Khouw Tian Sek

Khouw Tian Sek, Luitenant der Chinezen (died on November 17, 1843), popularly known as Teng Seck, was a Chinese Indonesian landlord in colonial Batavia (now Jakarta, capital of Indonesia).

[2][3] His father, Khouw Tjoen, was a successful, Chinese-born merchant, who had migrated around 1769 from Fujian to Tegal on Java's north coast, thence to Batavia.

[1][2][3] Among his acquisitions was a great deal of land along the Molenvliet canal, a semi-rural area immediately south of old Batavia, which became the city's most prestigious business district in the mid-nineteenth century.

[2][3] As Arnold Wright points out, '[t]his [area] subsequently increased so enormously in value that without further effort on...[Khouw's] part he was changed from a comparatively well-to-do into an exceedingly wealthy man.

[2][3][6] In old age, Khouw became the first member of his family to be elevated by the Dutch colonial government to the dignity of Luitenant der Chinezen.