- In the heat of all of this, you got all these kids who have studied under different types of Gung Fu schools.

They come to Hong Kong and they find these schools again, or they, they form these cliques again.

And so this very elaborate fight culture develops, and Bruce is into that.

He just, he has kind of a blood lust actually.

Huh.

- And he likes getting into fights.

And he, he's studying a style called Wing Chun, and he is getting into fights with folks who are studying other kinds of schools and styles, Choy Li Fut, and, you know, Eagle Claw, all these other types of, of styles.

And so actually, if you fast forward to the 1960s when these Kung fu movies start exploding outta Hong Kong, these are all just the kids who grew up in this culture now putting on costumes and doing it in front of a camera, you know, and - Pretending it's a long time ago - As opposed to yesterday.

Yeah.

Like, is your style better than my style?

We'll find out, you know, - All that kind of stuff.

Welcome to Forum, I'm a Alexis Madrigal.

You know, Jeff Chang's new book, "Water Mirror Echo" is a once in a lifetime endeavor, working from Bruce Lee's diaries, letters and other archival materials, as well as newly translated documents from Hong Kong, and so much other research.

Chang builds a careful portrait of a man and his times in contrast to the more mythological treatments his fans are prone to give him.

The book is meaty and it's as rich for Bruce Lee stalwarts as it is for people like admittedly myself, who have a more passing knowledge of the martial artist and actor.

Jeff Chang, of course, is also the author of many other books, including, "Can't Stop, Won't Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation."

And Jeff Chang joins us in the studio this morning.

Welcome.

- It's great to see you.

It's great to be here.

- Yeah.

Great to have you.

Great to have you.

I, let's talk a little bit about just the title of the book.

Love it.

Water Mirror.

Mirror Echo.

Why the title?

- So, of course, Bruce's most famous line is, you know, "Move, be like water," right?

"Be water, my friend."

And so in the process of, of kind of going through his papers and his, his notes, there's a book that was called the Dao Jeet Kune Do.

And in there were the original lines that he had copied down from a Chinese philosophy book when he was young, probably 18, 19, or 20.

And the full lines are moving be like water, still be like a mirror, respond like an echo.

And that just kind of knocked me out.

It was one of those things where, you know, when you read something and then you have to kind of put the book down and walk around for about 20 minutes to just be like, and, and so that just stuck with me.

And, and as I was going through his notes, it, it seemed, and I was able to verify that he came back to these three lines through his entire life.

- Hmm.

- So, you know, it, it, it's something that, that we were able to kind of think about as far as structuring the story, structuring, you know, his life and how to tell it.

But also to kind of think about, you know, the loss of Bruce dying so prematurely that he, you know, was able to inculcate this idea of being like water, being adaptable, being, being elusive in a fight.

But he never got to really experience what would, what it would mean to be still like a mirror or to respond like an echo, really that happens, you know, after his life.

He becomes a mirror for millions of people all around the world, multiple generations - Of them.

And his words kind of continue to echo today.

So that's one way to kind of describe, that's beautiful.

- Yeah.

Let's talk about Bruce Lee.

We can claim him as a native San Franciscan.

Yes.

He's born in San Francisco in 1940.

What was he doing?

Why were his parents in San Francisco in 1940?

- His parents had come to basically raise money for the Chinese nationalists to defend China against the Japanese incursions, Japanese imperialism, and the war that was going on all across China in the 1930s.

And they were also, I think, thinking about what it would mean if Hong Kong got invaded.

And, you know, during times of war, people are not going to going to party, they're not going to entertainment or that kind of thing.

Bruce's dad was one of the most very famous comedians in the Cantonese Opera.

And so they were offered a chance to be able to come to San Francisco and then tour the US and, and when they get here, you know, his mom gets pregnant, you know, so, so Bruce is born in the Chinese hospital.

Wow.

In 1940.

- I mean, this is a, a huge deal.

Right.

I mean, the opera in Chinatown at that time is just a massive part of the Chinese life.

- Absolutely.

Yeah.

And you know, the other part of it too is, is because he's born in the US, he is a US citizen, birthright citizenship, you know, so under today's like, debased language around immigration, he'd be called an anchor baby.

Mm.

You know, he later on kind of plays around with this idea in some of his writings to the press and he says, oh, you know, maybe my dad, you know, had me in the US by design, or maybe it was just an accident, you know, we'll never know.

I don't think that his parents intended to, to have another kid.

Yeah.

You know, at that time, the Chinese Exclusion Act was still in place.

Bruce wouldn't have been able to go anywhere outside of Chinatown.

You know, even when his parents came in, they had to go through Angel Island and were subjected to all kinds of humiliations.

So it's, it's very unlikely that they, they were trying to move to the us but it becomes really important later in his life, right.

That he's an American citizen, - But then he's not raised here.

Right.

I mean, they're just on a tour.

So he ends up back in Hong Kong and enters into a brutal situation in Hong Kong at the time.

