Bruce Lee whose given name was Lee Jun-fan, was born on November 27, 1940,in San Francisco's Chinatown in the hour and year of the Dragon, Lee died tragically at the extremely young age of 32 But in the 32 years that Bruce Lee walked this earth, he left his mark on not just America, where he was born, but also the rest of the world.His presence continues to be felt in fields ranging from film to academia, martial arts to racial equality.
Lee was raised in a bi-religious household. His mother was a Catholic and his father an opera singer fro Hong Kong was a Buddhist who had moved with his family in the United States in 1939, in search of a new beginning. During his short but active life, he appeared in numerous films, contributing to the change of the way in which Americans perceived Asians, and became widely considered by critics, media and other martial artists to be one of the most influential martial artists of all time, and a pop culture icon of the 20th century.
Despite the pop simplicity of Lee’s image, emblazoned across a million posters and T-shirts, there is almost nothing about the man that is easy to summarise. His life took a twisty route through childhood dramas in Hong Kong, short-lived television shows in America, periods of great hyperactivity and of terrible inactivity, until it arrived at The Big Boss (1971) and the action films that brought him immense fame. Bruce Lee, meaning “strong one” in Gaelic, moved back in Hong Kong at the age of one, where he spent his teenage years and expressed his love for acting. He appeared in 20 films as a child, learned dancing, but also entered a street fighting gang in 1953, where he revealed his martial arts skills and also started learning kung-fu to perfect his technique.
In 1958, Bruce defeated the three time amateur boxing champion, Gary Elms in the Hong Kong Inter-school amateur boxing Championship and managed to get into trouble with the police in the following year, for a violent street fight. He flew to America to pursue a higher education, although it is believed that his mother made the decision and sent him to live with their relatives outside Seattle in order to keep him away from the bad environment he was involved in.
He graduated in Edison, Washington, and chose a major in philosophy at the University of Washington. Although of an artistic nature, Bruce focused on his main love, martial arts and got a job teaching Wing Chun to his fellow students. In 1964, he started out his own martial arts courses and also found his partner, Linda Emery, whom he married.
Shortly after, Lee moved to California, where he opened two schools and taught a martial arts technique called Jeet Kune Do. During that same time, a controversial fight with Wong Jack Man, an expert in special fighting techniques in Chinatown boosted Bruce’s popularity. Blamed for teaching martial arts to non-Chinese, Bruce confronted Wong and won after three minutes, revealing his efficient tactic and expertise.
Bruce Lee started his acting career by starring in the television series The Green Hornet, aired from 1966 to 1967, where he portrayed Kato, the hornet’s loyal sidekick. Although, Bruce’s theatrical appearance was much more complex than those of other Asian actors at that time and was based on real and fine fighting technique, certain stereotypes and producer’s wish for him to embody them, made him to move back to Hong Kong with his wife and two children, in 1971.
Back home, Bruce launched his own production company, Concord Pictures and starred in movies, turned box office hits in Hong Kong, such as The Chinese Connection or Fists of Fury. Although the productions had poor critics in America, Bruce Lee became a movie star in Asia and was determined to conquer the American public as well. He is noted for his roles in five feature-length films: Lo Wei’s The Big Boss (1971) and Fist of Fury (1972); Way of the Dragon (1972), directed and written by Lee; Warner Brothers’ Enter the Dragon (1973) and The Game of Death (1973), both directed by Robert Clouse. Bruce Lee was the first actor to bridge East and West. He was from Hong Kong and the U.S. He understood how to speak to both audiences in a way that no one else ever had. Enter the Dragon was the first film co-produced in Hong Kong and Hollywood. This meant Asian landscapes and characters weren’t constructed by American filmmakers. More importantly, Chinese filmmakers had some control over how they appeared on screen. (Compare that to some of the decade’s more problematic depictions of Asian people, particularly films about the Vietnam War.) Part of Lee’s ability to break out across racial and cultural divides had to do with the universal nature of the themes in his movies.
