Early Life
Yoong was born on 20 July 1976 at the Sambhi Clinic in Kuala Lumpur. His mother, Johanna Bean, is a British expatriate and his father Hanifah Yoong Yin Fah is a Malaysian of Chinese descent through Alex's grandfather Yoong Wan Hoi who emigrated in 1933. His grandfather worked as a contractor and steel trader but was forced to retire during the 1997 Asian financial crisis. In an interview in 1999, Yoong states that he sees himself first as a Malaysian, then part Chinese and part English. His father started racing sedans in 1978 and his mother followed suit in 1983 in rallying. Yoong became an avid follower of Formula One by the age of four. Given an Kawasaki 50cc motocross on his eighth birthday, he demonstrated the ability to be able to race successfully.
Read more about this topic: Alex Yoong
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“Yet, haply, in some lull of life,
Some Truce of God which breaks its strife,
The worldling’s eyes shall gather dew,
Dreaming in throngful city ways
Of winter joys his boyhood knew;
And dear and early friends—the few”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
“There’s a quality of legend about freaks. Like a person in a fairy tale who stops you and demands that you answer a riddle. Most people go through life dreading they’ll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They’ve already passed their test in life. They’re aristocrats.”
—Diane Arbus (1923–1971)