Lie On Moy was born in
Padang,
Sumatra, Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) in 1884. Her family were
Hakka who had recently immigrated from China to Padang. Her younger brother Lie In Eng also became a well-known translator and journalist. They had at least one child, Lauw Soei Goan. Lie became a prolific translator of Chinese stories into Malay, which were then serialized in newspapers; she may have sometimes published these under pseudonyms such as Hemeling. At this time it was still quite rare for Indies Chinese or
Native women to write and publish under their own names;
Letters of a Javanese Princess by
Kartini, the most famous such publication, was only posthumously published in 1911. Other Peranakan Chinese women journalists and translators such as
Siem Piet Nio,
Lie Loan Lian Nio, and
Nyonya The Tiang Ek were not active until the 1920s. In 1913 Lie, along with her husband Lauw Giok Lan,
Tjoe Bou San and Song Chong Soei, founded a weekly publication in Batavia called ("Entertainer"), although it does not seem to have lasted long. Her life or writing career after the 1910s are not well documented. As Indies society was very conservative during this era, with few public roles for Chinese or Native Indonesian women, it is possible she continued to translate or under pseudonyms. She died in 1951. ==References==