- Yeah.

He's a war child, you know, so the Japanese invade Hong Kong on December 8th, and, you know, just around the same time that they're invading Pearl Harbor, you know, and, and suddenly Hong Kong is thrown into war and starvation, and his father needs to go and work for rice bag for bags of rice.

So he nearly stars to death.

And many of his peers, you know, his young peers, babies are, are dying left and right.

So that's something that, that it's hard to kind of imagine when you see Bruce now so yoked and, you know, in, you know, invulnerable to think about that he almost really starved to death.

- Wow.

And of course, it also, the post-war period in Hong Kong is also wild, right?

Yeah.

I mean, it's not, it doesn't just return to some state of peace and tranquility.

There's all these imis into Hong Kong, and there is, as you described in the book, just a lot of street fighting.

There's a lot of street kids who are just out there brawling.

- Yeah.

I mean, the interesting thing to me when I was looking into this was I was like, wow, this actually sounds a lot like the Bronx in the 1960s and the 1970s - From your work on hip hop.

- Yeah, yeah.

From my work on hip hop.

And so, you know, what happens is the Chinese, you know, civil War ends 1949, and the communists come into power.

And so a lot of refugees and migrants are pouring across the border into Hong Kong.

These are overwhelmingly young folks.

There's no housing.

The British colonial administration doesn't care about these folks at all.

So they set up shanties and, and all kinds of tin huts all up and down the hillsides.

And there's fires, you know, fires - Just breaking, really, the Bronx is burning, right?

I mean, - Yeah.

And you know, in, in this, in the heat of all of this, you got all these kids who have studied under different types of Gung Fu schools.

They come to Hong Kong and they find these schools again, or they, they form these cliques again.

And so this very elaborate fight culture develops, and Bruce is into that.

He just, he has kind of a blood lust actually, - And - He likes getting into fights.

And he, he's studying a style called Wing Chun.

And he is getting into fights with folks who are studying other kinds of schools and styles, Choy Li Fut and, you know, Eagle Claw, all these other types of styles.

And so actually, if you fast forward to the 1960s when these Kung Fu movies start exploding outta Hong Kong, these are all just the kids who grew up in this culture now putting on costumes and doing it in front of a camera, you know, and pretending - It's a long time ago - As opposed to yesterday, is your style better than my style?

We'll find out, you know, all all that kind of stuff.

Wow.

- So, yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, that part of it was such a revelation to me that there was a material basis for like the, for the Kung Fu movie.

Yeah.

Just, just absolutely wild.

We are talking with writer Jeff Chang about his new book "Water Mirror Echo."

It's about the film star martial arts expert, and really icon Bruce Lee and how Lee helped make Asian America.

Of course, Jeff Chang is his author of many other books, including, "Can't Stop, Won't Stop: History of the Hip Hop Generation," as well as "Who We Be" and "We Gon' Be Alright."

We wanna hear from you.

How has Bruce Lee influenced or impacted your life?

Maybe you knew Bruce Lee in Oakland, definitely a possibility.

Or ran into him in San Francisco.

Maybe you have a Bruce Lee story to share.

You can give us a call.

The number is 866 733 6786.

That's 8 6 6 7 3 3 6 7 8 6.

You can email your comments and questions to forum@kqed.org.

Real quick, did you feel like an enormous responsibility writing this book?

Like taking on Bruce Lee?

It feels like so tough.

- I did.

I did.

You know, I, one of the things that Bowen Wynn, a friend of mine who did the movie Be Water kept on telling me was, you know, for everybody, Bruce Lee's life, his son Brandon Lee, the family's life, it's a spectacle.

But for the family, these are people who flesh in blood.

You know, it's a father who's gone, a brother who's gone.

So I did feel a, a deep responsibility to be able to represent correctly.

Yeah.

- We'll be back with more from Jeff Chang right after the break.

Welcome back to Forum.

I'm Alexis Madrigal.

We're here with writer Jeff Chang talking about his new book about Bruce Lee called Water Mirror Echo.

We'll get to your questions and comments about Bruce Lee and his impact in your life.

The number's 866 733 6786.

That's 8, 6, 6, 7, 3, 3, 6, 7, 8, 6.

All the social media things we're KQED Forum and the email is forum@kqde.org.

Before the break, we were with sort of young Bruce Lee in Hong Kong.

He's in this fight culture.

He's studying Wing Chun, but there's this other aspect.

I mean, his father is a film star in Hong Kong.

- Yeah.

- And so he becomes a child star at the same time.

- That's right.

And, you know, he's sort of a clean cut guy.

He's a, a chacha dancer, you know, he's a teen idol.

He's, he's a handsome guy, you know, so he's kind of living this double life, you know, on the one hand he's in with the in crowd, like all of the young movie stars, there's such a huge culture of, of this of course, throughout Asia, in Hong Kong, obviously Korea, South Korea, Japan, he's one of those young cool cats.

