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As one of Singapore’s first modern towkay (businessman) and philanthropist, Lee Kong Chian built his success on integrity and purpose. His lifelong commitment to education and community continues to inspire Singaporeans today.
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00:00When you look at his photograph, he looks a bit stern.
00:05After meeting all the people who have been with him, his grandchildren,
00:09I discovered that he was actually a very friendly and very easy-going sort of person.
00:14He was a successful businessman, and I feel that he's the first Singaporean Tal Ke.
00:30Lee Kongqian was a titan of business and a giant of giving.
00:39Before Singapore's independence, he built companies that drove the nation's economic growth
00:45and donated generously to education and society.
00:49Through the Lee Foundation, his legacy lives on and continues to benefit Singaporeans today.
00:55He was definitely a person of honesty and integrity, and his generosity, his philanthropy,
01:06to go beyond the call of duty. I think that is something that really impressed me.
01:12I think his most significant contribution was to go global, build an international network.
01:20He was very much ahead of his time, and perhaps he's one of the first modern Singaporean businessmen.
01:31Lee Kongqian was born in Fujian, China in 1893.
01:35He was only ten years old when he made the dangerous sea voyage to Singapore to join his father.
01:41On board was also a famous and rich Chinese entrepreneur.
01:46It was during the wintertime, and it was freezing cold, and on board the same ship was Tan Kaki,
01:53who was offering passengers who had the same surname as Tan to receive a blanket to keep them warm.
02:02This was quite common in those days because your first loyalty was to your family.
02:08And then Tan Kaki saw this young boy shivering on the deck, and he said,
02:16why don't you take a blanket? And the young boy said to him, I am not in your family.
02:23Because my surname is not Tan, I'm a Lee. Tan Kaki said, oh, he was very impressed by the honesty of the boy,
02:31and so offered him and offered all the passengers blankets.
02:37Even from a very young age, he was so totally honest, which was very impressive, I must say.
02:45In colonial Singapore, racial groups were separated into distinct districts.
02:50The wealthy Hokkien lived around what is today Chinatown.
02:54But because his family was poor, young Lee Kongqian grew up instead along Serangoon Road.
03:02He used to walk down Aram Street, and there he would see all the other races, the Malay races, the Arams.
03:11I think it's very interesting that he had a very multiracial type of upbringing,
03:18which was very unusual for a young Chinese boy of his time.
03:23The father could only afford the Anglo-Tamil school, so Lee Kongqian attended that school.
03:29But it was a school that had mostly Tamil-speaking immigrants.
03:34The advantage of that was Lee Kongqian could learn Tamil, and the English teachers were very good.
03:40So Lee Kongqian's English was also a very high standard.
03:45And this proficiency in English would prove invaluable in the future.
03:52Back in his motherland, the Manchu dynasty was offering scholarships to entice outstanding students back home.
03:59Lee Kongqian was among the few who received this award.
04:03But when his studies were disrupted following the fall of the Qing dynasty,
04:08he returned to Singapore to find work to support himself.
04:13He never forgot that he was uplifted because of these scholarships and the philanthropy of others.
04:20This was really a very powerful motivator of his for how he gave really half of his entire fortune to charity and to philanthropy.
04:32Back in Singapore, with nothing but grit, he pushed through and took up multiple jobs.
04:41He had two teaching jobs, one in the daytime and one at night time.
04:47But he also needed an extra income.
04:50So he translated English news articles into Chinese for a Chinese newspaper.
04:55It's absolutely incredible that he was able to do so many things.
05:00Someone who was so driven that he would spend very little time sleeping.
05:07At 21 years old, he joined the China Domestic Goods Company.
05:15It happened to be one of Tan Ka Ki's companies.
05:18And they were destined to meet again in a way that would change both their lives.
05:24Not long after, during a rainstorm, Lee Kongqian spotted and recognised Tan Ka Ki.
05:35He offered his umbrella and in return, Tan Ka Ki handed him his name card, asking him to collect it the next day.
05:44During that meeting, there was a lot of commotion outside the office.
05:48They went out and they discovered there was this American, but nobody, none of the staff could speak English.
05:56It so happened that Lee Kongqian spoke very good English, so he was able to communicate with the American.
06:03Even Tan Ka Ki himself was not very good at English.
06:07Given Lee Kongqian's fluency in many languages, it made him the ideal person to do business with the locals and foreigners.
06:16Hence, in 1916, Lee Kongqian was recruited into Kiamik Company, Tan Ka Ki's export rubber firm.
06:23Under his leadership, the company made an annual profit of $1 million.
06:28After proving his mettle as a general manager of the company within just two short years, Lee Kongqian marries Tan Ka Ki's eldest daughter.
06:37An old-fashioned businessman like Tan Ka Ki, he usually recruited just his own family.
06:49And if he saw a boy who's not in his family, what did he do? He said, you marry my daughter, become my son-in-law. That was the normal way.
07:02With the blessing of his father-in-law, he started his own rubber curing factory, Lee Rubber Company, in 1927.
07:11He was a Tao Ke, meaning that he was a successful businessman, but he was very modern, he was very global, he was very different.
07:20And I feel that he's the first Singaporean Tao Ke.
07:25Lee Kongqian had several innovations in his company, including having savings that will help the person, the worker, own their own home, and also to have enough savings for their retirement.
07:38This came even before the government introduced CPF into their policies.
