjun, 1902–77) Movie producer, film director, Indonesia

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he Teng Chun was known as a pioneer film-maker in Indonesia before World War II and was a major figure in the Indonesian film industry. He was born in Batavia (Jakarta) on 18 June 1902 into a rich businessman’s family. His father was a merchant engaged in the agricultural business and The went to the Tiong

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Hoa Hwe Koan School (THHK) in Batavia for his primary school education. In 1920 he was sent to the United States to study commerce, but he learned scenario writing instead at the Palmer Play Theatre in New York, where he met Fred Young, another Peranakan Chinese from Indonesia. Between 1925 and 1930, The was in Shanghai, the pre-World War II centre of Mandarin movies, and got involved in the movie business, learning more about film-making and the movie industry. He also successfully persuaded his father to change his business from selling agricultural products to importing Chinese movies in Indonesia. In 1930 The returned to Jakarta and made plans to start a movie production company. His father, however, believed that it would be wiser to stick to importing, rather than producing, movies. Without the support of his father, The established a company called Cino Motion Picture and produced his first movie, Boenga Roos dari Tjikembang (The beauty from Tjikembang, 1931), which was also one of the first Indonesian motion pictures with sound. The movie was based on the novel by a well known Peranakan writer, Kwee Tek Hoay, and tells the story of a mixed marriage between a Chinese man and an indigenous Indonesian woman. However, this first movie by The was not appreciated by either the press or the audience. The then changed his strategy and he started to make Indonesian movies based on Chinese stories such as Sam Pek Eng Tay (Sam Pek and Eng Tay, also known as Liang Shanbo yu Zhu Yingtai, in Mandarin, 1931); Pat Bie Tu (or Delapan Wanita Djelita, Eight Beauties, also known as Ba Mei Tu, in Mandarin 1932), Delapan Djago Pedang (Eight Heroic Swordsmen, 1933), and Ouw Phe Tjoa (Black and White Snakes, or Hei Bai She, in Mandarin, 1934), all of which turned out to be commercial successes. The then changed the name of his company to Java Industrial Film (JIF) and went

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on to produce more movies with a Chinese background, for example, Lima Siloeman Tikoes (Five Mice, 1935), Ouw Phe Tjoa II (Black and White Snakes II, 1936), and Hong Lian Si (Red Lotus Temple, 1937). Initially The was in charge of all aspects of film-making but gradually he discovered the importance of division of work, and began delegating responsibilities to others. His brothers, The Teng Hoei and The Teng Liong, were respectively trained in the use of the camera and sound production. The quality of The’s movies improved with these professionals joining his company. However, the taste of the audience in Indonesia began to change with the import of movies from Hollywood. Movies about Tarzan and Zorro were very popular and so The changed his strategy again. He started producing action movies with local backgrounds. He also began to use local actors and actresses, many of whom were from travelling drama troupes, such as Andjar Asmara, Raden Ismail,Tan Tjeng Bok, FifiYoung, and others. He produced many movies, including Gadis jang Terdjoeal (A Girl who was Sold, 1937), O, Iboe (O, Mother, 1938), Alang-Alang (Long Grass, 1940), Rentjong Atjeh (The Dagger of Aceh, 1940), and Poetri Rimba (Jungle Girl, 1941). The’s Java Industrial Film Company was the largest and most modern studio in Indonesia. The early movie industry in Indonesia was dominated by the Europeans and Chinese Peranakans. It is also worth noting that before World War II, the film industry tended to bring together Chinese and non-Chinese film workers in the production of movies. For instance, Terang Boelan (Moon Light, 1937), one of the best pre-war Indonesian movies, was a product of Chinese (Wong), indigenous Indonesian (Saeroen) and European (Balink) efforts. Up to 1939, there were only two motion picture companies in Indonesia. However,

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the Sino-Japanese War in China resulted in the migration of many Chinese in the movie business to the south, including Indonesia. By 1940 there had been a jump of motion picture companies in colonial Indonesia; there were ten film companies in that year alone. Meanwhile, the close cooperation between various ethnic groups continued, as reflected in the cast and production team of the movies. The inflow of this new capital and new technology helped improve the Indonesian movie industry. However the Japanese Occupation of Indonesia (1942–45) changed the landscape of its movie industry. All film companies, including Java Industrial Film Company, ceased production. Their revival began only after the end of World War II. In fact,The only managed to return to the movie industry after the transfer of power from the Dutch to the Indonesians. In 1950 he and Fred Young, his friend and well known movie director, co-founded a new company called Bintang Surabaja, which produced a number of movies, many of which were based on stories in The Arabian Nights. In 1962 the studio was closed down in the midst of a movie industry crisis.The, who contributed significantly to the founding of the Indonesian film industry, resorted to giving tuition in the English language for a living and, in 1967, changed his name to Tahyer Ederis (often spelled as Idris). In 1976 his contributions to Indonesian movies were eventually recognized by the Jakarta Municipal Government, which gave him an honorary award. He died in Jakarta on 26 February 1977. Leo Suryadinata R E F E R E N C E S Archipel. “Filmographie Indonesienne”. No. 5 (1973): 53–64. Pane, Sanusi. Indonesia, January–February 1953, pp. 16–17; Tempo, 12 March 1977, p. 10.

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Salim Said. Profil Dunia Film Indonesia. Jakarta: Grafitipers, 1982, pp. 22–30. Senematek Indonesia. Apa dan Siapa: Orang Film Indonesia 1926–1978. Jakarta: Yayasan Artis Film, 1979, pp. 500–01. Suryadinata, Leo. Prominent Indonesian Chinese: Biographical Sketches. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1995, pp. 43–44.

Thee Kian Wie ( , Dai Jianwei, 1935– ) Economist, economic historian, Indonesia

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he significance of Thee Kian Wie as an economist is indicated by the 121 titles to his name. Among them are 8 books, 10 edited books, 17 occasional, working and discussion papers, 47 chapters in books and journal articles published in English, 39 articles in English in scientific journals, not counting his papers published in Indonesian. He has received the Yayasan Buku Utama Award in 1994 for the book Industrialisasi Indonesia — Beberapa Kajian (second printing in 1997). His edited book Recollections — The Indonesian Economy, 1950s–1990s (2003) was translated into Indonesian in 2005. He is undoubtedly one of the most prolific authors in his field and perhaps one of the most prolific Indonesian authors published in English. Another indicator of the significance of his work and career is the number of important scientific awards that Thee Kian Wie has received starting in 1994. These awards, from national as well as international institutions, shows that he is an internationally recognized economist. He has received a total of 9 awards (5 national and 4 international), among them: the Award given by the Yayasan Buku Utama, mentioned earlier; he is a recipient of the Allen Sewell Fellowship Award from Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia (2003); the

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Degree of Doctor of Letters Honoris Causa, from The Australian National University, Canberra (2004); the Habibie Award (2006); one of five recipients of the KOMPAS Daily Award to Dedicated Intellectuals (2008); one of two recipients of the Sarwono Prawirohardja VII Award (2008). In 2008, he was also appointed Honorary Member of the KITLV (Royal Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies), Leiden, The Netherlands. Thee Kian Wie (Thee as he is usually called by his colleagues or Kian Wie by his family and close friends) was born in Jakarta on 20 April 1935. His parents were highly educated in their time. His father, Thee Tjoen Giap, born 1902, was the youngest son of a shopkeeper in Buitenzorg. He studied at the Hollandsch Chineese Kweekschool, known as HCK, and in the last years of Dutch colonial rule, was principal of a Dutch Chinese primary school (HCS) in Batavia. After independence he became principal of a public junior high school and then a public senior high school, retiring in 1957 at age 55. He moved on to a private institution and became principal of a junior high school for another ten years. His mother, Sylvia Oey Hwee Nio, born 1901, was the oldest daughter of Oey Peng Lin, a businessman and landowner in Kapuk, West Batavia, who founded the Chinese language school system Tiong Hoa Lie Hak Hauw. Sylvia first went to that school and later taught there. But then she switched to Dutch education and graduated from the Dutch Three-Year Hogere Burger School (HBS), the prestigious high school in colonial times. Subsequently in the mid 1920s she went to the Netherlands and studied but not completed a teacher training course. Still, at that time it was unusual for an ethnic Chinese young woman to go and study abroad.

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Thee is the oldest child of three children. His sister Lilian Himawan has a law degree from the University of Indonesia (UI) and is currently working in a law firm, and his brother, Sutisna Himawan studied medicine at UI and is now Professor in anatomic pathology at that university. It is worth noting, that in his immediate family there is no one in business. The family belongs to the “class” of highly educated peranakan Chinese. Besides Indonesian,Thee is fluent in English and Dutch and has a fair command of German. Thee is married to Cecilia Martina Tandean (born Tan Tjoe Nio in Samarinda), who works as an office manager to the Jakarta correspondent of the newspaper The Australian and the Southeast Asian correspondent of The Los Angeles Times. They have one child, a son, Marcel, who has graduated from the London School of Public Relations, Jakarta, and is a musician, the leader of his own band. Another interesting note is that Thee Kian Wie has not changed his name into an Indonesian-sounding name. In fact, almost all the ethnic Chinese researchers at LIPI, who became well-known in their respective field, have not changed their name. Besides Thee, the names that can be mentioned are Lie Tek Tjeng, Mely G. Tan, and Thung Ju Lan. With the educational background of his parents, Thee went to the Europese Lagere School (the Dutch Primary School non-Dutch families could sent their children to after fulfilling certain qualifications) in 1941, but this schooling was interrupted in 1942 with the Japanese occupation. During that period, he was taught by his father at home. After the Japanese left, Thee finished his primary school education at the Christian Primary School (1946). From 1947–49 he was at the Hogere Burger School (HBS), that after the transfer of sovereignty in December 1949

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was changed to Special Senior High School, graduating in 1952. After he received his Drs degree at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Indonesia in 1959, Thee became an administrative officer at the Indonesian Council for Sciences (MIPI) until 1962. That year MIPI established the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (Leknas) which Thee joined as a junior researcher. In 1963 he received a study assignment from MIPI (with funding from the Ford Foundation), to study for a Ph.D. in economics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. In 1969 he finished his studies and returned to continue to work at LIPI (changed from MIPI in 1967). In 1976 he was promoted to Senior Research Associate (Ahli Peneliti Utama or APU). He remained in this position until his official retirement in 2000. From 1974 to 1978, Thee was Assistant Director of the Leknas-LIPI. Subsequently, from 1986 to 1990 he was Head of the Centre for Economic and Development Studies (PEP-LIPI). Starting in 1982 until 2007, Thee was invited and held positions such as Visiting Fellow, Fellow-in-Residence, Visiting Researcher, Senior Visiting Research Fellow, Sir Allen Sewell Fellow, in 11 academic and/ or research institutions, in Australia, The Netherlands, Japan, and Singapore. There are 11 other positions he is still holding until the present, both in Indonesia as well as abroad. Most of these positions are on the editorial board or as corresponding editor of scientific journals, on the advisory board of research institutions, and membership in scientific institutions. In the area of research Thee became involved in a multiyear project from 1974–78. He was Project Officer of the National Study on Indonesia’s Long-term Growth Perspectives,

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a study initiated and supervised by the late Prof. Sumitro Djojohadikusumo, then Minister of State for Research. From June 1986 to July 1990, he was Head of the Centre for Economic and Development Studies (PEP-LIPI). As head he has done collaborative research, and has assisted younger colleagues in research and in writing up the results. The appreciation of the leadership of P2E-LIPI (Pusat Penelitian Ekonomi-LIPI, changed from PEP-LIPI in 2001) and his colleagues is shown in the fact that after his retirement in 2000, he was asked to stay on as a researcher and continue to occupy the office space he has been using all these years. Mely G.Tan R E F E R E N C E S Thee Kian Wie. Industrialisasi di Indonesia: Beberapa Kajian. Jakarta: LP3ES, 1994. ———. Recollections: The Indonesian Economy, 1950s– 1990s. Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2003. Interview with Thee Kian Wie.

Thio Thiam Tjong ( , Zhang Tiancong, 1896–1969) Businessman, community leader, Indonesia

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wner of a prominent import-export firm in Semarang, Thio was also a political leader of the community. He supported China in its struggle against Japan. A member of the Chung Hua Hui in preWorld War II times, he became personal adviser to Lieutenant Governor-General van Mook during the Indonesian revolution and in 1948 established Persatuan Tionghoa (later Partai Demokrasi Tionghoa Indonesia) to represent the political interests of Chinese Indonesians

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and to encourage greater understanding of Indonesian citizenship. Later he served as ViceChairman of Baperki. Thio Thiam Tjong was born on 4 April 1896 (one source says 1897) into a wealthy peranakan family of Semarang, whose father, Thio Sing Liong, was owner of the importexport firm Seng Liong (Thio Sing Liong Handel Mij.) there. He attended the European secondary school (HBS) in Leiden and studied for three years at the engineering college in Delft, leaving before graduating in 1922 to join his father’s firm. He took over the firm in 1933 after his father retired, expanding its interests. A board member of a number of other businesses, he was Chairman of the Siang Hwee (Chinese Chamber of Commerce) in Semarang from 1930–1934 and on the board of a Chinese-English school, later chairman of the Tiong Hoa Hwe Koan Chinese school association there, also of the Pasar Malam, a fair organized to collect funds for charity. He was a leader and major contributor to relief funds for China during the Sino-Japanese War and he visited China a number of times, both before and after World War II, being received by Chiang Kai-shek in 1947. After his return from the Netherlands to Java, he joined other Dutch-educated peranakans, including H. H. Kan, in the Chung Hwa Congress in 1927, helping to form the Chung Hua Hui, which aspired to represent the interests of the minority in the Dutchorganized councils, especially the Volksraad (People’s Council), and above all to obtain recognition of the Chinese as having the legal status of Europeans. A member of the Provincial Council for Central Java, he was on the Central Board of the Chung Hua Hui, becoming president of its Semarang Branch in the 1930s. When the Japanese invaded Java, Thio was head of a militia hastily formed to defend

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Java. Given his anti-Japanese activities, he was in danger and he fled to Ambarawa when the Japanese took Semarang. In the end, he was interned with several hundred other peranakan and totok leaders who were thought to be anti-Japanese in the Cimahi prison camp for the duration of the Japanese Occupation. In prison camp,Thio became the informal leader of the Chinese prisoners and took time to learn Mandarin. After the Dutch returned to Java, in March 1946, Lieutenant-GovernorGeneral H. van Mook chose him as an informal adviser for Chinese affairs. The Chinese were important to the Dutch for two reasons. First, their cooperation was necessary to restore the economy of the Indies, devastated by war and the ongoing revolution. Second, van Mook’s vision of a federal Indonesia, independent but closely tied to the Netherlands, required special attention to the interests of the minorities and to the Outer Islands in order to balance the influence of the Indonesian Republic. Thio is said to have accepted the position reluctantly, hoping to be able to speak up for the Chinese minority wherever he could. Whatever his association with the Dutch authorities, Thio avoided negative comments about the Indonesian Republic, concentrating on the future instead. The Sin Ming Hui (New Light Association), a peranakan social organization, convened a meeting of prominent Chinese from various groups in May 1948 to found the Persatuan Tionghoa (Chinese Association) to encourage especially the local-born ethnic Chinese to become politically involved. By this time, it was clear that the Indies would enjoy some kind of independence, although the exact form it would take was still unclear. Above all the local-born and locally-oriented Chinese must recognize that their future was as citizens in an Indonesian state. The Persatuan Tionghoa intended to represent their

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interests. Thio, widely respected for his role as community leader, was its chairman. Curiously, as Thio later pointed out, Persatuan Tionghoa was a translation of “Chung Hua Hui.” Perhaps the association consciously wanted to continue the attitude of the CHH that the Chinese of the Indies should be oriented first to Indonesia as their homeland, not simply to hope for help from China to defend their interests. Persatuan Tionghoa attracted some attention from peranakans but had little echo among the more China-oriented populations of, for example, West Kalimantan, where enthusiasm for China had reached a peak and the idea of Indonesia that PT propagated had little meaning. It urged that all citizens be equal, irrespective of national origin or religion, and the minorities should be able to promote their own cultures. Its leadership included many who had previously opposed the CHH. Leaders like Thio increasingly realized that an independent Indonesia would seek to reduce the influence of the Chinese, along with that of foreigners, in economic life, and might threaten legitimate Chinese interests. Politically, the party was open to cooperation with all political groups. After Indonesian sovereignty was recognized, in early 1950, the organization changed its name to Partai Demokrat Tionghoa Indonesia, while Thio continued as chairman. Not surprisingly, in view of the two-year period alloted persons of Chinese descent born in the Indies for choosing or rejecting Indonesian citizenship, it emphasized the importance of an Indonesian orientation for the Chinese — all members had to be citizens — and the need to see Indonesia as homeland. Although the organization had some forty branches and several thousand members (according to Thio), Thio himself felt he lacked the political talent to lead a successful organization and the party threatened to become just a name. In addition, he himself

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was disadvantaged by his past connection with Van Mook. The first all-Indonesian elections were approaching. Already some Indonesian politicians were proposing steps to limit the economic influence and freedom of the ethnic Chinese, and there was talk of a new regulation of the citizenship of the Chinese minority, which might further disadvantage them. A different organization, one that could defend the rights and livelihoods of the Chinese in the political constellation of the Indonesian Republic, was necessary. In March 1954, the founding meeting of Baperki (Badan Permusyawaratan Kewarganegaraan Indonesia, Consultative Body for Indonesian Citizenship) convened at the the Sin Ming Hui Building in Jakarta. The PDTI and some other peranakan interest groups dissolved themselves into the new association; while Siauw Giok Tjhan assumed the chairmanship. This new organization was open to all Indonesian citizens and did not call itself “Chinese”, nor did it represent itself as a political party. Nevertheless, it participated in the national elections of 1955, winning most of the votes of the Chinese voters.Thio Thiam Tjong remained as a vice-chairman. In the 1960s, he privately expressed the opinion that in the long run most of Indonesia’s Chinese would retain only a “sentimental” attachment to China, as did migrants to the USA to their ancestral lands. A Baperki official later described him as the “sesepuh Baperki,” the “elder.” By the 1960s, at the latest,Thio had withdrawn from an active role in the organization. In spite of that, he was arrested and imprisoned in the aftermath of the alleged coup of October 1965, along with others associated with Baperki. He left Indonesia for the Netherlands in 1967, where he died on 22 September 1969. Mary Somers Heidhues

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R E F E R E N C E S Mary Somers Heidhues. “Citizenship and Identity: Ethnic Chinese and the Indonesian Revolution”. In Changing Identities of the Southeast Asian Chinese since World War II, edited by Jennifer W. Cushman and Wang Gungwu. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1988, pp. 115–38. Mary F. Somers [Heidhues]. Peranakan Chinese Politics in Indonesia. Unpublished dissertation, Cornell University, 1965. Leo Suryadinata. Eminent Indonesian Chinese: Biographical Sketches. Singapore: Gunung Agung, 1981. Leo Suryadinata, ed. Political Thinking of the Indonesian Chinese 1900–1977. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1979. Interview, Thio Thiam Tjong, 9 January 1963.

Thio Tiauw Siat ( , Zhang Zhaoxie alias , Zhang Bishi, 1841–1916) Merchant, planter, industrialist, revenue farmer, consul of Chinese Government, Malaysia

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hio Tiauw Siat, as most Malaysian and Indonesian Chinese called Zhang Zhaoxie, was also known as Cheong ). But in Fatt Tze or Zhang Zhenxun ( Chinese history books, he was better known as Zhang Bishi (also spelled as Chang Pi Shih). Born in 1841 into a poor family in Dapu district, Guangdong, he immigrated in 1858, to Batavia (now Jakarta) of the Dutch East Indies to earn a living. Initially, he worked in a rice shop owned by an overseas Chinese and spent his spare time observing the local economic circumstance and learning the local languages. Thio’s studious bent and diligence were highly commended by a neighbouring Hakka shop owner, Wen, who married his daughter to Thio and financially supported him to open a new rice shop.

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When Wen passed away Thio inherited his father-in-law’s assets after and expanded his existing business and opened a wine shop. Through his good rapport with the Dutch colonial officials, he also managed to win some tax farming contracts. Around 1866, with the endorsement and financial support from the Dutch Colonial Government, Thio undertook the project of clearing and developing the wastelands adjacent to Batavia. His work drove the development and prosperity of the surrounding areas. He also diversified into the plantation industry. Around 1875, Thio was again authorized by the Dutch Colonial Government to develop Aceh and Deli (now Medan) in Sumatra. In Deli he set up a new company to open up coconut, rubber, and tea plantations. This not only enabled him to expand his existing businesses into these areas, but also accelerated his involvement in a wide range of new business activities, including crossing over the Malacca Strait and establishing a new business base in Penang. Thio also jointly established the Deli Bank with his ex-staff members, Zhang Yunan ) and Zhang Hongnan (Chang Yu Nan ) to monitor the (Chang Hung Nan monetary condition, as well as facilitate the cash remittance of overseas Chinese to their homeland. In order to solve the transport problems arising from his ever expanding business, Thio also solely established the renowned Ban Yoo ) Company in Penang to handle Hin ( the shipbuilding and navigation between Aceh and Penang. He also extended and intensified his business network by operating trading markets and a tin mining business in Bentong of British Pahang, and in Selangor, and Klang. Apart from the above investments in Southeast Asia, he also made huge investments

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in China, for example, the famous Zhang Yu ) Pioneer Wine Company ( ) in Shandong province, and at Yantai ( investments in textile & fabric factories, a gold-mining company, and brickfields. He was also involved in setting up the first Chineseowned bank, i.e the Imperial Bank of China (later known as Commercial Bank of China ). He was the largest private shareholder in the Imperial Bank of China and sat on the board of directors of several financial institutions as well. In May 1893, Thio Tiauw Siat was appointed as the first Chinese vice-consul of China in Penang. The next year, he was promoted to acting general consul in Singapore and held the post until early 1898. In return for his support and adherence to the economic policy of the late Qing Dynasty, he was granted audiences by the Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu as well as conferred the titles of “First Rank Dingdai” ) and “Taipusi Zhengqing” ( ). It was unprecedented for ( the Qing Government to give such eminent honours to an emigrant. Thio was also appointed as the commissioner investigating commerce in foreign ports and concurrently as a superintendant of agriculture, industry, railroads and mining for Fujian and Guangdong ( ) tasked with visiting major ports and cities in Southeast Asia, to encourage overseas Chinese to invest in their China homeland. From 1905 to 1906, Thio also initiated the founding of the Chinese Chamber of ) in both Penang Commerce ( and Singapore. His tremendous achievements and contributions to commercial activities laid the groundwork for his being elected president of the Associated China Chambers of Commerce later.