- Yeah.

- But he's also got like this taste for, for blood.

And so he's, he's kind of, you know, back and forth through this.

And finally something has to give.

And so he gets into one too many fights, and his parents are like, Uh uh, you're done.

We're gonna send you back to the US.

And so at the age of 18, he's got a hundred dollars in his pocket.

He's alone in steerage, and on this three week voyage across the Pacific Wow.

Back to San Francisco.

Wow.

- And so where does he really first end up sticking when he comes to the States?

- You know, he stays in San Francisco and Oakland for a little while.

He's got his father and mother's friends who still remember him from when he was born.

Right.

18 years later, now they're looking after him and taking care of him.

But he gets, again, into, into fights.

He, he, he wants to test his kung fu mettle with, with the folks in Chinatown, and they're not having it.

And so his parents are like, okay, we're gonna send you to Seattle, less Chinese - Can't get into trouble up there.

- Right?

Yeah.

Less Chinese, you're gonna work in a restaurant and you're gonna earn your, your high school diploma and get your college degree.

And that's, that's what you're gonna do.

And so he spends about five years in Seattle, and I think that's where he really learns what it means to be American - Who teaches him that.

- I think he learns really from his friends, you know, he is a 19, 20-year-old who has been studying these gung fu styles.

So he comes into town and people are like, wow.

Like he's doing performances, you know, in Chinatown.

And people are like, wow, what is that?

And they all come to him and ask him to teach.

And he's 19 years old.

He can, you know, he's, he's still struggling with English because he hasn't been a poor, he's been a poor student.

He hasn't been a good student - Though.

He went to a British school, - Right?

No, he went to the British colonial schools.

But he is, his first student is Jesse Glover, a black American who tells him a story about how when he was 12 years old, he was beaten for no reason by police, by these drunken police in downtown.

And so there's his whole life, he's been wanting to find somebody to help him learn different forms of self-defense.

And so he, he asks Bruce to teach him, and I think Bruce begins to understand, wow, like this is what, this is what it means to be a racialized minority.

And then he has another really good friend, Taky Kimura, who's a Japanese American who, when he's 18, is about to graduate and go to Washington State, you know, and be, you know, a doctor, an engineer, that kind of thing.

But he is suddenly put on a train and sent to the incarceration camps during World War II in 1942.

And so he's lost all his confidence and Bruce builds it back up in him.

And I think, you know, Bruce is living in this space where it's, it's a city that's 95% white, and this district has got all of the folks of color and poor white folks, and those are the folks that he's hanging out with for the most part over those five years.

And I think he learns from them.

- I mean, I imagine this is one reason that you were attracted to the Bruce Lee story, given that a lot of your work in the past has been about, you know, cross-racial solidarity between, you know, Asian Americans and other racialized minorities.

Right.

- Well, you know, it, it's interesting because it didn't strike me.

It's there of course, in the story, but it didn't strike me as a major part of it until I really started talking to a lot of people who were his friends in Seattle and got a picture of what life was like for them.

And, you know, I, I'm really attracted to stories about these underdog kids who are abandoned, and then they, they go on to change the world.

And I think that that was what I thought I was getting into - Ah, yeah.

- And, and of course, behind all of these powerful movements, hip hop, gung fu, like, you know, martial arts and that kind of stuff, there's powerful streams of, of solidarity and resistance in them.

- You know, I'm a little, I am a, a pacifist myself, you know, I'm not a, I'm not a fighter.

I'm a lover.

100%.

You know, and I, there is a part of me that in reading this book, was sort of like, Bruce, why you gotta fight everybody?

Like what, where is that coming from?

Like, what is this sense of violence and how does it get channeled into something?

Like what was your, what's your sort of relationship to martial arts and to, to fighting and more general?

- You know, I've studied it.

I, I'm no, by no means an any kind of an expert.

- You don't wanna be like, challenged as you walk out of the studio, - Man, Alexis, what are we doing here?

Yeah.

I'm gonna slip out the back door, man.

Yeah, - Right.

- No, I, I, my grandfather was a boxer and he didn't go pro, he was on the verge of going pro and he, he didn't go pro.

And, you know, I, look, I, you know, the, I'm really interested in people who feel like they need to defend other people, in warriors, you know, no matter what gender, and, and I am somebody who like, wonders too, how, how that kind of mindset, you know, can, can evolve and, you know, sometimes go off the rails.

There's a, there's a sort of interesting conversation I think in this book as well as in "Can't Stop, Won't Stop" about the relationship between violence and creativity.

- Hmm.

- And that fascinates me, you know?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- How do you think Bruce Lee is, you know, as you read through his diaries, is he reflective on what it is that a appeals to him about fighting?

- I think so.

You know, I think that he, he grows into, he grows out of, I should say this sort of fighting for fighting sake thing when he's a young man into this idea of thinking about what it means to be able to protect yourself in a dangerous world, and to be able to assert yourself when everybody wants to step on you.

