← Live Wire with Luke Burbank
Live Wire with Luke Burbank
Jeff Chang and Okaidja Afroso
00:52:25
This episode features writer and cultural critic Jeff Chang and music from singer and multi-instrumentalist Okaidja Afroso.
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- [00:03]
Luke Burbank
Hey there. Welcome to Livewire. I'm your host, Luke Burbank. All right, this week on the show, we are talking to the writer Jeff Chang about his new book, Water Mirror, Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America, which tells the real story of Bruce Lee's life on and off the screen, including how he was actually kind of a pain in a lot of people's butt when he was attending my alma mater, the University of Washington. It's a whole new perspective on Bruce Lee's life and impact on the culture. Then we're going to hear from multi instrumentalist, singer and dancer Okinja Afroso, who says he was actually pretty bad at dancing back in Ghana, where he's from before he got really good. Then he got really good at guitar by watching YouTube, which has, like, never worked out for me that way, but it did for him. And it's amazing in, in fact, the whole hour is going to be amazing. So don't go anywhere. Livewire gets started right after this.
- [01:01]
Sponsor Voice
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- [01:55]
Elaina Passarello
from PRX, it's Live Wire. This week, cultural critic Jeff Chang.
- [02:08]
Jeff Chang
So he's blending and fencing like karate, judo, jiu jitsu, all of these things. They're like experimenting, right? And this becomes sort of what is known today as mixed martial arts.
- [02:18]
Elaina Passarello
With music from Okinja Afroso.
- [02:21]
Okinja Afroso
I started dancing first. Music came way later. My dancing was actually really bad. I shouldn't be dancing in public.
- [02:32]
Elaina Passarello
And our fabulous house band, I'm your announcer, Elaina Passarello. And now the host of Livewire, Luke Burbank.
- [02:46]
Luke Burbank
We've got an incredible show in store for you this week. Can't wait for you to experience it. But of course, we got to start Things off the way we always do with a little segment we call the best news we heard all week. Here's the basic idea behind the segment. Everything is terrible.
- [03:06]
Elaina Passarello
Yes.
- [03:06]
Luke Burbank
And every day is a new fresh hell. But. But there is still some good news occasionally occurring. Sometimes deep in caves, sometimes.
- [03:17]
Elaina Passarello
Oh, appropriate.
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Luke Burbank
Oh, really?
- [03:19]
Elaina Passarello
Yes.
- [03:19]
Luke Burbank
Oh, I guess I'll find out more. I didn't know how on the nose I was with that. Sometimes we have to look really, really hard for it. But we have found some good news stories. We want to share them with you right here at the top of the show. Alaina, what is the best news that you heard all week?
- [03:33]
Elaina Passarello
Okay. My best news is that I made a new friend and he. We are Internet friends.
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Luke Burbank
Okay.
- [03:40]
Elaina Passarello
And it's a very one sided relationship because I just learned about him on the Internet and he's been dead for 5,300 years.
- [03:47]
Luke Burbank
Okay. Okay.
- [03:49]
Elaina Passarello
His name is oetzi the iceman. He died on the Austro. What is now the Austro Italian border about 5,300 years ago. He was frozen in the Alps. What a way to go. And he was discovered in 1991 by some hikers, and they've just been researching on this guy ever since.
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Luke Burbank
Okay.
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Elaina Passarello
I saw a picture of him. I think he's a redhead. Either that or that's just what your bones look like after 5,300 years. One of his feet goes this way. One of his feet goes this way. But he's still pretty cute. So they've been researching on him for the past 35 years, and some of the recent research has gone into this word that I didn't know until recently, but now I feel like I hear it all the time. Microbiome.
- [04:29]
Luke Burbank
Oh, yes, sure.
- [04:31]
Elaina Passarello
Like your gut microbiome. And you're supposed to eat gut beans. I don't know. What are you supposed to.
- [04:36]
Luke Burbank
Things that have like that are fermented are good for your biome, for gut health. Yeah, whiskey counts, like probiotic yogurt. Whatever Jamie Lee Curtis is eating, this is all good for the gut biome.
- [04:49]
Elaina Passarello
So we're looking at oetzi, the iceman's gut biome recently. I'm thinking maybe around 2020. And I'll tell you why in just a second. They found both ancient and modern microbes inside of him. And one of the cultures that they found inside of is five millennia old yeast. Yeah, it's just this. It's bacteria and it forms these large cultures and it just sort of spreads around the remaining tissues that this iceman has. There are four different yeasts that they've taken from him, and they just put them in a fridge in a lab in the north of Italy. Very kind of important that it's Italian, because one of the things that they've done with these yeasts is figured out if they could make bread. What's the best kind of bread in the 2000 and twenties to make sourdough bread, they made a sourdough starter from the gut biome of my pal Oetzi the iceman. I'm sorry to say that their first few tries were not very good, but. And I.
