Tan Kah Kee Memorial Museum (陈嘉庚纪念馆)

The Tan Kah Kee Memorial Museum lies in the Jimei district of Xiamen, Fujian province, China, on Xunjiang Road within the Jimei School Village. It commemorates Tan Kah Kee, born in Jimei in 1874, who emigrated to Singapore and built a business in rubber and other trades before returning funds and energy to his home district. In 1913 he founded a primary school in Jimei, followed by teacher training, commerce, fisheries and navigation schools, and in 1921 he founded Xiamen University. The museum's displays follow his life in order, from his childhood in Jimei and his career in Southeast Asia to his leadership of overseas Chinese fundraising during the 1930s and 1940s and his later years in the People's Republic of China. Photographs, letters, personal objects and models illustrate each stage. The surrounding Jimei School Village is itself part of the story. Its buildings combine Minnan roofs with Western-influenced walls in the style known locally as the Jiageng style, and visitors can walk between schools, a memorial hall, pavilions and the lakeside. Tan Kah Kee is buried nearby at Turtle Garden, which lies on a small islet connected by a causeway, and the tomb and its memorial plaza are commonly visited together with the museum. The complex has been repaired several times, and the museum itself has been renovated and the collection reorganised to add video and larger exhibition rooms. Admission is free or low-cost, and last entry is 16:30. The museum is reached by metro and bus from central Xiamen, and a half-day is enough to see both the museum and the school village. Because few foreign visitors come to Jimei, the area is quiet, and signage is mostly in Chinese with limited English. Interpretive material also explains his political stance during the war years, when he led overseas Chinese relief efforts, and his decision to settle again in Xiamen after 1950, which makes the museum a record of a wider generation of returnees as well as one man.