Lie Kim Hok (; 1 November 1853 – 6 May 1912) was a peranakan Chinese teacher, writer, and social worker active in the Dutch East Indies and styled the "father of Chinese Malay literature".
Born in Buitenzorg (now Bogor), West Java, Lie received his formal education in missionary schools and by the 1870s was fluent in Sundanese, vernacular Malay, and Dutch, though he was unable to understand Chinese. In the mid-1870s he married and began working as the editor of two periodicals published by his teacher and mentor D. J. van der Linden. Lie left the position in 1880. His wife died the following year. Lie published his first books, including the critically acclaimed syair (poem) Sair Tjerita Siti Akbari and grammar book Malajoe Batawi, in 1884. When van der Linden died the following year, Lie purchased the printing press and opened his own company.
Over the following two years Lie published numerous books, including Tjhit Liap Seng, considered the first Chinese Malay novel. He also acquired printing rights for Pembrita Betawi, a newspaper based in Batavia (now Jakarta), and moved to the city. After selling his printing press in 1887, the writer spent three years working in various lines of employment until he found stability in 1890 at a rice mill operated by a friend. The following year he married Tan Sioe Nio, with whom he had four children. Lie published two books in the 1890s and, in 1900, became a founding member of the Chinese organisation Tiong Hoa Hwee Koan, which he left in 1904. Lie focused on his translations and social work for the remainder of his life, until his death from typhus at age 58.
Lie is considered influential to the colony's journalism, linguistics, and literature, and is best remembered for his literary works. Several of his writings were printed multiple times, and Sair Tjerita Siti Akbari was adapted for the stage and screen. However, as a result of the language politics in the Indies and independent Indonesia, his work has become marginalised. When several of his writings were revealed as uncredited adaptations of existing works, Lie was criticised as unoriginal. Other critics, however, have found evidence of innovation in his writing style and handling of plots.
Early life Lie was born in Buitenzorg (now Bogor), West Java, on 1 November 1853, the first child of seven born to Lie Hian Tjouw and his second wife Oey Tjiok Nio. The elder Lie had four children from a previous marriage, with Lie Kim Hok his first child from the new marriage. The well-to-do peranakan Chinese couple was living in Cianjur at the time but went to Buitenzorg, Lie Hian Tjouw's hometown, for the birth as they had family there. The family soon returned to Cianjur, where Lie Kim Hok was homeschooled in Chinese tradition and the local Sundanese culture and language. By age seven he could haltingly read Sundanese and Malay.
In the mid-19th century the colony's ethnic Chinese population was severely undereducated, unable to enter schools for either Europeans or natives. Aged ten, Lie was enrolled in a Calvinist missionary school run by Christiaan Albers. This school had roughly 60 male students, mostly Chinese. Under Albers, a fluent speaker of Sundanese, he received his formal education in a curriculum which included the sciences, language, and Christianity – the schools were meant to promote Christianity in the Dutch East Indies, and students were required to pray before class. Lie, as with most students, did not convert, although biographer Tio Ie Soei writes that an understanding of Christianity likely affected his world view.
Lie and his family returned to Buitenzorg in 1866. At the time there were no schools offering a European-style education in the city, and thus he was sent to a Chinese-run school. For three years, in which the youth studied under three different headmasters, he was made to repeat traditional Hokkien phrases and copy Chinese characters without understanding them. Tio suggests that Lie obtained little knowledge at the school, and until his death Lie was unable to understand Chinese. During his time in Buitenzorg, he studied painting under Raden Saleh, a friend of his father's. Although he reportedly showed skill, he did not continue the hobby as his mother disapproved. He also showed a propensity for traditional literary forms such as pantun (a form of poetry) and was fond of creating his own.
When Sierk Coolsma opened a missionary school in Buitenzorg on 31 May 1869, Lie was in the first class of ten. Once again studying in Sundanese, he took similar subjects to his time in Cianjur. Around this time he began studying Dutch. After a government-run school opened in 1872, most of Lie's classmates were ethnic Chinese; the Sundanese students, mostly Muslim, had transferred to the new school for fear of being converted to Christianity. In 1873 Coolsma was sent to Sumedang to translate the Bible into Sundanese and was replaced by fellow missionary D. J. van der Linden. Studies resumed in Malay, as van der Linden was unable to speak Sundanese. Lie and his new headmaster soon became close. The two later worked together at van der Linden's school and publishing house and shared an interest in traditional theatre, including wayang (puppets).
