2 Birth and Childhood

Chapter 1 Birth and Childhood From the very beginning, Bruce Lee was constantly in motion. When he was a little boy, he was a bundle of energy. He was always playing, running, or jumping. He bounced around his family's apartment so much that his parents and brothers and sisters nicknamed him "Mo Si Ting," which means "never sits still."

Bruce was born in Chinatown of San Francisco, California. His given name was Jun Fan. The Chinese custom is to put the "last name" first, so his full name was Lee Jun Fan. Bruce was born on November 27, 1940, in what the Chinese calendar considers the year of the dragon. The Chinese calendar also considers the hour he was born as the hour of the dragon (between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m.). So Bruce was sometimes called "the Dragon" or, when he was young, "Little Dragon." The dragon is an important symbol in Chinese culture. It is a sacred creature that brings power and good luck. One of the nurses at the hospital in San Francisco gave Lee Jun Fan his Americanized name, Bruce.

Bruce's dad was named Lee Hoi Chuen. He was a well-known actor in a traveling Chinese opera that was in California at the time his son was born. He had also appeared in many movies

in China. Bruce's mom was Grace Ho. The Lee family included Bruce's older sisters, Phoebe and Agnes, his older brother, Peter, and his younger brother, Robert, who was born in 1948. When he was just a few months old, Bruce and his family returned to Hong Kong, where his parents had been born. His dad's job meant Bruce was around the performing arts at a young age. He loved to go to work with his dad, and he soon appeared in movies himself. He had natural charisma on-screen and was in twenty films as a youngster.

Bruce didn't have quite the same enthusiasm for school, however. He was a smart kid, but he didn't try very hard—or he couldn't sit still long enough to try! When he was twelve years old he entered secondary school. All of his classes were in English. That was a new language for him. At home, his family spoke only Chinese. One day, Bruce's mother got frustrated with his performance in school. She asked him how he ever expected to make a living when he grew up. "I'll become a famous film star one day," Bruce told her in Chinese. Instead of studying, Bruce channeled his boundless energy into fighting. He became mixed up in the gang culture in Hong Kong. He

led his own small gang called the Tigers. "From boyhood to adolescence, I was a bit of a troublemaker and was greatly disapproved of by my elders," Bruce admitted later. "I was extremely mischievous and aggressive." Bruce started getting into a lot of fights. One day, when he was about thirteen, he lost a fight and was beat up. He decided he had to learn to protect himself better. So he began to study the martial art called kung fu. CHINATOWNS IN THE MID-1800S, MANY CHINESE IMMIGRANTS SETTLED ON THE WEST COAST IN CITIES SUCH AS SAN FRANCISCO AND LOS ANGELES. SOME OF THE IMMIGRANTS TRIED TO STRIKE IT RICH DURING THE CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH. OTHERS HELPED BUILD THE FIRST RAILROAD