You know, I, I think that that's the underdog kind of mentality that he adopts coming out of, like, hanging out with all these people in Seattle and San Francisco and Oakland, who are outcasts, who are, are not thought of as, as folks who are, are good for society, you know, for whatever reasons.

And so, you know, I I think that, that as he evolves into teaching, you know, it's, it's less and less, there's a part of it that's, that's about the formal art of it.

He just loves the art of it, you know?

Mm.

And, and there is, it's, it's like being an athlete in that kind of way, right?

It's, there's a formal kind of aspect to it that you wanna train in, you wanna get better, you wanna continue to improve.

You have this, he has this insatiable knowledge and curiosity for different types of fight styles.

- And his training too.

I mean, his training sounds tremendous.

All the weightlifting and the running, in addition to all the, the other kinds of training, talk to us about how skilled he actually was.

Like, where do we, where would we put him in the pantheon?

You know, - You know, this, this is kind of a interesting internet type debate, right?

Yeah.

Like, if Bruce Lee faced Muhammad Ali, who would win those kinds of things, right?

I think he was really, really important to the martial arts movement in the US.

You know, he styled himself as a renegade.

He styled himself as somebody who was against the sort of rote repetition of learning and was really about like, what works, what really, really works.

And in this way, he, he found common cause with a lot of martial artists coming up from Hawaii.

- Yeah.

- And which - You're from there.

So I assume that's also something you're familiar with and kind of interested into.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, people in Hawaii were mixing up martial arts styles for two generations before Bruce, you know, and, and so Bruce meets up with a lot of these, these types of folks and, and folks who have trained in Chinatown coons, and they have become disenchanted and they sort of have this like, all out type of style.

Like they, they want to, they want to get on the floor, they want to test out these different techniques.

They wanna really see what works.

And ultimately, he comes to this philosophy that he calls Jeet Kune Do, which is about finding your own kind of patterns and rhythms and what works for you.

Huh.

- I mean, you note in the book there's sort of a, there's, there's some kind of connection between this style that he's built, which is this kind of mishmash of things from across Asia and Ho Hawaii and other places, and American boxing and American boxing.

Right, right, right.

You know, kickboxing and all this kind stuff.

Yeah.

Which then does feel like it has some relationship with the, the, in the subtitle of the book, like sort of Asian America.

Oh, yeah.

And these things do, do you, do you see those things as being kind of like, that this was an Asian American style as opposed to something that had its lineage in, in a particular place?

- Yeah, absolutely.

I don't think that you can talk about mixed martial arts these days without looking at the centrality of Asian Americans in that mix.

You know?

So people like, people like Bruce, people like Ed Parker from Hawaii, from Hawaii, Danny Nosato, like there's, the list goes on and on and on and on.

But these are folks who were, were pulling together all of these different types of ideas and, and mixing them up at this particular point in the 1960s.

And that, I think, fuels a new era in Asian fighting arts in the us.

- So, interesting.

You know, we're talking with writer Jeff Chang about his new book, about Bruce Lee, "Water Mirror Echo."

Of course.

We wanna hear from you maybe you practice martial arts.

What kind, what draws you to the martial arts and how do you think about Bruce Lee?

What impact do you think Bruce Lee had on American and Asian American culture?

You can give us a call number is (866) 733-6786.

That's 8 6 6 7 3 3 6, 7, 8 6.

The email is forum@kqed.org, social media, blue sky Instagram, we're KQED Forum one listener writes in to say, I recall watching these Bruce Lee movies as a child thinking that he must be on pullies or ropes because no one could possibly jump or kick like that without some help.

Sort of astonishing.

He was just practicing his art and it was captured on film.

That's right.

Yeah.

He really was just, - He was, I mean, you know, in the early films he's working with some trampolines and that kind of stuff, but he was all about sort of realism in fight scenes.

And in that way he revolutionized action film.

You know, he, you're talking about action film where, where folks are swaging around with big guns or lots of technology and tools like James Bond or Dirty Harry, and he's just like, no, two fists, two legs, maybe two sticks, and let's go.

You know?

Right, right, right.

And now you can't watch an action movie without that kind of a thing happening.

So - Yeah.

One of the things we need to talk about being that this is a Bay Area show, is he does in fact open up a martial arts studio in Oakland.

It's on Broadway for those who are trying to imagine where this is.

It's about a block from Oakland Tech - That's right.

Right by the Toyota.

- Yes.

Right by.

- And if you like miss it, there's a sign that says Bruce Lee Way.

So they - Yeah.

- They just renamed it, I think, last year.

Yeah.

I mean, what a wild time you have, like Huey Newton, a student Yeah.

At Oakland Tech, a block away.

Yeah.

And you've got Bruce Lee opening up the studio.

I mean, just wild, because, you know, for people who've been over to that stretch of Broadway, I mean, it's kind of forgettable in most ways, I would say.

There's - Just that much going on.

