Bruce Lee

[Craig]

Just wondering if anybody else here looked at him as Eurasian or Chinese only. It seems that very few people that I've run across where I mentioned this topic thought of him as mixed, almost everybody thinks he's full Asian or full Chinese.

A couple of my Asian friends have made comments that he was obviously mixed. I can definitely tell in some pictures, some pictures I can't. I even have a friend that went as far as to say that Bruce Lee looked White to him.

[maldito]

Originally posted by Craig@Nov 9 2002, 08:04 AM
Just wondering if anybody else here looked at him as Eurasian or Chinese only. It seems that very few people that I've run across where I mentioned this topic thought of him as mixed, almost everybody thinks he's full Asian or full Chinese.

A couple of my Asian friends have made comments that he was obviously mixed. I can definitely tell in some pictures, some pictures I can't. I even have a friend that went as far as to say that Bruce Lee looked White to him.
I've always seen him as Chinese. Had no idea his mom was half German.

But below is his truly...Bruce with his parents.

http://www.cheungswingchun.com/Images/Article%20Images/BL.baby.jpeg

[Hiroshi2]

Yeah that's what I've always thought too. Bruce Lee is fully Chinese.

[loserbutt]

do you know how he died? steroids

[Shuriken]

Originally posted by tazadar@Nov 9 2002, 06:09 PM
He's Chinese, not mixed....Interracial mixing between Asian males and white females back then was socially improbable.
Bruce's mother was originally from Shanghai (she settled in Hong Kong), and in the late 19th century, that Chinese city was divided into certain zones for European merchants (this was part of what China regards as its old "humiliation," since these zones were imposed upon the city without the Chinese government's consent). This certainly would have allowed great opportunity for interracial mixing, whether it was frowned upon or not.

Bruce was certainly culturally Chinese. And I think the fact that he's one-quarter German doesn't make him any less Chinese, any less Asian.

[loserbutt]

sounds odd. this I never heard of. wheres your proof?

[Shuriken]

The following is from Jeff Yang, "Bruce Lee," in Eastern Standard Time: A Guide to Asian Influence on American Culture, eds. Jeff Yang et al. (Boston/New York: Meridian/Houghton Mifflin, 1997), p. 95:

"Lee was born November 27, 1940, the son of Lee Hoi Chuen, a well known comic actor and a member of the ensemble cast of the 99-episode Wong Fei Hong series that launched modern Hong Kong filmmaking. His mother, Grace, was a Shanghainese transplant who had been raised a Catholic, and was the daughter of a German father and a Chinese mother. The Lees frequently traveled abroad from their home in Hong Kong, going wherever Hoi Chuen's opera troupe was booked; Lee Jun Fan, the boy who would be given the English name of Bruce, was born on one of those trips overseas in San Francisco, California. Dr. Mary Glover, the supervising physician at his birth, gave him the English name Bruce. Later, Bruce's younger sister gave him a monicker that became the name by which he conquered Asia, and then the world — Siu Long, or 'Little Dragon.'"

[thaite]

It's well-documented that Bruce has part German ancestry. Look in any biography about him, loserbutt.

[maldito]

Originally posted by Shuriken@Nov 9 2002, 07:31 PM
His mother, Grace, was a Shanghainese transplant who had been raised a Catholic, and was the daughter of a German father and a Chinese mother.

Thanks! I've always wondered about how and why his mom was mixed. And I just found out this a couple of weeks ago. I heard that he was born in the US, but had no idea why.

[BeTheReds]

Well, by blood he certainly was mixed.

But his mom also grew up in shanghai, so maybe if she leaned culturally towards her father's side, she'd also be second generation, making bruce a 3rd generation german-chinese (with U.S. citizenship....)

So, obviously he'd be just as german as a 3rd generation 1/4th ABC is Chinese.

[Craig]

*bump*

[SunWuKong]

yup bruce's mother was half german.
back then the one-drop rule applied liberally to any non-whites, so i think bruce's mother was probably culturally just chinese, seeing as how she grew up in china as well.
the same thing can be said of my great grandmother, who was half british (mother was british).

[pfc beansprout]

Originally posted by loserbutt@Nov 9 2002, 01:34 PM
do you know how he died? steroids
awwww no..bruce was on the 'juice?' awwwwww man..what are you gonna tell me now, the easter bunny doesn't exist? :frown:

[SunWuKong]

Originally posted by BeTheReds@Nov 10 2002, 06:50 PM
Well, by blood he certainly was mixed.

But his mom also grew up in shanghai, so maybe if she leaned culturally towards her father's side, she'd also be second generation, making bruce a 3rd generation german-chinese (with U.S. citizenship....)

So, obviously he'd be just as german as a 3rd generation 1/4th ABC is Chinese.
oops never noticed this post for some reason.

actually bruce was quite fobby. he might have been born in SF, but he grew up in HK and didn't go back to the US till he was 19.

[BeTheReds]

Yeah I know...

What I was trying to say was that culturally Bruce Lee is as German as someone who is 1/4 chinese by blood and raised in the US is culturally Chinese.

[kasia]

i've always known bruce lee was part-german, but i considered him chinese anyway. i think it's cause i'm part spanish - my great-great-grandmother was white - but i wouldn't be considered as hapa.

[himura-dono]

Originally posted by pfc beansprout@Dec 26 2002, 11:35 AM
awwww no..bruce was on the 'juice?' awwwwww man..what are you gonna tell me now, the easter bunny doesn't exist? :frown:
the easter bunny had become a cleptomaniac abusing methamphetamines long ago bro.

[serverpimp]

I read Bruce Lee's autobiography, he has Germanic ancestry, FYI, and isn't pureblooded Chinese. It was this reason that he couldn't train directly under Wing Chun guru Yip Man, but through one of Yip Man's veteran students, cos of all the haters in Yip Man's school or something to that effect. So basically anybody who think's he's pureblooded Chinese think again.

[kasia]

Originally posted by serverpimp@Jan 14 2003, 07:35 AM
I read Bruce Lee's autobiography, he has Germanic ancestry, FYI, and isn't pureblooded Chinese. It was this reason that he couldn't train directly under Wing Chun guru Yip Man, but through one of Yip Man's veteran students, cos of all the haters in Yip Man's school or something to that effect. So basically anybody who think's he's pureblooded Chinese think again.
what's that famous quote by bruce lee? "wisdom and strength without knowledge is this. knowledge and wisdom without strength is this." something to that effect.

[serverpimp]

I dunno he's Chinese they're full of wise sayings.

[contra_diction]

wow, this is great! and now i know. he's all the more a hero to me now that i seem to have something in common. haha, i'm a third german. but he died of steroids?! what a disappointment.

[Azn Retribution]

it was not proven bruce died of steroids
his death is largely unknown
and there are dozens of theories to why he died.

[Omega]

do you know how he died? steroids  


aaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!! did this really happen?!?!??!!?
i heard it was sumthing with his brain cuz he worked out too much or sum crap...
and i heard that when a lady gave him aspirins when he got a headache, he died, and those medicine were medically prescribed...

any one care to research cuz this is weird haha steroids??

[BeTheReds]

Not steroids

It was fame and stardom which got to his head.

[Azn Retribution]

conspiracy theorists can go for the wife poisoned him theory cuase he supposedly cheated on her with some chinese actress
or alternately the "curse"
as brandon lee also died young. (in the making of the movie "The Crow", the gun was supposed to have blanks but it had real bullets in it)