Lee Kuan Yew - Early Life

Early Life

Lee was born a British subject in 1923 at 92 Kampong Java Road in Singapore.

According to his memoirs, Lee was first educated at Telok Kurau Primary School, where he had no trouble staying ahead of the class despite not 'trying at all'. He described his fellow students at Telok Kurau as poor and not very bright and advantaged. He then attended Raffles Institution (RI). In RI, Lee had 'to try' because he met the top 150 students from all over Singapore. He made an effort to get into the top class and joined the Scouts for three years. He also played cricket, tennis and chess. During his junior Cambridge years, he obtained several scholarships and subsequently came in top for the School Certificate examinations, obtaining the John Anderson scholarship to attend Raffles College (now National University of Singapore). Lee was the top student in Singapore and Malaya.

Lee's university education was delayed by World War II and the 1942–1945 Japanese occupation of Singapore. During the occupation, Lee learnt Japanese and first worked as a clerk in his grandfather's friend's company—a textile importer called Shimoda. Lee then found work transcribing Allied wire reports for the Japanese where he listened to Allied radio stations and wrote down what they were reporting in the Hodobu office (報道部 – a Japanese propaganda department). Towards the end of the war, by listening to Allied radio stations, he realised the Japanese were going to lose, and fearing that a brutal war would break out in Singapore as the Japanese made their last stand, he made plans to purchase and move to a farm on the Cameron Highlands with his family. However, a liftboy in his office told him his file has been taken out by the security department, and he realised was being followed by Japanese security personnel (which continued for three months), so he abandoned those plans as he knew that if he went he would be in trouble. Lee also ran his own businesses during the war to survive, among which, he manufactured stationery glue under his own brand called 'Stikfas'.

During the occupation, Lee was asked by a Japanese guard to join a group of segregated Chinese men. Sensing that something was amiss, he asked for permission to go back home to collect his clothes first, and the Japanese guard agreed. It turned out that those who were segregated were taken to the beach to be shot as part of the Sook Ching massacre in Singapore.

After the war, Lee went on to study in England. He briefly attended the London School of Economics before moving to the University of Cambridge, where he read law at Fitzwilliam College and graduated with a rare Double Starred (double First Class Honours). (After leaving Cambridge, Lee decided to omit his English name, Harry and simply be known as Lee Kuan Yew, although to this day, old comrades and English friends, such as Margaret Thatcher, still refer to him as Harry Lee.) Lee was subsequently made an honorary fellow of Fitzwilliam College.

In England, Lee campaigned for a friend named David Widdicombe, who was in the Labour Party. He drove Widdicombe around in a lorry and delivered several speeches on his behalf. After seeing how the British had failed to defend Singapore from the Japanese, and after his stay in England, Lee decided that Singapore has to govern itself. He returned to Singapore in 1949.

Lee, in his memoirs, recounted how he has had to sing four national anthems in his lifetime: first, God Save The King when Singapore was a British colony; second, Kimigayo, the Japanese national anthem during the Japanese occupation of Singapore; third, the Malaysian national anthem Negaraku, when Singapore was part of Malaysia for two bitter years; fourth, Majulah Singapura, the national anthem of Singapore.