{"id":4147,"date":"2015-09-27T04:00:09","date_gmt":"2015-09-27T11:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/?p=4147"},"modified":"2017-06-17T13:50:49","modified_gmt":"2017-06-17T20:50:49","slug":"bruce-lee-and-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/china\/bruce-lee-and-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruce Lee and Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BruceLee\"<\/a>Bruce Lee was just down the hill from me. While I was at Seattle University studying to be a teacher; he was in a small basement studio on 8th<\/sup> Street <\/a>in Seattle\u2019s Chinatown teaching martial arts.<\/p>\n

I hadn\u2019t heard of him yet. Nobody had. It was 1961. He was a recent graduate from Edison Tech who had just started classes at the University of Washington as a drama major<\/a>. (Some sources say as a philosophy major.)<\/p>\n

\"bruce<\/a>His future wife, Linda Emery, was also enrolled at UW. She signed up for his kung fu class, and soon they were dating. My future husband, Eugene, didn\u2019t have a kung fu class (although he was a bouncer in Seattle\u2019s Chinatown for a while, and he did teach judo at the University of the Philippines). Even though he was just across campus from me at Seattle U\u2014he was an engineering student, deep in his studies and working his way through school–I didn’t meet him until after he graduated.<\/p>\n

By 1964, when Eugene and I finally started dating, Bruce and Linda were ready to tie the knot. If I\u2019d heard of Bruce Lee in those days, I would have found it interesting that another white American woman was marrying a Chinese man. But in 1964, I hadn\u2019t even heard of kung fu. Most Americans hadn\u2019t. Now, some fifty years later, people around the world are familiar with Chinese martial arts. We can thank Bruce Lee for that.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

at the airport–leaving home, heading for Manila<\/p><\/div>\n

My first martial arts movie was The Big Boss<\/a>, <\/em>Bruce Lee\u2019s first big hit, released in 1971. By then, Eugene and I were married with three children, all girls. Bruce and Linda had a boy and a girl.<\/p>\n

\"bruce<\/a>Remembering back, I think The Big Boss <\/em>shocked me. When Eugene and I were dating, we saw Mary Poppins <\/em>together.<\/em> Some of my favorite movies were The Sound of Music <\/em>and Fiddler on the Roof<\/em>. A totally different movie-going experience from that of The Big Boss<\/em>. And even though I\u2019d grown up watching cowboys and Indians kill each other on TV, the violence in The Big Boss <\/em>was different. It was personal. Fist in face. Foot crashing into head. Blood spurting. Exaggerated sound effects churning your stomach. For a novice like me, it was a disturbing movie.<\/p>\n

And yet \u2026 yet \u2026 I liked it. Bruce Lee was such an appealing leading man. And the bad guys really did deserve whatever they got.<\/p>\n

\"Eugene<\/a>Eugene, like Bruce Lee, had begun studying martial arts in his teenage years. Both their fathers had hoped that disciplined fighting would be an antidote to street fighting. During Eugene\u2019s college years, he started down a different path than Bruce Lee\u2019s, but he never lost his interest in martial arts.<\/p>\n

We caught all the Bruce Lee movies: Fist of Fury<\/em><\/a> in 1972, Way of the Dragon<\/a> <\/em>also in 1972, and Enter the Dragon<\/a><\/em> in 1973.<\/p>\n

When Bruce Lee died in 1973, we joined his many fans in grieving his death.<\/p>\n

So why this interest in Bruce Lee forty-two years later?<\/p>\n

A few weeks ago, my daughter, son-in-law, grandson and I caught the Do You Know Bruce? <\/em>exhibit at the Wing Luke Museum on King Street in Seattle’s Chinatown (now referred to as the International District). It closed on September 6. But part 2: Do You Know Bruce? Breaking Barriers<\/em> <\/a>begins on October 3.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>

photo courtesy of Joe Mabel<\/p><\/div>\n

We’d stopped in Chinatown on the way home from the airport. We had dim sum, and then we went to the museum. There my seven-year-old grandson hurried past the permanent exhibits about Asian American immigration to the Pacific Northwest. As soon as we reached the Do you Know Bruce?<\/em> exhibit, though, he slowed down.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d never heard of Bruce Lee. But he takes taekwondo classes a couple days a week after school. I wonder if the opportunities to study martial arts would be as plentiful around the country if it hadn\u2019t been for Bruce Lee.<\/p>\n

What do you think, do you like martial arts movies? Are you a Bruce Lee fan?<\/p>\n

\"my<\/a><\/p>\n

See also: my guest post on Speaking of China, “Yin-Yang: Discovering a Whole New World with my Chinese Husband<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Save<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bruce Lee was just down the hill from me. While I was at Seattle University studying to be a teacher; he was in a small basement studio on 8th Street in Seattle\u2019s Chinatown teaching martial arts. I hadn\u2019t heard of him yet. Nobody had. It was 1961. He was a recent graduate from Edison Tech […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,29,155],"tags":[234,994,1003,995,998,1004,1002,1000,996,997,235,1001,999],"class_list":["post-4147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-culture","category-family","tag-bruce-lee","tag-bruce-lee-in-seattles-chinatown","tag-bruce-lees-death-1973","tag-bruce-lees-wife-linda","tag-chinese-martial-arts","tag-do-you-know-bruce-breaking-barriers","tag-enter-the-dragon","tag-fist-of-fury","tag-kung-fu","tag-kung-fu-movies","tag-the-big-boss","tag-way-of-the-dragon","tag-white-woman-married-chinese-man"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Kn1e-14T","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1090,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/china\/discovering-a-whole-new-world-with-my-chinese-husband-a-guest-post\/","url_meta":{"origin":4147,"position":0},"title":"Discovering a Whole New World with my Chinese Husband, a guest post","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"January 9, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Today I'm doing a guest post on Jocelyn Eikenburg's blog, Speaking of China. 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