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4 The character for “Jun,” which may have been changed from a slightly different one when he was young, means to “shake, move or excite to action.” The character for “Fan” literally means “boundary” or “frontier,” but was also used as part of the transliteration of “San Francisco,” the “Fan” being similar in sound to “Fran.”

5 Linda Lee, The Bruce Lee Story, p. 27. (The book uses an incorrect romanization of the nickname, which Linda pointed out to me.)

6 The Lee family has described Grace’s heritage at various times as being part German or part German and English, as well as Chinese. See Bruce Lee: A Life by Matthew Polly, note to p. 13 citing brother Robert’s book, and Bruce Lee: Words of the Dragon (2017 edition), edited by John Little, note 8 on p. 69. I vaguely recollect being told by the family that she was part White Russian (the term used for the people who fled Russia in the wake of the Russian Revolution). When I asked Robert a few years ago, he confirmed that she was Eurasian but said he regretted that he had never inquired about the details. Her father, Ho Kom Tong, was raised as the son of a Dutch Jew named Charles Maurice Bosman, who emigrated to Hong Kong and became a successful entrepreneur, and a Chinese concubine from Shanghai. But there is some question as to whether Bosman was really Ho Kom Tong’s father. During an exit interview on the eve of his parent’s return to Hong Kong, in order to document Bruce as an American citizen and preserve his ability to re-enter the United States, his mother clearly stated that her mother was English and had no Chinese blood. But there is still some question about that, too. See Charles Russo’s book, Striking Distance: Bruce Lee and the Dawn of Martial Arts in America, p. 50. In Bruce Lee: A Life, Matthew Polly asserts that her father was indeed half Chinese and half Dutch-Jewish, and that her mother was 100% English. See pp. 13-14 and chapter notes thereto. But from the notes, it is clear that he is speculating. His notes also mention that the Dutch-Jewish Bosman family could be traced to Germany several generations before, which could explain the origin of the claim that Grace was part German.

7 Linda Lee, The Bruce Lee Story, p. 144; Polly, A Life, pp. 24,35.

8 See, e.g., Russo, Striking Distance, p. 53, and his notes thereto on p. 177, citing several sources; and in his introduction to Bruce’s Chinese Gung Fu: The Philosophical Art of Self-Defense, James Lee, on p. 1, states that Bruce started with Yip Man at age thirteen. Linda also confirms that Bruce always said he started with Yip man when he was thirteen. The only account I’ve seen claiming that Bruce didn’t start with Yip Man until he was fifteen is Matthew Polly, Bruce Lee: A Life, pp. 46 and 52-55. His argument appears to be mainly based on an article by Hawkins Cheung, a teenage pal of Bruce’s, who says that he met Bruce at St. Francis Xavier after which they started with Yip Man together. Hawkins Cheung, “Bruce Lee’s Hong Kong Years,” Inside Kung-Fu, November 1991. But the introduction to the article states that Hawkins began his training with Yip Man in 1953 (i.e., when Bruce was thirteen). In any event, if Bruce did start with Yip Man when he was fifteen, rather than thirteen, the strength of the platform he built with Wing Chun is even more remarkable. (Jesse Glover, Bruce’s first student, says Bruce told him he studied Wing Chun for four years, which is somewhere in between. Jesse Glover, Bruce Lee, p. 13.)

9 Polly, A Life, p. 54.

10 Ibid., pp. 71-72.

11 Linda Lee, The Bruce Lee Story pp. 30, 35.

12 Polly, A Life, pp. 60-61.

13 Hawkins Cheung, “Bruce Lee’s Hong Kong Years,” Inside Kung-Fu, November 1991.

14 Russo, Striking Distance, pp. 29-30, 47-48.

15 Paul Bax, Number One: Reflections from Bruce Lee’s First Student, Jesse Glover, p. 49. According to Bruce’s daytimer, he arrived in Seattle on September 3, 1959. Fook Yeung’s name is also sometimes spelled “Fook Young.” Jesse described Fook Yeung as a cook at Ruby Chow’s but LeRoy Garcia, another early student, remembers him as being a chef at The Polynesia, a waterfront restaurant.

16 According to a teacher of the Praying Mantis in New York, Gin Foon Mark, Bruce’s father made a trip to New York City with his opera troupe shortly after Bruce arrived in San Francisco, and Bruce flew back to join him in June of 1959. Mark claimed that Bruce sparred with one of his students and they appeared about evenly matched; and that since Mark’s student had only been practicing for about a year, that did not sit well with Bruce. Mark also claimed that he changed Bruce’s stance so that his right arm was held further from the body, and introduced him to more fluid footwork. The source for this account is mainly The Dragon and the Tiger, by Greglon Yimm Lee and Sid Campbell. In an interview he gave to Paul Bax, Gin Foon Mark has told a similar story. But I have never heard of this from any other source, and I doubt this claim. For one thing, I don’t think Bruce’s father traveled to New York right after Bruce arrived in San Francisco. In addition, Mark claims Bruce at that time wanted him to go out to California to instruct him and be a consultant for his films, but this was long before Bruce got involved in the movie business in Hollywood. Jesse Glover, Bruce’s first student, also never heard mention of such trip, and had his doubts. According to Jesse, Bruce learned his Praying Mantis forms from Fook Yeung. Jesse Glover, Bruce Lee, pp. 13, 16 and 65; and Paul Bax, Number One: Reflections from Bruce Lee’s First Student, Jesse Glover, pp. 34 and 212. LeRoy Garcia also confirms that Fook Yeung taught Bruce a lot.

