Biography

Tan Kah Kee was a prominent businessman, community leader, and philanthropist in colonial Singapore, and he was greatly respected by many for his generous contribution to the community.
His father was a buisnessman when he was young and had always wanted him to come to Singapore to help him with the buisness. When he was 16 years old, his mother finally gave in and let his father take him away to Singapore. He began working for his father in the rice store. However, his father's buisness collapsed 13 years later. Tan Kah Kee started his own buisness from that small amount of money and build an empire from rubber plantations, making the name the 'rubber king'.
During his childhood, the education system was very poor. teachers only ask them to recite a poem without explaning. Citing one horrible childhood experience, one of his childhood friends did not go to school with the believe that he would have nothing out of the lesson. He went to fight with gangsters and unfortuantely, died.
Tan Kah Kee was filled with emotions that day and he made up his mind to build schools which has a good eduacation system for people to study.
Later, he became a successful buisnessman and built an empire from rubber plantations. He obviously had a mind made for buisness and he was known as one of the four 'rubber kings'. He invested in some seeds that eventually resulted in his great buisness profit he had earned. However, he did not led a comfortable life. With his earlier resolution to improve the current education system of the country, he raised money as a 'initiative' for others to donate and thus established the Chinese High School.
It was the first Chinese school of the country and helped a lot in the education system which i would touch on later.
He also donated lots of money for schools such as Nanyang Girls High School. Although he was rich, he did not led a comfortable life as he donated all his savings towards education. He slept in one of the rooms of a universtiy that he had founded.