Kho Ping Hoo survives into digital age<\/p>\n
Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post\/Jakarta<\/p>\n
Although Asmaraman Sukowati Kho Ping Hoo died 11 years ago, his
\nwork has survived into the digital age.<\/p>\n
The past three years have seen Kho Ping Hoo stories being
\nuploaded to the Internet, as a website or e-book, and downloaded
\nto people's PDAs.<\/p>\n
On Yahoo Groups alone, there are six e-groups of Kho Ping Hoo
\nfans, of which kho-ping-hoo group is the most popular, with more
\nthan 1,200 members.<\/p>\n
Bagus Pursena, the founder of the group, said that he met
\nother Kho fans who sought e-books of Kho's works on various
\nmailing lists.<\/p>\n
In 2002, after cyber communication with fellow fans, he
\ndecided to create the group which now has about 20 titles of
\nKho's e-book, 70 megabytes in size.<\/p>\n
\"The titles include Kho's most popular series called Bu-kek
\nSian-su, which has 17 titles,\" Bagus, an employee at a private
\ncompany in Jakarta, told The Jakarta Post.<\/p>\n
He said that he found some of Kho's digitalized works
\nscattered on a variety of Internet websites.<\/p>\n
\"But some of the files were not arranged in correct order,\"
\nadded Bagus, a Javanese whom people often suspected to be a
\nChinese-Indonesian due to his fanaticism for Kho's works.<\/p>\n
With the help of other fans, he retyped the files, improved
\nthe scan quality and arranged the books in order. He even
\nrechecked the accuracy of the files using the Kho hard copies he
\nhad.<\/p>\n
He said that he was willing to devote time to doing that
\nbecause he really liked the stories.<\/p>\n
Bagus, who has read Kho's works since he was in junior high
\nschool, added that about 20 to 30 people joined his group every
\nday and about 40 group members who lived in Jakarta met two to
\nthree times a year.<\/p>\n
He said that most of the e-group members were longtime fans of
\nKho's works who had read all the books.<\/p>\n
\"But we like to read them again from our PDAs in our spare
\ntime,\" he said.<\/p>\n
\"I like his works because he did not merely write martial arts
\nstories but also focused on values of critical thinking, peaceful
\nways of resolving matters and inclusiveness in racial issues,\"
\nBagus added.<\/p>\n
Kho's stories were tales written by Kho himself, and are not
\nan adaptation or translation of Chinese tales. Most of his works
\nhave mainland China as their background although he also wrote
\nstories that have Java as the setting.<\/p>\n
Kho, a Chinese-Indonesian born in Sragen, Central Java, on
\nAug. 17, 1926, wrote stories in Indonesian with Chinese-Malay
\nterms like suheng (teacher) inserted here and there.<\/p>\n
His stories have kung fu (Chinese martial arts) virtuous
\nheroes who fought against \"jai hwa cat\", a group of people whom
\nKho described as playboys or \"flower-picking heroes\" and \"bo ceng
\nli\", a group of shameless cowards.<\/p>\n
His works emerged to popularity in the late 1950s and
\nprevailed for 30 years.<\/p>\n
After his first story, Pedang Pusaka Naga Putih (White Dragon
\nSword) published in the 1950s in Teratai magazine received a warm
\nreception, he became a full-time writer, publishing his own
\npocket books through his publishing company, CV Gema, in
\nSurakarta, Central Java.<\/p>\n
Leo Suryadinata, a Chinese-Indonesian literature researcher,
\nwrote in his book Sastra Peranakan Tionghoa Indonesia (Chinese-
\nIndonesian Literature) that Kho's works within his 30-year career
\ntotaled 120 titles.<\/p>\n
Many Kho fans consider the Bu-kek Sian-su series of 17 titles
\nto be Kho's masterpiece.<\/p>\n
Besides becoming an e-book, a number of websites have also
\nbeen developed for Kho's works, including a link on newsportal
\nwww.detik.com.<\/p>\n
Previously, Kho's stories were also made into a TV program,
\nLegenda Kho Ping Hoo (Kho Ping Hoo Legend), which was aired on
\ncommercial TV.<\/p>",
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