17 Paul Bax, ed., Bruce Lee: Disciples of the Dragon, digital version, interview with Skip Ellsworth, pp. 47-48.

18 In a letter to Hawkins Cheung, a childhood friend, written May 16, 1960, he mentions the wooden dummy that he had had shipped from Hong Kong. Bruce Lee: Letters of the Dragon, edited by John Little, p. 25.

19 Jesse Glover, Bruce Lee, p. 12.

20 Ibid., pp. 9-12.

21 See Jesse Glover, Bruce Lee, title page, and p. 15, which refers to a conversation with Bruce about Yip Man in the “latter part of 1959,” and p. 12, describing the demo as having been at an annual Seafair event.

22 The January 8 diary entry is actually hand-dated “1961 Fri,” but since January 8, 1961 was a Sunday rather than a Friday (January 8, 1960 was a Friday), and since the diary’s first page is dated December 31, 1959, it appears that Bruce entered the wrong year for the first few entries of 1960.

23 Jesse Glover, Bruce Lee, pp. 17-18.

24 Bax, Number One, pp. 190-191; Jesse Glover, Bruce Lee, p. 17.

25 Bax, Number One, p. 180; Jesse Glover, Bruce Lee, p. 18.

26 Jesse Glover, Bruce Lee, pp. 18 and 40.

27 According to Bruce’s diary, he and Jesse and Fook Yeung went to the YMCA on February 6, 1960 where he met Taky. Taky and others there apparently asked Bruce to teach them some gung fu. Subsequent entries for February also mention practicing judo with Taky and that he was “[l] earning some judo.” He also began teaching Taky some gung fu at the YMCA. In addition to Jesse and Taky, Bruce also learned some judo from Fred Sato. Glover, Bruce Lee, p. 49.

28 Bax, Number One, p. 43.

29 Jesse Glover, Bruce Lee, p. 37. Bruce also stammered. Ibid., p. 66. A diary entry of Bruce’s noted that he stuttered due to his being too concerned with making a mistake. He resolved to say what he wanted without worrying about pronunciation or grammar. Diary entry for January 21-22, 1960. Although Bruce spoke English fluently then, it was his second language that he learned in school, and was British English.

30 Bax, Number One, pp. 77, 143, 159 and 160.

31 E.g., see Bax, Disciples, Jim DeMile interview, p. 116, for his opinion of Bruce’s fighting ability. Ibid., p. 121, discusses the reason for their break-up.

32 The ten students were Jesse, Skip Ellsworth, Pat Hooks, Howard Hall, Charlie Woo, Taky Kimura, LeRoy Garcia, Tak Miyabe, Jim DeMile and John Jackson. Ed Hart was Bruce’s second student, but was in New York for a few months at the time. Bax, Number One, p. 225; Glover, Bruce Lee, p. 47; Little, Letters of the Dragon, March 1961 letter to Ed Hart in New York, p. 27.

33 Little, Letters of the Dragon, May 1961 letter to Ed Hart in New York, p. 28.

34 Diary entry for February 3, 1960. He gives no details. Jesse does not mention any particular encounter Bruce had around this time, but does recall Bruce’s mention of an argument with a cook at Ruby Chow’s, where the cook threatened him with a meat cleaver. Bruce dared the man to take a swing and the man backed off. Perhaps this was the “scrap” Bruce refers to. Glover, Bruce Lee, p. 17.

35 The name of Bruce’s challenger has variously been given as either “Uechi” or “Yoichi (or Yoiche) Nakachi.” In Bruce Thomas, Bruce Lee: Fighting Spirit, pp. 44-45, and Lee and Campbell, The Dragon and the Tiger, vol. 1, pp. 209 et seq., the challenger is just called “Uechi.” But neither cites any source for that name, and it is the minority reference. I don’t have a memory of the name from when I heard the story recounted after joining the class. It is possible that the name “Uechi” used in some accounts comes from a garbling of “Yoichi.” The name “Yoichi (or Yoiche) Nakachi” appears as the challenger’s name in the majority of renditions, but that name too is hard to track back to its source. In his own book published in 1976, Jesse Glover just referred to him as the “Karateman.” E.g., see his Bruce Lee, pp. 41-45; likewise, in Paul Bax’s Disciples, published in 2006. In Paul Bax’s compilation of Jesse’s letters and postings on an online forum, Number One, published in 2016, Jesse also mostly referred to the “Karate man” (e.g., pp. 40, 55, 102, 213 and 217), but at least once, at p. 210, referred to a “Yoiche [sic] Nakachi” as the karate man. “Yoiche” is most likely a misspelling of “Yoichi”, and Charles Russo also uses that misspelling of the name (Russo, Striking Distance, pp. 67-68), citing some of the foregoing sources. A Google search turns up a practitioner of kenpo karate named Yoichi Nakachi, who was in Seattle around the same time and who ostensibly met Bruce, but a review of his on-line particulars suggests that he may not have been the guy who fought Bruce. One self-proclaimed student of Jesse’s, in an on-line posting, has claimed that Jesse kept the name of the challenger secret for many years, before finally revealing it as “Yoiche [sic] Nakachi.” https://darkwingchun.wordpress.com/2010/01/14/bruce-lee-the-karate-man-and-jesse-glover/. But I am dubious. Because of the uncertainty, I will simply refer to the challenger as the “karate man.”

36 See Glover, Bruce Lee, pp. 42-45, and Bax, Dis-ciples, interview with Jesse Glover, pp. 30-31, for Jesse’s rendition of the fight and his comments on the challenger.

37 Ed Hart confirms this. Bax, Disciples, Ed Hart interview, p. 39.

38 Glover, Bruce Lee, p. 92.