- [05:53]
Luke Burbank
So someone was tasting it. You say not very good? Somebody was.
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Elaina Passarello
They didn't specify, but in my brain, they were tasting it, I think.
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Luke Burbank
So.
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Elaina Passarello
I think beer might be next, but they're also using it for replacing microbiomes in the human system that we don't have anymore.
- [06:08]
Luke Burbank
Oh.
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Elaina Passarello
So there is some good that's coming out of it, but also bread.
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Luke Burbank
Wow. So they're just, like, partying off of this dude's body. They're making bread, they're making beer.
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Elaina Passarello
Yeah.
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Luke Burbank
It's like he's just like a human charcuterie board.
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Elaina Passarello
He's like, Remember in the 90s where they just pay some poor model to lay with sushi on them?
- [06:25]
Luke Burbank
That's him.
- [06:26]
Elaina Passarello
Yeah.
- [06:27]
Luke Burbank
Yeah. Wow. That's incredible. The best news that I heard all week actually happened in Australia the other night. There was this production of La La Land live. Okay. You know the movie La La Land with Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone? It's this musical with all these dance numbers. It's like this incredible film. And so what they've been doing is taking this big orchestra around the world, and people will come out and they'll show La La Land, and then the orchestra will play along live with the film and play these, like, big, important parts of the movie. And they were doing this in Australia, and the crowd was there. Big crowd. It was a lovely night. Then they went to intermission, and then the intermission was kind of going, like, longer than people were expecting. And then eventually, the conductor, a guy named Justin Hurwitz, comes out to the stage by himself and says, our piano player has become ill. Can anyone in the theater sight read piano music? And so backstage, apparently, when the piano player got sick, they were like, well, does. I mean, this is a huge orchestra. Someone else. Yeah, this is what this Hurwitz guy said. He thought somebody who plays strings also plays piano. No, apparently not. Or they knew how hard the piano part was. Then they started calling pianists in Australia, and everybody Was a minimum of 20 minutes away and the crowd was getting restless. And so this, this director, by the way, Justin Hurwitz, is not just traveling with the production. He's the composer of the music. He's an Oscar winning composer for La La Land. He made the score. He made the score and conducted the orchestra. So he like really knows this stuff. He said he just thought, well, we have 3,000 people in this theater. Oh my God, maybe one of them plays piano. And one of them did. A 21 year old student, a guy at the University of Sydney studying politics and international studies, a guy named Sterling NASA.
- [08:30]
Elaina Passarello
Okay.
- [08:32]
Luke Burbank
Who volunteered. And I should say Sterling did not so much volunteer as was forced into it by his date who raised his hand for him.
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Elaina Passarello
That sounds like something that would happen in the movie La La Land. I mean seriously, like she's so boisterous. And he's. Yeah, yeah.
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Luke Burbank
So Sterling goes up there and you can tell that like the director is still kind of a little bit worried because this is like really kind of hard.
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Elaina Passarello
Oh my God.
- [08:59]
Luke Burbank
The director said, I kept asking, can. He said, I want to make sure the person coming up wasn't just overly confident because that was going to be awkward. I kept asking, are you sure? Can you really sight read? And this guy was like, yeah, I think I can. So he gets up there, he's looking out at this big crowd of people, he's playing the music. It's sort of relatively simple at first. He's doing okay, he's keeping up with it. But on the music is this big solo that he has to do which is supposed to kind of like sync up with Ryan Gosling's character, like playing this really complicated piece. The director Hurwitz said the synth solo is really technical and I thought even a really high level professional sight reader would probably not be able to do it. As it was coming up, I was thinking, oh no, how is he gonna be able to hand the solo? Sterling? NASA told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation he was thinking the same thing. This is where the story gets really cool, is that this kid kind of like he's got this fork in the road. He's like seeing this big chunk of music coming up that he's never tried to play before. And he's like, there's no way I'm gonna really be able to pull this off note for note. So when he gets to that part, he just starts improving and he just starts going on all these riffs and flights of fancy and the orchestra picks up with him because they're a Professional orchestra. So all of a sudden, this cool new piece of art is being created that is new and original in the room, and it ends up being this huge hit. And I feel like it's kind of almost like instructive in a way, right? Like, sometimes there's something and there's a sort of traditional or normal response to it that it maybe isn't gonna work for you, and you have to get kind of creative. You have to trust your gut to trust your gut. Biome. Anyway, this kid Sterling NASA is like the toast of Australia right now. He's being. I got a standing ovation, by the way, after his big improv sesh.
