Under The Angsana Tree: Lee Kuan Yew’s only daughter, Dr Lee Wei Ling

Lee Hsien Yang commemorates Lee Wei Ling’s 69th birthday with throwback photo while PM Lee maintains silence

Founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s only daughter, Dr Lee Wei Ling, turned 69 years old on Sunday (7 Jan), and her younger brother, Lee Hsien Yang, commemorated her birthday by sharing a throwback photo of them both on social media. Near midnight on Sunday, Mr Lee Hsien Yang shared a black-and-white photo showing him and his sister smiling beside a cannon. In the post, which received more than a thousand likes in less than an hour, he wrote, “Today is Wei Ling’s birthday. She was born in 1955.”

Their elder brother, current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, made no mention of Dr Lee or her birthday on social media. The younger Lee siblings have been estranged from PM Lee since at least 2017, about two years after their father passed. Although their differences initially stemmed from disagreements about their late father’s will, the rift between them has only grown wider over the years – especially after Mr Lee Hsien Yang’s wife and son became entangled in legal issues after the family feud spilled into the public domain. Mr Lee Hsien Yang and his wife are presently living overseas amid the latest inquiry into them by the Singapore authorities.

The younger Mr Lee has expressed deep distress over not being able to be with his sister, who has been diagnosed with a rare brain disorder with no cure and is extremely unwell. Her younger brother, his wife and their children are Dr Lee Wei Ling’s closest relatives after the passing of their parents. She never married and chose to stay single. In 2009, Dr Lee explained why she chose not to get married in an article published by the national broadsheet. Dr Lee described the loving relationship her parents.

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Lee Wei Ling 'now extremely unwell', Lee Hsien Yang reveals

Lee Hsien Yang described his elder sister Lee Wei Ling to be "extremely unwell" in his latest Facebook post on March 7. The 65-year-old, who is the youngest child of Singapore's first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, made the revelation about his elder sister, who went public in August 2020 that she was diagnosed with a rare brain disorder.

The younger brother of Singapore's current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 71, wrote that he brought his sister, 68, to Machu Picchu in 2020, a place she "had always wanted to visit". Lee Hsien Yang also added that he is "unlikely ever to be able to see my sister face to face again", and it pains him "beyond words", as he reiterated his previous allegations that he has been "persecuted" by the Singapore authorities in the case of his father's will.

"I am heart-broken that I have been made a fugitive by my own country, for standing up for a promise to my father, Lee Kuan Yew," he wrote. He also made allegations that he and his family have been subjected to "a campaign of harassment and surveillance, as well as smear campaigns". "We have lost our lives in Singapore, our home, our friends, our wider families and our society," he concluded.

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Lee Wei Ling diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, an uncommon brain disorder with no cure

On the night of Aug. 8, Lee Wei Ling, the daughter of the late Lee Kuan Yew, revealed in a Facebook post that she has been diagnosed with a rare brain disorder.

Lee, a 65-year-old neurologist, said that she has progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). She described the rare illness as a "rather nasty brain disease", which shares similar symptoms as Parkinson's Disease. In the earlier stages of the disease, it will slow her physical movements, impair her eye movements, and affect her sense of balance. It might eventually lead to difficulty in swallowing, pneumonia and death.

As the disease progresses, she will also lose self-control on how she behaves and responds to others. Lee said that she chooses to endure what has happened to her, even as she remarked that "it would be nice" if this could be just a "nightmare" that she could wake up from. However, she is already experiencing slowness and difficulty in simple movements.

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Lee Wei Ling diagnosed with rare brain disorder with no cure, wishes it was a nightmare

Dr Lee Wei Ling, the younger sister of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, has been diagnosed with Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP), a rare brain disorder that results in the weakening of certain muscles. She broke the news on Saturday night (Aug 8) in a Facebook post.

The disorder, which starts off similar to Parkinson's Disease, impairs fast eye-movement and balance, before causing difficulty in swallowing, choking aspiration, pneumonia, dementia with prominent behavioural changes and eventually results in death, the 65-year-old neurologist shared. "It is a rather nasty brain disease."

