Tjan was the son of a prominent Muslim Chinese family in Surakarta, Dutch East Indies.
[2] His brother Tjan Tjoe Siem also became an academic (of Javanese literature).
In 1958 he joined the Himpunan Sardjana Indonesia (Indonesian: Indonesian Scholars' Association), a mass organization affiliated with the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI).
[2] He was appointed as director of the Universitas Rakjat (Indonesian: People's university), a PKI educational network.
[2] He was also an advisor for the Chinese language edition of Warta Bhakti, a major left-wing newspaper in Indonesia at that time.