Yeah.

- Talk to me though about sort of what that studio represented and kind of the difference between Oakland's kinda Chinese community and Chinatown versus what was happening in San Francisco at that time.

- Right.

I think, you know, in San Francisco there's a lot of change happening.

Immigrants are beginning to come in, in larger numbers.

And so there's a lot of tension actually, between the folks who have been there for a generation and the kind of, or - Longer - Or longer, much longer.

That's absolutely two, three generations, four generations.

The, the society that was created under the Chinese Exclusion Act.

And, and, and Oakland is a little bit more freewheeling, you know, there's a, a lot more folks who are coming in.

It's, the segregation is beginning to, to, you know, pull back a little bit.

And so East Bay folks are, are, you know, they're, they're thought of sort of as the country cousins in some ways of, of the folks in Chinatown.

But, you know, I, I think he rises at a moment in which the, the, the axis is shifting a little bit, you know, and, and so he gets into trouble with some of the old guard in, in Chinatown, and that results in one of his most famous fights.

- Yeah.

Wait, tell, tell us about that.

I mean, it's one of those you devote to some serious, you know, column interest to this in the, in the book.

And it made me think like, oh, this must have been like one of the fights defining in, in his - Life.

Well, I, you know, I think it's be become a really big thing because so few people saw it, you know, there was like, you know, maybe it's, there's debates about this, but maybe six people, maybe 12 people, maybe 14 people saw it.

And, and nobody really knows kind of what happened.

We've got different accounts of it, and in some ways it's become so famous because the story's been told, the narrative is that Bruce fought this, this more recent immigrant Wong Jack-man to make it possible for Gung Fu to be taught to all non-Chinese.

And I, I actually don't think that that's really how it went down, - But that was sort of his wife's account, - American, that was his wife's account.

White, white American.

Yeah.

And, you know, and, and it's sort of been held up by movies and, you know, mythology and all this kind of stuff.

The reality is it was just sort of a challenge fight.

And, you know, the way that it ends, you can read in the book the different accounts of it is, is not so clear.

But there's a debate in the Chinatown newspapers about it afterwards.

And I think that this reveals a lot about the kind of ways with change that are happening in the Asian American communities at that particular time with the new ascendants of, of immigrants.

Wong Jack-man kind of represents in some ways the good immigrant, and Bruce Lee is sort of the bad immigrant in the Chinatown press.

And, and I think that that's really how the story was felt and, and read and heard in Asian American communities.

And, and later on, after he passes away, it becomes something else.

- I don't know if this is a heresy or not, but another listener asked, could the guest talk about the movies Bruce Lee movies?

And to put it kindly, the thin plotting in character development, they often feel like fight scenes strung together with the cheesiest dialogue possible.

- Yeah, yeah.

And they're made worse, I think, or better, depending on, on what you like by the dubbing, by the, the English dubbing in the, in the movies.

But yeah, you know, I, I don't think that these are, this is, you know, his movies are not The Godfather trilogy or that kind of thing.

You know, this is, this is, you know, this is not high art, this is popular art, but it, it captured a moment in, in what's happening at that particular time in Asia and in Asian America, which is this moment of anti-colonial protest, you know, and fighting the man, you know, and, and it, it kind of intertwines when it comes to the US with blaxploitation movies because they're playing in the same theaters in the inner cities, you know?

So Shaft, yeah, shaft coffee, super fly, coffee, sweet, sweet back, of course kicked it all off in 1971.

- Right.

- And that's, you know, 1971 is also the year that Bruce makes, you know, the big boss.

So yeah, thin plotting, you know, not necessarily, you know, always great acting or that kind of stuff.

Amazing fights and, and yeah, there's a lot to be said.

I think about the, about that.

I do write about that in, in the book.

I think they're meant to be enjoyed, you know, I don't think that they're, they're meant to be fussed over as, as high cinema.

Yeah.

Yeah.

- We're talking with writer Jeff Chang about his new book, water Mirror Echo, of course.

It's about film star, martial arts expert, cultural icon, and sometime Oakland resident, Bruce Lee, Jeff Chang o course author of many other books, including, "Can't Stop, won't Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation."

We wanna hear from you about how Bruce Lee influenced or impacted your life.

Perhaps you practiced martial arts, maybe you want to talk about the impact that Bruce Lee had on American and Asian American culture.

You can give us a call, of course.

8 6 6 7 3 3 6 7 8 6.

That's 8 6 6 7 3, 3, 6, 7, 8, 6.

We'll get to some calls in the next segment forum@kqed.org and all of the social media things, of course, blue Sky, Instagram, and the Discord, or KQED Forum.

I'm Alexis Madrigal.

Stay tuned for more.

We're back with writer Jeff Chang, talking about his new book, water Mirror Echo, and of course, the legacy of Bruce Lee.

Madav in San Carlos, welcome to the show.

- Yeah, thank you.

Love the show.

And thank you for taking my call.