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Apart from his notable accomplishment in politics and business, Thio also significantly contributed to the educational and cultural development in Southeast Asia from 1904. For instance, he established Penang Chung ), that year Hwa School ( and also Singapore Yin Sin School ( ) and others later. The Penang Chung Hwa School was the pioneer for modern Chinese education in Malaya and also the first school to adopt Mandarin as a medium of instruction, establishing the foundation for the development of Chinese education in Malaysia. For religious and cultural causes, Thio had made generous donation to Kek ) Temple. This had enabled Lok Si ( him, together with Zhang Yunan, Zhang ), Tye Hongnan, Xie Rongguang ( Dai Chunrong), and Choon Yoon ( Zheng Jinggui) Chung Keng Kwee ( to be elected as the six councillors for the asset management council of the temple. Thio also played a significant role in the revival movement of Confucianism in Malaya during the early twentieth century. After the founding of the Republic of China, Thio became the adviser for President ), adviser for the Ministry Yun Sikai ( of Commerce & Industry, etc. He was also appointed as honorary president for the Association of Overseas Chinese. He died of an illness on 12 September 1916 in Batavia and his remains were brought back to China for burial. Five factors drove Thio Tiauw Siat’s success in rising from an obscure emigrant to a wealthy businessman: first, personal character traits such as diligence, assiduousness, and perseverance; second, extraordinary fortune (such as his father-in-law’s financial supports); third, courage to embark on new ventures; forth, tact, and skill in dealing with people; fifth,

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willingness to promote and nurture talented people to assist him in business affairs. Chong Siou Wei R E F E R E N C E 〈 〉， 》。

： 《 ：

： ，2005。

Thung Sin Nio, Betsy ( , Tang Xinniang, 1902–96) Community leader, feminist, freelance journalist, physician, social worker, Indonesia

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hung Sin Nio was born in 1902 in Batavia (present-day Jakarta) into a Peranakan landowning family. Her father, Thung Bouw Kiat (1863–1916), was a prominent businessman and a member of the Gemeenteraad (City Council) of Batavia. He owned a house in the Salemba district of the capital. His wife, Tan Toan Nio (1863–1920), and children lived mainly in town, while he himself spent a considerable amount of time overseeing his estates. Having received a Dutch education, Thung could attend the Prins Hendrikschool, a secondary school providing a commercial course where she was a classmate of Myra Sidharta’s father, ). After Auwyong Boen Sen ( graduating in 1920 she was not permitted to do office work and had to stay at the home of an aunt in Cianjur (West Java). In 1922 she was admitted to the Hollandsch Chineesche Kweekschool (Dutch-Chinese Teachers’ College) in Jatinegara district, where she received her degree in mid-1924. She then taught for one year at a private Hollandsch Chineesche School (Dutch Elementary School for the Chinese) in Bogor (West Java).

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In 1925 Thung succeeded in going to Holland where she studied economics at the Handels Hoge School in Rotterdam (1925– 32). It was during this period that she read the Herinneringen (Memories) of Aletta Jacobs (1854–1929), the first Dutch woman to attain a university degree, Holland’s first woman physician and also an active feminist. Thung was fascinated, and in 1926 wrote a letter to A. Jacobs (the reply of the latter is kept in the International Information Centre and Archives for the Women’s Movement IIAV — archives). She subsequently met her, was introduced to various feminist circles, and became a member of the Vereeniging voor Vrouwenbelangen en Gelijk Staatsburgerschap (Union for Women’s Interests and Equal Citizenship). She became active in the issues which had to do with employment and matrimonial laws and was also a member of ) from 1926 to the Chung Hwa Hui ( 1933, and was on the board of directors twice (March–October 1926 and October 1926October 1927), first as second commissaris, and then as first commissaris. She managed to give a lecture for the Chung Hwa Hui in 1926 on: “Het een en ander over de Chinese meisjes in Indonesie” (Some notes on Chinese girls’ education in Indonesia), and in 1928 on: “Het Montessori Onderwijs” (The Montessori education — Maria Montessori, [1870–1952] who was the first Italian woman physician and a famous educational reformer). Thung continued with her economics studies until 1932, but she interrupted this from February 1928 to March 1932 when returned to Indonesia to attend family celebrations. During her thirteen month stay in Batavia she did social ) hospital work at the Yang Seng Ie ( ), and (founded by Dr Kwa Tjoan Siu established a boarding school (meisjesinternaat) for rich Chinese girls from outside Batavia, in order to facilitate their schooling. It was

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run entirely by women, and she acted as its director until her return to Holland where she completed her studies in economics she then decided to study medicine in Amsterdam (1932–38). In 1933 Thung Sin Nio headed the Studieclub van Chineesche Studenten in Amsterdam (founded in 1931), which had split with other student associations in Holland. She also became interested in the vain attempts of Cataharina van Tussenbroek (another woman physician, 1852–1925) to found a women’s party, although she was convinced that such a party could not exist as long as women had not obtained their economic independence. Thung kept an eye on women’s movements in Indonesia and became a contributor to the Chinese women’s monthly Fu Nu Tsa Chih ) founded in Malang (East Java) in ( (née Ong 1932 by Liem Sam Tjiang Bok An, Manado 1907 – Jakarta 2007), which had a circulation of 7,500 copies. After she received her degree, Thung returned to Batavia, and on 13 September 1938, opened her practice in the family house in Salemba. According to the advertisement , published in the press (weekly Sin Po 28 January 1939) she specialized in women and children, as well as in the regular health control of infants. She also opened a weekly course for mothers, which was modelled after those given in Amsterdam by Dutch doctors. At the same time she also fought for the right of Indonesian and Chinese women to vote. Thung also contributed numerous articles in Dutch and in Malay, especially to local women’s magazines, such as Fu Nu Tsa Chih, Maandblad Istri (founded in 1935 by Mrs Tjoa Hin Hoei, , 1907–1993), and née Kwee Yat Nio (founded 1938 by Mrs Ong Pik Fu Len , 1906–1972), as well as to the Hwa daily, Sin Po. During the Japanese Occupation, she continued her private practice and worked as a volunteer at a local hospital.

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From about 1945 to 1951, in addition to her private practice, she also was employed as a school doctor by the Ministry of Education, and monitored children’s health in the city of Jakarta. All these activities did not keep her from resuming her political struggle. In 1948 or 1949 she became the first woman member of the Jakarta Council to represent the Persatuan Tionghoa (PT) or Chinese Union (founded in May 1948 by Thio Thiam Tjong , the forerunner of the Partai Demokrat Tionghoa Indonesia (PDTI) or Indonesian Chinese Democratic Party founded in 1950, and Badan Permusyawaratan Kewarganegaraan Indonesia (Baperki) or Consultative Body for Indonesian Citizenship). According to Siauw ) (Siauw Giok Tjhan, Tiong Djin ( Jakarta, Hasta Mitra 1999, pp. 200–01) Thung attended the meeting for the foundation of the Baperki in 1954. Perhaps her strong personality, as well as her own political expectations, did not suit the goals of the association executives. The following year she decided to carry out her political activities on her own and presented herself as an independent candidate for the 1955 national elections. Between 1949 and 1952, Thung was invited by the Indonesian Government to accompany several official trade delegations to Moscow and Helsinski as an Englishspeaking interpreter.The first of her seven trips to China (in September 1951) was arranged by an Indonesian Chinese organization. The delegates were sent on a fact finding mission, “to find out about the new China”. Amongst them were several [Dutch-trained] economists and doctors. In 1968, in relation with the implementation of an assimilationist policy, she decided to leave Indonesia for good and settled in Eindhoven, Holland, where she worked for several years as part-time physician in a health public centre, and in a children’s home, and

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where she died in 1996 at the age of ninetyfour. Thung received her knighthood (Ridder in de orde van Oranje Nassau) on the 29 April 1983, as a reward for “her efforts to emancipate women”. She has a biography in the genealogy of the Thung (Tang) family published in Fujian province in 2000 ( , p. 738) where it is said that she contributed money for the Soong Ching Ling Foundation, as well as for the repair of the primary school of her ancestral village,Yunshan ), in Hua’an ( ) district. ( Claudine Salmon R E F E R E N C E S Chan, Ik-Wei Faye. Unpublished notes based on interviews with Thung Sin Nio (1994, the Netherlands) and additional interviews with her relatives (1994–97, the Netherlands and Indonesia). Plas, Eva, van der. “Betsy Thung Sin Nio”. International Information Centre and Archives for the Women’s Movement (IIAV) — new name: Aletta Institute for Women’s History (Amsterdam), (accessed March 2012). Thung Sin Nio. “Het Chineesch-Meisjesinternaat”. Fu Nu ), Malang (January 1933): 19–21. Tsa Chih ( ———. “Sociale Studieclub van Chineesche Studenten in Amsterdam”. Ibid. (November 1933): 2–3. ———. “Chineesche Meisjes”. Fu Len (妇人), Batavia (15 December 1938): 9–11. Sidharta, Myra. Private information (2009).

Ting Pek Khiing ( , Chen Boqin, 1941– ) Businessman, dubbed “King of Construction”, Malaysia

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ing Pek Khiing’s hallmark is his speed in construction, using wood-based techniques for fast and economical

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civil engineering. Ting controls Ekran Bhd. and undertakes many large-scale development projects, such as the industrial park in Bintulu Sarawak; factories, petrochemical facilities and infrastructure in Iran; casinos and shops on Samal Island, the Philippines; and leisure ventures on China’s Hainan island. Born in 1941 in Bintangor, Sarawak, Ting comes from a simple background of twelve siblings, his father was a farmer and trader in oranges. After completing his Cambridge School diploma, Ting assisted his father selling oranges and then worked as a salesman supplying sundries and soft drinks to households and retail outlets. In 1967, he ventured into property development and, in 1977, established Woodhouse Sdn. Bhd., a fully integrated timber factory, and succeeded in the use of prefabricated wood-based technology for fast and economic construction. His speed in construction works soon gained him fame, especially by building low-cost wood-houses in the fastest time. He completed the Bintulu Port within a year in December 1982 when the normal construction period at that time was about seven years. When the economic recession of 1985–86 affected Ting’s business, he then went to Australia with his wife. He later returned and injected Woodhouse into a newly established investment holding company, Ekran Berhad in 1992. The same year Ekran won an intense tussle with two well established public listed companies to take over Federal Cables, Wires & Metal Manufacturing Berhad, a profitable publicly listed telephone and electric cable manufacturer in Malaysia. Ting’s exploits in construction caught the attention of the former prime minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who needed someone to build a convention resort within a short time to kick off his inaugural international air show on Langkawi. Ting took up the challenge and made his most prominent and impressive achievements — the completion

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of the 1,500-room Delima Resort in a record fifty-three days. A week later, he completed the 300-room Sheraton Langkawi Resort Hotel on Pulau Langkawi for the Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace Exhibition in 1991 and shot to fame in the early 1990s. His achievements pleased Dr Mahathir and consequently in 1993 Ekran was awarded the US$5.56 billion, 2,400-megawatts Bakun hydroelectric dam and transmission project in Sarawak — the largest dam ever to be built in Southeast Asia and in Asia, outside of China. Several scholars argued that it is his connection to high powered politicians that won him the contract without there being open tenders and also gave him access to financial deals. Yet some see him as a local son, born and bred in Sarawak, with a reputation so well known that it enabled him to clinch the project and emerge as a legendary figure in Sarawak. However, luck did not stay with him all the time and not long after he secured the Bakun project, the 1997/98 Asian Financial Crisis struck. At the height of the crisis, the project was suspended, leaving Ting’s empire choking in debt. Ekran was still facing many problems despite the Bakun deal being off. Ting’s other mega project, the RM1.3-billion Plaza Rakyat commercial complex, a prestigious integrated city centre development project in Kuala Lumpur, was put on hold after the financial crisis. Ting, who is also chairman of Wembley Industries Bhd., fully owns Plaza Rakyat. In 2000, the Bakun project was fully revived, but the size of the project has since been scaled down. The Plaza Rakyat started moving again in late 2007. However, Ekran Berhad was delisted in January 2010. According to analysts, Ting’s personal debts totalled more than US$1 billion in the aftermath of the crisis. It has been plain sailing for Ting after the financial crisis and he has also found solace in agriculture work.

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Ting is chairman of Ekran Berhad in Malaysia, the largest property and land development company in Malaysia. He has more than twenty-five years of experience in construction and specializes in the technology of using wood-based prefabricated standardized components. Under his leadership, Ekran Berhad has successfully completed numerous housing and infrastructure projects for the Sarawak state government and resort hotels in Sarawak. Ting is also chairman of Pacific Chemicals Berhad, Wembley Industries Holdings Berhad, Granite Industries Berhad, PWE Industries Berhad, and Bakun HydroElectric Corporation Berhad. In the post Asian Financial Crisis period, Ting rose again in the corporate world, but he tried to keep a relatively low profile by establishing Global Upline (GU), a private limited company, to take advantage of the federal government’s countercyclical spending, especially on infrastructure projects to boost the waning economy. The establishment of GU in 1999 however again saw his legendary figure reappearing quite prominently in Malaysia, especially in Sarawak, as evidenced by the impressive infrastructure projects he completed in less than a decade, most of them being airports, dams, roads, and flyovers. His completed and current projects in Sarawak include the Bakun Hydroelectric Auxiliary Cofferdam project; New Bintulu Airport; the Miri Airport upgrading project; the redevelopment of Kuching International Airport; the upgrading of Labuan Airport; the upgrading of Kenyalang Interchange & Jalan Lapangan Terbang, and the proposed New KIA/Jalan Stutong Link Road, Kuching; the upgrading of Pujut and Puchong interchange, Miri; Miri Airport — ASEAN Bridge Trunk Road, Miri-Brunei; Four Points Hotel by Sheraton and Office Tower; Chung Hua Primary School No. 2; and Mukah Airport & Lahad Datu Airport. In Sabah, Ting is also

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responsible for the redevelopment of Kota Kinabalu International Airport, Package 2. Additionally, Ting’s GU prides itself in having garnered with numerous interesting international and domestic awards to endorse its claim of being one of the leading construction companies in Malaysia. Among its international and domestic awards are the 17th, 18th, and 19th International Construction Award Certificates (New Millenium Award) (2005–07) in recognition of its trajectory and business excellence from the Trade Leader’s Club and Editorial OFICE; Frankfurt “Arch of Europe” Certificate, 2007, for “Quality and Technology” from Business Initiatives Directions; Century International Platinum Quality Era Award 2008; Project Safety Award 2002, for the Bakun Hydroelectric Project, from Sarawak Hidro Sdn. Bhd.; Project Safety Milestone Award 2002, for the New Bintulu Airport, from KLIA Consult; Project Safety Award 2006, for the Redevelopment of Kuching International Airport Project, from KLIA Consult. In recognition of his contributions to the country, Ting received many honours and awards, including the titles of “Dato Paduka Seri Setia Sultan Abdul Halim Muadzam” from the sultan of Kedah; “Dato Paduka Mahkota Selangor” from the sultan of Selangor; “Panglima Setia Mahkota” from the King of Malaysia, and “Panglima Gemilang Bintang Kenyalang” from the governor of Sarawak. Chin Yee Whah R E F E R E N C E S Aeria, Andrew. “Nurturing Global ‘Winners’ Amongst Sarawak’s Construction/Building Sector?”. Paper presented at the 6th International Malaysian Studies Conference, “Engaing Malaysian Modernity 50 Years

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& Beyond”, at Crown Plaza Riverside Hotel, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia, 5–7 August 2008. Chee Yoke Heong. “Headaches over Malaysia’s Bakun Dam”. Asia Times Online, 26 October 2004. Borneo Post. “Ting Pek Khiing is King of Construction”. 11 May 2007. Global Upline Website. (accessed August 2008). Gomez, E.T. Chinese Business in Malaysia: Accumulation, Accomodation and Ascendance. Surrey: Curzon Press, 1999. Yao, Souchou. Confucian Capitalism: Discourse, Practice and the Myth of Chinese Enterprise. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002.

Tio Ie Soei ( , Zhao Yushui, 1890–1974) Journalist, writer, community leader, Indonesia

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io Ie Soei was a leading peranakan journalist, translator, writer of fiction and essays and community leader who was active before and after World War II. His pseudonym was Tjoa Pie(e)t Bak . Known also by his initial T.I.S. Journalist, translator, writer of fiction and essays, and community leader. Born in Pasar Baru, Batavia, present Jakarta, on 22 June 1890 and died in Tanah Abang, Jakarta on 29 August 1974. His mother was Peranakan but his father, a Hakka, was born in South Fujian province, China. He received his education in a Dutch private school; apart from Dutch he also studied German, French, English and Chinese. In 1905, after having worked a short time for the daily Sinar Betawi (The Gleam of Betawi), he joined the Perniagaan (Trade), a daily founded in 1903 (which at that time expressed the views of the rich Chinese of Batavia) and of which later

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he became editor, retaining his position until 1920 when he was obliged to leave Batavia to settle in the mountainous area of Pengalengan near Bandung. He spent five years there growing vegetables to support his family; in the meantime he had married a daughter of Tjoe Siauw Hoei (1871–1948), a major shareholder , the firm of the Hoa Siang In Kiok that printed the Perniagaan. During this period, he contributed articles to various papers such as the dailies Bintang Soerabaja (The Star of Surabaya, founded in 1861), the Warna Warta (Various News) founded in 1907 in Semarang, Central Java), the Kong Po (founded in 1921 in Batavia) and the Perniagaan. He also worked in Bandung which for the weekly Lay Po in 1925 became a daily named Sin Bin under the editorship of Kwee Tek Hoay . In 1924 Tio Ie Soei founded in Bandung the rather short-lived literary monthly Tjerita Pilian (Selected Stories) printed on the Sin Bin press, which gave pride of place to translations of European detective novels. After a short stay first in Cirebon (West Java) and then in Banjarmasin (Kalimantan) he settled in Surabaya in 1927 and became editor of the daily Pewarta Soerabaja (News of Surabaya) until 1942. During the Japanese occupation he went into hiding in a small village close to Kediri (East Java). In 1948 he resumed his work for the Pewarta Soerabaja. In 1952–54 he served as the first secretary of the Association of Indonesian Citizens of Chinese Origin (Persatuan Warga Negara Indonesia Turunan Tionghoa) formed in Surabaya in 1952. From 1953 to 1956 he worked for the weekly Liberal also in Surabaya. Mention should be made of the fact that in 1953 he was elected as president of the Persatuan Wartawan Surabaya (Journalist’s Association of Surabaya).

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Besides his journalistic activities, he was involved in social life and became a member of various associations including the Ay Kok (Association for the Love of Hwee the Country), Khong Kauw Tjong Hwee (GeneralAssociation of Confucianism Societies established in Bandung in 1923), Tiong Hwa Im Gak Hwee (Association for Chinese Music), Tiong Hwa (Chinese Sport Oen Tong Hwee Association). While still very young he was influenced by the most famous journalists of that time who were also known for their numerous translations of Western literature as well as for their literary production. Among them should be mentioned the names of Lie Kim (1853–1912), W. Wieggers, F.D.J. Hok Pangemanan (1870–c.1910), Gouw Peng Liang (1868–1928), and Lauw Giok Lan (1882–1953) — the three latter being for a time editor in chief or editor the Perniagaan. The first fictional work by Tio Ie Soei, Tjerita Sie Po Giok, which appeared in 1911, was a children’s novel, a genre, pedagogy, which at that time was still a novelty for SinoIndonesian parents. Tio was also interested in history and in 1924 published an account of the famous Eurasian hero Pieter Erberfelt who was accused of conspiracy against the Dutch in 1721, and who was quartered the following year and his acolytes were executed (the novel was reprinted at least twice — the first time in serial form in the Bintang Timur of 1964 and the second in 1982 in an anthology of “pre-Indonesia literature”, and it was used as groundwork when the Indonesian Television decided to put P.E.’s story on the stage in 1981); he also wrote a story set in Batavia in 1629 during the time of of Governor General Jan Peterszoon Coen, entitled Sara Specx (1926).

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Tio was also one of the first Sino-Indonesian writers to develop an interest in biographies. After having translated a biographical essay , famous statesman about Li Hongzhang of the Qing Dynasty (1920) he wrote two biographical works, the first presenting the famous Sino-Indonesian boxer Tan Siet Tiat (1928), and the second the life of Lie Kim Hok (1959) whom he had known personally and this remains until now the only attempt in that field.Tio Ie Soei was also a prolific translator. He anonymously published a complete translation of “The Thousand and One Night” (Hikajat 1001 Malem, 1924) He developed an interest in Western detective novels and translated a few works of Conan Doyle. He also contributed some plays including one entitled Yan Tio (1923) written at the request of a Chinese organisation of Bandung in which he criticizes the over-westernized Chinese. In brief Tio Ie Soei was an autodidact who aside from his journalistic and literary activities had along with Nio Joe Lan (1904–73) the great merit of having initiated the first studies of the Sino-Malay literary life, by writing the biography of one of the pioneers of this literature, Lie Kim Hok, without which his name would have fallen into oblivion. Claudine Salmon R E F E R E N C E S Gan Kang Seng. “Sebuah Profile dari Pers Sastra Assimilatif: Tio Ie Soei”. Bintang Timur, 22 December 1963, supplement “Lentera”. Suryadinata, Leo. Prominent Indonesian Chinese. Biographical Sketches. Singapore: ISEAS, 1995, p. 195. Salmon, Claudine. Literature in Malay by the Chinese of Indonesia. A provisional annotated bibliography. Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1981, pp. 339–41. SIN (Hadji Soebagyo Ilham Notodidjojo). “Tio Ie Soei Wartawan sedjak awal duapuluh”. Kompas, 14 January 1971, pp. VI–VII.