- [10:55]
Elaina Passarello
They better still be standing up.
- [10:56]
Luke Burbank
They are. He's still like. He's like. People are saying that he should become a professional musician now. And he's. You know, he's still a student in college, but he really, really did something incredible that night. Which also, along with it just being kind of a life lesson, I think it just teaches you that people can do amazing things when they put their mind to it. And when you have enough people in a room to that end, I'm wondering, can anyone in this room host a public radio show sight reading scripts that you've never read before? Because I've got some stuff I've got to do in about 20 minutes, so. No, no, no takers. All right, fine. I'll finish the show anyway. That's the best news I heard all week. Sterling. NASA. All right. You're listening to Livewire. We are going to welcome our first guest on out, whose first book, Can't Stop, Won't Stop, a history of the hip hop generation, was named one of the best American nonfiction books of the last quarter century, which is the point at which I would have been like, I'm done writing books. I did it. Everybody leave me alone. That is not what Jeff Chang did. He went on to write a bunch more amazing books, including his latest, Water Mirror Echo, Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America, which examines Bruce Lee's legacy and very existence, which broke barriers and helped shape the idea of what it means to be Asian in America. It was named one of the best books of the year by Publishers Weekly and is receiving rave reviews all over. We are so excited to have him here on the show. Please welcome Jeff Chang to Livewire. Jeff, welcome to the show.
- [12:49]
Jeff Chang
Thanks so much for having me.
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Luke Burbank
I just tore through this book now. It is. And you're an incredible writer. You're also a great student of history. It is. It's an impressive Tome. Okay. When it came in the mail, I
- [13:02]
Jeff Chang
said, meaning it's very big and heavy.
- [13:04]
Luke Burbank
I was like, this is a lot of book. And then I sat down and in, like, two sessions, I read right through it because it's like the story is so well told. There's so much stuff in there that, of course, I wouldn't have known. In fact, you start the book by saying Bruce Lee is perhaps the most famous person in the world about whom so little is known. Did you have that opinion, or were you thinking that might be the case before you actually went through the process of researching and writing this book?
- [13:30]
Jeff Chang
Yeah, I mean, I think that I held and, you know, I was five years old on the playground trying to be Bruce Lee like every other kid in Hawaii. In Hawaii, yeah. And getting hurt a lot, waving around like toilet paper, nunchakus and stuff like that. But, yeah, I think that we saw movies like Dragon, the Bruce Lee Story, or different types of things that kind of create a lot of mythologies around them. And so when I started researching the book, I actually had to undo a lot of those. You know, I was meeting a lot of the people who are still surviving, who are his friends and his family members, and just learning all kinds of new things about him. And at the end, it still felt like there was a lot of mysteries that I'll still never be able to resolve. But certainly the journey that I had taken took me very far from the Bruce Lee that I thought I knew when I started the process.
- [14:32]
Luke Burbank
I have a million more questions for you, Jeff. We gotta do a quick break here because we're making a radio show. This is Livewire from prx. We're at the Alberta Rose Theater Theater this week. We're talking to Jeff Chang about his latest book, Water Mirror, Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America. Quick break and then back with more LIVEWIRE in just a moment. Welcome back to Livewire from prx. Here we are at the Alberta Rose Theater. Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. We're talking to Jeff Chang about his book Water Mirror Echo, Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America. How involved was the research for this book? How long did it take to write this? I bet you the next thing you're gonna say is, a long time. No one's ever had that response in like, two weeks.
- [15:43]
Jeff Chang
Right, right, right. Very, very, very long time. I actually haven't gone back and looked at the original contract that I signed.
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Luke Burbank
Oh, boy.
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Jeff Chang
Because, I mean, it hurts in some ways. You know, there's a lot of people That I didn't get to talk to, actually. They passed away.
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Elaina Passarello
Yeah.
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Jeff Chang
Bruce would have been, what, 1940, Asian, bad at math. So it's like he would have been like, what, 86 this year? He's gonna be 86 this year. And so a lot of his peers and contemporaries have passed away. And so I didn't want to think about that. But, yeah, a really, really long time.
- [16:15]
Elaina Passarello
If you have these mysteries about him and he is this kind of unknown figure, what kinds of materials teach you so that you can write the book?