I grew up in India watching a lot of Bruce Lee movies, and loved each and every one of those.

As I transitioned more, as I grew up, I transitioned more towards the philosophical side.

I started meditating and was drawn more towards Zen position.

I also happened to come across certain videos where Bruce Lee talks about zen and philosophy and Eastern philosophy.

I, I, my question is, if the speaker had any perspective or insight into that transition or journey that Bruce Lee had?

- Mm, yeah.

What a, what a great question.

Such a good question.

You know, when he was young, he was, he was very active.

He was almost hyperactive, really.

He couldn't stop and he wouldn't stop.

So, you know, his, his dad tried to basically teach, take him out and teach him Tai Chi.

And in teaching him Tai Chi, he wanted to sort of pass on, - Take some patience.

- Yeah.

Slow, maybe build discipline and slow Yeah, slow down, you know, think about, you know, how you're moving your chi around, but also the balance of, of forces and, and that kind of thing.

And, and he hated it.

He really hated it.

It was really not until he is is told by his parents that he's gonna be forced to go back to, to the US alone, that he actually dives into reading a lot.

- Hmm.

- He was, again, he was a poor student, but, you know, the stuff that he picks up are like martial arts pamphlets and also martial arts books like the ancient classics.

And in a lot of these pamphlets and books, there's always references to philosophies.

And so this is sort of his introduction to Asian philosophy.

And of course, he's also getting it from Ip Man, his Wing Chun teacher as well, who, you know, always tries to get Bruce to concentrate to, to sort of, you know, be at one with the, the sort of void in the center of him, you know, to be able to be open.

And, and so this is where he begins to read these things, like the leads where he finds these passages, you know, moving be like water, still be like a mirror, respond like an echo - And mean, what would you say his actual philosophy was though?

- You know, I think he was, he was searching, you know, he moves to Seattle and he's coming to the West Coast at the time that people like Alan Watts and the Beats are popularizing Zen Buddhism and Daoist ideas that sort of are their precursor in some ways.

And so he's, he's, I, I got to see a lot of his, his books, his paperbacks from when he was 18, 19, 20 years old.

And he's got them all underlined, you know, he's like, he's, he's devoutly underlining all these things that Alan Watts is saying, and then he's applying it to teaching the martial arts to, to his students, you know?

So all of this actually ends up in the beginning of Enter the Dragon, you know, in, in these sort of philosophical scenes where he is meeting with his sifu and where, you know, he's meeting then with his student afterwards.

It's sort of, he's trying to illustrate at that particular point that he understands what his role is as a teacher.

He's been taught by, you know, the ancient sifus and the masters, and now he's to teach the next generation, you know, that, that it's, he needs to be able to, to, to kind of embrace this emptiness.

And, and I think that that is where he was going when he passed away.

And, and so for me, you know, there's a lot of passages where I'm pulling stuff out that I was just stunned to read, where he's thinking about water and he's jumping off from these old texts, and he's, you know, then expanding on them and writing in his own kind of poetic style, you know, that water can flow, that it can move, that it can crash, you know, that water can seep through and destroy rock water can, can also freeze and it can move in, in all these different types of ways.

And so, you know, for that reason, the fighter should try to be like water.

Yeah.

And - We also did a, a book one time on the show, great book about water policy called Water Always Wins, - Water always wins, water always - Wins.

You can fight it, you can try and hold it back, but water always wins.

Water always wins.

Yeah.

Let me bring in Barry in Danville.

Welcome, Barry.

- Good morning.

Good morning.

Thanks for having me on the show.

- Yeah, go ahead.

- Okay.

So Bruce, my first introduction to Bruce Lee was just before they released the movie Enter the Dragon.

I was 15 and a half when it was released, and it was a massive influence of all, all of us 15-year-old martial artists in Fairfield, California.

- Yeah.

- And even so, even with that, all the instructors, a number of instructors there would make these claims that they had met Bruce and Bruce had told them to change their style and so on and so forth.

But for us, it was just this amazing artist, this amazing fighter, and it just changed the way we could, the way we felt in an area at times, it felt like we needed to be able to defend ourselves, because the school I went to Fairfield High was a heavily mixed school that was also influenced by Travis Air Force Base.

- Mm.

- So there were a lot of Southeast Asian students, but there was also, since Fairfield was a old farm town, country town, there was a heavy influence of people that still had confederate flags in the back of their trucks and rifles in the back of the windows.

So you just kind of felt like you wanted to be able to, to defend yourself, to fight if there was a need to.

- Do you feel like it also kind of gave you a, a sense of discipline too and you know, when not to fight?

- Well, absolutely.

Well, first of all, foremost, the, the best fight is the one where you can actually posture or look to a, look at a person to where they feel like, I might be able to fight this guy, but it's gonna cost me, so I'll stay away from this - Fight.

The art of fighting without fighting is Bruce to put it.

Yeah, there you go.

There you go.

- Yeah.

