Perspiration rolled down our cheeks as we made our way to the former residence of Tan Kah Kee., at 149 Jiageng Road, Jimei, was completed in June 1918. It is a building in Roman style, with a ground space of about 400m2. It used to be the place where Mr. Tan Kah Kee and his younger brother Tan Keng Hean ( or Chen Jingxian ) lived and worked when they were in Jimei.It was destroyed in an air raid by the Japanese in 1939.

In 1950, Mr. Tan Kah Kee returned from Singapore and settled down in Jimei. The first thing he did was to rebuild the villagers' houses and the school buildings which had been destroyed during the war. It was not until 1955 when the rebuilding project was completed, did he start to restore his own house. Since 1980 it has undergone several over-all repairs in the principle of "conservation first and keeping the original appearance in up-grading".

The building, surrounded by flourishing longyan trees which Mr. Tan loved, has now become an exhibition, with a display of the history of Jimei Schools and Xiamen University on the first floor, and Mr. Tan's office, dining room, bedroom and conference room, now open to the public and a showroom of Mr. Tan Keng Hean's life story on the second. The Chinese characters "Mr. Tan Kah Kee's Residence" were written by Liao Chengzhi, the late Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of NPC of China.