In Water Mirror Echo details the life of Bruce Lee and how he came to be the legend he is known as. He was born in San Francisco Chinatown. During the time when Japan was invading China. They decided to mirage to America. They lost their first child who got sick. There were laws passed to prevent Asians from owning land, attending schools, and from them serving against whites in court. His dad blamed the gods that his family kept getting sick and he felt they were being punished. Others felt it was the climate difference. There were times they didn’t know if we would survive. The book discussed his upbringing and how he studied Kung Fu and followed the acting path.


This book was interesting to read about his life and what he faced growing up as an Asian in America. It covered the political side of the times and how this affected his life. This book was very comprehensive and was very well researched about his life. This is the closest readers will get to learn about Bruce Lee and who he was behind the fighter. There are also beautiful photos in the book that will bring the story to life.

My thanks to NetGalley and Mariner Books for an advance copy of this book that looks at the life of a man that ended too soon, a hero to some,a villain to others, a man who changed the martial arts, and changed entertainment, and more importantly the ways people thought about themselves, leading to change in a decade reluctant to give anyone an even break.

My father by the early seventies was a married man, working two jobs, going to school, and somehow kept up with all kind of pop entertainment. Everytime I found something a band, a movie, a book, my father had something to add to what I was discovering, usually something I had never thought about. I don't know how he did it, I know he was a good listener and reader, but it ill remain a mystery. When I was a teen I was at a family social event, bored out of my mind, when a older more conservative relative began to talk about violent movies, and how it wound people up. He was not talking about in Stallone in Rambo, more the rap films that were suddenly a cultural hot point. My father began to talk about watching a Bruce Lee movie, and watching the kids leaving jumping, kicking swinging and being really excited. My dad went on and said, at first I was like oh these movies are not good. Then I thought about it. These kids, brown, black, yellow, whatever just watched a movie with a guy who might look like him, or from a familiar life as them, downtrodden, hated for their look, be strong and cool enough not to put up with authority and their stupid, well excrement. And win. I can see why they were happy, they had a hero. This has always stayed with me, and came back to me hard while reading this fascinating book, one that is more than a biography, but about a change in how people came to view themselves. Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America by cultural critic, and pop culture historian Jeff Chang is a complete biography of the Little Dragon the man, his fears, his teaching, but his influence to both martial arts, and to the world in general.

Bruce Lee was born in San Francisco to a parent who worked on stage and in film, and too a mother who kept things going. Lee stared in his first movie before he was a year old. Lee returned to Hong Kong in a time of war, but was comfortable for at least a while. Lee was a tad rambunctious one that carried over into his adulthood with his working constantly, though not much of a student until later in his life. Lee started martial arts and working on films about the same time, while also fighting everyone and anyone he could. Lee was sent to America, settling in Seattle. Lee began to find himself, immersing himself in martial arts, philosophy, and self help books. Lee dreamed of being a success, and after many setbacks, soon found a little fame in Hollywood. A fame he was able to parlay into something bigger in Hong Kong. While this was going on Asian Americans were working in many ways to be accepted more in society, a battle that seemed just as uphill as all the other problems with race America was dealing with.

Not only a very comprehensive biography on Bruce Lee, but a look at the politics around Asian Americans. From internment camps during the Second World War, to limits, exclusion acts and more, the book really goes into a dark history of America, while talking about the glowing idol that was Bruce Lee. What I liked most was not the martial arts discussion, which I thought was good, but the looks into the thinking of Bruce Lee. Acting as mentor, getting angry alot. Most books almost treat him as inscrutable, but this really captures the man, with flaws, and with a strength of will that was extraordinary. I love learning about the civil rights battles for Asian Americans, and just the little facts that Chang drops in.

Chang is a very good writer and researcher, and for a book so comprehensive and dealing with so many different views, I never felt the book lag, nor seem to long. A book for a lot of different readers, sports people, movie people, history lovers and cultural readers. A rare book that makes one wonder about quite a lot at the end. And where we are going, as much that is discussion, including the racism has come back.

Most works about Bruce Lee are about his acting career; however, with Jeff Chang's new work, Water, Mirror, Echo, readers rather are exposed to his prolific work as a martial arts expert and teacher. The work is comprehensive, historically linear, and powerful in its depiction of a man who really never got the recognition he deserved in life, whether that was of his own doing or because of a racially-biased Hollywood that never appreciated his talents. Sometimes Chang takes the long way around, introducing readers to multiple people who influenced Lee's life or were friends of his, and Chang's journalistic talents, although stellar, sometimes get in the way of the story that we wanted to hear about Lee's life and death. But, overall, this is an informative tome that thoroughly takes a strong enough look at the man, the myth, the legend, who redefined cinema forever.