Oh, Barry, what a great, what a great call.

Super, super appreciate that and appreciate you sharing your, your experiences with us and that portrait of Fairfield High too.

You know, John writes in to say, Bruce Lee's life intersects with African American culture and continues to have a deep influence on hip hop.

I'm thinking about the Wu-Tang Clan.

Absolutely.

A journey that is well honored in the Bruce Lee exhibit at the Chinese Historical Society of America in SF's Chinatown.

I introduced my son who was studying martial arts to Bruce Lee's movies this summer, and realized just how much social issues are a consistent part of Bruce Lee's storytelling.

For example, the beginning of Enter the Dragon begins with Jim Kelly being attacked for no reason by police, and he successfully defends himself, but has to leave the country.

- That's right.

- Perhaps this is a re-imagining of Glover's story that you mentioned at the top of the hour.

- I, it might be, you know, it's, I don't know that there was a direct correlation, but there might've been, you know, I'm sure that Bruce was, you know, telling folks, the script writers and, and, and those folks about these types of things at that time, from a marketing standpoint, they were not sure that Bruce as an Asian American hero would be able to carry the movie.

And so they wanted to have sort of this three-pronged, sort of three the hard way type of, you know, thing.

So you'd have Jim Kelly, you would have John Saxon, a, a, a white man, and you'd have Bruce Lee as the sort of triumvirate of heroes.

Of course, the, you know, Bruce went on to make the film, and the rest is history.

And, and Bruce is the hero that we, we talk about the most out of all of that.

But, you know, it's, I I, I really like that particular point because there are these moments, right?

There's the anti-colonial themes of Fist of Fury, and in Enter the Dragon, there's that unforgettable scene where, where Jim Kelly's character William says, you know, the ghettos, they're all the same no matter where you go.

- Hmm.

- Right.

And so it just really captures this, this sort of solidarity.

Yeah.

That I think Bruce continues to represent these - Days.

Yeah.

You know, Freddy in San Francisco, welcome.

- Hello, I have a question, Jeff.

I'm really looking forward to your book.

I know we, - What's up Freddy?

Old Fred.

I thought I'd call inHow you doing, brother?

- I'm good.

Good to hear you.

I'm glad you're on the show.

I wanna, for the benefit of the listeners, I think it's important to maybe have an, to express that 1973 was a really pivotal year for both Bruce Lee's life and the Birth of Hip hop.

I'd love for you to kind of express from your expert point of view, kind of that kind of coincidence.

I've always thought it was auspicious within the dragon in 1973, and then everything that happened in the Bronx.

- Yeah, I thank you, Freddy.

I got a huge smile on my face right now.

So 1973 is the year that Bob Marley and the Whalers Break in the spring and August, you know, DJ Kool Herc and Cindy Campbell throw a party in the Bronx that becomes herald as the first Yeah.

Party in, in hip hop, and a few days later enter the dragon opens.

You know, so there's a way in which the entirety of global popular culture shifts during that particular year.

You know, the earlier in the year too, the number one record in the country is called The World is a Ghetto by a group called War.

- You - Know?

So there, there's, there's really an amazing kind of way to look at, you know, even now with this cultural backlash that's happening in, in, in the US to understand that 1973 is really a turning point for us to be able to hear stories from the outcasts, from the marginalized right.

From the tenement yards of Jamaica to, you know, the ghettos of Los Angeles to, you know, the the Bronx.

The Bronx, and, and then of course third world countries or third world colonies like Hong Kong.

- Yeah.

But let's also talk about the specific kind of way in which Bruce Lee was Asian American too, right?

Yeah.

Like, and at, at a time when that term still had, it's a sort of political connotation as a, like in the way Chicano did, - You know?

Right.

- Talk to me about that.

Do you think he sort of took that on as a thing, or was he fine kind of being smelted into the broader culture?

- You know, I think that what he wanted to do was to really be able to portray the richness, the glory, and the power of Asian, you know, philosophy and Asian fighting arts.

He was not part of the Asian American movement that was kind of jumping off here in the Bay Area in 1968.

A group of six people get together in Berkeley, and they say, we're not gonna be called Orientals anymore.

Right.

That's like the east and, and to us, New York City, Washington, DC and London is the far east, right?

Like, there's nothing, it makes no sense.

We're gonna call ourselves Asian Americans.

And, and then there's a third world liberation front, and the strikes that break out at San Francisco State and Berkeley, which kind of lead us culturally to the moment that we're in these days with this, again, this backlash against the campuses and the way that the, that liberatory education has been, you know, brought into the university, into these institutions.

But he was of Bruce was sort of, of a parallel type of nature.

Like the rise of Bruce Lee is happening at the same time that the rise of Asian America is happening.

And, and so, you know, he becomes a symbol, I think in death even actually when he was alive.

Let's start with that.

He becomes a symbol of, of liberation, of solidarity, of unity.

