Portraits of Prominent Overseas Chinese in Singapore and Johor

Khoo Hun Yeang 邱汉阳

Khoo Hun Yeang

Khoo Hun Yeang was born in Penang in 1860 to Khoo Thean Teik. His father was a prominent figure in Penang and Perak. Khoo Hun Yeang was educated in Penang and joined his father's business in coconut plantation in Province Wellesley.  He managed the business successfully for 10 years and returned to Penang to assist her father's interest in the Penang Opium and Spirit Farm in which he remained for another 6 years. 

Khoo Hun Yeang later commenced business on his own account in Penang under the firm chop Chin Lee & Co., trading in tin and general trades. In 1899 he joined the Singapore Opium and Spirit Farm, and was appointed managing director of the farm from 1902 until 1906. He relinquished his interest in the Singapore farm and went to Kuching to venture in the construction industry. 

Khoo Hun Yeang was the Vice-Chairman of the Penang Chinese Town Hall, a Board Member of the Kek Lok Si Temple and the Cheng Hoon Giam Temple (Snake Temple). The main street, Khoo Hun Yeang Road, in which he built in Kuching was named after him. He died in Medan in 1917 and was buried in Kampung Bahru, Penang, at his family burial ground. He was survived by a principal wife Ong Gek Chai (王玉钗), 8 sons, his two elder sons Khoo Siew Jin (b. 1884) and Khoo Siew Ghee were prominent merchants in Singapore.

Chan Chew Koon 曾秋坤

Baron Chan, FRCPCH, MBE
© Gary Lee; Universal Pictorial Press and Agency Ltd

Chan Chew Koon was the first Chinese Lord appointed to the House of Lords in Great Britain. Chan Chew Koon or Michael Chan was born on 6 March 1940 in Singapore. He was educated at Raffles Institution, Singapore and studied medicine at Guy's Hospital.

Michael first served as lecturer and pediatrician at the University of Singapore (now National University of Singapore). Shortly after his return to Singapore, in 1974 he continued his studies in Von Willebrand's disease (a study on the symptoms similar to hemophilia) under the supervision of Professor Roger Michael Hardisty at the University of London's Institute of Child Health. In 1976, Michael then posted as lecturer and pediatrician at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (University of Liverpool). He remained for almost 18 years before appointed as the director of Ethnic Health Unit in National Health Service. 

Michael was an active social activist concerning the rights of minorities in Great Britain. He was an advisor to the Secretary of State for the Home Department and a commissioner of Commission for Racial Equality, a non-departmental public organisation in the UK which aimed to solve racial discrimination and promote racial equality. Michael also held various important positions in the field of race relations in the UK, and was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1991. 

In 2001, he was appointed member of the peerage and became Lord Chan of Oxton in the County of Merseyside. Michael married Irene Chee Wei Len in 1965 and has a son, Stephen Chan and daughter, Ruth Chan. He died on 21 January 2006.