A Hidden Story
Sunday, Oct 14, 2007 6:50PM / Standard Entry
/ Members only
17 comments
I wanted to address a certain controversy surrounding my former Sifu, Wong Jack Man (for those of you who don't know, he's the kung fu Grandmaster Bruce Lee fought back in '64). Wong Sifu retired back in 2005 and I hadn’t Googled his name for quite a while until recently. When I did, I was astounded at how many hits I got. There was a marked increase in the number of threads and posts in the many martial arts forums out there. To say that much of this recent buzz is, in part, my doing might sound like the ranting and raving of some self-deluded, egomaniac. But it might very well be true. You see, a few years ago I began discussing this famous confrontation on Kung Fu Magazine’s on-line forum. I also caused some waves on the Fighting Arts.com Forum. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had been more vocal about my opinions on this confrontation than any of Wong Sifu’s students ever had. It must have been the fact that I was actually one of Wong Jack Man’s students that got me so much attention. Both of these forums have members throughout the world. Although this particular battle has always had its place in the Bruce Lee legend, it wasn’t discussed as much back then (2003-2004). Most people with any passing interest in Bruce Lee were happy to accept the version of what happened in Ron Cohen’s, “Dragon, The Bruce Lee Story.” This movie was, for the most part, pure fantasy. It was also one of the main reasons I, being a student of this reclusive master, had to say something in his defense (ironically, it was the scene “depicting” this match in “Dragon” that had originally sparked my interest in Wong Jack Man and his fight with Bruce Lee).
I have to admit something: Wong Sifu was adamant about me not saying anything about him to the public at all. So, naturally, I was nervous about getting into some of these heated on-line debates. There was always the chance that it would get back to him. “Don’t involve me with any magazines, movies, newspapers or anything,” he once told me. I remember wanting to tell him, “But Sifu, don’t you realize, the world thinks you are a villain! Do you have any idea what people are saying about you!?” As an old-school Grandmaster from China, he didn’t bother with martial arts periodicals and he didn’t even surf the web. Besides, he had already tried to stem the tide. Back in the eighties he took Linda Lee Caldwell to court over her slanderous remarks about him in her biography. She had painted this image of Lee as the only Chinese person ever brave enough to bring kung fu to westerners; the first non-racist kung fu master to teach the “quilo”. She partly based this false belief around the Wong Jack Man fight. Of course, Wong Sifu lost his battle with her. During the court case they had ascertained that he was a “public figure” so Linda Lee and Concord Moon could say anything they wanted about him (there was a similar case involving Carol Bernett just before this where they came to the same verdict). To him, it was as if Linda Lee and her cohorts were allowed to lie about him.
You see, the conflict that he had had with Bruce Lee was NOT about racism at all. Wong Sifu has always been glad to teach anyone of any race. Among the noteworthy non-Chinese people he has taught there’s Peter Ralston (the only westerner to win at the International Chinese Games in 1976) and Brent Hamby (the 1999 USAWKF National Champion). If that's not enough proof that Wong Jack Man is not a racist, then I offer myself as proof. I'm as white as they come and I was learning kung fu under his watchful eye for several years. Linda Lee herself of course, perpetuated this myth. Now, to say that Linda Lee Caldwell did this because she is a shameless materialist who has helped to build a cottage industry around Bruce Lee for her own profit, might not be completely fair. The arguments and conversations that were taking place between Wong Sifu, Bruce Lee, and their associates would have been unintelligible to her, since, she couldn’t speak Cantonese. Also, the people who showed up at Lee’s studio on Broadway Ave. in Oakland were not part of any “committee” or the like. They were just a bunch of guys who were friends with Wong Sifu and David Chin at the time.
As for the fight itself, it is clear to me (and many others, since there is so much buzz about this conflict) that it was not just an easy three-minute victory for Lee. I could probably write a book about the evidence and reasons why I don’t think so. The fact that that this particular conflict marked the genesis of Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do, proves to me that Bruce Lee himself didn’t just consider this bout an easy win. To say that it was because of a relatively easy victory over a renowned Chinese Grandmaster that Bruce Lee would denounce Wing Chun and call it "ineffective", is absurd to me. It’s worth noting that, while Bruce Lee was alive, he never actually said that he "beat Wong Jack Man”. He had a big ego and he liked to talk trash, but he couldn't bring himself to mention Wong by name. Why wouldn’t he if he had beat him? And why didn’t he answer the challenge to have a public match after Sifu Wong had his side of the story printed in the Chinese Pacific Weekly, a San Francisco publication at the time? Why did martial arts promoter Ming Lum, after seeing Wong Sifu the next day at his work, state that he saw no injuries on Wong except for a scratch above his left eye? Why, my friends? It’s because Bruce Lee didn’t “win” this fight. Officially, Wong and the other eyewitnesses who were around at the time (excluding Linda Lee), have maintained that the fight was a draw. David Chin recently came out in Kung Magazine saying this and one other witness, a man by the name of Bill Chen, has also said as much. I have my own opinions on the fight that I won’t share here. In part, because one of my Si-Hings scared the crap out of me by telling me not to get in the way of the Bruce Lee money machine or start talking too much smack, or else I’d end up being murdered like Bruce and his son, Brandon.
If I were to entertain the thought that such conspiracy theories were real, I would announce to whatever unseen mafia forces there might be behind all of this, that the truth behind this fight shouldn’t be seen as making Bruce Lee look bad. Why would it? I’ve been a fan of Bruce Lee movies since I was a wee lad. So was every kid in my Karate class back when I was 12 years old. I have come to the realization that, if it weren’t for this particular conflict, Bruce would never have become famous. He would never have developed his own, more unique way of fighting. He would have remained just another Wing Chun fighter and he never would have delved into other arts like Western Boxing, Fencing or Tae Kwon Do. Along with other Chinese styles, such as Choy Lay Fut, it’s been said (and there is evidence that I've seen) that he learned some of Wong Sifu’s own style, Buck Pai Siu Lum kung fu. He felt like he needed higher kicks for the movies, and this style would have delivered. It was only after he absorbed what he liked from all of these other styles that he began kicking his way to stardom. Hell, if you follow its development, it can even be argued that kickboxing wouldn’t have fully developed into what it is without Lee and his quest for a new and better martial art.
Arguing about all of this stuff with JKD practitioners and Bruce Lee worshippers on any of the many forums out there no longer interests me. I’ve come to realize that, as long as Linda Lee is willing to maintain her official statement on the fight that took place between these two men back in 1964, there’s always going to be a lot of confusion and mystery for a lot of people when it comes to this fight. Sifu Wong has always been a very reclusive and private man. So any more specific information on the event will probably never come to light. At this point I would just be happy if everyone was clear that the reasons for the incident were not because Wong Jack Man is a racist. As far as the outcome they can think whatever they want. That being said, I would also just like it to be known that I’m not trying to say Bruce Lee sucked or anything like that. The great Wong Jack Man himself never said that. Wong Sifu always maintained that Bruce Lee was very good. He didn’t beat him, but he was very good.
http://kungfu.net/brucelee.html
Entry comments (17)