Teacher and publisher By the age of twenty Lie had a good command of Sundanese and Malay; he also spoke fair Dutch, a rarity for ethnic Chinese at the time. Lie assisted van der Linden at the missionary school, and in the mid-1870s operated a general school for poor Chinese children. He also worked for the missionary's printing press, Zending Press, earning forty gulden a month while serving as editor of two religious magazines, the Dutch-language monthly De Opwekker and the Malay-language bi-weekly Bintang Djohor. He married Oey Pek Nio, seven years his junior, in 1876. Tio, in an interview with the scholar of Chinese Malay literature Claudine Salmon, stated that Lie had been betrothed to Oey's elder sister, but when she ran away the night before the ceremony, he was told to by his parents to marry Oey Pek Nio to save face. Although displeased with the arrangement, he obeyed. The pair soon grew close. The following year they had their first child, although the baby died soon after birth. Lie's mother died in 1879, and his father died the next year.
Following these deaths Lie was unable to support his wife. He therefore sold his school to Oey Kim Hoat and left his position at Zending Press to take a job as a land surveyor. In the next four years he held various jobs. In 1881 Oey Pek Nio gave birth again. She died soon afterwards and the baby was sent to live with her grandfather father in Gadog, a village to the southeast of Buitenzorg, to be raised. The child died in 1886. Lie published his first books in 1884. Two of these, Kitab Edja and Sobat Anak-Anak, were published by Zending Press. The former was a study book to help students learn to write Malay, while the latter was a collection of stories for children that Aprinus Salam of Gadjah Mada University credits as the first work of popular literature in the Indies. The other two books were published by W. Bruining & Co., based in the colonial capital at Batavia (now Jakarta). One of these, Malajoe Batawi, was a grammar of Malay intended to standardise the language's spelling. The other was the four-volume syair (a traditional Malay form of poetry) Sair Tjerita Siti Akbari; this book, dealing with a gender-disguised warrior who conquers the Sultanate of Hindustan to save her husband, became one of Lie's best-known works.
After van der Linden's death in 1885, Lie paid his teacher's widow a total of 1,000 gulden to acquire the Zending Press; the funds were, in part, borrowed from his friends. He changed the printer's name to Lie Kim Hok soon afterwards. He devoted most of his time to the publishing house, and it grew quickly, printing works by other authors and reprinting some of Lie's earlier writings. The publishing house was, however, unable to turn a profit. That year he published a new syair, consisting of 24 quartets, entitled Orang Prampoewan. He also wrote opinion pieces in various newspapers, including Bintang Betawi and Domingoe.
The following year Lie purchased publishing rights to the Malay-language newspaper Pembrita Betawi, based in Batavia and edited by W. Meulenhoff, for 1,000 gulden. He again borrowed from his friends. From mid-1886, Lie's publishing house (which he had moved to Batavia) was credited as the newspaper's printer. While busy with the press, he wrote or contributed to four books. Two were pieces of nonfiction, one a collection of Chinese prophecies and the last outlined lease laws. The third was a partial translation of the One Thousand and One Nights, a collection already popular with Malay audiences. The last was his first novel, Tjhit Liap Seng. Following a group of educated persons in mainland China, Tjhit Liap Seng is credited as the first Chinese Malay novel.
Lie continued to publish novels set in China through 1887, writing five in this period. Several of these stories were based on extant Chinese tales, as retold by his Chinese-speaking friends. The writer sold his shares in Pembrita Betawi to Karsseboom & Co. in 1887, but continued to print the newspaper until it – and Lie's printing press – were acquired by Albrecht & Co. later that year. Lie did not work as a publisher again, although he continued to contribute writings to various newspapers, including Meulenhoff's new publication Hindia Olanda. Over the next three years he did not have fixed employment, taking a multitude of jobs, including bamboo salesman, contractor, and cashier.
Tiong Hoa Hwe Koan, translations, and death In 1890 Lie began working at a rice mill operated by his friend Tan Wie Siong as a supervisor; this would be his main source of income for the remainder of his life. The following year he married Tan Sioe Nio, twenty years his junior. The new couple had a comfortable life: his salary was adequate, and the work did not consume much energy. To supplement his income Lie returned to translating, Dutch to Malay or vice versa. Sometimes he would translate land deeds or other legal documents. Other times he translated works of literature. This included De Graaf de Monte Cristo, an 1894 translation of Alexandre Dumas's Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, which he completed in collaboration with the Indo journalist F. Wiggers. The two included footnotes to describe aspects of European culture which they deemed difficult for non-European readers to understand. Three years later Lie published Hikajat Kong Hoe Tjoe, a book on the teachings of Confucius. Its contents were derived from European writings on Confucianism and his friends' explanations.
With nineteen other ethnic Chinese, including his former schoolmate Phoa Keng Hek, Lie was an establishing member of the Tiong Hoa Hwee Koan (THHK) school system and social organisation in 1900. Meant to promote ethnic Chinese rights at a time when they were treated as second-class citizens and provide standardised formal education to ethnic Chinese students where the Dutch had not, the organisation was based on the teachings of Confucius and opened schools for both boys and girls. The THHK grew quickly and expanded into different fields, and Lie helped organise a debating club, sports club, and charity fairs and concerts. From 1903 to 1904 Lie was a managing member of the board, serving mainly as its treasurer.