The illustrious LEE surname

By Laura Lee

I've always been curious to find out about the origins of my surname Lee. What greeted me when I signed in for Sunway Velocity Mall's Spend and Win prize presentation was my big surname staring at me on the red board.

Wow, what a welcome, I thought but I was to learn later from the emcee that the mall had selected the use of the different surnames to encourage the gathering of the Chinese people as a community. It certainly stimulated the interest into my surname. 

Lee or Li is the second most common surname in China after Wang in northern China and Chen in southern China, according to Wikipedia.

However, when China released the top 100 surnames after its latest study which was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation, the website, http://en.people.cn listed Li as the top Chinese surnames in 2006.

China is one of the earliest countries to use surnames, which is passed from the father to son, reportedly started as early as 5,000 years ago.

In this summary provided by the board at Sunway Velocity Mall, it says the Li families were descendants of Emperor Zhuan Xu (2,513-2,435 BC).

Also known as Gao Yang Shi, he is a mythological emperor of ancient China and grandson of the Yellow Emperor. He lived to rule from age 20 to 78 until his death. 

Whoops, as I swim into the deep ends of my Chinese ancestry, interestingly it is a wild “Muzi” fruit that saved my ancestry and led them to change their surname from Li to Lee, another Chinese character writing form.  

I googled “Muzi” and the picture of a kiwi fruit pops up. A native to China's ancient wild vine fruit trees, the kiwi, commonly known as a mountain peach or pear peach, was introduced when a New Zealand female teacher brought the fruit back to her country for cultivation.

I’m not familiar with the famous Li in ancient Chinese history. In my lifetime, the most famous Lee I know are the late actor Bruce Lee; Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first premier who passed away in 2015; and the 89-year-old Sir Li Ka Shing, Hong Kong’s business magnate and the world’s 23rd richest person with estimated net worth of US$36.7 billion as at January 2018.