Yap Goan Ho
Yap Goan Ho (, died 1894) was a Chinese Indonesian translator, businessman, bookseller, and publisher based in Batavia, Dutch East Indies. In the 1880s and 1890s, he was one of the first Chinese Indonesians to own a printing press and the first to publish Chinese language novels in Malay language translations. Biography Yap was born in Batavia, Dutch East Indies in the nineteenth century, although the exact date is unknown. Before entering into the printing business, he apparently made his money with a business selling pork. Around 1883 he acquired a printing press and started to get contracts to print books for schools and government offices. In the 1880s, he turned to the popular market and began to publish Chinese novels in illustrated Malay translations, which became very popular among the Peranakan who spoke Malay as their first language and often could not read Chinese. He may have been the first publisher to do so, and was followed not long after by Lie Kim Hok. His most popular translation was The Travels of Emperor QianLong in South China (1883). He also continued to publish educational, reference, and religious books, and even published Malay books in the Jawi script. In June