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Tiong Hiew King ( , Zhang Xiaoqing, 1935– ) Timber and media tycoon, Malaysia

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iong Hiew King is the founder and executive chairman of the Rimbunan Hijau Group, a timber conglomerate that comprises diverse industries such as media, agriculture, property, tourism, and information technology. The self-made billionaire was born in Sibu, Sarawak. He received his primary and secondary education in his birthplace, beginning with Chung Cheng Primary School and later Methodist High School and Sacred Heart High School. He began his career as a timber grader for a company, WTK, owned by his uncle, Wong Tuong Kwong. The breakthrough came in 1975 when he obtained a timber logging licence, based on which he started his company, Rimbunan Hijau (RH). In less than two decades, RH became one of the largest timber companies in Malaysia involved in both logging and downstream activities such as plywood, veneer, and particle board manufacturing. RH and its companies, including the two public listed companies, Subur Tiasa and Jaya Tiasa, are predominantly owned and controlled by Tiong and his family. In 1989 Tiong ventured abroad to Papua New Guinea to operate one of the largest timber companies in the country. In 1993, RH started PNG’s English language newspaper, The National, which is managed by his nephew. From PNG, RH extended its timber and forestry operations to several countries such as Vanuatu, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Solomon Islands, Brazil, and Russia. It also operates in New Zealand, where apart from timber, it is involved in salmon rearing.

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In Australia, its business interests included cattle rearing, agriculture, and property development. In various parts of China, it is involved in plywood manufacturing and property development. The RH empire now spans many countries in Asia, Africa, the Asia Pacific, Russia, and North America. Tiong’s worldwide involvement in logging has attracted criticisms from environmental and human rights groups. A report released by the Swiss Bruno Manser Fund states that “Right up to the present, the system of political patronage is still fueling the destruction of the rainforest in Sarawak, and local indigenous groups like the Penan are still fighting for nothing more than their legitimate rights to their land. The outcome of these past decades of timber industry development is huge timber tycoons.” Greenpeace also reported protests from villagers in PNG against RH against their customary land from being leased and their forest destroyed. As a result, the environment protection groups protested against the alleged knighthood given to Tiong in 2009, claiming that “his fortune has been built on the systematic destruction of tropical rainforests”. Apparently, as a result of clarification sought by the Bruno Manser Fund, the United Kingdom Cabinet office has stated that the award is in a honorary capacity that does not carry the title “Sir”, but the initials that carry the award can be placed after his name. Tiong comes from a family that is closely aligned with the Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP), a constituent party of the ruling Barisan National. Tiong served as a senator in the Malaysian parliament from 1985–91 during the premiership of Mahathir Mohamad. His younger brother, Tiong Thai King, is the chairperson of the Sibu Municipal Council and a Member of Parliament for the Lanang constituency since 1995. A look at the list of RH company directors suggests that

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the company finds it expedient to establish close relationships with key political elites for business purpose. Mohamed Arip Mahmud, the late brother of Sarawak’s chief minister, was a board member of Jaya Tiasa. Its current board includes Malaysia’s former defence chief and former Sarawak police chief. RH, in Mandarin, means forever green, but given the linkage between logging contracts and politics, the rainforest in Sarawak may not remain green for long. In 1988, Tiong’s inroad into the Malaysian media industry began with the purchase of the highest circulation Chinese newspaper, Sin Chew Jit Poh. The newspaper suffered financial hardship in 1987 after it was suspended by then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad during the nationwide clampdown, known as “Operasi Lalang”, which resulted in the arrest of 119 political critics and activists, as well as the suspension of three newspapers. In 1992, another lossmaking Chinese newspaper, Guang Ming, was acquired. Three years later, Tiong purchased controlling shares of Ming Pao Enterprise which publishes newspapers in Hong Kong, Vancouver, Toronto, and New York. Further business forays into the Malaysian media scene was facilitated through Tiong’s strategic alliance with Ling Liong Sik, then president of the Malaysia Chinese Association (MCA), a dominant Chinese component party within the ruling Barisan Nasional. In 2006 Tiong bought Nanyang Press, which publishes Nanyang Siang Pau and China Press, from Huaren Holdings, the business arm of MCA. The sale sparked vigorous protests and criticisms from the Chinese community, which claimed that the monopoly of the Chineselanguage newspapers was part of a ploy by the ruling state to tame the critical and vocal Chinese press. The Nanyang takeover led to a mass boycott of more than ninety columnists

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and writers from all the four newspapers and fuelled internal factionalism within the MCA. Some fear that the near stranglehold of Chinese newspapers in Malaysia would compromise press integrity. “Without market competition, the Chinese papers in Malaysia will lose its [sic] independence”, said Wong Chin Huat, chairperson of the Writer Alliance for Media Independence. In 2007 Tiong merged Sin Chew Media Corporation and Nanyang Press Holdings with the Ming Pao Enterprise under an umbella company called Media Chinese International (MCI). On April 2008, MCI was dual listed on both the Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong stock exchanges.The merger, which earns Tiong the nickname, “Rupert Murdoch of the Chinese media”, comprises five daily newspapers with a total circulation of over a million copies a day, and thirty magazines in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, and North America. Apart from print journalism, MCI is moving into mobile and broadcast media as its subsidiary, One Media Group, has a foothold in the area of providing media content to mobile phones in China. The reticent Tiong claims that his media conglomerate is not purely for profit, but is a vehicle to fulfil his personal philosophy of “linking Chinese communities around the world”. Khor Yoke Lim R E F E R E N C E S Faeh, D. Development of Global Timber Tycoons in Sarawak, East Malaysia. Switzerland: Bruno Manser Fund, 2011. Gatsiounis, I. “Pet project”. Forbes.com, 15 August 2008. (accessed March 2012). Hong, Carolyn. “Malaysia: Merger of Chinese papers ‘not just about profits’ ”. Asia Media Archives, 23 May 2007. (accessed March 2012).

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Vidal, J. “Forest campaigners deplore knighthood for Asian logging magnate”. The Guardian, 1 July 2009. (accessed March 2012).

Tjan Tjoe Siem ( , Zeng Zuqin, 1909–78) Expert of the Javanese language and culture, Indonesia

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jan Tjoe Siem was known as the leading expert on Javanese language and culture as well as Javanese Islam in Indonesia. Tjan Tjoe Siem, the younger brother of Tjan Tjoe Som, was born on 3 April 1909, in Solo (Surakarta) Central Java, into a well established Muslim Chinese family. The family became famous after one of its members, Tjan Kong Sing (Siem’s uncle), participated in the Diponegoro War (1825–30) against the Dutch in Java. Kong Sing later changed his name to Prawirasetja and married into the Diponegoro’s family. The young Siem went to the Netherlands and studied at Leiden University. In the 1930s there were only two Indonesian Chinese who studied at Leiden: the brothers, Tjan Tjoe Som and Tjan Tjoe Siem. Siem was known as a Javanologist and Islamologist, and his elder brother, a sinologist and scholar of Islamic law. Tjan Tjoe Siem graduated from Leiden after successfully defending his dissertation, “Hoe Koeroepati zich zijn vrouw verwerf ” or “Lakon sang Kurupati Rabi” in 1938 and received his doctorate in Oriental Studies. In writing his dissertation, he used six Old Javanese manuscripts as sources. The manuscripts are about the marriage of Suyudana, the king of Kurawas from Mahabharata. After returning from the Netherlands, he became a taalambtenar (a civil service position

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in the field of language) in Yogyakarta, while at the same time a teacher at the local Algemeine Middelbare School (AMS — comparable to present-day high school), also in Yogyakarta. One of his former students was senior Indonesian journalist, Rosihan Anwar. In 1954–58 he was professor of modern Javanese language in the Department of Nusantara Studies, Faculty of Letters, University of Indonesia, in Jakarta. He was later elected dean of the faculty from 1960 to 1965. Tjan was very popular with his former students. He was very well known for his humble and “down to earth” personality. His students gave him the title of sarjana yang sujana (a scholar with very high character), because of his humility, kindness, and helpfulness to everybody, and because he had a very wide range of knowledge not only in his field, but also in other cultural matters. He was the only non-native Indonesian/Javanese who was very knowledgeable in Javanese language and culture. His knowledge of Islam and the al Qur’an was inherited from his mother, who was also an expert in Javanese literature and Islamic law. As an expert of Javanese literature, he was also expert in nembang (singing) Javanese old poems and kekawin (music of the Majapahit empire). He sometimes showed this talent in front of his students and always invited his students to see wayang kulit (leather puppet show) performances, which were sometimes attended by President Sukarno and some of his ministers. The years between 1959 and 1965 are known in Indonesia as the Guided Democracy period. Soekarno was moving towards the left and many Indonesian intellectuals were divided: some moved towards the left, while others moved to the right. The struggle between the left-wing forces (represented by Soekarno and supported by the Indonesian Communist Party, PKI) and the right-wing

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forces (represented by the army and Islamic groups) eventually came to a head in the 1965 coup which resulted in the dissolution of the PKI, the fall of Soekarno, and the rise of the army represented by Soeharto. Left-wing social and cultural organizations were then banned and dissolved.Tjan Tjoe Siem and elder brother Tjan Tjoe Som were also seriously affected as they were members of the Himpunan Sarjana Indonesia (HSI), the leftleaning scholar organization associated with the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). Tjan Tjoe Siem was forced to resign from his position as dean of the Faculty of Letters, as professor, and as a civil servant. His fate was “better” than his elder brother’s, who was dismissed from all his positions in the university and barred from going overseas until his untimely death in 1969. The different treatment of the two brothers could be due to the fact that Tjan Tjoe Som was a sinologist, more active, and perceived by the new authorities as more “political”, while Tjan Tjoe Siem was an Islamist and less active in the organization, and perceived as less or “non political” by the new authorities. The New Order Government gave permission for Tjan Tjoe Siem to teach at Nanyang University in Singapore as professor of Malay Studies (1968–72). In 1969 he married Soelastri Soerowardojo, a Javanese lady who was his secretary while he was dean of the Faculty of Letters, University of Indonesia. He had waited a long time to marry Soelastri as initially her family did not give her permission to marry a Chinese, even though he was a Muslim. He did not come personally to Indonesia for the wedding ceremony and only sent his kris (Javanese dagger) to represent him.This is a common practice in the Javanese tradition. Because of his long wait to marry Soelastri, he was given the nickname eeuwige de bruidegom (the long lasting bridegroom) by his friends.

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He returned to Indonesia after the end of his tenure at Nanyang University in 1973 and continued his dedication to education by teaching at the Institute of Islamic Studies (IAIN) in Yogyakarta. He also served as a supervisor of a few Ph.D. candidates. But on 30 December 1978, while taking his wudhu (cleaning self with water before praying), he suddenly collapsed and passed away. He was later buried beside his brother, Tjan Tjoe Som, who died in 1969. His important works are: Hoe Koeroepati zich zijn vrouw verwert, Leiden: Luctor et Emergo (1938); Javaansche kaarspellen: Bijdrage tot de Beschrijving van Land en Volk, Bandung, Nix (1941); Asas-asas Hukum Islam (The Foundations of Islamic Law), written together with the famous writer, Amir Hamzah (1963); and Studies of Islam: Collections of Lectures, IAIN Sunan Kalijaga, Jogyakarta, written in collaboration with Zaini Muchtarom (1965). In fact, Tjan also completed a manuscript that was probably his last and best work — on Javanese masks. According to one report, the manuscript was ready for printing and the publishers asked him to pay for the production of the illustrations in colour. He was unable to pay and hence the book was not published. It is not known where the manuscript is but he managed to publish a paper on the topic in a French journal, Art Asiatiques (1969). A. Dahana and Agni Malagina R E F E R E N C E S Junus Jahja. Peranakan Idealis (Idealist Peranakans). Jakarta: Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia, 2002. Siswadhi. “Prof. Dr. Tjan Tjoe Siem: Pakar Bahasa dan Sastra Jawa”, pp. 178–83. In Pelangi Cina-Indonesa. Jakarta: Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia, 2002. Interviews with some former students of Professor Tjan Tjoe Siem.

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Tjan Tjoe Som ( , Zeng Zusen, 1903–69) Leading sinologist, Indonesia

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jan Tjoe Som was known as the “Father of Chinese Studies in Indonesia” for introducing the study of modern China despite his basic training and expertise in the classical studies of China. He established the Lembaga Sinologi (Sinologische Instituut— Hanxue Yanjiuyuan) of the Fakulteit Sastra (Faculty of Letters), Universiteit van Indonesia (University of Indonesia), in 1952 and led the institute from 1953 to 1958. The institute now has a new name, Program Studi Cina (Chinese Studies Programme). (Note: Lembaga Sinologi was the continuation of Sinologische Instituut, established by the Dutch.) Tjan was born in Solo (Surakarta), Central Java, on 15 February 1903, and grew up in a devout Chinese Muslim family who ran a batik printing factory, De Bliksem (according to other source De Bliksem was a printing factory), in town. His family lived very close to the Kraton Mangkunegara (Mangkunegara Court) as one of the family members participated in the Diponegoro War (1825–30) against the Dutch Colonial Government. The young Tjan entered Hollandsch-Chineeshe School (HCS), a special grade school for Chinese children before the First World War in Surakarta, and continued his education in Algemeene Mildebaare School (AMS), comparable to the present-day high school in Yogyakarta. Before finishing his studies at AMS, however, the young Tjan returned to Solo to help his family in the management of its batik factory, which almost went bankrupt at the end of the World War I. After returning to Surakarta, he started to learn sinology and Islamology

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as an autodidact; he was also interested in philosophy and anthropology. It was then that he met Dr H. Kraemer, the writer of a book called, A Christian Message in a Non Christian World and it was Kraemer who urged him to study sinology in the Netherlands under the guidance of Professor Duyvendak. Tjan went to the Netherlands in 1935 and one year later was admitted as a student of the Department of Sinology of Leiden University. He was a very dilligent and serious student who also worked for the library of the Sinological Institute at the same university. In 1947 Leiden University proposed the establishment of an association for Chinese Studies and the idea was welcomed by several universities which offer China programmes in Europe. Following up on that idea, students and scholars of Chinese Studies met at Cambridge University, England, for a dialogue called Conference of Junior Sinologists, Cambridge and Oxford. Tjan Tjoe Som, A.F.H Hulsewe, R.P. Kramers, P. Swann, and a lady by the name of Mrs. H. Wink represented Leiden University. At the end of the gathering, the young scholars representing their universities in Leiden, Cambridge, Oxford, Stockholm, Paris, and London established the European Assocation for Chinese Studies (EACS or Ouzhou Hanxue Xuehui). The organization is still active today and it has reached its sixtyfirst year. Tjan got his doctorate in 1949 after successfully defending his dissertation on Pariku’s “Po Hu T’ung: The Comprehensive Discussion in the White Tiger Hall” with a cum-laude, the highest honour for a candidate who has passed a difficult examination in a scientific discipline. The first volume of this classic work translated by Tjan was published in 1949. His career rose with his appointment as special professor in Chinese philosophy at

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Leiden. His deep understanding about Chinese and Islamic philosophies and his sensitivity and wisdom made him a famous scholar. He did many translations on Classical Chinese philosophical works which can still be found in the old archives at the Chinese Studies Program, University of Indonesia, in Jakarta. The translations are handwritten and he placed them neatly in small envelopes, possibly for his own reference. Soon after graduation, the university appointed him chairman of the Department of Chinese Philosophy. In 1952 the second volume of his translation of Po Hu T’ung was published and it was in this year that he returned to Indonesia at the invitation of the newly independent Indonesian Government to develop Chinese Studies in Indonesia. This was a turnaround in his life and career. He left all the fame and luxury that he enjoyed in the Netherlands and in Europe just to devote his expertise to his home country. His colleagues tried to prevent him from leaving the Netherlands, arguing that Indonesia at the time was still full of uncertainties, especially for a Chinese philosophy scholar such as him, but he had made up his mind to serve his young nation. During his first years in Indonesia he was busy with the management of the Sinology Institute. The organization was later incorporated into the University of Indonesia under a new name, Jurusan Sastra Tionghoa (Department Chinese Language and Literature). Towards the end of the 1960s, the department changed its name again to Program Studi Cina (Chinese Studies Program) and is still so named today. In his job, Tjan was asssisted by other dedicated staff members of the institute such as the late Drs Sie Ing Djiang, the late Dra Oey Soan Nio, the late Koh Chung Chuen, and Drs Aman Kombali. Tjan bought many books and subscribed to various journals, newspapers, and

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other publications. As the result, the library of the institute has one of the best collections of works published on Southeast Asia from the late nineteenth century to the mid-1960s. Although Tjan’s expertise is on classical Chinese, he also started studies on modern and contemporary China. The department trained many first-generation scholars on China and the Chinese. It admitted officials from the army, the Department of Foreign Affairs, and the Office of the attorney general, some of whom played important roles in the Indonesian Government later. In 1959 President Soekarno appointed Tjan a member of the Provisional People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) and National Planning Commission. He was representing scientists in both organizations. In 1960 he attended the 13th International Conference on the Problem of China in Moskow. He also visited the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) several times. During the period of Guided Democracy (1959–67), he joined Himpunan Sarjana Indonesia (HSI or Indonesian Scholars Association), a leftist organization associated with the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). The Guided Democracy period refers to the time when Indonesian politics and foreign policy were leaning towards the left as a result of Soekarno’s NASAKOM programme, which was more or less similar to a united front consisting of nationalists, the religious elements of the Indonesian society, and the communists. Tjan was also a consultant for Zhong Zheng Bao, the Chinese version of the left leaning Indonesian language newspaper, Warta Bakti. The September 30 movement of 1965 had a major impact on the Indonesian political, social, and cultural landscape that led to the dissolution of the PKI, the fall of Soekarno, and the rise of General Soeharto. All left-wing parties and personalities were purged. Because of Tjan’s membership in the HSI, he was first released from his duties and later fired from

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his position by the Ministry of Education due to his “direct and indirect involvement in the 30 September 1965/PKI movement to overthrow the Indonesian government”, an accusation which he denied. Some of Tjan’s former students believe that Tjan was impressed by the progress of the People’s Republic of China under Chairman Mao Zedong and had naively believed that Indonesia should take a similar path. In fact, Soekarno was equally impressed by China’s socialism. Under the leadership of Soekarno, Indonesia moved towards the left and when there was a coup in 1965 which led to the downfall of Soekarno, Tjan was also affected. Several months before he passed away, he wrote a very moving single sentence in his notebook: “After all I have had a curious life that my present experiences should not astonish me. Who knows what all this is good for me.” He died in 1969, six weeks before his sixty-sixth birthday, due to heart failure, and was buried in Solo, his city of birth. In 1976, his younger brother, Professor Tjan Tjoe Siem, died and was buried beside his brother. Tjan Tjoe Som’s publications include his translation masterpiece, Po Hu T’ung, published by Leiden University. His other works include De Plaats van de Studie der Kanonieke Boeken in de Chinese Filosofie (Leiden: Brill, 1950, 1952); “On the Rendering of the Word “Ti” as “Emperor”” (Journal of American Oriental Society, 71 no. 2/April–June, 1951); “Sarjana Sastra dan Pembangunan Kebudayaan Nasional; Sebuah Prasaran” (Scholars of Humanities and the Development of National Culture; A Paper [Jakarta, 1961]); Tao Te Tjing (Jakarta, 1962); and “Chinese Historical Sources and Historiography”. Tjan is one of the tragic victims of Indonesia’s political confrontation during the 1960s.The years from 1963 to 1965 were when prominent people like him were forced to take

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sides in the confrontation among political powers. However, regardless of the “mistake” that Tjan had made, his contribution to the development of Chinese Studies in Indonesia should be recognized. A. Dahana R E F E R E N C E S Correspondence files, Chinese Studies Program; and Special Collection of Chinese materials, Faculty of Humanities, University of Indonesia. European Association for Chinese Studies, EACS Newsletter (2008), no. 40. Junus Jahja. Peranakan Idealis dari Lie Eng Hok sampai Teguh Karya. Jakarta: KPG, 2003. Suryadinata, Leo. Prominent Indonesian Chinese Biographical Sketches. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1995.

