Building civilization
As a child, Tan studied in a private village school, and the traditional aspects of his mindset created during this time lasted into his later years, including his insistence on using traditional bookkeeping notation. He was, however, also an innovator and someone willing to challenge the status quo, and despite being in geographically tiny Singapore, he always had his eyes on the global picture, always watching the colonial and global situations.
Tan spent the first five or six years of his time in the rubber industry investigating ways to lower the failure rates of his gumboots, raincoats, and gloves. Later, with American technology unavailable, he spent five years working to overcome all manner of technical difficulties, finally lowering the failure rate of his tires from 30% to 2%. Through advertising, Tan was able to build up sales channels and break the monopoly the British held on international trade in Singapore.
In the midst of this trade war, Tan saw how overseas industrialists and China itself were both the weaker parties amidst the struggles they faced, as well as the threats his homeland faced and the continuing strengthening of Western civilization. He came to see that the "civilized" nations, which had the eyes of the world upon them, made the best use of resources and were focused on quality in production, placing them in the stronger position in the international market and leading to an increase in their power. At the same time, they promoted education and the fostering of new talent. All of these factors combined to create a virtuous circle for the strong, in which they became ever stronger.
Tan compared China to other rich nations in areas like literacy, governmental focus on education, perspectives on wealth, sense of responsibility to the community, and the people's ambition, quality of character, and mental outlook. He noticed that Singapore's death rate was gradually dropping, and in 1945 published the book Home and Hygiene in the hopes that his homeland would place greater emphasis on these two during their post-war reconstruction efforts.
Lifting China through education
Tan also noticed that of the US' 300 universities at the time, over 280 were funded in part by donations from businessmen, while in China, the wealthy were either hedonistic wastrels or misers who hoarded their money for their children and grandchildren. Neither type spent a cent on charity, nor had any sense of selfless service.
He concluded that "education is the foundation of a nation, and promoting it is the solemn duty of all citizens."
Tan then began dedicating his life's wealth and energy to fulfilling this duty. He lived his own life thriftily, with his biggest extravagance the occasional oyster omelet, while at the same time spending tens of millions on education, establishing Xiamen University back in China, amongst other things. The organizations he established included kindergartens, elementary schools, middle schools, girls' schools, and even specialist schools teaching education, aquaculture, sailing, business, agriculture, forestry, and traditional Chinese studies that became "Jimei Schools Village," which boasted excellent facilities. Even during the chaotic warlord period, Sun Yat-sen expressed his admiration for Jimei, calling it a place of peace for China and exhorting the people of Fujian and Guangdong to take particular care of it.
But Tan was not only concerned with his homeland, nor only with China and Singapore, but with all the people of the world. In his autobiography Nan-Chiao Reminiscences he wrote with longing not only for his beloved homeland, but also for a world of equality and fairness under the leadership of the "victorious nations" in the wake of the ravages of war. He wrote of his hope that war would be stamped out, that inequality would be erased, and that the nations of the world would cease their harsh legal restriction of overseas Chinese so that they too could contribute to the improvement of the world.
Tan Kah Kee's life was a microcosm of the overseas Chinese experience over the past century, and Singapore was able to offer someone like Tan the opportunity, geography, and community to become great both as a businessman and as a man. Looking back on what this paragon of virtue achieved, Singapore should consider itself honored to have had him.