Tan Boen Kim (1887-1959) was a

Peranakan Chinese The Peranakans () are an ethnic group defined by their genealogical descent from the first waves of Southern Chinese settlers to maritime Southeast Asia, known as Nanyang (), namely the British Colonial ruled ports in the Malay Peninsula, t ...

journalist and novelist from

Batavia Batavia may refer to: Historical places * Batavia (region), a land inhabited by the Batavian people during the Roman Empire, today part of the Netherlands * Batavia, Dutch East Indies, present-day Jakarta, the former capital of the Dutch East In ...

(now

Jakarta Jakarta (; , bew, Jakarte), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta ( id, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Lying on the northwest coast of Java, the world's most populous island, Jakarta ...

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...

. He was apparently a self-taught writer, and while working as a bank clerk he started writing for the

newspaper

Sin Po Sinbo () was a minister who served the kings in Gaya confederacy. Queen Mojong who was the second wife of Geodeung of Geumgwan Gaya was his daughter. He served as government officer of Gaya confederacy. In 48, when Heo Hwang-ok came over from In ...

where he had a column ''Zaterdagsch Causerie'' under the pseudonym Indo China. He also started publishing novels in 1912. In 1915 he was invited to become editor of the

Surabaya Surabaya ( jv, ꦱꦸꦫꦧꦪ or jv, ꦯꦹꦫꦨꦪ; ; ) is the capital city of the Provinces of Indonesia, Indonesian province of East Java and the List of Indonesian cities by population, second-largest city in Indonesia, after Jakarta. L ...

paper

Tjhoen Tjhioe Tjhoen Tjhioe (; 'Spring and Autumn' in Chinese) was a Malay language Peranakan Chinese newspaper from Surabaya, Dutch East Indies catering mainly to the Chinese population. The full title of the paper was Tjhoen Tjhioe: Soerat kabar dagang bahasa M ...

, but by 1917 he was already back in Batavia and became editor of ''Ien Po'' and ''Kong Po''. During his time as editor of

, he was charged with a

Persdelict Censorship in the Dutch East Indies was significantly stricter than in the Netherlands, as the freedom of the press guaranteed in the Constitution of the Netherlands did not apply in the country's overseas colonies. Before the twentieth century, o ...

offense under the strict Dutch press censorship laws, for defaming a public official, and sentenced to 14 days in prison. During this time he continued publishing a number of novels loosely based on current events, in particular crimes. He wrote a novelized account of the

1918 Kudus riot The 1918 Kudus riot was an anti-Chinese riot that took place in the city of Kudus, Semarang Regency, Dutch East Indies, on October 31, 1918. In the riot, Javanese townspeople burned and looted the Chinese district, resulting in roughly 10 deaths ...

, a 1918 anti-Chinese riot in Semarang Regency, and another about the murder of Fientje de Feniks. In 1927 he founded a paper in

Palembang Palembang () is the capital city of the Indonesian province of South Sumatra. The city proper covers on both banks of the Musi River on the eastern lowland of southern Sumatra. It had a population of 1,668,848 at the 2020 Census. Palembang ...

called ''Kiouw Pao''. In his final years he became interested in

astrology Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of Celestial o ...

and published a number of books about it. According to Claudine Salmon, he spent his final years living in extreme poverty in a room belonging to the Jinde Yuan, a Chinese temple in

.Salmon, Claudine. Literature in Malay by the Chinese of Indonesia: a provisional annotated bibliography. Vol. 3. (Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, 1981), 311.

References

People from Batavia, Dutch East Indies Indonesian Hokkien people People from the Dutch East Indies of Chinese descent Indonesian writers 1887 births 1959 deaths Indonesian newspaper editors Newspaper editors from the Dutch East Indies Journalists from the Dutch East Indies Writers from the Dutch East Indies {{Indonesia-journalist-stub