16_Bruce Lee16_Bruce Lee.docVIP

Bruce Lee Bruce Lee was born in 1940 in San Francisco, California while his father, an opera singer from Hong Kong, was on tour there. According to the Chinese calendar, Lee was born during the Hour of the Dragon in the Year of the Dragon, so his family often called him Little Dragon. But young Bruce was not like his nickname. He was actually a weak, sick child. His parents gave him the English name Bruce for his American birth certificate. Bruces Chinese name was Li Jun Fan, which is a girls name. His parents were very superstitious and gave Bruce a girls name to trick the evil spirits. One of their sons had died before Bruce was born, and they were afraid Bruce would die too. Bruces mother even pierced one of his ears so the spirits would think he was a girl. In 1941, the Lee family returned to Hong Kong. Bruces father knew some important people that worked in the movie business. They helped Bruce Lee to become a child movie star. Bruce acted in his first movie when he was only six years old. By the time he was 18, he had appeared in 20 movies. In the movie The Orphan, Bruce played a gang member who was always in trouble. This was very much like his real life. Bruce didnt like to study and he got into trouble so often that he was thrown out of school. He spent most of his time in the streets fighting with other kids. As a child, Bruce was small, thin, and weak and wore eyeglasses. Other boys bullied him, so he needed to protect himself. When he was about nine, he started taking lessons in an ancient Chinese way of fighting called kung fu. He practiced every day, and soon he thought about nothing else. Bruce became a better fighter, but knowing kung fu also got him into trouble. One day he was arrested after he was in a serious fight where some people were hurt. At that point, his parents decided to send him to America. They hoped he would stay out of trouble there. When Bruce Lee arrived in the United States at age 18, his life changed completely. At first, he gav