- [16:24]
Jeff Chang
Great question. Well, so, you know, I start off in hip hop journalism.
- [16:27]
Okinja Afroso
Yeah.
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Jeff Chang
Which was like, early on, it was just a lot of record reviews going like, that record was dope. That record was whack. You know, like, just like stuff like that. But so what I did was I actually started with the martial arts magazines. You know, the first draft of History and stuff.
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Sponsor Voice
Yeah.
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Luke Burbank
Like black belt and things like that.
- [16:46]
Jeff Chang
Yeah, exactly. Black belt and, I don't know, Karate magazine and Fighting Star. I don't know, stuff like that. All these zines that had come out at that time and really picked up, of course, after 1973, after Bruce dies, there's just this efflorescence, actually, of magazines that are trying to capitalize on that love for Bruce Lee, the desire to see Bruce Lee again, all the pictures. But they interviewed a lot of his friends and they interviewed him. He was first a magazine star before he was a TV star and then a movie star, of course. And. Yeah, so I started with that, and then eventually I started interviewing a lot of his friends. And the really interesting thing about it was from the very beginning, like, his friends are not impressed with him.
- [17:34]
Luke Burbank
Right. This was like something that comes out in the book, is that a young Bruce Lee, particularly in his sort of college era, was pretty annoying. Like, you know, depending on the circumstances, he really wanted to always tell you about his martial arts skills. And it was like he was sort of obsessed with it. He would go around the Hub at the University of Washington, where I also went, and just kind of like, sort of get into it with everyone and be doing this. Like, the girls kind of. They sort of liked him, but they also didn't know what was going on with him. Like, this is not the, like, I don't know the Bruce Lee that I've seen in, like, Enter the Dragon or whatever.
- [18:08]
Jeff Chang
Right. Or Fist of Fury where he's just like, you know, yoked and just like, this is a Bruce Lee that was going up to people and going, punch me.
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Okinja Afroso
Yeah.
- [18:16]
Jeff Chang
And people like, punch you and be like, yeah, punch me. Just punch me. You know, some people would be like, okay. The first interviews that I did was with his first love, the woman that he wanted to marry, this Japanese American woman who had been through the camps, the concentration camps, of just fierce woman named Amy Sambo. And she was just like, yeah, he was really awkward.
- [18:42]
Luke Burbank
Yeah.
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Jeff Chang
Like, you know, he was always talking about martial arts and he, like, we'd just be like, bruce, we're not talking about that right now.
- [18:51]
Luke Burbank
Right.
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Jeff Chang
So talking to a lot of his UW friends and that kind of thing was like this sort of reset, you know, like this moment where I'm just like, oh, he's not like that grand hero that, you know, I'm like, trying to kick people when I'm 6 years old. And it was the kind of thing where it was like, oh, he was a real human being. He was just like. He was just like us, but maybe a little bit more awkward.
- [19:15]
Luke Burbank
But it was so humanizing, you know, I just found it made me really like, like him, admire him even more because you could see the journey that he didn't come out of the womb fully. Like a badass, something that a lot of folks like myself maybe wouldn't have known until reading this book. Is that so Bruce Lee is born in San Francisco in 1940.
- [19:35]
Jeff Chang
That's right.
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Luke Burbank
And. But then almost immediately goes back to Hong Kong where he's raised, and he's like a child movie star over there.
- [19:41]
Jeff Chang
Yeah, absolutely.
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Luke Burbank
What was his life like in those early years?
- [19:44]
Jeff Chang
Well, his. His father was one of the most famous comedians of the time. And this is a period where Cantonese opera is moving from the stage to the film. After the Chinese civil war ends, everybody is fleeing China. The movie industry in Shanghai shuts down and moves to Hong Kong. And so his father, from the very beginning, is like one of the central stars. And so Bruce is always going to the set and he's playing around and stuff. And they're like, that kid has a lot of energy. Like, can we maybe put him in this, you know, this movie and stuff. And so at the age of nine, he stars in a movie called the Kid. And he plays this street orphan who's kind of. It's very hip hop. He's just sort of. He's rough around the edges and stuff. And his. His father's gone, his uncle's raising him and stuff. His uncle's kind of like he's a nerd and he's sort of like, I don't know, he's just Not a real strong figure. It's all about the orphan. And so he becomes this sensation right away. And so he's a Nepo baby. Right, right. And he's a child actor. And, you know, there's a lot of stuff that we know about. Yeah.
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Luke Burbank
So he's also a phenomenal dancer in Hong Kong and is winning these competitions and is quite the object of affection for this. Was he gonna try to be a professional dancer, or has it just made him more castable in movies?
