Chapter 20 Section 3 "The Banner of Overseas Chinese" Tan Kah Kee

Chen Jiageng, this is a glorious name in the history of overseas Chinese, and was praised by Mao Zedong as "the banner of overseas Chinese, the glory of the nation".Some foreign academic works call him "an outstanding social and political leader in the modern history of China, the history of the Chinese people in Southeast Asia, and even the modern history of Asia" and a "legendary figure". As an outstanding Southeast Asian industrial entrepreneur, Tan Kah Kee has his own experience. He was born in Tong'an, Fujian. His father made a living in Singapore and opened a Shun'an rice shop.Chen Jiageng received enlightenment education in his hometown when he was young, and studied the Four Books and Five Classics. In 1890, at the age of 17, he went to Singapore to work as a helper in his father's rice shop, and became the manager two years later.In addition to operating the rice business, the Chen family also operates real estate, a pineapple canning factory and some businesses.At the beginning of the 20th century, due to my father's little involvement in the store and the falling real estate prices, various businesses suffered heavy losses and were on the verge of bankruptcy.Due to the death of his mother, Tan Kah Kee returned to his hometown in the winter of 1900 to bury her mother and kept mourning for three years. When he returned to Singapore in 1903, he saw that the Chen family's economic career was in a state of depression, and the Shun An Mi also went bankrupt.But Tan Kah Kee did not suffer from such a setback. He spotted the booming canned pineapple and decided to raise 7,000 yuan (lat currency) to set up the Xinlichuan Pineapple Canning Factory. Soon after, he took over Nissin Company, which also deals in canned pineapple. .The two factories made a profit of nearly 40,000 yuan within three months, and Tan Kah Kee's career showed vitality. The six years from 1904 to 1910 was a very important period in the development of Tan Kah Kee's career.In addition to the pineapple planting and processing industry, he also operated the rice industry, especially when rubber was successfully transplanted to Malaya and Singapore, he immediately realized that the rubber industry would have a great development prospect, so in 1906 he tried to plant rubber successfully. Chen Jixuan and Lin Wenqing purchased 180,000 rubber seeds and expanded the pineapple plantation named "Fushan Garden" from 500 mu to 1,000 mu, interplanting rubber and pineapple.The planting of Fukuyama Garden was the beginning of his rubber kingdom. In 1910, Tan Kah Kee opened "Xiangshan Garden" and "Fushan Garden" in Johor, Malaya, to continue the rubber plantation industry.At this time, he was already an industrialist who owned two rubber plantations, several pineapple canning factories, rice factories, and rice shops. After 1912, Tan Kah Kee, while continuing to operate the rice factory and pineapple canning factory, also managed the maritime transportation industry, and shifted his focus to the rubber planting and rubber processing industries. The various rubber products of his "Qianyi" rubber factory, Sell ​​to all over the world. In 1925, Tan Kah Kee employed more than 32,000 employees, owned more than 15,000 acres of rubber plantations, more than 30 factories, and a total asset of more than 12 million yuan. This was the pinnacle of his career, and he became a rubber giant in Nanyang. Entrepreneur, has the title of "Rubber King".From 1926 onwards, Tan Kah Kee’s business was very difficult due to the impact of the global economic crisis, the exclusion and destruction of Japanese profiteers, and the heavy burden of funds from Xiamen University and Jimei School. Finally, in 1934, he announced that the company was closed.