Poh Heng

Maybe i shall start my blog on more about my surname…humm, most people know me by the surname Lim. In actual fact, my real surname is Seow.

Before you jump to any conclusions, the reason is nothing spectacular or dramatic. What an anti-climax….haha.

My father was born to a family in a poor village in Fujian Province, Southern China. As life was hard and difficult to earn a living, he decided to leave his hometown to venture overseas. At that time, Singapore had just gained independence and he couldn’t get a “direct” entry here.

In the end, he made a detour to Malaysia and was “adopted” by a family with the surname Lim. My father agreed to use this surname as “Seow” and “Lim” actually shares the same ancestors many many years ago. More on this story in future posts.

With this “new” identity, he was able to enter Singapore. This is how my surname became Seow and we kept it all the way until year 2002 when my father decided that we ought to use our original surname. As i was already 28 years old that year, i didn’t make a change to the surname and chose to add an alias instead. That’s how i ended up with Lim Poh Heng @ Seow Poh Heng.