Early life

Loke Cheng Kim was born the eldest daughter of a Hokkien

Hokkien

Hokkien is a Hokkien word corresponding to Standard Chinese "Fujian". It may refer to:* Hokkien dialect, a dialect of Min Nan Chinese spoken in Southern Fujian , Taiwan, South-east Asia, and elsewhere....

 Chinese family which owned tin mines in Selangor

Selangor

Selangor also known by its Arabic honorific, Darul Ehsan, or "Abode of Sincerity") is one of the 13 states of Malaysia. It is on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia and is bordered by Perak to the north, Pahang to the east, Negeri Sembilan to the south and the Strait of Malacca to the west...

 and had been established in Malaya

British Malaya

British Malaya loosely described a set of states on the Malay Peninsula and the Island of Singapore that were brought under British control between the 18th and the 20th centuries...

 for generations. Her mother, Soon Kui Sim took over the management of her husband's tin mines in Rawang

Rawang, Malaysia

Rawang is a town in the district of Gombak, Selangor, Malaysia. It was the capital of Gombak until 1997. It is a developed town.- Location :To reach the town centre, one must drive about 25 minutes from Kuala Lumpur city centre...

, when he was forced to retire due to illness. Being largely illiterate, she devised her own complex hieroglyphic bookkeeping system in order to manage the family's extensive finances. Madam Soon would even go to the mines personally and wake the labourers up to work by literally pulling them out of bed. Not having had the opportunity to be schooled, she was determined that Cheng Kim would not be illiterate and sent the young girl to study at the Methodist Girls' School Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur is the capital and the second largest city in Malaysia by population. The city proper, making up an area of , has a population of 1.4 million as of 2010. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.2 million...

 by train—a journey of 50 miles each way.
Once, young Cheng Kim fell asleep on the train on her way home from school and she awakened just as the train was starting to leave Rawang Station. She was so scared of returning home late and receiving a good chiding from her mother that she leapt out of the moving train. Fortunately the train was not moving fast as it was just leaving the station so she escaped with a few bruises. However, she still received a chiding from her mother when the latter was informed by the station master of what had happened. Despite her domineering character, Mdm Soon's strength and determination became a great influence on Cheng Kim's life.

Becoming Mrs Loke Yew

Cheng Kim was matchmade by other relatives and married Loke Yew

Loke Yew

Loke Yew , CMG, LL.D. was a famous businessman and philanthropist during the British Malaya era. He was regarded as the richest man in Malaysia during his time and played a significant role in the growth of Kuala Lumpur and was also one of the founding fathers of Victoria Institution, Kuala...

 in 1914, after his third wife and Cheng Kim's distant cousin Madam Lim Shuk Kwei, died. After only three years of marriage and the birth of three children, Loke Yew died. Upon his death, she had to bring up three children on her own, and was especially concerned with the poor health of her eldest child: her son Wan Tho

Loke Wan Tho

Loke Wan Tho born in Kuala Lumpur , was a cinema magnate, ornithologist, and photographer. He was the founder of Cathay Organisation in Singapore and Malaysia, and Motion Picture and General Investments Limited in Hong Kong....

. This spurred her to the point of bringing the children abroad for education and healthcare in Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 in 1929.
Life in Switzerland with its pure air and peaceful scenery inspired the Loke children and they developed a love of nature. Wan Tho excelled in sports at school and became an avid mountaineer

Mountaineer

-Sports:*Mountaineering, the sport, hobby or profession of walking, hiking, trekking and climbing up mountains, also known as alpinism-University athletic teams and mascots:*Appalachian State Mountaineers, the athletic teams of Appalachian State University...

, birdwatcher and photographer later in his life. Yuen Peng's interest in nature led her to become a renowned nature conservationist in Singapore and Malaya, and she devoted her life to nature photography.

Cheng Kim returned to Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur is the capital and the second largest city in Malaysia by population. The city proper, making up an area of , has a population of 1.4 million as of 2010. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.2 million...

 to oversee the management of her late husband's assets and businesses. In 1936 she incorporated Associated Theatres Ltd (later renamed Cathay Organisation

Cathay Organisation

Cathay Organisation Holdings Limited is one of Singapore's leading leisure and entertainment groups. It has the first THX cinema hall and digital cinema in Singapore. The group has operations in Singapore and Malaysia.-The early years:...