Tjiok San Fang, Elsie (Mrs Elsie Tjiok-Lim, 1936– ) Ballerina, pianist, Indonesia

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, Shi Shengfang,

lsie Tjiok was a leading ballerina. She was the first Indonesian who started the ballet school in post-independence Indonesia but subsequently left the country for China with her violinist and conductor husband. In official records, Elsie Tjiok was born in Magelang, Java, in September 1935. In her autobiography she states that she was born in Shanghai in 1936. Her father was a political science professor at one of the universities in Shanghai. He married his Malaya-born student who gave birth to Elsie, their daughter. When the Japanese invaded Shanghai, Elsie Tjiok was one year old. Her parents migrated to the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) where her father opened a school. When the Japanese

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occupied Indonesia, her father was put in the concentration camp. After the Japanese surrender, he became a rich businessman dealing in timber. Elsie studied in a Chinese-English primary school where she learned both Chinese and English, but her knowledge of Chinese was limited as she felt then that she had little use for the language. When she was a child, her parents hired a Dutch teacher to give her lessons in the piano and ballet. After studying at the Puck Meijer Dancing School in Jakarta for three years, her parents sent her, at the age of 14, to study at the Legat School, a Russian school teaching music and ballet in England. Nicolai Legat was a well-known Russian ballet choreographer. He had long passed away when Elsie entered the school but she received quite good training there, graduating after three years. Prior to her graduation, the school had formed the Legat Dancing Group, travelling in England, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. As there were not many Asian girls among the dancers, the group used her to draw the audience. In 1953 Elsie returned to Indonesia, giving a few performances. She later received an Indonesian scholarship and went to London again. She wanted to study at the Royal Academy of Ballet but the academy did not accept foreign students. She therefore took lessons from George Goncharov, a well known Russian dancer, with a view to becoming a professional ballet dancer. At the same time Elsie was accepted as a second year student at the Royal Academy of Music. She learned ballet during the day and the piano at night. Chu Hui, a well-known conductor in Singapore, was a classmate in the Royal Academy. After two years Elsie’s mother asked her to choose between ballet and the piano, thinking that it was too heavy a burden for Elsie to go to

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two schools. Elsie chose ballet. But because the Goncharov school diploma was not recognised in Indonesia, she had to take the examination at the Royal Academy of Ballet in London which included a solo dance. She passed with flying colours. Elsie returned to Indonesia in 1956 and was immediately asked by the government to start a ballet school. In post-independence Indonesia, there were neither ballet schools nor ballet dancing groups run by Indonesians. Elsie had no choice but to establish one school named Djakarta Ballet School. To her surprise, hundreds of students enrolled in the new school. That was the beginning of her teaching career. In 1957 she came to know Lim Kek Beng and they became friends. Kek Beng took her to see his eldest brother, Lim Kek Tjiang, who was then in the hospital recuperating from a liver infection. She had heard of Lim Kek Tjiang when she was still in Europe and although she knew that he was prone to showing off as a violinist, they got along well. Elsie often followed the Lim brothers to perform at the PRC embassy. Elsie and Kek Tjiang fell in love and got married in 1958. Kek Tjiang wanted to go to the PRC to develop his career and she wanted to follow him. However, Elsie’s parents who believed that Elsie and Kek Tjiang would not be able to adjust to life in mainland China, strongly opposed their plan. The young couple ignored their objection and departed for China, Elsie was already expecting her first child at that time. Elsie arrived in Beijing in May 1959 and began to feel very unwell. The condition in Beijing then was not what she had envisaged and she cried every day. In June she delivered a baby boy, Lin Hai. Fortunately her parents sent food and vitamin supplements which helped her to recover soon. In October she began to work as a ballet teacher in the Ballet Academy in Beijing, at that time under the directorship

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of Dai Ailian, a leading ballerina in China. Initially, China relied heavily on the Russians. During the Sino-Soviet split, China invited the Westerners to come and teach. In 1962 Elsie gave birth to a second son, Lin Shan, which adversely affected her health. In 1963 Zhou Enlai gave the instruction that protagonists in ballet should no longer be princes and princesses but workers and peasants. Elsie and the other ballerinas were sent to factories to “experience” the life of the working classes. Whenever some very important visitors from abroad came to China, Zhou Enlai would ask the ballet dancers to perform. The performance would be scheduled after dinner and the dancers often had to wait until after 10 p.m. to perform. During the Cultural Revolution, Elsie was involved in training ballerinas for the performance of “The Red Detachment of Women”, one of the few ballet pieces that were allowed to be staged. Elsie was not well due to the pressure and long working hours. She suffered from thyroid disorder.Her neck was swollen but she refused to have an operation in Beijing. Lim Kek Tjiang, her husband, told the authorities that he wanted to take her to the Netherlands for treatment. The Lim family eventually got the permit to leave China. However, they did not go to the Netherlands but Macau. From Macau Elsie went to Hong Kong to join the newly established ballet dancing troupe. Her husband also found a position in the Hong Kong Orchestra. When Kek Tjiang lost his job, Elsie wanted to migrate to Australia for their sons’ education. Her husband then got a position in the Sydney Orchestra and she found a job selling organs in Melbourne. She later joined her husband in Sydney and worked as a secretary at the music firm, Musica Viva Australia, as a secretary. When the Australian Ballet was established, she was invited to be a

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teacher there. When the Victorian College of the Arts was set up, she found a job teaching at the college. Kek Tjiang who was unhappy with the working environment in Sydney eventually moved to Melbourne. In 1984, Elsie was invited to teach ballet in Hong Kong and Kek Tjiang followed her there. According to Elsie, Kek Tjiang followed her after realizing that he had made a mistake in going to Beijing in 1959. Elsie in turn, was very concerned about Kek Tjiang’s career. She strongly believed that her husband was talented but was unable to get the job he liked owing to his extremely poor human relations. She had hopes for her husband to make a comeback in Hong Kong but it was not to be as his rivals were still in control of the music world; the music circle did not open the doors for him. However, Kek Tjiang was able to make records both in Japan and Hong Kong with foreign companies. In 1989 Elsie was invited back to Melbourne to teach and Kek Tjiang followed her again. It seemed that they were destined to live the “life of a gypsy”. When Elsie was in Hong Kong, she met the founder of a ballet school in Taiwan, Lin Huaimin, who invited her to go to Taiwan to teach at his school, Yunmen Wuji. Again, Kek Tjiang went with her. The couple lived for seven years in Taiwan where their talents in Ballet and music were greatly appreciated. Kek Tjiang was even given the accolade of “Karajan of the East” by his fans. In 1998, both returned to Australia. Kek Tjiang dedicated his memoir to Elsie for her sacrifice, advice and support for his pursuit of music without which he would not have been able to achieve much. Leo Suryadinata R E F E R E N C E S “Elsie San Fang Tjiok”. Pantjawarna, no. 61 (October 1953), p. 6.

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South China Morning Post, 18(?) September 1970. ， ： 47。

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：

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Tjoa Hin Hoeij, Mrs (née Kwee Yat Nio, , Guo Yueniang, 1907–90) Writer, Buddhist organization leader, Indonesia

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rs Tjoa Hin Hoeij, née Kwee Yat Guo Yueniang), was Nio ( born in Bogor in 1907. She was the eldest child and only daughter of the eminent Peranakan Chinese writer and social critic, Kwee Tek Hoay. She received her education from the local Tiong Hoa Hwe Koan (THHK) (Chinese Association) junior middle school and the Methodist Girls’ School. She stayed on at the latter as a teacher after her graduation. In 1922, Kwee Yat Nio founded Chie Mey Hwee (CMH) (Sisters’ Association) in Bogor, for young, single Peranakan Chinese women. She was the chairperson of the CMH for a number of years. The objective of the CMH was to promote the social position and education of women, so that they became intelligent and competent wives and mothers. Qualified teachers were invited to give lessons in sewing and cookery. Other activities included traditional (Chinese) dance, music and drama; public speaking; a “Ladies Jazz Band”; relief work and fund-raising. The CMH members were mainly students from the Hollandsch-Chineesch School (HCS) (Dutch-Chinese School) and Methodist Girls’ School in Bogor. There were also branches in Batavia (Jakarta), Sukabumi, Bandung and several other places in Central Java.The original membership did not last long, as more and more members left after getting married. However, the CMH continued to

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exist as a ladies’ social welfare organisation until the Japanese invasion in March 1942. In 1925, Kwee Yat Nio married Tjoa Hin Hoeij of Tanjung Karang, Lampung, Sumatra. He was a graduate of the THHK senior middle school in Bogor and Fudan University in Shanghai. The couple had three daughters (Lenny Tjoa Keng Yin, Effie Tjoa Keng Loan, Yenny Tjoa Keng Lan) and two sons (Tjoa Keng Pin, Tjoa Keng Hok). From 1928 until 1932, Mrs Tjoa taught at the English School in Batavia. Nevertheless, her forte was in writing. While still a schoolgirl, Mrs Tjoa had been encouraged by her father to translate stories and articles from English-language publications such as the British Ladies’ Home Journal and the Guardian into Malay, as “foreign news” for Sin Po and other Sino-Malay newspapers. In spite of her young age, she was paid for the published translations. By the 1930s, Mrs Tjoa was wellestablished as a freelance writer. She wrote for two of her father’s magazines. Moestika Romans (formerly Moestika Panorama; this was a monthly publication, as distinct from his weekly magazine, Panorama) dealt with religious topics, women’s and family issues, as well as politics and other topics of social interest. Moestika Dharma was a religious weekly. Mrs Tjoa also contributed articles to the women’s supplements of several leading Sino-Malay dailies, and edited the Dames Rubriek (Ladies’ Column) in Sin Tit Po, Mata Hari and Keng Po. In 1935, encouraged by her father, husband and readers, Mrs Tjoa founded Maandblad Istri (Wives’ Monthly). Her primary goal for creating such a magazine was to teach Peranakan Chinese women to advance themselves, lest they be left behind by progressive women of other races. The

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monthly was published in Malay instead of Dutch, so that less-educated Peranakan women with a working knowledge of Malay could read it. Mrs Tjoa herself wrote most of the contents of Maandblad Istri. A typical issue contained stories; recipes; reviews of English and American films that were being screened in Batavia at the time; health and beauty tips; illustrations of the latest fashions from the West and China; and reams of advice on how best to nourish, educate and manage one’s children. The main articles covered a wide range of social and political issues, for example: domestic discord and its causes, the declining morals of the younger generation, female employment in the public sphere, the outbreak of the SinoJapanese War. The editorial board of Maandblad Istri consisted of women and men who shared Mrs Tjoa’s ideas. There were two or three doctors, a midwife, a lawyer, a beautician and a social worker.Their own professions enabled them to provide specialist advice. One of the doctors was a woman, Betsy Thung Sin Nio, who had obtained her medical degree from the University of Amsterdam. In its time, Maandblad Istri became the organ of the Chung-Hua Fu Nü Hwee (CHFNH) (Chinese Ladies’ Association) which was founded in 1938 with Mrs Tjoa herself as president. The CHFNH was an active champion of relief work, while the monthly itself sponsored a number of local charities. The publication of Maandblad Istri was temporarily halted by the Japanese Occupation and Indonesian Revolution. It continued during the early years of the new Indonesian Republic, but finally ceased operations due to a combination of factors: the passing of Tjoa Hin Hoeij in 1956 (which deprived his wife

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of her most valuable ally in this publishing venture), as well as financial difficulties and paper shortages. Apart from her family commitments, social work activities and prolific writing, Mrs Tjoa was also actively involved in Buddhist organisations. From 1934 to 1938, she was the secretary of the Batavia Buddhist Association. She also chaired the Sam Kauw Hwee (Tridharma) in Batavia from the mid-1930s to the 1950s. (Her father, Kwee Tek Hoay, was a founding member of the Sam Kauw Hwee.) She was also the deputy chairperson of the Gabungan Sam Kauw Hwee (Gabungan Tridharma) (Federation of Three Religions) in Indonesia, and editor-in-chief of its magazine — Tribudaja — from 1952 to 1965. On the political front, she was a member of the Badan Permusjawaratan Kewarganegaraan Indonesia (Baperki) (Indonesian Citizens Consultative Body), and chaired its women’s division from 1956 to 1964. In her later years, Mrs Tjoa persevered with her writing, undeterred by poor health and increasing infirmities. She continued to be active in local Buddhist organisations, particularly the Women’s Buddhist Association of Jakarta. She even adopted a Buddhist name, Visakha Gunadharma. On 17 December 1989, the wedding day of her granddaughter, Sabina Susie (younger daughter of Lenny Tjoa Keng Yin), Mrs Tjoa was honoured by the Women’s Buddhist Association for her dedication and hard work on behalf of Buddhism. Mrs Tjoa passed away on 26 September 1990. Her life’s work should be considered as a major contribution towards the enlightenment of her gender and the wider Peranakan Chinese community, while marking a significant milestone in the history of the women’s movement in Indonesia.

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Two of Mrs Tjoa’s children were also active in public life. Lenny Tjoa Keng Yin (b.1927) and Effie (Euphemia) Tjoa Keng Loan (1931–2007) received their classical music training in Europe after the Second World War. Their studies began at the Conservatory in The Hague. The sisters then transferred to the Amsterdam Conservatory where Lenny studied pedagogy (to prepare for a teaching career), as well as singing and piano, while Effie majored in singing. Their advanced operatic training was completed in Italy: Lenny in Rome, Effie in both Rome and Milan. After returning to Indonesia, Lenny taught at the Institut Keguruan Ilmu Pendidikan (IKIP) (Teachers’ Training College) in Jakarta. She was also the founder of that IKIP’s music department. In mid-1965, her husband Kho Kek Soen, a medical doctor and a professor, moved to Medan. She followed him and found work at the local IKIP as an instructor, and eventually became the head of its music department, a position which she held from 1969 to 1992. In addition to Lenny’s professional career, she was, for many years, until her retirement in the late 1990s, actively involved in various organisations which promoted social welfare, health and the performing arts. Effie became a concert performer upon returning to Indonesia in the mid-1950s. Her homecoming was met with much acclamation, because in Indonesia at the time, there were very few performers of her calibre, let alone with European credentials. Effie was very much in demand, and travelled extensively to give concerts. She was even asked to join governmental delegations that toured China, Japan and the United States. And, like her mother, Effie was also a member of Baperki.

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Effie’s musical career in Indonesia only lasted a number of years, due to the social and political conditions of the late 1950s and early 1960s. She was gradually reduced to giving private lessons at home. After the abortive coup of 1965, the government-sponsored overseas trips also ceased, and there was hardly any demand for public performances in the crisis-ridden country. By then, imported American popular culture had permeated almost every level of urban Indonesian society, particularly in Jakarta, and many a young aspirant of Western sophistication were rocking to a different beat, much to the detriment of Western classical music. After fifteen years in Indonesia, Effie finally decided to move back to Amsterdam. She obtained a Dutch nursing scholarship, and initially worked as a nurse to support herself, before undertaking a variety of other jobs. Although she no longer worked professionally as a singer, she did give performances at charity events. Effie passed away in Amsterdam on 12 March 2007. Faye Yik-Wei Chan R E F E R E N C E S Chan, Faye Yik-Wei. “Mrs.Tjoa Hin Hoeij (1907–1990): Profile of an enterprising Peranakan Chinese woman writer in late colonial Indonesia”. Archipel 42 (1991): 23–27. Chan, Faye Yik-Wei. “Representations of Chinese identity and gender amongst Peranakan Chinese women in late colonial Indonesia, as expressed in the women’s monthly Maandblad Istri (1935–1942)”. M.A. thesis, Department of History, University of Melbourne, 1990. Chan, Faye Yik-Wei. Unpublished notes based on personal correspondence (1989) and interview (Jakarta, 23 November 1989) with Mrs Tjoa Hin Hoeij, and additional interviews with members of Mrs Tjoa Hin Hoeij’s extended family (Jakarta & Amsterdam, 1994– 1997). Suryadinata, Leo. Prominent Indonesian Chinese: Biographical Sketches. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1995.

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Tjoe Bou San ( , Zhu Maoshan, 1891–1925) Chinese nationalist, journalist, novelist, Indonesia

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joe Bou San was born in 1891, the son of a textile merchant, and he had two brothers and a sister. He probably went to private Dutch school for a few years, or enrolled in a Hokkien school and learned Dutch, English, and Malay on his own. He was fluent in Batavian Malay and knew a little dutch, English, and Chinese. At the age of eighteen, he was editor-inchief of the Malay edition of a weekly magazine, Hoa Tok Po. It was the official periodical of the Soe Po Sia, a Chinese nationalist Totok organization. From February to June 1917, he was editor-in-chief of the newspaper, Tjhoen Tjhioe, in Surabaya. He reportedly moved back to Jakarta after he left the paper. Soon afterwards, he visited China and worked as a correspondent there for the Malay edition of the daily, Sin Po, under editor-in-chief, Kwee Hing Tjiat (1916–18). A year later, he returned to Jakarta and was appointed editor-in-chief of Sin Po, replacing Kwee Hing Tjiat, who wanted to leave for Europe. In 1919, Tjoe also held the position of director of Sin Po. While Tjoe was its leader, the newspaper became an influential mouthpiece for Chinese nationalism. It was Tjoe who developed the concept of Chinese nationalism in the Netherlands Indies and led the campaign to abolish Dutch nationality (onderdaanschap) after World War I. Chinese nationalism was at the time a cultural rather than political nationalism. However, as the influence of Totoks who sympathized with the revolutionary movement on the Chinese mainland grew, the Chinese movement in Java gradually assumed political colour. Chinese political organizations such

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as the Tong Meng Hui (which later became Guomindang) were introduced to the Netherlands Indies around 1907. The Soe Po Sia (Readers Associations) that spread the revolutionary idea was formed in major cities. National awareness rose among Chinese youths. Tjoe was one of the youths who had been influenced by this wave of political nationalism. It became increasingly stronger after the Manchu empire was overthrown and the Republic of China was founded in 1912. Sin Po, originally a weekly, was transformed into a daily not long after the birth of the Chinese republic. The newspaper was the main rival of a big Peranakan newspaper, Kabar Perniagaan, which was dominated by Peranakan Chinese officers (also known as Chinese captains), and took a conservative stand. Under the leadership of Kwee Hing Tjiat, Sin Po began a movement to guide the Chinese community in political matters. For example, in 1917, the Dutch were planning to create a Volksraad (People’s Council) and wanted to include Peranakan Chinese and indigenous representatives in the new political institution. The same year, a conference of Chinese residents was held in Semarang to discuss the issue. Kwee Hing Tjiat, supported by other Peranakan organizations, rejected the proposal of H.H. Kan, a pro-Dutch Peranakan, to participate in local politics, arguing that the Chinese were Chinese citizens. The rejection was related to the Dutch Government’s plan to carry out Indie Weerbaar, the defence of the Indies, under which Dutch subjects were obliged to join a militia. Sin Po, under Tjoe’s leadership, launched a campaign to abolish the Dutch Nationality Law. According to Sin Po, it succeeded in collecting approximately 30,000 signatures. The campaign did not achieve its goals because China proceeded to sign the consular treaty that recognized the jurisdictional rights of the Dutch Government over the Peranakan. Besides, Tjoe’s campaign

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lost its momentum because the Dutch Government did not push the Indie Weerbaar proposal through. Tjoe identified with the Chinese nationalists in China and felt that both the Peranakan and Totok Chinese had to consider themselves Chinese. Tjoe’s nationalist views clashed with those of P.H. Fromberg Sr., a Dutch lawyer who had held a post in the Netherlands Indies as an officer of the Bureau of Chinese Affairs and was close to the Peranakan Chinese society. Fromberg a wrote a booklet, De Chineesche Beweging op Java (The Chinese Movement in Java), in defence of the Chinese. Fromberg was very different from other Dutch officials who were considered hostile to the Chinese. Tjoe argued that Fromberg, being a Dutch, failed to understand the Chinese movement in the Netherlands Indies.Tjoe was right when he said that before the campaign, the Chinese movement was the result of discriminatory laws, and aimed at raising the status of the Chinese of the Netherlands Indies to equal that of Europeans. However the other movement, known as the campaign against the Dutch Nationality Law, was aimed at acquiring Chinese citizenship. Tjoe wrote that the Chinese of the Netherlands Indies, as a separate group, did not mean anything in the world due to their small numbers, but they would be important if they joined with the Chinese of China. Tjoe said that even if the advisory body, Volkraad, developed into a parliament, the interests of the Chinese could not be protected because they were a minority. For Tjoe, the only solution was for the Chinese in the Netherlands Indies was to assimilate fully with other groups, but there were difficulties. Tjoe also thought that Indië Weerbaar (the defence of the Indies) was not a matter of common interest, but in the interest of Dutch capitalists. He held his Chinese nationalist viewpoint so firmly that he clashed with Hauw Tek Kong, former director of Sin

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Po. Hauw accepted Dutch nationality and started a Malay (Indonesian) newspaper called Keng Po to compete with Sin Po. Under the leadership of Tjoe, Sin Po grew. In 1921, it succeeded in publishing its Chinese edition and in 1922, it also published an East Java edition in Surabaya.Tjoe employed many indigenous journalists and published news about the Indonesian nationalist movement written by indigenous writers. It seemed that Indonesian nationalists liked to work with Sin Po because they lacked a mass medium to spread their nationalistic ideas. In Bandung, for example, when Soekarno was still studying at the Bandung Institute of Technology, he frequently socialized closely with some Peranakan Chinese who supported Chinese nationalism, such as Tan Tek Ho, a contributor to Sin Po, and Liem Soey Tjoan, a printer and staunch supporter of Sin Po. Through them, Soekarno came to know Tjoe and even visited him at his office in Jakarta. What was on the mind of Indonesian nationalists then was how to expel the Dutch. The Malay edition of Sin Po continued to make progress, but the Chinese edition and the East Java Malay edition suffered losses. Many of Sin Po’s high-ranking employees then voluntarily took salary cuts to enable the paper to survive. Tjoe promised that the salary difference would be considered the company’s debt and would be paid back when profits were made. However, Tjoe’s health was failing; he seldom wrote about politics. Instead, he read philosophy books and translated Chinese classics such as Loen Gie (Lunyu [The Analects]) and Beng Tjoe (Mengzi [The Book of Mencius]), which he published under the pseudonym, Hauw San Liang. Later he learned about Kitab Chuangtze (Zhuangzi) and admired the views of the ancient Chinese philosopher. Tjoe was a fairly accomplished novelist. In 1917, he published Satoe Djodo Jang Terhalang

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(An Obstructed Match) about the tragic love of a couple in Bogor. In 1918, Binasa Lantaran Harta (Destroyed by Wealth) was published, followed by its sequel, Badjingan Besar (Big Crook), the same year. Tjoe was skilful in the colloquial language. His work of 1922, The Loan Eng, was one of the most beautiful novels by a Peranakan writer before World War II. It was followed by Lima Tahoen Kemoedian (Five Years After), also the same year. His novel, Salah Mengerti (Misunderstanding), was still being serialized in the weekly, edition of Sin Po, in 1925. Hoen-Tjeng-Lao (Fenzhuang lou or A Woman’s Dressing Room), another novel, was not completely serialized until after his death on 3 November 1925 at the age of thirtyfour. Tjoe did not write on Chinese politics and society in Sin Po before his death. He is survived by his wife, two daughters, and his Chinese nationalist ideas. Leo Suryadinata R E F E R E N C E S Ang Jan Goan. “Almarhoem Tjoe Bou Sam”. Sin Po Wekelijksche Editie, 26 December 1925, pp. 614–22. Suryadinata, Leo. Peranakan’s Search for National Identity: Biographical Studies of Seven Indonesian Chinese, pp. 1–15. Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1993.

