Bruce Lee

The food was Chinese but served in a buffet style.  Everybody helped themselves to a plate, but not many of them were interested, they stayed in the other room and played games.  After the food the lights were turned off, as someone had brought a birthday cake out with nine candles.  They sang happy birthday then Bruce blew out the candles and made a wish.  The writing on the cake read: "Happy Birthday to the Little Phoenix".  William was confused with the words Little Phoenix and found out later that thirteen months before Bruce's birth his family had lost a son, when Bruce was born , he was a month premature and was very weak, it was a traditional chinese superstition to have a precious son's ears pierced, and christened with a female name.  This would confuse the evil spirits so that the evil spirits would not take the son's life away.  Bruce was born in the year of the dragon and phoenix is the female match for dragon, thus the family gave him a nickname, "Little Phoenix".  This nickname was only used in the family circle, so as to confuse the evil spirits who supposedly only stole precious little boys.
 

 

 

 

 

  After cutting the cake, Bruce came over to William and sat next to him.  William told him that he was a nine year old as well, and that his birthday was in October.  Bruce told him that he was attending a primary school in Kowloon, but he did not like it very much.  The reason why he didn't like the school was that the majority of the students were female because Bruce was enrolled in a girl school.  He also told William that he was doing a movie at that time and would like to invite William and his Uncle to the studio to watch the filming.

Later that week William went with his Uncle to visit Bruce at the film studio.   Bruce was still on set when they arrived, there was a lot of commotion as in this particular scene Bruce was required to squat down holding a bowl of food, but could not.  This was because of his high insteps, which made it very difficult for him to squat down.  They eventually gave him a little stool to sit on.  The film was about 12 families who were living in this condensed building and the children would go out to shine shoes and sell newspapers to help the families survive.  It was a very touching story and Bruce acted very well.

This was the beginning of their friendship - they were to grow even closer over the next few years.
  Bruce Lee visited William in the summer of 1955, they had not seen each other for some months. Bruce told him that he had changed schools.  He told him that at his old school there was a big chubby kid in his class who was always demanding pocket money from his school mates.  He never got around to Bruce as Bruce was smart and always managed to avoid any contact with him.  One day this big kid caught up with Bruce and told him to bring some money to school the next day and meet him at the school lavatory block.  Bruce couldn't do anything but to agree (at this time Bruce had not started training Wing Chun Kung Fu) for the time being.

The next day the big kid turned up and found Bruce waiting for him, he went over and greeted Bruce with a thumb on his shoulder.  He asked Bruce how much money he had brought for him.  Bruce grinned to cover the pain of the thumb and pulled out a flick knife from his pocket.  Before the big kid could turn around and run, Bruce already had pointed the knife to the kid's belly.

After slapping the kid on the face a couple of times Bruce decided to punish this bully.  He told the big kid to take off his clothes and then Bruce locked him in the cubicle.  Bruce left him there and went back to his afternoon class.

Though some of the kids in the class knew what had happened to their bully, no one was willing to say anything when the teacher asked where the big kid was and why he was not in the class.  After school everybody went home.  They all seemed to forget the big kid, but his parents didn't.  They phoned up the school, but the school didn't know anything about it and in the end the police were called in with tracker dogs to assist in the search.  The dogs headed straight for the lavatory building, which was 200 yards away from the classrooms, the police jumped over the door and found this kid fasts asleep.

Bruce was called to the principals office the next day accompanied by his parents.  Bruce was saved from expulsion after his parents begging, but was told to leave the school volunterily when the term ended.  William after hearing Bruce's story thought that the big kid deserved everything that he got.  Since that day Bruce was not allowed to go out alone in the street, so everywhere he went, Peter, his elder brother, would have to accompany him.

 

The reason why Bruce came to visit was to introduce William to some of his friends.  His friends were being pestered by a branch of an under-world gang.  Bruce's friends were called the "Junction Street 8 Tigers".  When William got to the meeting, he was aksed to attend at Junction Street, "Robb", "King" and "One-eye" were there.  After the self introductions they told him, Bruce and the rest of the kids would turn up soon.  

The "Junction Street 8 Tigers" were a newly formed teenage gang, made up by the kids living in the neighbourhood of Junction Street.  Their pledge was to stand up for justice, help the weak, fight the bullies and all for one, one for all..  The Tigers consissted of King (the leader) and his brother John, aged about 18 & 17 respectively.  Big Mouth, 19 years old, who was the son of a very famous opera singer, Robby, about 17 and was half Chinese and half Portugese.  Lunny, 19 years old, whose brother-in-law was in the Hong Kong Parliament.  Ah Chun, about 19, One-eye and Speedy, were both 18 years old.

