Born Lý Phụ Cường, (Originally 李富強, later changed to 李華強 in Traditional Chinese, 李华强 in Simplified Chinese) in Kuching, Malaysia, Daniel Wah Keung Lee was/is a third generation refugee going back to his grandparents on both maternal and paternal sides having been refugees from China to Vietnam; his Vietnam-born parents became refugees from Vietnam to Malaysia during the purge of ethnic Chinese during the late 1970s before settling in the United States. Daniel has one older and one younger sister. Raised in the western suburbs of Chicago (first in Forest Park, IL and later in Downers Grove, IL), Daniel moved to New York, NY in August 1996 and lived there until February 2014. He likes to say he is originally from Kuching, raised in Chicagoland, and grew the fuck up in New York City. Daniel relocated to Seattle, WA in March 2014 and after a little over five years in the Pacific Northwest, moved to New Orleans in December 2019.