Tjong A Fie (Tjong Yiauw Hian, , Zhang Yaoxuan; , Zhang Hongnan, 1859–1921) alias Businessman, official and community leader, Indonesia

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jong A Fie and his brother Tjong ) were the most Yong Hian ( prominent Chinese businessmen in what was then called Sumatra’s East Coast. His financial interests included plantations

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and related businesses, factories, banking, steamships, railroads, and real estate. He served the colonial government of the Netherlands Indies as Chinese officer and revenue farmer. Tjong’s investments extended to China, Malaya and Singapore, while his philanthropic activities benefited the peoples of Sumatra, Malaya, Hong Kong and China. Stories tell that Zhang Hongnan, who was born in 1859 (some sources say 1860) in Songkou, Meixian, Guangdong, or Tjong A Fie, as he was known in the Indies, arrived in East Sumatra in 1875 with only ten silver dollars sewn into his belt. In reality, however, he had a much greater starting capital in the person of his older brother, Zhang Yunan ( alias Tjong Yong Hian), already a Dutchappointed lieutenant of the Chinese there, and his uncle, Zhang Bishi (Thio Thiau Siat). The latter had settled in the Nanyang in about 1857, first in Batavia (Jakarta), soon becoming one of Java’s most prominent businessmen and moving his base to Sumatra in 1875 and finally to Penang. Within the triangle Sumatra-Straits Settlements-China, Tjong A Fie also made his mark. A Dutch official described him as having “clear intelligence, a broad vision, and an almost unbelievable ability to work.” Tjong A Fie settled first in the port of Labuhan, but soon moved to the city of Medan, which became the administrative and commercial capital of the rapidly developing plantation area of Deli and all eastern Sumatra. Thanks to their business sense and their relations with the colonial administration, the Tjong brothers were able to seize the opportunities that the booming economy offered. Following in their uncle’s footsteps they became provisioners to the Dutch and to the thousands of coolie laborers in the tobacco and other plantations. Uncle Thio Thiau Siat’s financial interests in Penang and elsewhere gave valuable support to their operations. Although

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it was Western capital that opened the famous tobacco plantations of Deli, beginning in the 1860s, the Western planters depended on Chinese coolie labor.They needed middlemen to recruit workers, to transport them to Sumatra, to oversee them, and to provision them with food, clothing, and, perhaps most important, opium. Tjong A Fie, who outlived his brother by almost ten years, was the betterknown, more “charismatic” of the two. Tjong A Fie had worked for a small shop owner in Labuhan, but Medan offered better opportunities.There, the colonial administration governed the Chinese population through appointed Chinese officers, and the burgeoning Chinese population of the district required men of special talent and resources.The Dutch appointed Tjong A Fie first as Lieutenant of the Chinese, then Captain, while his brother was Captain and then Major. Public office opened doors. Being an officer meant having a good chance to obtain the monopoly revenue farms for opium and gambling, two vices that were rampant among the coolies, or for slaughtering of pigs. As officers, the Tjongs had access to these lucrative monopolies that were auctioned off by the government to the highest bidder. With his brother and with some participation of his uncle, Tjong A Fie held the profitable opium farm for the region; in one year, before the government finally took over the sale of opium, the farm may have taken in as much as six million guilders, delivering some two million of that as rent to the government. Revenue farms were the Tjongs’ first source of wealth but not the only one. The Tjongs held contracts to deliver rice and sugar, imported from Java or elsewhere in Southeast Asia, to the government for its military campaigns in nearby Aceh and to the plantations to feed the labourers. They also helped deliver coolies recruited from

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China via Singapore to the Deli plantations. The brothers were involved in the salt farm, and with that the entire fishing operations of the important Chinese fishing harbor of Bagan Siapiapi, if not as revenue farmer, then as financial guarantor for the monopoly farm. In that coastal Sumatran harbour, salt was the main ingredient for its salted fish and shrimp products that were a major part of the diet of peoples of the Indies and Malaya, including, of course, the coolie laborers of East Sumatra. In 1908 Tjong A Fie became the first Chinese to own a plantation. In addition to his rubber plantation, called Si Bulan, he acquired additional plantations for coconuts, coffee, and tea. The plantation system had been intended for European, not Chinese, investment, but by 1919 he owned about twenty plantations. Although a plantation owner, he spoke out against the “penal sanction,” the law that kept the coolies unfree and bound to their plantations. He owned factories for palm oil and sugar and did not hesitate to employ European personnel. Some ten thousand employees worked for him at the peak of his power. With Thio Tiau Siat and his brother,Tjong A Fie invested in the merchant-managed Chao Chow and Swatow Railway Co., a novelty in China’s rail-building scheme that used private capital and opened in 1906. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons, this enterprise was not successful but it remained a significant political gesture. In 1907, Tjong A. Fie was one of the founders of the Deli Bank and later of the Batavia Bank. His interests also extended to shipping. After the death of his brother in 1911, Tjong A Fie became Major of the Chinese and undisputed leader of the Chinese community of Medan. With the growth of the city, Tjong had extended his investments to landownership. His office gave him access to the city planning for Medan, which opened opportunities

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in business and real estate. It is said that he owned half the land in the city, three-fourths of the houses, and virtually all of the property in the new development of Tebing Tinggi. Small wonder that he was unofficially called the “King of Medan.” Finally, Tjong used his wealth for a variety of philanthropic activities. For example, the Tjongs had built markets in the city, but they donated the income to found a hospital, Tjie On Djie Jan, for the indigent and for lepers, with an adjacent home for the old and destitute.Among his most important endeavors was support for education, which included donations to a missionary school in Penang, to Chinese-language education in Sumatra and elsewhere, to schools in his home area of China. He donated the clock to the tower of Medan’s City Hall and erected a bridge, the “Virtuous Bridge (Chen Tek),” in memory of his brother that was recently restored. He supported Chinese temples in Medan and elsewhere and was a major donor to building the central mosque in Medan, to other mosques and even to Hindu temples and Christian churches. Repeatedly, he was a prominent contributor to disaster relief funds for his Chinese homeland. In 1916, Tjong A Fie celebrated thirty years of service to the administration with a feast that lasted three days, involving all ethnic groups of the city. In that year the University of Hong Kong gave him an honorary doctorate for his support for education. Tjong was an integrative figure who was a close associate of the Sultan of Deli, respected by the Dutch authorities, and revered by the multic-ethnic population of Medan, Malay, Chinese, Indian, Arab, and Dutch. When he died in 1921 in Medan, large crowds attended the funeral ceremonies. Tjong A Fie placed part of his assets into foundations to continue his work, but his plantations later had to be sold; the Chinese railway declined and was

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finally demolished. His memorial image however stands, with that of his brother and uncle, in the Kek Lok Si Buddhist temple in Ayer Itam, Penang. He left an indelible mark on the city of Medan, where, in addition to the bridge, his great mansion, which combines Chinese and European architectural elements and was recently renovated, is a heritage site and important tourist attraction. Mary Somers Heidhues R E F E R E N C E S A. G. de Bruin. De Chineezen ter Oostkust van Sumatra. Leiden: Brill, 1918. Dirk A. Buiskool, ed. De reis van Harm Kamerlingh Onnes: Brieven uit de Oost 1922–1923. Hilversum: Verloren, 1999. “Tjong A. Fie,” pp. 23–28. Queeny Chang. Memories of a Nonya. Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 1981. Michael R. Godley. The Mandarin-capitalists from Nanyang: Overseas Chinese Enterprise in the Modernization of China 1893–1911. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Leo Suryadinata. Eminent Indonesian Chinese: Biographical Sketches. Singapore: Gunung Agung, 1981.

Toh Chin Chye ( , Du Jincai, 1921–2012) Doctor, politician, Singapore

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auded as the man who helped create the People’s Action Party (PAP), Dr Toh Chin Chye was a fairly unassuming man at first glance. However, this quiet-looking gentleman was dubbed by Singapore’s first prime minister (former minister mentor) as the man holding the fort for the PAP and thereby holding the party together in its early years. He is also remembered for being very passionate about shaping his country’s future,

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a bit of an idealist, and very forthright, as he tended to “tell it like it is”. His passion for serving the community, his idealism in wanting the best for everyone in society, and his forthright nature sprang from his very humble beginnings. Born in 1921 in Perak, Malaysia, he was educated at St George’s School. Then, like the brightest and best of his generation, he went to Raffles College in Singapore. However, the outbreak of World War II meant he was unable to pursue his education abroad. During the period of the Japanese Occupation of Singapore, Toh became a hawker’s assistant, and grew potatoes and tapioca for his own subsistence. As with most members of his generation, his views on life and his political outlook, helped shape his budding interest in politics. Once awakened to the injustices of the colonial society, Toh took the next logical step forward by forming the Malayan Forum when the war was over and he was able to go overseas for his further education. In London, between 1949 and 1953, he led the nationalist Malayan Forum and conducted debates and discussions with fellow students from Singapore and Malaya on the future of Malaya. Through the Malayan Forum, Toh became friends with Goh Keng Swee and together they took up the political cause. The Malayan Forum succeeded in bringing together the various players who would figure prominently in Singapore politics, and was instrumental in involving Lee Kuan Yew in union politics and the formation of the Council for Joint Action. Although Toh was still studying in Britain at the time, he kept in touch with the Malayan Forum members who had returned to Singapore and met in the “basement” of Lee KuanYew’s house. Knowing very well that his friends were under the constant surveillance of the “Special Branch” (the precursor to the modern Internal Security Department) and at risk of being detained

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without trial, Toh suggested (on his return to Singapore) the formation of an open and legal political party so as to throw their nationalistic fervour into action. Thus, the People’s Action Party (PAP) was formed with Toh as the party chairman. In his role, he steered the PAP through its internal struggles between the leftist supporters and the rightist supporters. However, he was unable to prevent the so-called communists from taking over the Central Executive Committee (CEC). So, for a short while, Toh, Goh Keng Swee and Lee Kuan Yew lost control over the party. It was at the party’s Annual Congress that the sight of the motley crew of assembled people led Toh to propose to Lee that the party adopt a cadre system to minimize the opportunities for ordinary members to overthrow the CEC. The chance to implement the cadre system within the party presented itself when then Chief Minister Lim Yew Hock detained so-called communist sympathizers. This freed the way for Goh and Lee to take over the party and implement the cadre system which the PAP still helms today. Now that he and Lee were in control of the party, they were able to oversee the PAP’s organization and policymaking. Under Toh’s and Lee’s joint leadership, the PAP did fairly well in the 1959 general election, with the former successfully elected as the legislative assemblyman for the Rochore constituency. However, the PAP electoral victory in 1959 did not automatically mean the ascendancy of the PAP secretary general Lee Kuan Yew as prime minister. The PAP’s CEC voted between Lee Kuan Yew and Ong Eng Guan as prime minister, but reached a deadlock from an even vote. It was up to Toh to cast the tiebreaking vote and he came out in favour of Lee. This then marked the beginning of the new Lee Kuan Yew era of Singapore politics. Under Lee, Toh led a committee to design

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the state crest, state anthem, and state flag, all of which were unveiled on 3 December 1959 at the City Hall and became the national flag and national anthem when Singapore gained independence in 1965. Toh was then appointed the deputy prime minister. He relinquished the post in 1968 and became the minister for science and technology till 1975 when he was appointed the minister of health. He stepped down from the post in 1981 and became a backbencher famed for his outspoken criticisms on various government policies, such as the Medisave Scheme and the age limit on CPF withdrawal. In appreciation of his twenty-nine years of service as Member of Parliament for Rochore, the Toh Chin Chye Benevolent Fund for the elderly was set up by the Rochore Citizens Consultative Committee. As an extension of his interests in shaping and developing Singapore, Toh served as chairman of Singapore Polytechnic and vicechancellor of the University of Singapore where he established the faculties of Engineering and Architecture and introduced professional courses, such as business administration and accountancy to bolster Singapore’s industrialization efforts. He prompted the move of the university from Bukit Timah to Kent Ridge, and initiated the setting up of the National University Hospital. However, there were claims that Toh was an autocrat with his clampdown on student protests and his singleminded focus on using the university to further the national goals of economic development. Still, he achieved the goals of reforming the university and it cannot be denied that Toh contributed significantly to tertiary education by ensuring that universities in Singapore would be geared towards enhancing Singapore’s economic growth. He retired from politics in 1988 to pave the way for the younger generation to

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lead Singapore. At his retirement, he issued a strangely prophetic parting shot at the youth of Singapore whom he accurately claimed lacked “soul”, “spirit”, creativity, and idealism, and reflected on what this would bode for Singapore. In a 1997 Radio Corporation of Singapore address to youth in the country, Toh said: I would say the generation of the ’50s and ’60s took the plunge into politics without ever calculating the costs of the risk and the benefits to be gained. They were driven by ideology. Today’s generation has no culture and [is] averse to taking political risk. Really, an interest in politics is very necessary for the future. But I cannot blame the present generations, because they see the heavy-handed response by the government to dissenting views, even though they know that these matters involve their daily lives. So the result is that we have produced a younger generation who are meek and therefore very calculating. They are less independent-thinking and lack in initiative.It does not bode well for the emergence of future leaders in politics and business. Robots and computers can be programmed or if you like, can be trained. But the trouble, of course, is that computers lack soul and what we need in Singapore is soul. Because it is soul that makes society. This radio address neatly sums up both Toh’s character and his contributions to Singapore. Beyond speaking of his subtle fears of young Singaporeans who want their future given to them rather than achieving it for themselves,

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it establishes Dr Toh Chin Chye as a passionate man who was driven to develop and build Singapore to that which it is today. Toh died on 3 February 2012 in Singapore. Ho Khai Leong R E F E R E N C E S Chew, Melanie. Leaders of Singapore, pp. 83–99. Singapore: Resource Press, 1996. Lam Peng Er & Kevin Tan (eds.). Lee’s Lieutenants: Singapore’s Old Guard, pp. 15–22. Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1999. Low K. C. & P. K. G. Dunlop (eds.). Who’s Who in Singapore, p. 270. Singapore: Who’s Who Publishing, 2000. Ministry of Culture. Biographical Notes of the President, Prime Minister and Ministers. Singapore: Publicity Division, Ministry of Culture, 1977. Singapore Chronicles: A Special Commemorative History of Singapore, pp. 42–47. Hong Kong: Illustrated Magazine, 1995.

Tong Djoe ( , Tang Yu, 1926– ) Entrepreneur, Chinese community leader, art collector, Indonesia and Singapore

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s a citizen of Indonesia and a permanent resident of Singapore,Tong Djoe’s long and colorful career has spanned three nations (Indonesia, China, and Singapore) for more than half a century.These three countries have witnessed the coming and going of three foreign masters (Dutch, Japanese, and British). Since its independences, the new Indonesian nation-state has seen six presidents, with all of whom Tong has been personally acquainted. Tong can thus be regarded as a prototype of Chinese transnationalist whose experience has been fundamentally shaped by various cultural, political, and socio-economic currents in

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different geographical locations. He has also contributed importantly to the development of ethnic Chinese communities in Southeast Asia and of Sino-Indonesian relations. Tong Djoe was born in September 1926 in Medan, Sumatra, into an immigrant family originating in the village of Penglai, Anxi County, Fujian (Hokkien) Province. His father was a small shopkeeper who had four children, Tong Djoe being the youngest. Tong Djoe went to a Chinese school in Singapore, enrolling in one of the schools catering primarily for pupils of the Fujianese dialect group. In 1943 he joined a small shipping firm (Chuan Ann) owned by his elder brother, Tong Lian Liang (1911–1967). During the antiDutch war, the Tongs supplied rice, military equipment, and medicines to the Indonesian Republican army and shipped rubber and coffee back from Sumatra to Singapore. In this process, Tong became acquainted with a number of key military and political leaders in Sumatra, among them A.K. Gani (1905– 1968, Minister of Economic Affairs and Vice Prime Minister, 1946–1948) and Ibnu Sutowo (1914–2001) who would play a significant role in the evolution of Tong’s business. After Indonesia attained formal independence in 1949, the Tong brothers participated in the development of PELNI (the Indonesian National Shipping Company), at the invitation of Gani (who was one of the top leaders of the Indonesian Nationalist Party during the 1950s), Tong Djoe helped with the inter-island shipping and his brother took charge of shipping between Indonesia and Singapore. In 1953 Tong Djoe formed his own shipping firm, Naga Laut. After the late 1950s, through his long-time relationship with Sutowo who was developing the Indonesian State Oil Company (Pertamina), Tong Djoe served as Pertamina’s overseas representative

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and agent in Singapore and Hong Kong, taking charge of the shipping of crude oil from Indonesia to Singapore for refining and selling in the overseas market. According to Richard Robison’s Indonesia: The Rise of Capital (1986), Sutowo built the “largest private indigenous business group in Indonesia” between 1967 and 1976 when he was President-Director of Pertamina, and Tong was one of his two key Chinese partners. In 1961, Tong Djoe established the Tunas Company with its headquarters in Singapore. His 28-story office tower, the highest in Singapore at the time, was the first office building outside of Indonesia which was privately owned by an Indonesian national. It also represented a high point for the Tunas Group, which had business spread over Indonesia, Singapore, and Hong Kong, in such areas as shipping, import-export, and tourism. According to the Indonesian magazine Matahari, together with Liem Sioe Liong, Ciputra, Bob Hassan, and Sofyan Wanandi, Tong Djoe was named as one of the 17 Chinese business leaders in Indonesia. Apart from being economically successful, Tong Djoe was a key individual who worked behind the scene in an attempt to reestablish Sino-Indonesian direct trade and diplomatic relations in the 1980s. In recognition of his endeavor and extensive involvement in the nation’s socio-economic development, the Indonesian government awarded him the prestigious Bintang Jasa Pratama Medal in August 1998. Tong Djoe has been actively participating in Chinese community activities in Singapore and elsewhere. He was the Chairman of Anxi Clan Association between 1977 and 1998. Founded in 1926, the Association represents those Chinese originating from the county of Anxi. Tong was the Chairman of two prominent trade associations: the Singapore

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Overseas Chinese Importer-Exporter Association, the most important business association for merchants concerned with Singapore-Indonesian trade, and the Singapore Shipping Association, which was founded in 1953 representing the interests of ship owners in Singapore. He was also a key member for an extended period of time in a number of major Chinese associations such as the Fujian (Hokkien) Association and the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCCI). Tong Djoe has been an art collector and a patron for a number of educational institutions, such as Singapore Maris Stella High School, the Chinese Industrial and Commercial Supplementary School, and the Thong Chai Medical Institution. His support for education won him a Medal of Long-term Service to Education awarded by the Singapore government in 1997. Tong has been chairman of Goh Loo Club (founded in 1909), executive member of the LuTiok Culk (founded in 1938), Singapore Chinese Weekly Entertainment Club (founded early 20th century), and the Eo Hoe Hean Club (founded in 1895). After China’s reform and opening in the late 1970s,Tong Djoe had entered the Chinese market. Through his Hong Kong-based Solid Resource Company, he invested heavily in China, especially Xiamen, a booming coastal city close to his hometown Anxi. According to Indonesian and Japanese journalist accounts, the China projects in which Tong Djoe participated were worth billions of dollars and his net assets were estimated at more than US$500 million. Because of his extensive involvement in the process leading to the resumption of Sino-Indonesian trade and diplomatic ties throughout the 1980s, and his business investment in China,Tong Djoe has built up an

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impressive array of personal ties with the PRC national leaders. In May 1998 Tong was invited to serve on the China National Association for Overseas Liaisons, whose members include prominent national and international social and economic players. He was the Directorin-General of the International Confucian Society between 1999 and 2009, which was established by some senior and retired Chinese politicians in Beijing in 1994 with the aim of studying and promoting Confucianism. Tong Djoe has attributed his success to his upbringing (growing up in an extended Chinese family and attending Chinese schools which placed a great deal of emphasis on the moral teachings of Chinese traditional values) and his capacity for working closely with various types of people from a variety of ethnic, national, and cultural backgrounds. Central to his perceptions has been the fundamental importance of human relations (guanxi). In his view, “money can run out one day, but human relations will not. Therefore, we have to treasure relationship (guanxi).” Speaking in the First Asian Economic Experts Conference held in Tokyo in 1996, he declared, “Asians are particularly concerned about the promotion of cordial relationship between people.” In a letter to a former vice prime minister of China (dated 10 October 1997),Tong states, “Because of the advance of science and technology, the world has shrunk and human interactions have significantly increased, we should rely more on Confucianism to maintain harmonious and friendly relations.” It would be misleading to attribute Tong’s success solely to culture which, nevertheless, provides a foundation for his transnational networking practices that mobilized resources effectively in family, kinship, social, business and political connections. It is through this process of transnational linkages that Tong

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Djoe has made important contributions to the social, economic and cultural developments of the Chinese communities in Southeast Asia and to the improvement in Sino-Indonesian relation. Liu Hong R E F E R E N C E S Abun Sanda and Fitrisia Martisasi. “Lebih Jauh dengan Tong Djoe”. Kompas, 30 August 1998. H. Malik. “Tong Djoe: Bela Ibnu Sutowo, Tangkis Probosutejo”. Progres, 136 (February 1978): 16–18. Hong Liu. “Social Capital and Business Networking: A Case Study of Modern Chinese Transnationalism”. Southeast Asian Studies (Kyoto University), vol. 39, no. 3 (2001), pp. 357–81. “Not Easy to Find Someone like Tong Djoe”. Indonesia Times, 19 August 1978. “Wawancara: Tong Djoe”. Prospek, 3 August (1998): 4–10. Hong Liu, personal interviews with Tong Djoe (1998– 2008, Singapore). “Tong Djoe: Langkah yang Tepat”. Busnis Indonesia, 27 August 1994.