King described the trouble that they were in.  A branch of an underworld gang, which was headed by a tough called Butcher Kow, who was an expert in a style of Kung Fu, had given them an ultimatum.  They were to meet the underworld gang at 11 pm on the following Saturday night outside the Lung Sing Theatre for a showdown.  They asked William if they could rely on his help.  He said he was willing to help, but asked that they first assess the gangs strengths and abilities as well as their own.

As they were discussing their plan for next saturday night and looking at a street map, they were interrupted by Uncle Chan.  He said if you are going to win, you will need my strategy and help.  You will have to drill in different formations for attack and defense.  I will make you some armour to protect yourselves, but right now we should go to the roof and drill

 
Uncle Chan was a character, he had a very distinctive limp when he walked.  According to him, he was in the Chinese Intelligence during World War ll and his leg was shot up when he was on his last mission to save a city in China.  When they got to the roof, they started drilling in Uncle Chan's formation.  Lotus formation when surrounded, spear formation when in attack, concave formation in defense and many others.  They drilled for over an hour, then Uncle Chan brought out a measuring tape and measured them for their armour.  He selected Kings and One-eye for the winger positions, Lunny & Ah Chun for left and right guards respectively and William as the center attacker as William had the most powerful punches and kicks amongst them.  The general strategy was that the wingers would open up the enemies defense when the center attacker would move in and strike.  The guards would have to block all attacking blows.

They practiced everyday for 2 or 3 hours until Saturday and then everybody was to meet at Uncle Chan's.  Most of the kids turned up, especially Bruce, even though his brother wasn't very enthusiastic about the whole thing.  Uncle Chan then gave them all specially made armour, and asked them to wear under their clothes.  They discussed the final plan and Bruce sat in a corner taking it all in.  William knew that Bruce would give anything to take his place, but he wasn't allowed to fight because his parents would be very angry if he marred his face with a scar or broken nose.  They met again at 10pm that night, without Bruce, in all eleven turned up including Uncle Chan.  When they got to the corner of the Theatre at 11.30pm, they saw a group of 30 men who all had a white handkerchief tied to their necks, it was supposed to be their uniform.  Uncle Chan said they only had to drop the first two persons and the rest would run like scared cats.  They were feeling comfortable with the situation.  Suddenly from underneath their jackets they each pulled out an article covered by an old newspaper.  They came towards them and William felt a chill run up his spine.  He then heard Uncle Chan yell out "You are no heros, if you need 30 people all equiped with weapons to beat up a bunch of kids, even if you win the people in the street will laugh at you, how about you selecting 5 or your best to fight with 5 of us, eh Butcher Kow?"

To Williams surpise the whole group stopped and had a discussion.  A couple of minutes later Butcher Kow emerged with four men and they stopped about 20 paces from them.  Uncle chan whispered to them that they should go and take them straight away because this was our chance.  He looked straight into Williams eyes and said "Ah Hing" go in there and knock him down.  Five of them moved in swiftly in the "spear" formation.

William went straight for the Butcher; when he saw him coming Kow tried to side-step and swung the weapon at his head.  William thrust his arm against it and felt his sleeve split apart from the contact.  The weapon was a long carving knife wrapped in newspaper.  Kow's mouth was wide open as he witnessed that his knife had no effect on William's arm - little did Kow know that William's armour was doing its job.  William took the opportunity and moved in a foot or two and sent out a sequence of Wing Chun short distance punches to Kow's face.  Kow's head bounced back seveal times when it made contact with William's fist.  Kow's balance was in difficulty, so William front kicked him in the mid section.  Kow yelled out in agony and slumped to the ground with William moving in quickly and putting his foot on Kow's head.  By this time the rest of the fighters had fled back to their mates for protection.  William shouted to them "Put down your weapons or I will crush Kow's head with my boot".  They all looked stunned and undecided.  The rest of the group came over to assist William, they picked up Kow and took his knife from him.  Kow told his men to put their weapons down and go quietly and not to worry about him, after Uncle Chan had whispered somthing in his ear.  The men eventually went away and they took Kow back to Junction Street.

Uncle Chan spoke with Kow, he told him that we were a bunch of good kids usually minding our own business, he should leave us alone and we could all live peacefully.333
Kow didn't say much, he was probably still feeling the effects of William's punches and kicks.  He agreed to leave them alone in future, so Uncle Chan brought out pen and paper and wrote down a truce, which Kow signed.

The next day William went down to Junction Street to tell Bruce about the victory.  When he arrived there were a lot of other kids from the neighbourhood, who had come to congratulate them.  Bruce was among them and he was paying a lot of attention to the story tellers.  The fight was described in so many different ways by many people.  But the best version and most exciting was that gave by Uncle Chan.  After this victory the Junction Street 8 tigers esteem climbed in the Hong Kong circle of gangs.

 

Please come back for more stories on Bruce Lee, I will be adding more pages and more information.  Please bookmark my web site and come back and visit often.

Regards

Sifu Ann Cheung

 

 

 

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