Day16. Lee Kuan Yew

The reason: As a great leader in Singapore, Asia, and the world. 

Lee Kuan Yew became prime minister of Singapore in 1959 when he was 35 years old, Cambridge educated, and third generation of immigrant from China to Singapore. Singapore has been lucky enough to have this man on their country. He is strong, diligent, smart, open minded, reliable leader and a man of vision. I have any doubt Singapore is one of most competitive countries in the world because of him and the people.

When I read about him, I was thinking whether or not I could be prime minister by 35 years old. Most people might say “please wait”, I would say “please wait”, but he did. Of course I am a scientist, I don’t need to be a politician but why shouldn’t I learn this attitude how we could contribute our own country. The country might be obsolete when it loses this kind of men.

Since I am Japanese, I was interested in what he was talking about Japan.  I realized that we young generation of Japanese had to take over everything from the older generation of Japanese whatever they had done good or bad.  For the bad side, I was reluctant to believe what Japanese had done to Asian countries. The cruel and brutal Japanese army had threaten to and beaten Asian people. Lee Kuan Yew says we did not apologize. I partially disagree with this though, at least he changed something what I had believed.

On the other hand, for the good side, we could take over the richness the older generation left us. And I am proud of Japanese who came back from full of ashes in our country caused by air raid and nuclear bomb. Japanese have complex feeling for American about this. And also Japan has invested a lot to Asian countries to industrialize the country. Lee Kuan Yew was insightful to ask Japanese industrialize, not give soft loan to Singapore. Singapore had succeeded, and then Asians realized the value of training and knowledge, and were more likely to cooperate with Singapore and Japan.

• The character of people

Although, they had been brought up separately and in different countries, about 80 percent of their vocabulary, IQ, habits, likes and dislikes in food and friends, and other character and personality traits were identical. In other words, nearly 80 per cent of a person’s makeup was from nature, and about 20 per cent the result of nurture. (From his book “From third world to first”)

 Since he wrote this for 1965-2000, now the globalization and World Wide Web might change very slightly though, this is very insightful observation. I think he is one of a few who has met a lot of people around all over the world with keen interest to learn something from them.

• The talented of people

The Japanese prime minister I met, from Ikeda in 1962 to Miyazawa in 1990, were all men of considerable ability. One stood out as a rough diamond – Kakuei Tanaka. (From his book “From third world to first”)

Unfortunately, I didn’t know much about Kakuei Tanaka who is one of most important politician in Japan. He had a reputation as a bulldozer, a man with a powerful computer like mind and tremendous energy. When I see the old Japanese men and women, I could see huge energy inside of them. They keep working all the time. I can believe that’s why Japanese was back from ash after World War II. So I sometime think how I can be like them. I want to know him well.

Sometimes I say to Asian people, we should see the future of ours, that’s why we are here. We are here to create. That is the only thing we could do for now instead of complaining each other. I believe the strength of Japanese and the quality of education to survive this global world as Lee Kuan Yew believes us. The book about Lee Kuan Yew tells me there are so many smart and talented people in Asia. As a one of Japanese, as a member of Asia, what can I and we could do for the future Asia? It is very important for me to know the Asian leaders and people, to create our future with them.