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In Chinese names the surname goes first, so it's Lee's times.


Well, Lee Kuan Yew’s surname is indeed Lee, but Chinese names are sometimes written with the surname at the end in other languages: thus C.K. Tang, Wen Ho Lee, and so on. And, indeed, if one were also discussing the times of Lee Hsien Loong, it would be perfectly reasonable to write of ‘Kuan Yew’s times’. But people writing of ‘Yew’s times[sic]’ do betray how little they’ve read about Singapore.


> Chinese names are sometimes written with the surname at the end in other languages, thus C.K. Tang, Wen Ho Lee

This is an Anglicisation through and through. In Mandarin Chinese and most Chinese dialects (and Korean, for the record), the surname comes first.

XI Jinping

MAO Tse-tung

LEE Kuan Yew

TSAI Ying-Wen

HUANG Jen-Hsun

KIM Jong-un

BAN Ki-moon

If the person has a European first name, then it comes before the surname—Lisa Su, for instance. Lee Kuan Yew himself went by 'Harry Lee Kuan Yew' before he went into politics and he dropped the 'Harry'.


Do we have these discussions about Victor Orban?


> sometimes…in other languages




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