Kho Ping Hoo

Who was Kho Ping Hoo?

Kho Ping Hoo or Asmaraman Sukowati Kho Ping Hoo is an Indonesian author of Chinese ethnicity. He is well known in Indonesia for his martial art fiction set in the background of China or Java. During his 30 years career, at least 120 stories has been published. However, Forum magazine claimed at least Kho Ping Hoo had 400 stories with the background of China and 50 stories with the background of Java.

Despite the fact that most of his stories were based on Chinese martial art genre, Kho Ping Hoo never actually learned Chinese. He had his inspirations from Hong Kong and Taiwan kung fu films. He made a significant contributions to Indonesian colloquial literature. The novels also introduce many Chinese terms in Hokkien dialects to Indonesian terms.

Because of his illiteracy in Chinese languages, his writings contain various errors regarding historical and geographical reality of China. However, the inaccuracies does not affect the popularity of Kho Ping Hoo. The novels themselves never reached China or the wider Chinese speaking population.

On 14th of December one of his most famous stories "bukek siansu" - the golden flute - finally arrived in China introduced by Ambassador Imron Cotan, Indonesian Ambassador to the People's Republic of China. The Chinese version of the book was launched by Ambassador Cotan together with Mr. Ma Minqiang, Secretary-General of Asean-China Center at Grand Millennium Hotel, Beijing. The publisher, Mr. Kasim Ghazali, a young businessman from Indonesia, was also present at the launching ceremony which was well attended by members of diplomatic circle, friends of Indonesia, and people from all walks of life.