As much as she wished that the entire ordeal would just be "a nightmare" she would wake up from, "it [was] getting increasingly real and inescapable every day", she wrote. Now, Dr Lee finds her movements slow and hesitant. She also has difficulty getting up from her futon every morning. Her first reaction upon learning her diagnosis was to tolerate and endure, something she explained she had been practising since young. While she did not voice it, her next reaction had been: "Why me?"

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Dr Lee Wei Ling diagnosed with rare brain disorder that does not have a cure

Dr Lee Wei Ling, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s sister, said in a Facebook post on Saturday (Aug 8) that she had been diagnosed with a rare brain disorder that does not yet have a cure. Dr Lee shared that she had received news that she had progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP).

The 65-year-old neurologist explained that it was a rather “nasty brain disease” which starts with Parkinson’s-like symptoms but gets worse to difficulty swallowing, choking aspiration, pneumonia and death — for the fortunate. “My immediate reaction to the news was “忍” (ren), or endure in Chinese, of which the traditional character has a knife above a heart,” said Dr Lee. She noted how she would always apply ren ever since in Chinese school, “recognising that life has many unpleasant, unavoidable situations”. “It would be nice if this entire episode turns out to be a nightmare and that I will wake up,” she admitted.

However, she shared that her movements have become slow and hesitant, even getting up from her futon was increasingly challenging. The next question that popped into her mind was: “Why me?” Yet, the neurologist did not give voice to the question, knowing that the answer would be: “Why not?” She added that she has “had it good for too long”.

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Dr Lee Wei Ling

I was walking alone in Fort Canning Park on the night of 5/7/2020. It was the 15th day of the 5th month in the lunar calendar. The moon was shining brightly with enough lighting to walk but not enough to prevent me from getting lost. I made a wrong turn and ended up at a cul de sac near a cemetery next to a huge YMCA building. There was a snapping sound and sharp pain in my right thigh when I took a step.

Instinctively I knew I fractured my right femur from a similar experience more than a decade ago. I fell on my back and when I tried to turn prone to crawl back to the path, bone end rubbed against bone end and all the thigh muscles went into spasm in a ball around the fracture site. My ability to Ren(忍) or put up with the pain was overwhelmed.

I tried to move by kicking with my left leg and hitching my torso up on my two arms and to get back on the path I had stepped off, hoping to find a stone which I could toss at a third storey window off the YMCA. I doubt I could toss a stone that high and knew there was no way I could make my way down the very steep flight of steps I came up. Knowing I was near my starting point where I thought my dog Hiro and my helper Darmi were waiting, I shouted loudly, “Hiro help, Hiro help, anybody help.” But was met by dead silence. I was not afraid after all this is Singapore where no one can remain lost for long.

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Lee Wei Ling

Today is Wei Ling's birthday. She was born on 7 Jan 1955

Lee Wei Ling is a Singaporean neurologist. She was the director of the National Neuroscience Institute. She is the sister of Lee Hsien Loong and the daughter of Lee Kuan Yew. Lee received a President's Scholarship in 1973, before studying in the medical faculty of the University of Singapore (now the National University of Singapore), where she graduated top of her class with a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degree before specialising in pediatrics.

She began working in the pediatric ward at the Singapore General Hospital (SGH) and received board certification from the American Board of Clinical Neuropsychology. Lee is the daughter of Lee Kuan Yew and Kwa Geok Choo. She is the younger sister of Lee Hsien Loong and the older sister of Lee Hsien Yang. Lee enjoys driving and admitted to speeding on a visit to New Hampshire in 1995; she was pulled over by highway police but was released by the sympathetic officer after discussing the caning of Michael Fay.

In 2015, shortly after the death of her father, Lee published an autobiographical book, A Hakka Woman's Singapore, based on columns that she had previously written. She has publicly spoken against hero worship of the founding Prime Minister. In 2016, an editor at The Straits Times accused Lee of plagiarism in an unpublished article. Lee has publicly supported freedom of speech and stated that she would cease writing for the newspaper following the editorial dispute. In August 2020, Lee stated she had been diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, a rare brain disorder that results in the weakening of certain muscles. In 2022, Lee reportedly sold a property worth S$50 million to Yonghong Shi, a cofounder of Haidilao.

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