Preface to the Fourth Edition (2015)

Summary

This fourth edition (2015) is the most up-to-date version of my book on Prominent Indonesian Chinese.

The origin of this book was a long paper published by Ohio University in 1972 with the title of Prominent Indonesian Chinese in the 20th Century: A Preliminary Survey (papers in International Studies, Southeast Asian Series, Ohio University, it consists of only 62 pages). Six years later, when I worked as a researcher at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), I revised the paper and made it into a book and published it in 1978 with a new title: Eminent Indonesian Chinese: Biographical Sketches. This was officially the first edition of this book. Two years later, an Indonesian publisher in Singapore, Gunung Agung, expressed his interest to republish the book. But since the book would be sold in Indonesia, I had to come out with two versions, one with the Chinese characters and the other without as the Soeharto regime banned books with Chinese characters for distribution. As a result, I had to remove all Chinese characters from the book and prepare a separate booklet on the list of Chinese characters for readers who were outside Indonesia. I wanted my book to be circulated in Indonesia and I accepted that arrangement, otherwise the book would have not been allowed to be distributed in Indonesia at all. This was the second edition of my book.

The book was out of print for many years. Fifteen years later, many new figures emerged and old ones passed away. An update was needed. I was interested in issuing a third edition and offered it to ISEAS, which was the publisher of my first edition. My offer was accepted and the book was published in 1995 with a new title: Prominent Indonesian Chinese: Biographical Sketches. Chinese characters in the book were restored. Within a year, the book was reprinted at least once.

In the last nineteen years, there have been a lot of new generation leaders and the book requires another update. This time, updating of the book becomes more difficult as not only do I need to revise the existing biographies, I also need to add new figures that have emerged in the last two decades.