LEE KUAN YEW: THE EVENTS BEHIND THAT MOULDED THE STOIC POLITICIAN

On the sixteenth of September 1923, Harry Lee Kuan Yew, a third generation Straits Chinese, was born to Chua Jim Neo and Lee Chin Koon at 92 Kampong Java Road, a large and airy bungalow in Singapore. The Lee family was rich but not extravagant. However, they had no business foresight and when the Great Depression hit the rubber market of Singapore, the Lees were badly hit and had to move into Kuan Yew’s mother’s residence, much to the chagrin of the patriarch of the Lee family, Kuan Yew’s grandfather Lee Hoon Leong, who had lavished his sons with English education and unlimited credit accounts at John Little’s and Robinsons. His influence over the family was exhibited in Kuan Yew’s name itself. “Harry” was chosen even though it was subnormal at that time to have a British name if you were not a British, but Hoon Leong believed that the name “Harry” should be given to one of his grandchildren as a sign of respect and admiration for the British. It is interesting to not...