Peranakan Lee Kuan Yew

["Dixie" <Dixie@singnet.com.sg>]

Re: Lan Fang Republic

>From there, some moved to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. One of 
>the descendent from these people is Lee Kuan Yew.

I do not know how accurate this is.
But from what I know, Lee Kuan Yew's great-grandfather came to Singapore
from Dapu County, Guangdong Province.


> Did they all become Hakka Nonya and Baba especially
> the parents of Mr Lee Kuan Yew?

Well. I would say they did.
For the record, LKY's maternal grandmother is a Malay/native from
Indonesia. And LKY's mother is reputed to be very good at Nonya dishes.

I have read the histories of the Nonya (females) and Babas (males), or
collectively known as Peranakan:
They came from 3 main areas in Malaya: Penang, Malacca and Singapore.
Those from Singapore actually came from Malacca.
Chinese came to Malaya 500 years ago during the Ming Dynasty.
At that time, only men came as the Ming Dynasty does not encourage women to
travel overseas and the sea voyage is too long and tedious too.
Many of these men did not go back to China and therefore they can only
marry the local women. However, if they married the locals, they have to
convert to their religion because the locals are Muslims.
But these men did not convert to Muslims because they married the female
slaves, which are not worthy enough for the average Malay man.

As for Lee Kuan Yew's Peranakan ancestry, I only know that he has a
Malay/Indonesian native maternal grandmother.


- Dixie