), registering her son Wan Tho, as one of the owners of the business. At that time Wan Tho was still an undergraduate at the Cambridge University. She proceeded to build the Loke family's first multiplex: the Pavilion Theatre in Kuala Lumpur. In 1937, she purchased a site at Dhoby Ghaut

Dhoby Ghaut

Dhoby Ghaut is a place in Singapore that often refers to the Dhoby Ghaut MRT Station, a major interchange station on the Mass Rapid Transit of Singapore. Dhoby Ghaut or Dhobi Ghat literally means washing place in Hindi, from dhobi "washerman" or one that does laundry and ghat, generically meaning...

 in Singapore where she constructed the modern Cathay Building and developed cinema, hotel and restaurant businesses. When Cathay building was completed in 1939, it was the first skyscraper

Skyscraper

A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...

 in Singapore before the war and the signature building of Cathay Organisation. When Singapore fell to the Japanese Occupation

Japanese occupation of Malaya, North Borneo and Sarawak

Throughout much of World War II, British Malaya, North Borneo and Sarawak were under Japanese occupation.The Japanese Empire commenced the Pacific War with the invasion of Kota Bahru in Kelantan on 8 December 1941 at 00:25, about 90 minutes before the Attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii at 07:48 on 7...

 Cheng Kim evacuated to India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 and, during the war years there, started a Chinese restaurant in Bangalore

Bangalore

Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...

.

On the liberation of Singapore, Mrs Loke Yew returned in 1946 whereupon she was presented with a plaque by Lord Louis Mountbatten

Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma

Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO, PC, FRS , was a British statesman and naval officer, and an uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh...

 commemorating his occupancy of the Cathay Building

Cathay Building

The Cathay Building was opened in 1939 by Dato Loke Wan Tho as the headquarters for the British Malaya Broadcasting Corporation...

. She also bought another property in Katong

Katong

Katong is a residential area in the east of Singapore near the seafront. Formerly located by the sea, land was reclaimed all the way to East Coast Park to provide more land for housing and recreational purposes due to shortage of land in the late 1960s after Singapore gained independence.Katong was...

 which had been a hospital for the Japanese during the war, and converted it into the Ocean Park Hotel. The hotel grew to become a popular haunt by locals for alfresco dining and dancing. She was concurrently also actively involved with the management of the Cathay Hotel in the Cathay Building and developing many of her properties in the area surrounding the Cathay Keris Studios.

Cheng Kim's Other Passions In Her Life

Loke Cheng Kim was also an art lover collector, and had a green thumb. She was extremely fond of flowers and was known to have arranged the flowers in the Cathay Chinese Restaurant herself on many special occasions. Soft spoken but steely, Mrs Loke was a generous philanthropist all her life.

From as long as Cheng Kim can remember, her mother Soon Kui Sim insisted that girls must become literate and having an education. This quality rubbed off on Cheng Kim, and for most her life Cheng Kim devoted much of her time to social welfare and education of children especially girls. Yuen Peng remembers her mother had helped two girls from St. Hilda's School in Katong and putting them through university education in Australia. She was President of the Singapore Chinese Ladies' Association, and of the Chinese Women's Athletic Association before the war, and President of the Chinese Relief Fund Ladies' Section in Kuala Lumpur when the Second Sino-Japanese War

Second Sino-Japanese War

The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany , the Soviet Union and the United States...

 broke out.

She was known to enjoy her food, especially Peranakan

Peranakan

Peranakan Chinese and Baba-Nyonya are terms used for the descendants of late 15th and 16th-century Chinese immigrants to the Indonesian archipelago of Nusantara during the Colonial era....

 food, a legacy of her Penang heritage and practiced t'ai chi everyday until ill health disabled her. Even in her retirement years she was very active in all her businesses and continued to make stock investments. Loke Cheng Kim's shrewdness and determination had been a great influence on the life of her son Loke Wan Tho, till the end of his life. In spite of her canniness, Cheng Kim was a very ethical woman, especially towards honesty and fair dealing and she held to what she said to others.

Cheng Kim died in 1981 at the age of 86.
In memory of her lifetime of philanthropy, the Loke Cheng Kim Foundation in Singapore continues the tradition of helping needy students to pursue further education in foreign universities overseas, with the Loke Cheng Kim Scholarship. The Saint Andrew's Junior College Singapore also named one of their halls The Loke Cheng Kim Hall in memory of this magnificent woman.