https://www.amazon.com/Li-Sao-Elegy-Encountering-Sorrows/dp/B01LAQ4SHS/?tag=2022091-20
1970
林文慶
Lim Boon-Keng was born as the third generation of a Peranakan family in Penang, British Malaya (now Penang, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia), with ancestry from Haicheng Town, Longhai City, Fujian Province. He was born on October 18, 1869. Lim Boon-Keng moved to Singapore with his father, Lim Thean Geow, and the rest of his family when he was young.
Lim Boon-Keng studied at Raffles Institution in Singapore. However, the death of his parents during his childhood inspired him to pursue a career in medicine. In 1887, Lim became the first Malayan to receive a Queen's Scholarship. He gained admission to the University of Edinburgh and graduated in 1892 with a first class honours degree in medicine.
In 1895, Lim Boon-Keng became a member of the British Legislative Council in Singapore. The following year, he headed a Commission of Inquiry into the sources of poverty in Singapore. He was also a Justice of the Peace and a member of the Chinese Advisory Board.
Lim Boon-Keng founded the Philomatic society and published the first Chinese-language magazine in the Straits Settlements in 1897. In the same year, he also campaigned against the wearing of queues among Chinese men, with the intention of toppling the Qing dynasty in China.
In 1898, he co-founded the Tian Nan Xin Bao (天南新报) with Khoo Sook Yuen. In 1899, Lim Boon-Keng co-founded the Singapore Chinese Girls' School (SCGS) with his friend, Song Ong Siang, to facilitate the education of Chinese women living in the Straits Settlements. The next year, he founded the Straits Chinese British Association, and later became its president.
As a member of the Legislative Council, Lim Boon-Keng wanted opium banned so he formed the Anti-Opium Society. However, opium was not banned until 1943 during the Japanese occupation of Singapore. The British reasoned that imposing a ban on opium would mean that the government would lose a source of income from the tax on opium. To make up for the loss, the British governor suggested taxing the people's incomes. The main group that would be affected by this tax would be the merchants. Therefore, the European and Asian merchants opposed to this, and opium was not banned, although heavier taxes on opium were imposed.
Together with Lim Nee Soon, Lim Boon-Keng co-founded OAC Insurance in 1920. OAC was the first locally owned insurance company to be set up in Singapore. The following year in June, upon the request of Sun Yat-sen, he served as the second president of Xiamen University, until the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in July 1937. The university was founded by Lim's friend, Tan Kah Kee. As the president of Xiamen University, Lim published the Li Sao, also known as An Elegy on Encountering Sorrows.
Lim Boon-Keng later went into banking, and co-founded the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC). In 1937, he founded the Straits Chinese China Relief Fund Committee of Singapore to support China in its war efforts against Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
Boon-Keng Lim led his remaining years in recluse in Singapore as an ordinary citizen. He died on 1 January 1957, two months after his 88th birthday and was buried at Bidadari Cemetery in Singapore.
Boon-Keng Lim married twice. His first marriage was to Margaret Huang (黃端瓊; Huáng Duānqióng), the eldest daughter of Sibu pioneer Wong Nai Siong, in 1896 at a Presbyterian church. They had four sons: Robert Kho-Seng, Francis Kho-Beng, Walter Kho-Leng, and John Kho-Liau. Lim's wife died in 1905.
Boon-Keng Lim remarried in 1908, to Grace Yin (殷碧霞; Yīn Bìxiá) the sister of Dr. S.C. Yin (who was the father of Leslie Charteris,famous for his "The Saint"), with whom he shared a medical practice. They had one son, Peng Han, who later became a race car driver and the first Chinese person to race in Brooklands in the United Kingdom. They also had a daughter, Ena Guat-Kheng. He also had another son, Peng Thiam, with Chui Geok, the niece of his second wife.
Robert Kho-Seng Lim was a Chinese doctor. He was affectionately known as Bobby Lim.
Song Ong Siang was a lawyer and active citizen of the British Crown Colony of the Straits Settlements.