Tong, Stephen ( , Tang Chongrong, 1940– ) Reformed evangelist, Indonesia

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tephenTong is one of the most influential figures among the Chinese-speaking ethnic Chinese Christian communities in Indonesia. His Gereja Reformed Injili Indonesia (GRII, or Reformed Evangelical Church of Indonesia) churches are found in a number of predominantly Chinese neighbourhoods in Jakarta and other big cities in Java and Sumatra. In some de facto “ethnic Chinese only” residential areas, the sermons are often conducted in Mandarin and translated into Bahasa Indonesia. In fact his GRII church

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branches even extend beyond major cities in Indonesia — there are GRII churches in Singapore, Germany, Australia, America, Malaysia, Taiwan, China and Switzerland, mainly serving the Indonesian diaspora and students. Tong was born in 1940 on Gulangyu ) island of Fujian, China, to a Chinese( Indonesian mother and a Chinese father. Gulangyu had been a foreign (western) enclave since 1842, and was therefore heavily influenced by aspects of western cultures, including Christianity. When Tong’s mother was widowed at the age of thirty-two, she had seven siblings to raise besides her son and encountered a lot of hardships. In 1947, she went back to Indonesia with her siblings and son.The family continued to experience great economic hardships in the following years. Following the 1949 revolution in China, evangelism — regarded as a form of foreign (western) intervention in China’s domestic affairs — was prohibited. A number of prominent Chinese evangelists fled China and focused instead on preaching evangelism among ethnic Chinese in the world outside, especially to the Chinese in newly independent and turmoil-stricken Southeast Asian countries, and the newly arrived Chinese migrants in North America. Both groups belonged to a generation of ethnic Chinese caught in a dilemma resulting from sociocultural marginalization and were therefore in need of spiritual and cultural strength. They found the answer to this, among other things, in ethnic Chinese Christian churches founded and led by Chinese evangelists. A prominent protégé of these ethnic-Chinese-focused and transnational evangelists is Stephen Tong. By his own confession, Tong decided to dedicate his life to evangelism in 1957 at the age of seventeen, after listening to a sermon by ) at a youth conference. Andrew Gih (

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What followed during the 1960s and early 1970s is little known. Internationally, those were the years of ideological confrontations and cultural radicalism, which also witnessed a revolt against traditions and authorities. In 1974 the International Congress on World Evangelization was held in Lausanne, Switzerland, organized by a committee headed by Reverend Billy Graham of the United States. Responding to the theme, “Let The Earth Hear His Voice”, Christian leaders participated in plenary sessions, bible studies, as well as discussions and debates over the theology, strategies, and methods of evangelism. The gathering produced The Lausanne Covenant, a declaration that was “intended to define the necessity, responsibilities, and goals of spreading the Gospel”. Since 1974 the Lausanne Covenant has challenged Christians to work together to make Jesus Christ known throughout the world. According to Tong, about sixty ethnic Chinese evangelists all over the world attended the Lausanne Congress and were greatly inspired. Two years later in 1976, the first Chinese Congress on World Evangelization ) was held in Hong ( Kong. Consequently an organization to promote evangelism among ethnic Chinese worldwide, the Chinese Coordination Centre of World Evangelism (CCCOWE; ), was established with its headquarters in Hong Kong. According to the statement posted on the organization’s website, “ethnic Chinese churches are facing a historical challenge today; it is our obligation to spread God’s message to Chinese brethren worldwide, especially our 800 million brethren in China Mainland…”. The statement thus marked the beginning of a new era for a worldwide evangelical movement for ethnic Chinese. According to testimonies posted on the church’s website, Tong served as guest

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lecturer at the China Graduate School of Theology in Hong Kong in 1975 and 1979; at the China Evangelical Seminary in Taiwan (1976); and at the Trinity College in Singapore (1980). It is safe, therefore, to assume that he had been involved in the establishment of this Hong Kong-based worldwide ethnic Chinese evangelical group mentioned. In 1979 he started his own worldwide evangelistic ministry — Stephen Tong Evangelistic Ministry International (STEMI). Since then he has been constantly involved in evangelical activities which are easily traceable on a number of websites related to ethnic Chinese churches. His national and international activities include serving as keynote speaker at the International Prayer Assembly in Seoul (1985); setting up the Indonesian Evangelical Reformed Foundation (1986); founding the Evangelical Reformed Seminary (STRI) in Surabaya (1986); and two other branches (Jakarta 1987 and Malang 1990); establishing the Indonesian Evangelical Reformed Church (GRII or Gereja Injili Indonesia, 1991) and the Evangelical Reformed Theological Seminary in Indonesia (1996), and setting up the Reformed Institute for Christianity in 21st Century in Washington D.C. (1996) to equip Christians for global evangelization. In September 2008 the construction of a massive church called the Reformed Millennium Cathedral that seats 8,000 and houses a seminary (Reformed Institute), a museum and a school, was completed by Tong and opened in the ethnic Chinesedominated residential area in Central Jakarta. The “megachurch” phenomenon has been growing in the United States and South Korea since the 1980s. To judge from Tong’s activities and interactions with Christian groups in these two countries since the 1980s, his idea of building a church in Indonesia may have been borrowed from foreign church authorities, in

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accordance with the mainstream evangelistic trend in contemporary international Christian communities. Tong reportedly conceived the idea of constructing his church in 1992 and it took him sixteen years to see it to fruition. Tong stresses the idea of being “Reformed” in Christian theology. Historically the term “Reformed” in the Christian world refers to the protest movement against the Roman Catholic Church in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Tong’s Reformed Evangelical Church is the antithesis to two phenomena in Christian churches since the late twentieth century, namely, the charismatic movement and the rise of secularism. The former, blended with the prosperity theology, helps to expand its share in the global religious market and is enthusiastically welcomed by the mass of merrymaking church attendees, while the latter saw the rise of communities with higher educational background taking a critical stance on religious matters. Both groups share the trait of neglecting the Bible. These two groups have been the focus of Tong’s “Reformed theology”: One is blamed for not taking an intellectual approach to understanding the Bible, while the other is being chastised for regarding the Bible as obsolete. Secularism in the form of religious pragmatism and rationalism may be regarded as the consequence of developments in the twentieth century, which Tong is still fiercely trying to counteract by means of the Bible. In recognition to Tong’s life work in Christian ministries, the Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia — a prestigious bulwark of the Reformed faith — awarded him an Honorary Doctorate of Divinity in 2008 and established the Stephen Tong Chair of Reformed Theology in 2011. Susy Ong

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R E F E R E N C E S Chinese Christian Internet Mission website (in Mandarin). (accessed 22 January 2009). Chinese Coordination Centre of World Evangelism website (CCCWO, in Mandarin). (accessed 22 January 2009). Gereja Reformed Injili Indonesia website (in Indonesian). (accessed 22 January 2009. Hoon, Chang Yau. “Cartography of Chinese Christian Churches in Indonesia: Continuity and Change”. In Religion and the Chinese in Indonesia, Charles Coppel (ed.). Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, forthcoming. Intan, Benyamin F. God’s Fiery Challenger for our Time: Festschrift in Honor of Stephen Tong, The Founder and the Master Planner of Reformed Evangelical Movement. Jakarta: STEMI and Reformed Centre for Religion and Society, 2007.

Too Joon Hing ( , Zhu Yunxing, 1911–2002) Politician, community leader, Malaysia

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oo Joon Hing was a key leader of the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA) and the Alliance party in the early years. He was also Tunku Abdul Rahman’s first assistant education minister. He later left MCA due to disagreement with party leader and was considered a man driven by principles and not personal interest. Too was a second-generation immigrant of Hainanese origin, whose father, Too Jee Lim, had come to Malaya to work as a tailor apprentice and eventually made himself a mining tycoon. Too Joon Hing was born in Ipoh, the capital of the sultanate of Perak on 17 September 1911. He was bilingually educated, having been given traditional Chinese tuition at a tender age and later

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attending the Meng Teck ( ) Primary School for four years. After that, he went to the Anglo-Chinese School to complete his primary and secondary education before continuing his education in business management at the Hong Kong University in 1932. He returned to Malaya without completing his degree. After his father’s demise in 1944, Too soon became a renowned community leader in Perak. During the Emergency Rule from 1949 to 1954, he was appointed by the British colonial government as the auxiliary police inspector overseeing the auxiliary police units in Ipoh, Taiping, and Telok Anson. After joining the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA), Too represented the Alliance Party — a coalition of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the MCA, and the Malayan Indian Congress (MIC) — to win the councillor seat for the Silibin ward in Ipoh, his first elected office in August 1954. By September he was appointed a member of the Alliance National Council and one of the leaders drafting the election platform, “The Road to Independence”. In 1955 he went on to win the Kinta Selatan Parliamentary seat with an 83 per cent landslide victory and was appointed assistant education minister in the Tunku Abdul Rahman’s home rule government that would lead Malaya to independence two years later. In his capacity as a cabinet member, Too, accompanied by acting Police Commissioner, I.S. Wylie, was the Tunku’s messenger in the preliminary discussions with Malayan Communist Party (MCP) representative Chen Tien, which paved way for the Baling Meeting between the Tunku and CPM leader Chin Peng in December 1955. The meeting broke down as the Tunku refused to recognize the legality of MCP, and MCP refused to surrender, which prolonged the communist insurgency that was to end officially only forty-four years later.

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While the Alliance government gained ground in containing the communist insurgency, the power struggles within the MCA and between the MCA and UMNO also got more intense, and Too played a key role in these also. He was elected the party’s secretary general in 1956 and in the 1958 party elections, his ally, Lim Chong Eu, defeated party founder Tan Cheng Lock while Too retained his secretary general position. The “Young Turks”, under the leadership of Lim, wanted to align the MCA closer to the Chinese-speaking grass roots, which were being wooed by a few newly emerged opposition parties. The new leadership was, however, sidelined by Prime Minister cum Alliance President Tunku Abdul Rahman and deprived political resources to maintain their following. Neither Lim nor any of his other allies was made a minister while Too had already lost his assistant ministership in the cabinet reshuffle in late 1957. In contrast, despite losing party elections, Lim’s opponents such as Tan Siew Sin (son of Tan Cheng Lock) and T.H. Tan were respectively retained as minister of commerce and industry, and appointed the secretary general of the Alliance Party. The showdown of UMNO and the MCA came in July 1959 when the MCA demanded to contest for a minimum of thirtyfive seats in the 104-seat parliament to have a veto over constitutional amendments, and also explicit protection of Chinese education in the Alliance’s manifesto. The Tunku rejected both demands and threatened to break up with the MCA.With a 89 to 80 vote, the MCA General Committee decided to back down and accept an allocation of thirty-one seats, with candidates being chosen by the Tunku and not the party. While the disempowered Lim resigned soon after the 1959 elections and left the party in 1960, Too and another Young Turk,Yong Pung How, immediately quit the party in protest.

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Too contested for the Sitiawan parliamentary seat in Perak as an independent candidate in the 1959 elections, but lost. Two years later, again as an independent, he returned to the parliament after winning the by-election in Telok Anson, Perak. His main campaign issue was the Abdul Rahman Talib Report 1960, tabled by Education Minister Abdul Rahman Talib, which took an approach of gradual assimilation to Malaysia’s multistream education system. Too was supported by Lim Chong Eu as well as an opposition party, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP). In 1962 Lim and Too formed the United Democratic Party (UDP), principally to challenge the Alliance’s education policy and speak for the nonMalays. The party, however, did not gain much traction and Too himself failed to win the byelection of a state seat within his parliamentary constituency in 1963. Lim formed a new multi-ethnic party, GERAKAN, in 1968, but Too, who had moved apart ideologically, did not join this. By 1974, UMNO officially expanded the Alliance into the Barisan Nasional/National Front (BN) to include most opposition parties, including GERAKAN. According to Too, Lim invited him to join GERAKAN and run in the 1974 elections. Claiming dissatisfaction with Lim’s efforts in fighting for Chinese education and the rights of the nonMalays in the later years, Too turned down the offer. Instead, he contested the Sungai Besi parliamentary seat in Kuala Lumpur as an independent candidate. He retired from public life after losing this last electoral battle of his life. In 1990, when Lim Chong Eu lost his parliamentary seat to parliamentary opposition leader Lim Kit Siang, Too urged his former comrade to retire and did not mince his words in criticizing him for being hypocritical and

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inconsistent. This speaks volume of what defined Too’s politics. Often upheld as the only principled frontbencher the MCA has ever had, Too was well respected in the Chinese education movement and by the Chinese community at large. As assistant education minister, he truly helped the Chinese schools and won the trust and support of Lim Lian Geok, the then revered chairman of United Chinese School Teachers’ Association of Malaysia (UCSTAM). He strongly condemned the Rahman Talib Report 1960 and the subsequent Education Act 1961. Section 21(2) of the act allowed the minister to convert Chinese- and Tamilmedia national-type schools to Malay-medium national schools when he sees fit. In the Telok Anson by-election in May 1961, Too’s former MCA colleagues accused him of hypocrisy as he had supported the Razak Report 1956, tabled by Talib’s predecessor and later second Prime Minister Abdul Razak. His detractors argued that the Razak Report too had the ultimate objective of “bringing together the children of all races under a national educational system in which the national language is the main medium of instruction”. Lim Lian Geok came to his defence, explaining the difference between the two reports, and pointing out the Razak Report did affirm the maintenance of, and assistance to, the linguistic and cultural developments of non-Malays. Lim Lian Geok, a naturalized citizen born in China, had his citizenship revoked in August 1961 for maliciously distorting the government’s education policy. Too who believed Lim’s defence of him in the by-election was what triggered the revocation of Lim’s citizenship testified for Lim’s loyalty to the country in the latter’s suit against the government’s action, but Lim eventually lost. In 2004,

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Too was conferred posthumously the Lim Lian Geok Spirit Award by the LLG Cultural ), a body Development Centre ( established in commemoration of Lim. Following in his father’s footsteps, Too was active as a Hainanese community leader. From 1946 to 1974, he chaired the Persatuan Keng Chew Perak (now Persatuan Hainan Perak), which his father had helped found in 1911. He went on to lead the Federation of Hainan Association Malaysia from 1957 to 1963, and from 1969 to 1973. Under his leadership, the federation offered scholarships to support Hainanese students pursuing university education, the first of its kind for the dialect and clan associations in Malaysia. He also chaired the Perak Coffee Shop Keepers Association from 1946 to 1974. Too was married to Foo Yoke Ying (1912–2007), and they had three sons and a daughter. He took Loh Wai Lan (born in 1920) as his second wife in 1941 (without divorcing Foo) and with her he had a daughter. He died on 26 May 2002. Wong Chin Huat R E F E R E N C E S Chin Peng. My Side of History. Singapore: Media Masters, 2003. Heng, Pek Koon. Chinese Politics in Malaysia: A History of the Malaysian Chinese Association. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1988. Lee, Kam Hing and Tan Chee-Beng. The Chinese in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 2000. Means, Gordon P. Malaysian Politics. 2nd Edition. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1976. Puteh, Alis. Language and Nation Building: A Study of the Language Medium Policy in Malaysia. Petaling Jaya: Strategic Information and Research Development Centre (SIRD), 2006. 《 2009。

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Traàn Chí Kiên (Ba Söôõi, , Chen Zhijian, 1951– ) Political leader,Vietnam

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raàn Chí Kiên was chairman of the People’s Committee of the then district ) in the southof Hà Tiên ( ) of western Kiên Giang province ( Vietnam, from 1988 to 1994. His career has spanned approximately four decades: he first worked for the revolution, the military, and finally, for the administration and development of Hà Tiên. While working in the People’s Committee of Hà Tiên district, he contributed to the infrastructural development of Hà Tiên. Administratively, Hà Tiên became a town in 1998. It has approximately 40, 000 inhabitants living on its land area of 88.51 square kilometres. Its western side borders Cambodia and a border crossing connects it to Kampot in Cambodia. Kiên used to be widely called by his nickname, Ba Suïi, in his community. Ba is the central and southern Vietnamese address for “father”, or the affectionate and deferential term for an elderly man; and suïi means “to be limping in the legs”. However, Kiên replaced the second syllable in his nickname suïi with söôõi, a word which is adopted merely for its phonetic harmony. Ba Söôõi’s great-grandfather of Chaozhou origins first migrated to Cambodia from China and married a Khmer woman. Ba Söôõi’s grandfather had two wives: the first was a Vietnamese born in Hà Tiên, and the second, a Khmer, born on the Cambodia-Vietnamese border. Ba Söôõi’s father was born in Loäc Sôn in the Cambodia-Vietnamese border region. His mother is an offspring of a Sino (Chaozhou)Khmer and Vietnamese mixed marriage. She

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was born in Thaïch Ðoäng hamlet (AÉp Thaïch Ðoäng), Xã Myõ Ðöùc, located in the rural town of Hà Tiên, where she later gave birth to Ba Söôõi. Myõ Ðöùc village lies three kilometers from the centre of Hà Tiên, on the route leading to the south-western Cambodian-Vietnamese border. Ba Söôõi grew up in a multilingual environment which was favourable for him to acquire the Chinese Chaozhou (Teochew) dialect,Vietnamese, and Khmer. He is still fluent in Teochew despite being a fourth-generation descendant. His wife, Tröông Thò Nöõ ( ), also of Chaozhou ancestral origins, is a proficient Chaozhou-speaker like him. She was born in Loäc Sôn, the same birthplace of Ba Söôõi’s father, in Cambodia at the time. Ba Söôõi began his primary education at the Chinese school, Tröôøng Höõu Ðöùc ( ), which existed then in Hà Tiên.The school was operated by the Chaozhou (Teochew) bang, which was and still is the dominant Hoa dialect-group congregation in Hà Tiên. After his first year of school, he went to Cambodia with his aunt, where he studied for two more years at a Chinese school before continuing his education at a Cambodian school. At the age of fifteen, he started working as a waiter, but in 1970, fled Cambodia during the coup led by General Lon Nol against the then head of state, Prince Norodom Sihanouk. One of the causes of the coup was Sihanouk’s tolerance of the activities of northern Vietnamese within Cambodia’s borders, which the general opposed. It then became risky for people of Vietnamese descent — of whom Ba Söôõi is one — to stay on; he then decided to flee to Vietnam. When Ba Söôõi returned to settle down in a hamlet in Kiên Löông, he was surrounded by revolutionaries since the Vietnamese communists (Vieät Coäng) were particularly strong in infiltrating the rural areas of

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Vietnam. He joined them and successfully recruited young villagers, many of whom ended up joining the provincial military. He recalled begging for rice and not having a salary. Such circumstances explain why his first son was born after peace finally arrived in 1977, after the unification of his country when he earned the means to raise a family. Ba Söôõi first entered the provincial army in 1970 and stayed there till 1979. In 1971, while fighting the Americans, his right foot stepped on a mine in a mountain called Núi Tà Pang in Muõi Nai district. The following year, he failed to escape a bomb that was thrown in the direction of the cave where he had been hiding for three days. That accident injured his left leg. All in all, he spent five years in the war, trying to drive out the Americans. In 1982 he began working at a trading cooperative which dealt in material supplies called Công ty Vaät tö Nhà nöôùc. One year later, he was with the General Supplies Company of Hà Tiên, Công ty Vaät tö Toång hôïp, also a state company. He was promoted to chief of the Chamber of Commerce of Hà Tiên in 1984, and the following year, had another promotion to deputy-chairman of the People’s Committee of Hà Tiên — a post which he assumed until 1988. From 1988 to 1994, he served as chairman of the People’s Committee of the district of Hà Tiên. During his incumbency, he proposed and saw to completion the extension works of the electricity transmission line that runs from Ba Hòn hamlet in Bình An ward, Kiên Löông district, to Hà Tiên. He also proposed similar extension works for land accessibility that would connect Hà Tiên to its outer areas. Ba Söôõi’s role gave him the chance to work with the current prime minister of Vietnam, Nguyeãn Taán Duõng, who from late 1981 became involved in the political activities of the Vietnam Communist Party. Nguyeãn Taán Duõng was secretary of the District Party

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Committee of Hà Tiên from 1985–88. He held a pragmatic vision to develop Hà Tiên in trade and commerce as a way to increase its municipal revenue when investment interest there was absent. Ba Söôõi retired from the People’s Committee in August 2010 owing to his kidney problem. He currently plays an informal advisory role and joins the monthly meetings of veteran soldiers in Hà Tiên, as well as the meetings of the Society for the Elderly. He further serves at the party branch of the settlement area (Chi Boä AÉp), where he now resides, and participates in the economic, social, and security activities of the organization. Ba Söôõi has two sons and two daughters, all of whom are professionals, working variouly in the tax department, investment bank, hospital, and water supply department of Hà Tiên. He also has two paternal grandchildren and one maternal grandchild. Grace Chew Chye Lay R E F E R E N C E Private interview with Traàn Chí Kiên, in October 2010, in Hà Tiên, Vietnam.

