[kszx]

Cambridge professor about Lee Hsien Loong:

"No, he was truly outstanding: he was head and shoulders above the rest of the students. He was not only the first, but the gap. I think that he did computer science (after mathematics) mostly because his father didn’t want him to stay in pure mathematics. Loong was not only hardworking, conscientious and professional, but he was also very inventive. All the signs indicated that he would have been a world-class research mathematician."

"I’m sure his father never realized how exceptional Loong was. He thought Loong was very good. No, Loong was much better than that. When I tried to tell Lee Kuan Yew, “Look, your son is phenomenally good: you should encourage him to do mathematics,” then he implied that that was impossible, since as a top-flight professional mathematician Loong would leave Singapore for Princeton, Harvard or Cambridge, and that would send the wrong signal to the people in Singapore. And I have to agree that this was a very good point indeed."

http://therealsingapore.com/content/cambridge-professor-lee-...

[Ended]

Not just any professor, but Béla Bollobás!

[octatoan]

He was in the Princeton Companion, right? The advice section?

[dengnan]

Just one nitpick: his family name is Lee. Loong is just a half of his given name. So calling him Loong is a bit weird.

[xngzng]

Not weird but common. For Chinese family who uses 3 letter names, the boys will use the same second-letter in their name, the girls will use the same but different second-letter. Example Lee Hsien Loong and Lee Hsien Yang. So at home their parents probably call them Ah Loong or Ah Yang when they were kids. You can call him Loong if you're close to him or his senior relatives or his teachers. Chinese in south-east-asia still prevalently uses 3-letter name. But in China, more people have two-letter name.

[turingbook]

Nowadays most of younger generations' Chinese use 3 letter names again.

[kszx]

His father also called him Loong (not Hsien Loong), at least sometimes:

"He was still young and it was better that someone else succeed me as prime minister. Then, were Loong to make the grade later, it would be clear that he made it on his own merit."

http://www.singapore-window.org/sw04/040531a1.htm

(They use English in the family, although Lee Hsien Loong can speak Chinese fairly well.)

[kzrdude]

His father called him by his first name, that sounds expected.

[hboon]

Hsien Loong is his first name. Chinese usually don't have middle names. Calling him "Loong" is the equivalent of calling Tommy Tom. But it's more intimate, usually only used by someone closer to the person.

[yen223]

His brother is Lee Hsien Yang, so his father probably calls him Loong to distinguish him from the brother.

[shas3]

They are from Singapore, not China. I have seen that such notions as last name, etc. are a bit distorted in immigrant communities, particularly for nth generation immigrants. A good example is first and last names of Indians in the Caribbean and South Africa, which are often distorted, weirdly spelled, etc.