An intellectual through and through, he had been the most brilliant schoolboy of his age in Singapore... He took a Double First in Law at Cambridge... Lee was brought up in English, which he speaks far better than most British politicians, and learned Mandarin as well as Malay only when he entered politics. Yet he is immensely proud that his Chinese ancestry makes him part of the oldest, and, as he would say, the greatest culture in the world. He is especially proud of being of the Hakka people, which originated in North China. The Hakka are the Prussians of China, and there is a lot of the Prussian in Lee Kuan Yew. He believes in discipline and hard work.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "An intellectual through and through, he had been the most brilliant schoolboy of his age in Singapore... He took a Double First in Law at Cambridge... Lee was brought up in English, which he speaks far better than most British politicians, and learned Mandarin as well as Malay only when he entered politics. Yet he is immensely proud that his Chinese ancestry makes him part of the oldest, and, as he would say, the greatest culture in the world. He is especially proud of being of the Hakka people, which originated in North China. The Hakka are the Prussians of China, and there is a lot of the Prussian in Lee Kuan Yew. He believes in discipline and hard work." in the context of "Denis Healey, The Time of My Life (1989; 1990), p. 286" to mean that wisdom is timeless.