You know, his movies are playing in Chinatown, Manila Town right across the street from the International Hotel, you know, - The fame side of Asian American organizing.

- That's right.

And, you know, and the crowds there are mixed.

They're all of these folks who are protesting on campus during the day, you know, trying to demand ethnic studies and, you know, liberatory education and, you know.

Yeah.

And then they're, they're going to the movies and they're Bruce fighting anticolonial types of fights, you know, on the big screen, and they're cheering about it.

- This is Forum, I'm Alexis Madrigal.

I, it is a fascinating moment, this moment where all these forces are kind of drawing on maybe some of the same root stock, you know, of an anti-colonial world that kind of rising what we'd now maybe call anti-racism and this, these kind of coalitions are, are coming around.

Do you, it makes sense to me then that at another moment when a lot of violence has visited on Asian Americans during the pandemic, in the wake of COVID and all these things, that, that Bruce Lee as a symbol would come back in a, in such a strong way, which you note in the book, just, you know, suddenly Bruce Lee is all over Chinatowns of America and other, other places.

- He's everywhere all at once.

I mean, it, it, it, it was really interesting to, to kind of see that I, I had been working on this bio for a while and, and then the pandemic happens and the upsurge in violence against Asians and Pacific Islanders in the US on the continent.

And, and yes.

And this is the moment in which all of a sudden these murals start appearing and the, the picture of Bruce reappears on all our social media feeds, and he's a symbol of, you know, strength of pride, of perseverance in this particular moment when we're, we're feeling, and defense and defense absolutely self defense when we're feeling super vulnerable and we are asking for folks to recognize us in our, in our pain, right?

- Like, - You recognize Bruce, maybe you can recognize us.

Right?

And in turn, like we recognized through Bruce, like your pain as well.

So a symbol of solidarity and I, that changed the direction of the book for me, you know, I was like, wow, like there's a bigger story.

Bruce's story is huge enough, but there's a, a bigger story to also kind of put in here.

And it's the echo part, right?

The echo part, the part about how Bruce echoes across the generations and each generation kind of creates its own.

Bruce, I think for Freddy and me and other folks in the hip hop generation, like our image of Bruce's, Bruce photoshopped behind two turntables getting ready to get busy, right?

But I think that for this generation, it's Bruce, you know, as a, as a powerful warrior.

And, and that means a lot.

- Let's get one last call in here.

Ali, in San Jose, welcome.

- Hi.

Thank you for taking my call.

I grew up watching his movies in the seventies growing up, a teenager in Iran, and I got the Bruce Lee Fever, like everybody else, everybody else in town.

Later on when I, when I practice after I practiced for a couple of years and then watching his movies again, only then did I realize how skillful he was and what dexterity and control he had over every muscle of his body, because at that time I was able to appreciate that.

- Mm.

- And then having seen like a, a handful of other martial artist movies, I, I, in my humble, uneducated opinion, they are nothing compared with Bruce.

He was light years ahead of them.

And finally I was amazed to learn that he was a philosopher of sorts.

Too much respect to him.

Rest in peace, bro.

Yeah.

And thank you.

- Thank you, Ali.

I mean, one thing that's really come across from college state is the international reach that Bruce Lee had.

You know, people who are seeing these movies all over the world.

We got India, we got Iran, we got Fairfield, you know?

Yeah.

I mean, this is such a fascinating translatability of, of the body and the mind of Bruce Lee.

- Yeah.

I think, you know, in part it's because he, he passed away so prematurely and young, you know, so there's a way in which our heroes who pass away young, we project onto them our deepest dreams, our ambitions, our hopes.

But there's also a way in which, you know, he understood the assignment, so to speak.

You know, he understood that if he was going to be able to get out there and break through the bamboo ceiling in Hollywood, that he needed to do it in a way that could be welcoming to, to everybody in which everybody could see themselves in him.

And that's sort of exactly what happened.

It's just that it happened after he had suddenly passed away.

- Yeah.

We've been talking with writer Jeff Chang about his new book, "Water Mirror Echo."

It's about, of course, film star, martial arts expert and cultural icon Bruce Lee, known all around the world.

It's also about how Lee, how to make Asian America.

There's so much more that we couldn't get to in the book, particularly about just like how the movies were made, where they were made the, the travails of Bruce Lee.

I know that Jeff has a very busy schedule of events coming up in the Bay Area, so you can go see him, meet him, and hear about some of these other aspects of the book.

Comes out next Tuesday, right?

- Yes.

- Book's not out yet.

Get those pre-orders in.

It always helps every author, so.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much for joining us this morning.

Thanks so much.

Thanks so much for having me, Alexis.

Yeah, - Yeah.

- And thank you so much to all of our listeners for your calls and your comments always so enlightening.

What, what strikes people about different books.

Keep an eye out for this interview too, to show up on the KQED News YouTube channel soon.

I'm Alexis Madrigal.

Stay tuned for another hour of Forum ahead with Mina Kim.