Family, financial woes: New book highlights resilience of Tan Kah Kee

Book by his granddaughter offers insights into S’pore pioneer and descendants

- Chin Soo Fang

A successful entrepreneur, a philanthropist who built schools in South-east Asia and China and a Chinese community leader - this is how Singapore pioneer Tan Kah Kee is remembered by most.

But few people would know that domestic squabbles between the families of his second and third wives sometimes drove him to make Ee Hoe Hean Club in Chinatown, an exclusive club for Chinese businessmen, his home away from home.

He lost all his assets when the Great Depression hit in the late 1920s. In the early 1930s, when the banks were calling in their massive loans to his businesses, family members were cast out into the streets from their mortgaged homes.

During the Japanese invasion in 1942, his open resistance to the Japanese Occupation in China forced him into hiding in Java, with the Japanese placing a ransom of a million Dutch guilders on his head.

His family broke into two groups and fled to China and India. Some unmarried sons were left behind in Singapore to fend for themselves.