Traàn Ðông Sanh ( , Chen Dongsheng, 1920– ) Community leader,Vietnam

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raàn Ðông Sanh has, over the years, managed and organized charity programmes, temple rituals and cultural activities, renovation projects, and miscellaneous matters of the Guangzhao Native-Place ) in the city of Can Association ( ) in southern Vietnam. Tho (Caàn Thô Can Tho is located on the southern bank of the Haäu River, the largest distributary of the

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Mekong River.As chief of the association, Sanh was further responsible for the maintenance and management of the burial ground of the association. His role as community leader expanded after the late 1980s when Chinese shrines and native-place associations were reopened after nearly a decade of closure. Like all native-place associations in Vietnam, the Guangzhao Native-Place Association of Can Tho strives to achieve financial independence as a religious and cultural entity. It also plays key roles in continuing and preserving the learning of Mandarin, and ensuring harmonious relations among its members. Although the association is Cantonese in origin, the Hoa (ethnic Chinese) of other such ancestral origins as Fujian (Hokkien), Teochew, and Hakka, and ethnic Vietnamese, also worship at the shrine ) — the goddess of heaven of Tianhou ( — which is the principal deity enshrined at the association. In 1988, the Guangzhao Native-Place Association of Can Tho was given official recognition as a historical vestige of Vietnam. Its shrine was reopened and worshippers began to trickle in to pray to Tianhou and Guandi, the secondary deity. In 1992, the nativeplace association was revived and the clan committee leaders were elected to manage traditional rituals and festive celebrations Yulan such as the ritual of Yulan ( Jie) — organized in the seventh month of the lunar calendar, “the festival of the ninth lunar month” simply called the Double-Nine Chongjiu), and the birthday of Festival ( Tianhou Dan) — on the Tianhou ( twenty-third day of the third lunar month. When the area behind the association was nationalized after the country’s unification in 1975, incense offerings from worshippers were saved over the years to purchase the space from the municipal government. In 2001, this

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was achieved and the association repossessed the area. It was Sanh’s idea that the association became self-supporting and so suggested that the newly acquired space behind the shrine of the association be productively used to churn in revenue to support the operations of the association. The idea of a childcare centre ) was conceived as a result. In ( 2003, the childcare facility which had enrolled 100 ethnic Vietnamese and ethnic Chinese children was inaugurated, bringing in sufficient revenue for the association, and reducing its reliance on fluctuating incense offerings. Sanh is currently one of thirteen administrative advisers who hold a seat in the thirteenth-term Committee of the Association for the Sponsorship of Chinese-Language ), Education of Can Tho ( commonly known as the “Chinese Language Centre”. Such associations, which are managed by their individual committees, are found in cities and towns in the central and southern regions of Vietnam where ethnic Chinese reside. The committee decides on teaching schedules, fees, and matters relating to Chinese language classes. In the case of Can Tho City, the Chinese-language classes have, since November 2010, been incorporated into the school curriculum of Viet-Hoa Private School (see entry on Ngô Quoác Tuaán). Sanh has been one of the key decision makers for the affairs of Guangzhao Association for a considerable period. For example, he supports the decision to elevate the building of the association by slightly over one metre from the current ground level. The building, which houses the shrine of Tianhou and Guandi, currently faces the Mekong River in the Ninh Kieàu district of Can Tho and is vulnerable to floods caused by the high tides of the Mekong River during the monsoons. At the point of writing, elevation works of the

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shrine are already in progress.The construction work required meticulous planning and its hefty cost of 20 billion dong has to be funded by donors in the community of Can Tho and overseas. The flow of ritual offerings stopped for a period of time as the entire building had to be closed for the works. Sanh was born in 1920 in Tianmen ) of Hubei Province, district ( China. He came to Can Tho at the age of three, after what he recalled as a long journey which required several transits via Hankou, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. Being a native of Hubei, he was a “minority” among the Chinese in Can Tho who mostly emigrated from Guangdong province in the southern region of China. A school which taught his vernacular did not exist so applying to a private school established by the Cantonese clan was his only avenue to get a formal education. His parents therefore sent him ), one of the to Tröôøng Moä Hieàn ( schools operated by the Cantonese clan. The medium of instruction at the school was also Cantonese, thus, it was at school that Sanh acquired fluency in Cantonese — a skill which he has managed to preserve until now. He has witnessed the economic, political, and social changes in Can Tho since he has lived there for the most part of his life, returning to China only once in 1947–48 for a year. His paternal uncle, his father’s elder brother, was the first in his family to migrate to Can Tho. This uncle was a dentist and Sanh became his apprentice and later practised dentistry for sixty years at his family’s private dental clinic. The ), was located at the clinic, Ðöùc Sinh ( corner of the street, only two houses away from the Guangzhao Association. It was one of the few dental clinics existing at the time in Can ), used Tho. His father, Traàn Bình An ( to serve at the Guangzhao Association while

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also operating a shop selling daily provisions from a space adjacent to the clinic. Sanh was elected for six consecutive terms from 1992 to 2009 as leader of the Guangzhao Native-Place Association. It was only in December 2009, after he relinquished his post on retirement, that the association re-elected a new chief, Quan Haèng Cao ( ), with ancestral origins in Nan Hai district ) of Guangdong province.The association ( has served as an informal meeting venue for the older generation of Hoa, regardless of their ancestral dialect groups. It further functions as a community place of worship which cuts across ethnic boundaries. Less significantly, it is also a community childcare centre. Good community relations have been forged by Sanh, as well as the leaders of the association — a role typically expected of leaders of ethnic communities in Vietnam. Sanh has a son who lives in Vietnam, and a daughter who has migrated to Australia with her ethnicVietnamese (kinh) husband. His wife, who has passed away, used to live in Australia with their daughter. He has since remarried a Vietnamese woman. Grace Chew Chye Lay R E F E R E N C E Private interview with Traàn Ðông Sanh, October 2010, in Can Tho City, Vietnam.

Trieäu Quoác Höng ( , Zhao Guoxing, 1958– ) Business and community leader,Vietnam

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rieäu Quoác Höng has been called the entrepreneur with the most number of hotels in Hoi’an by the media. He owns

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four hotels and the construction of his fifth hotel in Hoi’an will begin in 2011. By offering a variety of choices in modern accommodation to tourists visiting the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) landmark, he has made a mark in the hospitality and tourism sector of Vietnam. Undoubtedly he has contributed to supporting employment and the economic sustainability of Hoi’an through his investments. His total business provides stable jobs to more than 170 employees, of whom more than fifty are university graduates. His manager for guest relations is a Dutch who married a local woman in Hoi’an. Besides being an adventurous investor, Höng gives back to society by making annual monetary contributions for the construction of homes for the homeless elderly of Hoi’an. Such charity homes are called caên nhà tình nghóa (roughly corresponding to “homes of friendship”). Höng also sits on the board of directors of his former school in ), which Hoi’an, TruôΩng Leã Nghóa ( currently functions as the Chinese Language Tuition Centre. Trieäu Quoác Höng was born in 1958 in Phöôïng Minh Höông, now Phöôïng Minh An, of Hoi’an. His grandfather, Trieäu Ðöùc Tö ), had migrated to Hoi’an from ( ), Guangdong province, China. Swatow ( He is a fourth-generation ethnic Chinese, the eldest son of a Teochew retailer in Chinese ) herbal medicine, Trieäu Minh Hòa ( ), and his Cantonese wife, Lý Theá Phi ( both born in Hoi’an in 1834. The couple used ), the to manage Hòa Sanh ÐuôΩng ( name of the Chinese medical herbal shop. The business has been passed down to Höng’s five siblings who reside in Hoi’an. He has another two younger brothers now living in Danang, the city just next to Hoi’an, and in Denver, in the United States. Being the eldest son, Höng

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initially thought that he would take over his father’s business. However an opportunity which emerged following the turnaround of the economy of Hoi’an in the early 1990s changed his career path. In the seventeenth and eighteenth century, vessels plying between Japan, China and the Indian and European continents used to stop at Hoi’an, then a flourishing port.The port lost its competitive edge in berthing large steamships in the nineteenth century, but by then, it had already become a unique repository of local and foreign influences brought by traders. One of the legacies of trade with China are the classical Chinese houses of Chinese business families. In 1992, Höng bought one such ancientstyled houses which lined the street currently named Traàn Phú from a Chinese family who left Hoi’an. He made the purchase decision after noticing a trickle of foreign tourists visiting Hoi’an and foresaw tourism potential in the sleepy town. Renovation works on the house were carried out and by December 1994, it was a motel exuding an ancient Chinese atmosphere and offering twelve rooms, called ). The motel serves Vónh Höng 1 ( tourists who want to experience reposing in a Chinese-styled home, replete with an old well in its open rectangular court yard. When Hoi’an was officially inscribed as an UNESCO heritage site in 1999, Höng opened his second hotel on 23 November 1999. The two-star hotel occupies 1,000 square metres and has thirtyone rooms. Another two-star hotel with twenty-four rooms, Vónh Höng 3, opened in December 1999. By 2003, when Hoi’an already had approximately fifty hotels catering to the different needs of tourists, he inaugurated his first resort hotel,Vónh Höng Riverside Resort, in An Hoäi (Hoi’an). The hotel took fifteen

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months to complete, including substantial initial clearance of wild coniferous trees and taro proliferating on the site. The modern resort hotel is believed to have facilitated the construction of tarred streets and improved infrastructure in its vicinity in 2006. The customers of the Vónh Höng’s hotels come mainly from Australia and France, followed by Taiwan and Japan. Höng’s wife, Nguyeãn Thò Myõ Loäc, is a year younger than him. He has designed a management succession plan relatively early in his life and given his hotel,Vónh Höng 3, to his daughter,Trieäu Hoàng Vy, currently thirty-two years old. She runs the hotel with her husband, Phaïm Vuõ Duõng, an ethnic Vietnamese, under their tourist services enterprise, Rose Travel. Höng intends to present his son, Trieäu Taêng Quang, with his fifth hotel at Ngoïc Thành, Caåm Phô, which will be built on a piece of leased land measuring 5,000 square metres. The hotel will be three-star, offering sixty rooms. Trieäu Taêng Quang, has taken courses in hospitality and tourism in Australia, Switzerland, and Singapore. He currently manages his own firm, Phú Khang, which organizes wedding banquets. Höng’s youngest daughter, Trieäu Hoàng Ngân, is fifteen years of age and is currently studying in a secondary school in Melbourne, where her mother’s sister lives. Ngân learns English and Japanese. Unlike Höng, his wife and children do not speak Mandarin. Being a former student of ) in the old days, Truôøng Leã Nghóa ( he supports the school in his role as its deputy director. He also contributes to the finances of the Chaozhou Native-Place Association in Hoi’an, where he is currently vice-headman. Höng enjoys innovating his hotel services. He has renovated his first hotel,Vónh Höng 1, by installing traditional yet modern amenities in the rooms and toilets. For example, he has

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added a traditional wooden bath tub with marble inlay and has adopted the spa-concept in beautifying the atmospheric Vónh Höng 1. Höng has also added the “local market” bazaar as a programme for his guests at his Riverside Resort so they can experience the flavours of traditional Vietnamese food which is currently only available in local markets in Hoi’an. Höng does not seem to run out of ideas, but the principles which remain with him all these years in business are delivering services with trustworthiness of excellent quality, and with courtesy, at a competitive price. These principles have seen his business morph together with Hoi’an, from a small unknown place into a global tourist destination. He has no plans to cast his dreams overseas in business. He wants to see Hoi’an prosper further, and hopes that his children will remain in Hoi’an and grow their businesses there. Grace Chew Chye Lay R E F E R E N C E S Hai Hoàng. “Nguôøi nhieàu khách saïn nhaát Hoäi An”. Nguôøi dô thò. Soá 78. 10-8-2010. (In Vietnamese) [“The man with the most hotels in Hoi’an”. Urbanites, no. 78. Ho Chi Minh City: Công ty TNHH Truyeàn Thông Ðoàn Thò (10 August 2010), pp. 40–41]. Private interview with Trieäu Quoác Höng in October 2010, Hoi’an.

Trònh Thuûy Diêu ( , Zheng Shuimiao, 1919–77) Entrepreneur, community leader, philanthropist, Vietnam

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rònh Thuûy Diêu was a prominent businessman, industrialist, community leader, as well as philanthropist in South Vietnam. He was well known in Saigon

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(present-day Ho Chi Minh City) for his business achievements in steel production, and trade in hardware accessories, as well as his generosity in social contributions. While he worked diligently and enjoyed the fruit of his labour under the Government of South Vietnam, he met his fate after the fall of Saigon in 1975. Diêu originally came from Jinmen county of Fujian province, China, where his family had lived for generations in Dadeng town. He was born in 1919 to a family who ran a grocery shop. They enjoyed a prosperous business and also a sound reputation for their kindness to others in their neighbourhood. Diêu was the third of five brothers in terms of age. His father and eldest and youngest brothers died while he was still young, leaving behind only his mother, his second brother, Trònh Thuûy Tuyeàn ), and his fourth brother, Trònh Côn ( ). Dieäu ( He went to Saigon on his own at the age of eighteen in 1937, following the trend at the time when young men were encouraged to try their luck in Nanyang, the old common term — which literally means “the southern seas” — for Southeast Asia.When he reached Saigon, he found a job helping out in a countryman’s shop. While working there, he seized the opportunity to learn how to manage a small business. After working for some time there, he started his own business. His hometown in Dadeng was devastated soon after his arrival because of the political turmoil which eventually led to the Japanese occupation of China. His family then decided to flee Dadeng later in 1937 and migrated to Vietnam. When his two brothers arrived, he collaborated with them to start two new ) enterprises named “Haèng Thành” ( ) respectively. and “Hieäp Thành” ( Their core business was trading in hardware and

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car accessories, which successfully expanded to other parts of Vietnam and Cambodia. A misfortune struck in 1945 when his second elder brother, Trònh Thuûy Tuyeàn, was robbed and then murdered on a trip to collect business debt in the central region of Vietnam. His sudden death left Diêu with no choice, but to take over his managerial role quickly to lead and then develop the enterprise. He gradually managed to expand the company into a leading hardware company in Saigon and even became one of the rising stars in Saigon’s Chinese community. Through diligence, he built a spectacular business and reputation. After learning how to operate and manage a plant in 1968, Diêu established a steel melting plant named Vieät Thành Steelworks ( ) to collect the heaps of scrap metal from the battlefields scattered around the southern region of Vietnam after the outbreak of the Vietnam War in 1959. The scrap metal collected was recycled to produce steel for construction sites. This steel then replaced imported steel, and helped to preserve foreign exchange for the Government of the Republic of Vietnam. However Diêu had foreseen that scrap metal collected from battle grounds would eventually run out; therefore, to ensure a continuous supply, he decided to establish another steel production plant, Hoàn Thành ). He hired the best Steelworks ( technicians he could find and started importing iron ore from Malaysia for refining. He further planned simultaneous explorations of iron ore in the laterite soil zone of the central part of Vietnam and discovered a large deposit of high-quality iron ore and other rare metals, including a reserve of mica. What he set out to accomplish first was to refine the rare metals and then export them to the United

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States and Japan. Secondly, he developed his steelmaking equipment and began to mine the mica. When Diêu started making his mark as a successful businessman in Saigon, he supported the Saigon Chinese community by pouring his wealth into education and other philanthropic works. His generous contributions to significant social projects were highly recognized by his community who regarded him as one of its key leaders. He managed his high-profile roles well in serving as director of Thành Chí Secondary ), Phöôïng Sôn Temple ( School ( ), Biên Hòa Cemetery ( ), the Fujian Congregation of Saigon ( ), and the Central Association of ). He Zheng (Trònh) Lineage ( was one of the founders of the Phúc Thieän ), and thus also held its Hospital ( chairman post. The fighting following the beginning of the Vietnam War climaxed during the Teát Offensive of 1968. When Saigon was attacked, refugees swarmed the hospitals in Saigon. The Phúc Thieän Hospital took in as many as 5,000 to 6,000 refugees, and food supply became the most important issue. Amidst the chaos, Diêu, then deputy chairman, ignored the risk of being hit by enemy gunfire and bombing and rushed to the hospital on learning that the food supply was almost running out. Together ), with then chairman Thái Chöông ( Diêu appealed to rice traders to continue their supply of rice to the hospital as before, and managed to receive their positive cooperation. His reputation rose after his successful handling of the crisis, and in the hospital board election following the end of this critical period, he was elected its chairman. Around the time of the Vietnam War, Diêu had already succeeded as a pioneer entrepreneur dealing with hardware and

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steelmaking. However, after the peace treaty was signed in 1973 to create a peaceful resolution for the conflict, the situation in South Vietnam began to deteriorate. As Diêu and his brother were prominent businessmen and the de facto leaders of the Saigon Chinese community, they risked being persecuted by the communists who overran Saigon in April 1975 and rolled out their socialist transformation policies that adversely affected ethnic Chinese businessmen. The newly united Vietnam Government accused Diêu and his younger brother of being “reactionary capitalists who exploited the labour”, then took over their steel melting plants and hardware enterprises and nationalized them. Not only did this immediately end the brothers’ livelihood, but they were also put under harsh interrogation during which they were alleged by the authorities to have hidden their other properties. Diêu and his brother began to plan an escape on 4 August 1975, but they eventually failed. They were arrested and sent to the re-education camp to be “reformed”. There, however, they were tortured. Due to malnutrition, Diêu’s health suffered. After being detained for almost a year, Diêu was given a conditional release through the help of his family and friends, but the release seemed too late. He died on 4 October 1977 from poor health at the age of fifty-eight. Davin Chua Chin Pei R E F E R E N C E S 〈

（

）〉 《 2000， 954–55。

〈 》。 ： 274–77。

〉，

》。

， ：

， 《 ，1987，

〉， 。 (accessed 21 June 2011).

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Tröông Hán Minh ( , Zhang Hanming, 1951– ) Artist,Vietnam

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röông Hán Minh is one of the best known Hoa artists in Chinese painting in the southern region of Vietnam ) style of using the Lingnan (Lónh Nam painting — a style which originated in the Guangdong area and gained national visibility in the early twentieth century. The influence of Löông Thieáu Hàng (Liang Shaohang ), the artist’s mentor, as well as those of the Lónh Nam (Lingnan) School, is very deep and significant in the learning journey of Minh. However, through an incorporation of styles from western landscape painting into traditional Chinese watercolour painting later in his career, he created a new style within the Lónh Nam School.The well-travelled and wellexhibited artist is active in the international art scene on Chinese watercolour painting and calligraphy. His works are often a symphony of the east and the west. Minh was born on 11 December 1951 in Chôï Lôùn, Saigon, which is now Ho Chi Minh City. His family initially lived in the region of Vöôøn Caûi, literally meaning “cabbage garden”, which is a rural area where the land was repossessed by the state and turned into the Dam Sen Cultural Park (Công viên Vaên hóa Ðaàm Sen), an amusement park in District 11. The father of Minh was Tröông Minh Bao, who ) in came from Chaozhou (Trieàu Châu Guangdong province, China. Tröông’s mother, Vöông Tú Liên, also came from Chaozhou. Both migrated to Vietnam in 1945. The family depended on agriculture and husbandry for a living. Like in many ethnic Hoa (ethnic Chinese) families, Minh was taught

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how to do petty trading early in his life. While the mainstay of the family was in agriculture, engaging in petty trading supplemented the family’s finances. Furthermore Minh was the only child just as his father was. As such, the burden of keeping the family’s finances going fell squarely on his shoulders. From young, Minh liked to draw and paint and appeared to have the talent for painting, contrary to qualities that his father had expected him to possess. Whenever Minh had free time, he would find pens or whatever he could use as a drawing instrument to draw. The subjects of his drawing were objects around the home and in the fields. He drew in secret and his passion has never died from the time he was a child. He attended Lao Ðoäng Primary School and often won prizes in art competitions organized at school. Despite his talent, his parents strongly objected to his spending effort and time in painting. To them, he had first to fulfil his academic duties, in particular, learning arithmetic, which they considered essential in business. At seventeen, Minh stepped boldly into the art arena by gaining admission into the Oriental Fine Arts School of Chôï Lôùn, but he never neglected his family responsibilities. He once described his situation as “holding a pen in one hand, and plants in another”. Simultaneous to learning formal art, he took up a job weaving handicrafts. Before 1975 the Oriental Fine Arts School of Chôï Lôùn was a brewing pot of Chinese traditional arts and the school cultivated many talents in that field. In Ho Chi Minh City’s world of art, famous names such as Lý Tùng Niên, Löông Trung Ðaïo, and Lý Trung Löông, were all graduates of the Oriental Fine Arts School. After he joined this school, Minh went under the tutelage of Löông Thieáu Hàng. In Vietnam there remain only two other artists

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who are peers of Minh and who also studied under Löông Thieáu Hàng; the others have all migrated overseas. After four years at the Oriental Fine Arts School, an opportunity came for Minh to participate in an art exhibition in Malaysia where he received a letter of commendation for the exhibition. Minh held his first solo exhibition in 1973 at the Nghóa An Clan Association ), Chôï Lôùn. (Hoäi Quán Nghóa An After graduating from school, he continued to spend time at the Vietnamese-American Association, where he learned about oil paintings and calligraphy, and also did research on light and colours in portraits. Thus, while the influences of the Lónh Nam School and of his teacher were apparent in his works, his artistic interests traverse traditional boundaries by incorporating western art techniques. He rapidly matured in his art to become his own teacher, but with the mantra from his mentor edged in his mind. His mentor had told him: “You’ll survive if you learn from me, but you’ll vanish if you follow me.” At nineteen, he was married according to the wishes of his parents and later had eight children — seven girls and one boy. Ironically, his big family helped him and his wife to overcome the economic difficulties that most encountered after North and South Vietnam unified in 1975. He then involved his family in the production of nylon bags, among other things. Thanks to his ability to conceive and draw, he was able to design machines for the production of the bags. Between 1979 and 1982, his family business located in District 11 was bustling with orders. Thus while other artists met with extreme economic difficulties, he was able to continue painting. As the economy and his business gradually improved, he left the business to his family, and moved the production facility out of their home in Minh Phuïng Road to Tân Taïo

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Industrial Zone. Art finally found its place in the family home. Minh’s works have won wide popularity owing to their themes which reflect the daily lives of ordinary people. He once said: “Our work must win the hearts of the masses; if we are too abstract, the ordinary people will not appreciate that.” The subjects of his painting are elements of traditional paintings such as chamomile, and cherry blossoms and orchids, but they are not limited by traditional painting techniques. His refusal to follow traditional techniques led him to innovate in his use of colours, and his style of presentation has also become reminiscent of the Impressionist School of the West. He enjoys the portrayal of real scenes and sets them in an optimistic mood that is usually identified with the aspirations of Easterners. Watercolour painting, which requires the interdependence of the different elements of brush, paint, colours, and shapes, has attained a sense of spirituality under his steady strokes. From the 1980s, western arts such as the traditional oil painting of Vietnam, became the focus of his research. In 1989 he held a solo exhibition at the Association for the Arts of Ho Chi Minh City. It was an earth-shaking event in the municipal arts scene owing to the spectacular innovations of techniques and the attractive thematic blend of East and West that spoke of tradition and contemporariness. Since then, he has held at least two exhibitions every year with works that feature the scenery of the various regions of Vietnam, including a calligraphic piece in 2010, based on the historical edict to move the capital of King Lý Thái Toà from Hoa Lö to Thaêng Long (the present Hanoi) during the Lý dynasty. This work commemorated the 1,000th anniversary of the founding of Hanoi. From the 1990s, he was able to make a living purely from his art. For the last few

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decades, he has been teaching in many schools, both domestically and overseas, besides working on his creations. He has been a visiting instructor in Australia, China, France, and the United States, in addition to visiting almost all the schools of fine arts in Vietnam, sometimes working as an examiner. In 1990 he opened his atelier called Tröông Hán Minh Arts Garden ), (Tröông Hán Minh Ngheä Uyeån located at 422 Minh Phung Street, District 11, Ho Chi Minh City. He hopes to pass on his skills and his understanding of watercolour painting at his atelier. Up to now, he has participated in fifty exhibitions, of which nineteen solo exhibitions were held in Vietnam and in such countries as Australia, China, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States. His name, his work, and his career have travelled with him. Lê Haûi Ðaêng R E F E R E N C E S Bích Ngoïc. “Hoïa só Tröông Hán Minh- 60 naêm moät ñôøi tranh Thuûy Maëc”. Theå Thao & Vaên Hóa website, 9 January 2011. (accessed June 2011). Tröông Hán Minh Gallery (accessed June 2011).

