Hauw Tek Kong was born in
Batavia, Dutch East Indies in 1887. He is thought to have studied at the
Anglo-Chinese School in
Singapore. Around 1908 he became interested in silent film theatres and became director of a company aiming to open one in Batavia, the
Solar Bioscope Company Ltd.. This company purchased the equipment that same year and toured it around various temporary venues in Batavia and as far afield as
Bogor before having a permanent location built for it in
Meester Cornelis by 1910. The films shown at the Solar Bioscore included English productions and those produced by
Pathé. Under his tenure the paper became embroiled in a high-profile feud with some more conservative elements of the Chinese community due to its criticism of the colonial
Chinese Officer system. That feud resulted in calls to boycott
Sin Po. In particular the paper harshly attacked
Phoa Keng Hek and
Khouw Kim An, high-profile Chinese Officers, and accused them of corruption and abuse of authority. In early 1919, Hauw became embroiled in a court case against
J. R. Razoux Kühr, the former editor of
Sin Po who was then at rival paper
Perniagaan. It is unclear what the substance of the case was. Hauw also became known as a high-profile opponent to Dutch proposals to grant citizenship or some sort of qualified subjecthood for Indies Chinese. In 1919
Sin Po sent him to China to negotiate with the government there about the matter of potential repudiation of that citizenship; when he tried to re-enter the Indies, the Dutch would not let him in. He died in Batavia at age 51 on April 7, 1928, apparently of a stroke. ==References==