Born in Zhongshan of Guangdong province in China, war forced him to relocate as a child to Macau and then to Hong Kong, where he attended and graduated from the Fong Lam Middle School.
[1][2] After Li graduated, he taught at the Chiayi Senior High School for a year then returned to Hong Kong to teach.
[3] In 1968, he was invited by Huang Chun-pi, then Department Chair of the Department of Fine Arts at the National Taiwan Normal University, and began teaching watercolor at the university[2][4] before retiring in 1999.
In his later years, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, which resulted in paralysis of his hands and consequently ended his ability to create art.
He received care from his wife, Ms. Liang Tan-pei, and passed away on 25 February 2012 in Taipei.