Beyond martial arts, Bruce Lee also had a personal, more philosophical life to himself.He claimed that martial arts was only an extension of his philosophies in life, and claimed that any type of knowledge will ultimately lead to self knowledge. Lee also had an avid love of reading and had an extensive library of over 2,500 books. A self proclaimed atheist, Lee claimed that he did or believe in God and that he had no firm religious beliefs at all. His philosophies loosely mirrored Buddhism and Taoism. Lee's most intently philosophical work may have been the series of letters he wrote to himself under the heading "In My Own Process" in 1973. The piece underwent nine drafts but was never finished, and is a first-hand look at Lee's thought process during a tumultuous time in his life. In 2017, it was shared for the first time on Brain Pickings with special permission from Lee's daughter, Shannon Lee, and the Bruce Lee Foundation. In fact, philosophy was so essential to Bruce’s life that he went on strike for two weeks when producers temporarily cut most of the philosophical dialogue from Enter the Dragon.
He also happened to be a fantastic poet, of such beauty and depth. Lee started writing poetry when he moved from Hong Kong to the U.S. at age 18. He wrote poetry to express his feelings of contemplativeness, love, melancholy, and oneness with nature. The poetry was a way to process and understand his own feelings. Bruce also wrote poems and letters to his wife Linda expressing love and gratefulness for her. Linda has said that she can still feel the warmth of his love through his writing. Bruce Lee was a masculine man of action who also had a very integrated feminine side. He was always cultivating both Yin and Yang, that were also at the core of his fighting style. His poetry carries the tone of dark, brooding poets such as Robert Frost. He utilised the use of free form poetry, and displayed it powerfully.Within his poetry resides his philosophy of martial arts and life itself. His most famous quote sums up his feelings regarding fighting and his poetry itself. "Empty your mind," he said. "Be formless; shapeless, like water. Now, if you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup; you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle; you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend." His poetry was originally jotted down on handwritten pieces of paper and later publihed by John Little after being released by his wife in the book, Bruce Lee: Artist of life. The book contains 21 original poems found within Lee's personal archive. The poems, Little writes, "are, by American standards, rather dark -- reflecting the deeper, less exposed recesses of the human psyche... Many seem to express a returning sentiment of the fleeting nature of life, love and the passion of human longing .
Lee died under suspicious conditions on July 20 1973, at only 32. The autopsy revealed a strange brain edema, caused by a reaction to a painkiller he had taken for his back pain. To this day, his death is wrapped in mystery and the exact cause is yet to be known. His legacy lives on in his films and words. Here are a few examples of his wonderful poetry.Enjoy.
Rain
Rain,
Black clouds,
Fallen blossoms and pale moon,
The hurried flight of birds
The arrival of lonely autumn
The time for us to part.
The clouds above are floating across the sky
Swiftly, swiftly passing,
Or blending together.
Much has been said, yet we have not
Come to the end of our feelings.
Long must be this parting, and
Remember, remember that all
My thoughts have always been of you.
The good time will probably never come back again.
In a moment---our parting will be over.
When days are short and dull nights long
Read this poem I leave you, read it
When the silence of the world possesses you,
Or when you are fretted with disquiet.
Long must be this parting, and
Remember, remember that all
My thoughts have always been of you.
All streams flowing East or West
All streams flowing East or West
Must flow into the sea;
The current from the middle land
Sweeps by the lonely island.
Gold and silver pebbles mingle,
Seaweed and kelp interlace.
Streams born from mountain snows
Grow to swelling wave.
The full-blown arc of quew moves
In race against the grey
Caps of white like beats of heart
Are pulled within the wave.
The wave from mountain peaks becomes
Hammer to sculpture rocks,
To leave chiseled shapes and polished surfaces.
From boulder to rock to sand.
And with the final thrust the sun
Throws wave upon the shore
The jellyfish in weariness
Nestles in a pool.
Night Rain
Sadness broods
over the world
I fear to walk in my garden,
lest I see
a pair of butterflies
disporting in the sun
among the flowers.
The Dying Sun
The dying sun lies sadly in the far horizon.
The autumn wind blows mercilessly;
The yellow leaves fall.
From the mountain peak,
Two streams parted unwillingly,
One to the West, one to the East.
The sun will rise again in the morning.
The leaves will be green again in spring.
But must we be like the mountain stream,
Never to meet again?
Though The Night Was Made For Loving
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon.
And so the time flies hopefully
Although she’s far away.
Other thoughts may come and go,
But the thought of you,
Remains deeply in my heart.