Tsai Ming-liang ( , Cai Mingliang, 1957– ) Playwright, television and film screenwriter, director, film producer, Malaysia

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eralded as one of the most important directors in the contemporary world films, Tsai Ming-liang has attained worldwide notoriety and won numerous

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festival awards, including Golden Lion at the 1994 Venice Film Festival. Although he has achieved a high reputation in Taiwan since the 1990s, he often claims he is still Malaysian despite belonging to neither Taiwan nor Malaysia. Born in 1957 in Kuching, Tsai was the third child in his family. At the age of three, he was fostered by his maternal grandparents who took turns to bring him to the cinema every day. In 1972, Tsai studied in Kuching Chung Hua Middle School and started to contribute his literary works to newspapers. In addition, he established a modern drama troupe in 1974 and joined the Drama and Cinema Department of the Chinese Cultural University at Taiwan in 1978. In 1982, he directed his first modern play, Instant Bean Sauce Noodles as his graduation work. He continued to direct excellent modern plays with A Sealed Door in the Dark (1983) and A Wardrobe in the Room (1984). In these works, Tsai displayed his humourous skills in showcasing the themes of modern society; loneliness and craziness in urban life. In 1984, he was introduced by director Shau-Di Wang ( ) to write the scenarios for Windmill and Train and Little Fugitive, after that, he finished the scenario for Run Away (1984) with Hsiau ), Spring Daddy and Kung Fu Kids III Yeh ( ), the first part (1985) with Julian Yu ( of Yellow Story (1987). Besides, he also directed children’s play Pinocchio. Afterwards Tsai was invited by producer ) to finish the scenario for Tang Wei ( the twenty-five-part television serial Endless Love within two years and he then directed his famous telefilm All Corners of the World in 1989. In this period, he also directed a part of the television serial, The Happy Weaver. In 1990, Tsai planned the thirteen-telefilm series The Sky of Philistine, which he wrote and directed. Among the thirteen-telefilms are: My Name is

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Mary, Li Hsiang’s Love Line, Ah-Hsiung’s First Love, and Give Me a Home. Tsai won the “Best Director of Golden Melody” awards in 1991 for his Li Hsiang’s Love Line, and Give Me a Home in 1992. In 1991, While Tsai was directing the telefilm Youngsters, he met his on-screen alter ego Kang-sheng Lee (Hsiao-kang) at a video game arcade. After that, he never directed a feature film that did not feature Lee. In 1992, ) from Taiwan Central Hsu Li-Kong ( Motion Picture Corporation invited him to make films, and Tsai, using Lee’s teenage experience, successfully directed Rebels of the Neon God in 1992. His good direction, which relied on long takes with silent scenes of the protagonist in contemplation, won him the Bronze Sakura Award at theTokyo International Film Festival. Subsequently,Tsai started to train and teach actors in Central Motion Picture Corporation and directed the play, Apartment Romance. From the experience,Tsai directed his outstanding second film Vive L’Amour, and was awarded the Golden Lion and Fipresci Award at the 1994 Venice Film Festival, Best Director at the Nantes Film Festival, and Best Director and Best Film in the Golden Horse Awards. Tsai often annotates his style with static long takes, minimizing the characters, dialogue, and acted-out scenes. In 1995, Tsai was a member of the jury at the Berlin International Film Festival and was involved in directing a documentary about Gay AIDS issue titled, My New Friend. He finished The River regarding a gay father searching for lovers in a darkened bathhouse, which inadvertently made overtures to his son, in 1997, and was honoured with the Silver Berlin Bear, Special Jury Prize, at the Berlin International Film Festival, and the Silver Hugo prize at the Chicago Film Festival. In 1998, with funding from Taiwan and France,

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he directed a Tsai-style musical film, The Hole in a 95-minute film version and a 60-minute televison version for France, using several 1930s Mandarin pop songs. The Hole was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Furthermore, Tsai directed the play, Xiaokang and Desk and the choreographic adaptation of Betolt Brecht’s The Good Women of Sezuan in Hong Kong. In November 1998, he withdrew from the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival and went back to Malaysia to write the screenplays: The Wayward Cloud and I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone. In August 1999, Tsai established the Zen Theatrical Troupe in Kuching and acted as its art director. As a result,the troupe contributed plays such as That Night, The Story of Kuching, Who Has to Borrow The Palm-leaf Fan, Concern AIDS, and Red Egg Boy in Kuching. In 2000,Tsai set up the Homegreen Film Company in Taipei. While Tsai was directing What Time Is It There? in 2001, he presented fragments of Quatre cents coups, Les (1959), in the film and invited the actor, Jean-Pierre Léaud, to make a cameo appearance in the film. He became the in school artist in one of France’s universities and directed the children’s programme of Taiwan Public Television, The Disappearance of Moon. Later, Tsai was invited to the Korean Film Festival to direct the DVD short film, A Conversation with God. In 2002, Tsai finished his outstanding short film, The Skywalk Is Gone. Goodbye, Dragon Inn is Tsai’s featurelength ode to cinema. It was selected to be the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival’s opening film in 2003. In addition, Tsai also directed the short film, Moonlight on the River. A film reviewer from the U.K. newspaper, The Guardian, voted Tsai the “Champion of Chinese Directors” and ranked him 18th among of the 40 Best Directors in the World”. In

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2004, Tsai finished The Wayward Cloud, which is a bizarre mix of alienation, pornography, and campy musical numbers.The film was given the Alfred Bauer Award and the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Achievement at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival. He was also honoured with “le Commandeur dans l’Ordre” of France. Tsai also directed a segment of the documentary Aquarium of Welcome to São Paulo, and the short film, My Stinking Kid with Kangsheng Lee. The 42nd Gijón International Film Festival organized his Retrospective in Spain and he was invited to be a member of the jury of the International Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland. Tsai returned to his native country in 2006 to shoot I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone.The film is a beautifully reflective portrait of multicultural relationships and contemporary times. It was also his entry in the wonderful New Crowned Hope series of films, commissioned around the world in honour of Mozart’s 250th anniversary. However, The Malaysian Censorship Board in March 2007 decided to ban I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone, based on eighteen counts of incidents in the film deemed to depict the country “in a bad light” for cultural, ethical, and racial reasons. Later though, they allowed his film to be officially screened for the first time in Malaysia after he agreed to censor parts of the film. After the Munich Film Muzium held a Tsai Ming-Liang Retrospective and screened twelve of his films in 2006, London also held a Tsai’s Retrospective at the Taiwan Film Festival 2007. In his short film, It’s a Dream to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival, with thirty-three well known international directors in 2007, he invited his mother to eat some durian in a theatre in Kuala Lumpur for a wordless moment of contact between strangers. In 2009,

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Tsai directed part of the New Crowned Hope project titled, Salome, which was shot inside the Louvre in Paris. Besides that, the 15th Pusan International Film Festival awarded him the Asian Filmmaker of the Year award in 2009. He also directed short film Madame Butterfly which screened in University of Leeds, UK on a special event focusing on him. Leeds International Film Festival presented the Golden Owl Lifetime Achievement Award to Tsai. Last three years,Tsai branched out into the art world and reflects the relationship between memory, old furniture and space through video installations and arts. He had his installation art show “Moonlight on the river” exhibited at the Xue Xue Institute, Taipei. He also turned a boiler room in the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park in Taipei into a theater which titled “The Theater in the Boiler Room: Art Installation” in 2011. The creative works of Tsai are a combination of literature, drama, art, and film artifices, which repeatedly use and create the same symbols and imagery. He subverts traditions continuously, combines real, the imaginary and the surreal, deconstructs external trueness, explores the darkness of inner life and origin, not only challenging his predecessors, but exceeding himself. At last, he has won the applause from the world. Kho Tong Guan R E F E R E N C E S Joyard, Oliver, Jean-Pierre Rehm, and Danière Rivière. Tsai Ming-liang. Translated by Andrew Rothwell. Paris: Dis Voir, 1999. Kristin, Thompson and David Bordwell. Film History: An Introduction. New York: McGraw-Hill, pp. 661–62, 1994; 2nd edition 2003. “Ming-liang Tsai”. (accessed 15 April 2008). Odesign,〈 》〉(Moving

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in

： space:

Tsai

《 Ming-Liang

“Moonlight on the river”), 8 December 2010. (accessed 1 December 2011). 〈 》。 ：

〉，《 ： ，2007， 320–48。

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》。

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Ty Eng Liong ( , Zheng Rongliang, 1934–2001) Educator, Philippines

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y Eng Liong believed that all children were capable of being trained and made into somebody worthwhile. Whenever students fell short of their teachers’ expectations, Ty would remind the teachers to examine where they had been remiss in their responsibilities. He was the reason Iloilo City, particularly Iloilo Central Commercial High School, became very popular nationwide, with over 300 dormitory residents at its peak. “If only every man could offer a little love, this world would become a beautiful dwelling place for mankind.” This line, from a favourite song of Ty’s says much about the man who lived a life for others, a life fulfilled because of those he touched.Ty may have died poor materially, but he was rich spiritually. Born to Ty Ho Lim on 6 December 1934 in Manila,Ty Eng Liong was eighth in a family of nine boys. When World War II ended, he went back to China with his parents and had his education first at Feng Shan Elementary School and then at Hui An High School, both in Fujian, China. He returned to the Philippines at age fifteen and lived with his seventh brother, Cheng Eng Kheng, who worked during the daytime to keep Eng Liong in school, while he himself went to night school. Eng Liong attended Chinese classes at the

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Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary

Philippine Chinese High School PCHS, (now Philippine Cultural College), and had his English classes at Hong Kuang School (now Philippine Jin Nan Institute). It was his student years at PCHS that his principles and uncompromising stance for truth and reason were formed. Ty Eng Liong’s ideals in life were also greatly influenced by his good friend, Marcos Chua, who advocated service to education. It was due to Chua’s influence that right after his graduation in 1955, Ty volunteered to work as a teacher in far and remote places such as Daet and Legazpi in Southern Philippines. There he met and married Benita Chiu, the woman who shared his life’s dreams and interests. In 1958, Ty and Benita decided to render their service to Iloilo Chinese Commercial High School (now Iloilo Central Commercial High School). Aside from teaching biology and physics, he was also the dorm master and, later, the disciplinarian of the school,“There is never a problem student, only a problem teacher.” Ty believed that all children were capable of being trained and made into somebody worthwhile. The school’s dormitory was well recognized throughout the archipelago as a home to all who aspire to become useful individuals. Whenever students fell short of their teachers’ expectations, Ty would remind the teachers to examine themselves, to see where they had been remiss in their responsibilities. He emphasized to them “to do everything for all the children”. Guided by love, Ty was an indulgent father to all dormitory students, yet strict and firm in his teachings. There were instances when he was physically hit by some wayward students. But he always embraced them back unconditionally with open arms, offering them another chance He showered his children — his students and boarders, with all the love he could give.

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When Ty was diagnosed with cancer in 1991, he was unwilling to succumb to this dreadful monster and so started a marathon fight against this dreaded disease. Sensing that he did not have much time left, he insisted on continuing to work, so as to serve more people. According to him, “My life does not belong to me anymore. It belongs to everybody.” This attitude helped prolong his life until he finally succumbed to the disease in 2001. In the more than four decades of unwavering service to the Chinese-Filipino community, Ty received much recognition and many awards. In 1990 he was named one of the outstanding Chinese-language teachers by Cebu Anonymous “Intsik” Foundation. He was named an outstanding teacher by the Metrobank Foundation in 1993; and in 1999, was chosen by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China as one of the outstanding overseas Chinese educators. In instances where cash prizes were given, he donated the proceeds to the Iloilo Central Commercial High School Faculty Welfare Fund. Ty Eng Liong’s impact on the ChineseFilipino education sector was strong and varied. He served at the frontlines of education and did not step down even when he was seriously ill. Students, current and former, young and old, could approach him any time they needed help. He led student summer camps to Beijing on several occasions to help expose children to the culture of their forefathers. He provided a Chinese-language environment to young people, making them aware of their rich cultural heritage. He advocated the love of both the Philippines and China, thus doing his share in promoting friendly relations between Filipinos and Chinese-Filipinos. Most importantly, he encouraged his students to work as educators — a number of

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his students have followed in his footsteps and have served as Chinese-language teachers all over the Philippines. Even those who did not enter the teaching profession were encouraged to teach their fellow men in any way they can — be it through sharing their expertise in their fields, or passing on to their children what they had learned from their days with Ty. Ty had no biological offspring, but the thousands of students whom he mentored were all his children — the primary source of his strength, especially in his struggle against illness. On his sixtieth birthday in 1994, the alumni of Iloilo Central Commercial High School prepared a grand celebration for him and launched a fund-raising activity to set up the Ty Eng Liong Educational Foundation. Alumni from all over the country surged to Iloilo to witness the event. The sheer number of those present was unprecedented in the Chinese-Filipino community, especially when the person concerned was “just a humble teacher” and not a business tycoon. Ty was overwhelmed by the magnitude of response from his students. He took pride in having lived a life of a teacher even if it was less financially rewarding. The Ty Eng Liong Educational Foundation is now handled by his ever supportive students. Its mission is to continue the work of serving the ChineseFilipino education sector. On 4 February 2001, Ty died at the age of sixty-seven after ten years of struggling with cancer. His life was an exemplary one — and one laden with love. He loved his life, he loved his ideals, his vocation, his students, his children, his people, his country. Sining Marcos Kotah R E F E R E N C E 《 ：

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Ty, George S.K. ( , Zheng Shaojian, 1933– ) Entrepreneur, philanthropist, Philippines

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eorge Ty is the founder of Metropolitan Bank and Trust Company, the Philippine’s premier universal bank and one of the country’s foremost financial institutions. He is also a member of the board of trustees of Metrobank Foundation, one of the Philippines’ most respected charitable institutions that is focused on social development activities. Ty is number nine in the Forbes forty richest men in the Philippines 2010 list, with a networth of US$805 million. He has donated a significant portion of his wealth to sociocivic works through his foundation. Born on 5 September 1933, George Ty accompanied his father, Ty Chong Yong ), and mother, Ang Kha Chian ( ), to the Philippines. The former was ( from Yongchun and the latter from Nan’an in China. As soon as the small family arrived in the Philippines, Ty Chong Yong established the Wellington Flour Mills, a small-scale business with only a small capital. After much hard work and perseverance, the flour mill grew and, after a few years, became one of the biggest flour factories in the country. The young George was moulded from such a typical Chinese family — starting almost from scratch and gradually growing big. Ty first studied in China, then at the ) Chiang Kai Shek High School ( in the Philippines, and eventually went to the University of Santo Tomas. Through the years, he helped his father in the flour mills, and learned hard work, perseverance, and struggles first hand. Mixing westernized management, which he learned at university, and traditional

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experiences,Ty helped increase the production of better quality flour. He was instrumental in the expansion of this business enterprise. When Ty wanted to move on to other businesses, his father agreed to support him. He studied the market and quietly analysed needs and opportunities. In the 1960s the Philippines was still recovering from the devastation of war and starting to develop. Ty saw that the Philippine finance sector,especially the financial foundations for economic development, was still weak. As the country obtained soft financial packages with the support of the U.S. Government to stimulate economic activities, such as liberal importation and no restrictions on foreign exchange, Ty shrewdly saw an opportunity and used the new policy to get into the still undeveloped financial market. He began preparing to develop and establish his own bank to fill the gap for urgently needed capital and finance.With his father’s support,Ty embarked on this remarkable endeavour. The elder Ty invested capital accumulated through his profits in the Wellington Flour Mills while the son borrowed money from friends and relatives until he accumulated several tens of millions of pesos, enough to open a bank. He then went to each alley and street of Manila to look for the best address for the bank to carry out his new enterprise and plans. He continued to self-learn about banking and the financial market in the Philippines while awaiting the government’s permit to open the bank. In 1962 the twenty-nine year old Ty, with the support of his father, inaugurated the Metropolitan Bank and Trust Company in Manila, thus realizing his vision finally. After not even ten years in the business, Metrobank established its first foreign branch in Taipei in 1970, making it one of the earliest foreign banks in Taiwan. In 1992 the Kaoshiung branch was opened. After the branch opening in Taipei, branches in Hong Kong, Japan, and

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Guam soon opened. In 1975, Ty bought the California International Bank and made it a branch of Metrobank in Los Angeles in 1977. A branch in Canada soon followed. Fifteen years after the first bank in Manila opened, Metrobank had one hundred branches. By the 1980s, Ty had begun to diversify his holdings and went into textile, flour, plastic, electronics, real estate, tourism, and insurance. Partnering businessman Henry Sy, he developed upscale real estate and condominium buildings. Ty also established,The First Metro Investment Company in Hong Kong and, in 1985, the Unibankcard Corp. Other subsidiaries of the Metrobank Group followed — Thomas Cook Phil Inc., a travel agency, Philippine Life Insurance, Philippine Chartered Insurance, Philippine Savings Bank. In 1988 Ty partnered Toyota Japan to produce cars in the Philippines. In the 1990s, Metrobank outpaced its rival biggest private bank to become the country’s biggest in terms of capital, assets, and deposits. The opening of Metrobank China in April 2010 marked the start of its venture in China. It was the first wholly owned foreign enterprise bank, headquartered in Jiangsu. At the inauguration ceremony, Ty donated RMB 1 million to the earthquake-stricken area of Yushu in Qinghai province and asked the City Commission of Nanjing to pass on the donations on his behalf. There is more to this banker than the drive to succeed in his field. Ty believes that making money, and spending money in the community are two sides of a coin that are inseparable. Sixteen years after the establishment of Metrobank, its social development arm, Metrobank Foundation, was born. Since its inception on 8 January 1979, it has served as the fruition of Ty’s aim of giving back to society. As Metrobank expands, so do the projects of Metrobank Foundation — in the number of its projects and outreach.Ty had felt

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that the medical needs of many Filipinos were inadequately answered by existing institutions. Thus, the first project of the foundation was the control and management of the Manila Doctors Hospital. Through the funding and supervision of the foundation, the hospital facilities were enhanced and expanded. Programmes such as charity wards and outreach missions were added to the regular operations of the institution. Eventually an education arm, the Manila Doctor’s College, was established, providing scholarships in medical and other health-related courses. In honour of Ty’s late father, an eleven-storey medical facility called Norberto Ty Medical Tower was constructed. In 1984 Metrobank Foundation began the National Painting Competition to foster young talented Filipino painters by highlighting their works and, at the same time, to encourage Filipino society to respect and appreciate artists and their work. This project proved to be very successful because a year later, the competition itself was given the prestigious Anvil Award for being an Outstanding Special Events Program. Since then many generations of young artists have vied for the Metrobank National Painting Competition award and have found their rightful place in society’s art scene. Another of Ty’s major concerns was the disheartening state of Philippine education. Many good teachers opted to work in other fields because of the lack of acknowledgment and inspiration. Aimed at giving incentives and recognition to worthy educators,the foundation set up the “Search for Outstanding Teachers” project. This search represents the foundation’s commitment to promoting a culture of excellence in education by recognizing the country’s best mentors who can be upheld as models not only for educators, but also for other community members. More than 200

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exemplary primary, secondary, and university teachers from all over the country have been awarded since its launch in 1985. The foundation also searches for and awards “The Outstanding Philippine Soldiers” to recognize excellence among the men and women in the military and express the civilian sector’s appreciation and gratitude for their selfless acts of gallantry in preserving the nation’s sovereignty. Additionally it has introduced the “Country’s Outstanding Policemen in Service” (COPS) project to identify gallant men and women in the police force who are able to work with the community to prevent and solve crime. True to Ty’s vision, the Metrobank Foundation has since become one of the largest and most respected charitable organizations in Asia as it continues to “excel, engage, empower”. With an annual budget of well over 100 million pesos, its projects have since become benchmarks in corporate social responsibility and philanthropy. Ty has five children, and has passed on the reins of Metropolitan Bank and Trust and Company and its subsidiaries to them. Anna Katarina Rodriguez and Carmelea Ang See R E F E R E N C E S Metrobank’s official website . Metrobank Foundation’s mbfoundation.org.ph/>.

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