By age sixteen he had entered the workforce, first at a shop in Glodok run by Khouw Lam Tjiang then for the printer van Dorp.

This latter job introduced Lauw to journalism, as van Dorp printed both the daily Bintang Betawi and the monthly Java Bode.

[2] At some point around the turn of the century he married Lie On Moy, a Peranakan Chinese woman born in Padang, who would also become a translator and journalist.

After Lie Kim Hok's death in 1912, Lauw completed the writer's ongoing translation of Hugo Hartmann's Dolores, de Verkochte Vrouw, publishing it as Prampoean jang Terdjoewal.

[7] In his foreword to the translation, Lauw wrote that he wanted to improve the quality of stage plays performed by Chinese Indonesians, which were facing competition from the burgeoning film industry as well as the bangsawan and stamboel theatrical genres.