I find it amusing that this is the second book in a row that I've read with a title following the format "[List of Words]: [Famous Chinese Person] and the Making of [Asian Thing]", but that is neither here nor there. (The previous book being Chop Fry Watch Learn: Fu Pei-Mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food.)
At times, the writing in Water Mirror Echo felt lofty, but then, Bruce Lee is a lofty subject. From our modern-day perspective, Bruce Lee is first and foremost a legend, and so it makes sense to start there, using his stardom as the foundation upon which we can start to get to know him in a way that "returns him to a human scale." (p. 6)
This is my first biography of Bruce Lee, and even without having read any others, it's clear Water Mirror Echo is a definitive source. This book is not just an accounting of Bruce Lee's life or Bruce Lee's teachings; it additionally places Bruce Lee into the context of Asian America, examining how he "navigated fascination and revulsion with 'the Oriental,' a corpus of distorted images that limited Asian American opportunity and mobility." (p. 5) The greater context provided for Bruce Lee's fight with Wong Jack Man was especially interesting (Ch. 22-23), as was the background on the racism of Hollywood and the common use of yellowface at the time when Bruce Lee came onto the scene. (Ch. 24-26) Bruce Lee had to fight for his own visibility and for the respectful representation of gung fu on screen, and in doing so helped bring visibility and validation to Asian America, a community just beginning to define itself towards the end of his life and around the time of his death. (p. 6)
All that said, of course the book starts at the beginning, and the early chapters quickly drew me in with a full, fascinating account of Bruce Lee's childhood growing up in Hong Kong, including important political and cultural context. Bruce Lee lived a life of opposing yet complementary existences - like the yin-yang symbol he adopted for the logo of his Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute - and we follow his evolution from child movie star and teen cha-cha heartthrob / street thug in Hong Kong to philosophical college student / local gung fu teacher in Seattle and Oakland to martial arts star / struggling Hollywood actor in Los Angeles. Even when his path came full circle and he achieved kung fu movie star fame in Hong Kong, his constant travels back and forth across the Pacific meant he had "to remember which side of the ocean I'm on, and whether I'm the superstar or the exotic Oriental support player." (p. 353)
When Bruce Lee finally landed a starring role in a film co-produced by a Hollywood studio - Enter the Dragon - he agonized over the script and the way Asians were portrayed; the American studio executives and writers offered up Orientalism and cared only about western audiences, but Bruce was acutely sensitive to how scenes would play out for Asian audiences. A representative from the co-production company in Hong Kong observed that Bruce "had to deal with the audiences who would be criticizing him and scrutinizing him. And so the weight was on him." (p. 405-408) Even on set, he was a bridge; while the American director and producers "yelled and cursed" (p. 409) at the Chinese crew, Bruce embodied gentle authority: "He took time to recognize the carpenters and plasterers. He ate with the crew members, stuntmen, and extras. He made sure that they received the same kind of box meal as him." (p. 410)
I especially appreciated that Jeff Chang rounded out Bruce's story by also giving us complex, fleshed-out portraits of those who profoundly influenced him and those he profoundly influenced, e.g., his father, Ruby Chow -- his primary guardian after he arrived in the U.S., who, I learned, was also writer Frank Chin's godmother! (p. 86) -- Amy Sanbo (his college girlfriend), and many, many fellow martial artists and students, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
I enjoyed this book immensely, but towards the end, when the narrative reached the 1970s, just as Bruce Lee was beginning his ascent to international stardom, I found myself picking up the book with a heavy heart, and reading slowly with apprehension. I knew what was coming, and the anticipation of tragedy and grief gave poignancy to everything.
Random note: I read this book so carefully that a singular discrepancy stood out to me. On page 101, Takauki "Taky" Kimura is "sixteen years Bruce's senior", a detail repeated on page 102 where it clearly says "Takauki Kimura was born in 1924." But then later, on page 144, James Yimm Lee is reported to have been born in 1920, "the same year as Ruby Chow and Taky Kimura."
A comment on formatting: The book has many short chapters with many section breaks, making it super readable for someone like me who tends to read in short intervals. Also, I appreciated the photos printed in-line with the text. (Having to flip back and forth to a collection of photos in the middle of a book is a pet peeve of mine.)
Finally, a note to self: On pages 167-168, in a letter to Linda, there's an excerpt of a writing by 19th century Unitarian minister William Henry Channing called "My Symphony" which I love and will strive to adopt as my own life philosophy: "To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion, to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never."