07:44It used to be said amongst his managers that, wow, if you work for Lee Kongqian, it's a golden rice bowl.
07:51So the best people would work for him, the most capable people, the people who shared his global view, he trusted them very much and they trusted him.
08:02As a great visionary, Lee Kongqian led his company to establish trade in many countries, acquired over 20,000 acres of rubber plantations,
08:13expanded to 15 rubber factories with 20 branches around the world.
08:18With his rubber empire, he was known as the Rubber King.
08:23He was the first to build an international network.
08:26His Lee Rubber Group was not only diversified across many industries, it became a multinational.
08:35I think that was really a very, very huge contribution to Singapore.
08:40After making a fortune out of rubber business, Lee Kongqian diversified and invested in pineapple and became known as the Pineapple King.
08:50He also invested in biscuits and in coconut oil and sawmills.
08:56So he started Lee Pineapple.
08:59And you can still find today Lee Pineapple Juice.
09:03That's his company.
09:09The Great Depression brought down many businesses, but Lee Rubber survived and thrived.
09:15His prudent management kept his company from going under.
09:19Small Chinese banks, however, were on the brink of collapse.
09:25Lee Kongqian was a very, very good mediator, and he somehow calmed the deposit holders in the bank.
09:33He went around to all the investors and said,
09:36Don't pull your money out. Leave it in the bank.
09:40If everyone pulls their money out, then the banks will be finished.
09:44So in 1932, Lee Kongqian, then Vice Chairman of Chinese Commercial Bank, led the merger of three banks to form OCBC Bank.
09:54He was very effective and persuasive and managed to save all of the banks.
10:00Without our local banks, we would all be very dependent on the overseas banks.
10:06We are able to have, in Singapore today, a strong financial sector, which is one of the pillars of our economy.
10:14In that way, I think that you could say that he really contributed greatly to modern Singapore.
10:22Under his leadership at OCBC, he infused the same spirit of innovation that had defined Lee Rubber.
10:30Several innovations that he instituted in the OCBC Bank.
10:35One was to use English as the medium for all the records and communication,
10:41which was, at that time, it was quite innovative because for a Chinese bank to convert to English was quite unusual.
10:49And so this enabled OCBC to be an international bank.
10:54Beyond banking, Lee Kongqian devoted his time and energy as a leader and advocate for many causes,
11:05from mediating during student unrest to providing relief in times of disaster.
11:11Yet education remained closest to his heart.
11:15Whoever wants to harvest good rice must also plant good seeds.
11:21He quoted this Malay proverb in his inaugural speech as Chancellor of the University of Singapore.
11:27A reminder of the importance of nurturing the young to build a stronger future.
11:33Guided by this belief, he proposed bilingual education,
11:37a vision embraced by both the Chinese high school and the colonial government.
11:43Communication is so important in life.
11:46He was teaching at schools, so he encouraged those schools that he taught at to be bilingual.
11:52And then when he became Chancellor, he introduced bilingualism to all the various layers of education.
12:00He made sure that they had classes in English and in Chinese and in the mother tongue.
12:07If it was Malay, they would also learn about their own language.
12:12Li Kongqian's passion for education and vision for a multilingual society extended to his donation to the construction of the National Library.
12:25He donated $375,000 to its construction with one condition.
12:31He did it on the condition that the library had to be open to the public for free.
12:37And he also ensured that the library had books from all languages.
12:42English, Chinese, Malay, Tamil and other languages.
12:46So all the different languages were in that library.
12:50And so it became a hallmark of Singapore.
12:54In 1952, he founded Li Foundation, focusing on giving back to education, culture, healthcare and social welfare.
13:07Even after his passing, the Li Foundation remains one of Singapore's largest and distinguished charitable organisations to date.
13:15He believed in a statement that what you get from society, you give back to society.
13:22So whenever he made money, he would make sure that it was given back to society.
13:28Essentially, we want to be able to help people who are in need, people who are poor or people who need education.
13:38We help wherever it is necessary to help.
13:41Singapore now has become more prosperous than in the past.
13:45So we have also now gone into helping various arts or performing arts groups.
13:51But education, of course, still remains one of the main aims.
13:56When Li Kongchen was alive, all his donations, they did not mention his name.
14:01It was always his father's name.
14:03His unwillingness to use his name for all his donations shows that he really is very humble.
14:11It was only after he passed away, the Li Foundation, which was managed by his children, decided to honour Li Kongchen himself.
14:21So we have the Li Kongchen Medical School, the Li Kongchen Library, the Li Kongchen Business School, the Li Kongchen Natural History Museum and so on.
14:32Li Kongchen passed away at the age of 74 on June 2, 1967.
14:37A trailblazer with a big heart and strong values, he touched countless lives, leaving a lasting impression on those who knew him.
14:47I think future generations should definitely remember him.
15:15For his generosity and for what he's done.
15:19Li Kongchen may have been our first Singaporean business leader and a model for what modern Singapore can be.
15:29Successful, hardworking, diligent, honest, principled.
15:35He was a remarkable person and generous and very caring for society and very devoted to the nation.
15:45His name may be etched in schools, libraries and museums, bearing a physical reminder for the young.
15:52But his true legacy is not in buildings, but in the opportunities he created, touching lives in the past and continuing to empower generations of Singaporeans today and for years to come.
16:06To be continued...
16:36You
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