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Jeff Chang
He was sort of a teen idol, but he had kind of this dual personality. On the one hand, he's playing these nerds. He has very thick glasses because he actually has very poor eyesight. And he's. But he's a great dancer. He's just amazing magnetic on screen when he dances. And so in his teens, you know, they have him coming out with these thick glasses, sort of a cardigan vest, you know, as a nerd. And then he gets on the dance floor and he just tears it up.
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Elaina Passarello
He was the Urkel of 1950s Hong Kong cinema.
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Jeff Chang
But if you can imagine Urkel, like, doing the best Running man or the Smurf or something like that. The Roger Rabbit Rabbit, Right, The Roger Rabbit, yeah. All of that stuff. He was just. The cha cha was a dance at the time, and he could, because he had notebooks of, like, 100 different cha cha steps that he would use. But at the same time, he loves the taste of blood. He loves to fight. And so he's also kind of learning this martial art called wing chun. And there's a whole bunch of folks who are poured into the colony from all these different schools. So they're walking around the streets going, your teacher, he's no good. Your style is no good. I can beat you. And the other guy's going, yeah, you're terrible. Let's fight tomorrow. It's just like a kung fu movie, right? And that was literally the culture that they made. They made this fight culture, and Bruce loved it. And then, of course, everybody grows up and they make kung fu movies later on, like a decade later. But the thing is, he's on the one hand, getting into trouble, like getting into all these fights as part of this BMW fight culture. And then he's also this teen idol, so something's got to give at some point. He gets into too many fights, and his parents, like, we're sending you back to the US you're going to be 18. Select the service. You got to assert your American citizenship. He was a birthright citizen, by the way.
- [23:11]
Luke Burbank
Given the name Bruce by, like, the midwife or something?
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Jeff Chang
Well, suggested the story was. It's been told a couple of different ways. The story that I kind of believe is that it came up from Grace, his mother's friends in Chinatown who were there. So anyway, yeah, so he's back on, like, a slow boat to San Francisco at the age of 18 and then
- [23:31]
Luke Burbank
ends up pretty quickly thereafter in Seattle.
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Jeff Chang
Right? Yeah. He's about to get into fights to her. His parents are like, no, we're sending you to Seattle. Less people, less, you know, Chinese, less trouble.
- [23:42]
Luke Burbank
To kind of like sort of apprentice under us. I'm from Seattle. This Seattle legend named Ruby Chow, and he works at her restaurant. And it turns out she's not, like, crazy nice to him because he's like, you know, she needs someone to work there. And she's trying to kind of keep him, you know, sort of on the straight and narrow. But something that you write about in the book that I thought was interesting was he's. He's spending a lot of time with folks, Asian American folks and people from other minority communities. And something that it sounds like a lot of the people that he's hanging out with are struck by is his way of being in the world. And that is because he didn't grow up a minority.
- [24:19]
Jeff Chang
That's right. You know, what was that?
- [24:21]
Luke Burbank
And how did that help him sort of in how he operated in the United States?
- [24:26]
Jeff Chang
I think it goes both ways, right? He. He comes in, he has the confidence of somebody who has come up in a colonial situation, but part of the majority and fighting in the streets, and the son of a very famous actor, privileged. He has a driver, he has somebody cooking for him, and he's.
- [24:45]
Luke Burbank
That's back in Hong Kong.
- [24:46]
Jeff Chang
When he gets to the States, it's pretty scrapping. When he comes to the States, he's cutting carrots, he's peeling shrimp, he's giving tea to the white elite, because that's who Ruby Chow is serving in her restaurant. So he's actually now at the bottom, right? He's at the very, very bottom. He's starting to look at Ruby like, oh, she's like a capitalist. She's exploiting all of us. He's, like, sounding almost Marxist in a way. And he's living in the Central District, which is racially segregated. It's where all the poor folks live, all the folks of color live. And so he's meeting black folks, Japanese folks, right? Black folks who've been beaten by police, Japanese American folks who've been incarcerated and they're all impressed with his kung fu, but also, like you said, they're also impressed with his sort of sense of self. Like, he carries himself. He's going down the street, and the cops pull him over. And the cops are like, what are you laughing at? And Bruce is getting ready to punch him through the window. And Taki's like, no, you don't do that. You know, we're gonna end up not just, you know, in jail, but dead under the jail. He has to learn all those kinds of things, right? So I think that the confidence is what attracts folks to him. He becomes a teacher at the age of 19.
- [26:04]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, he's got this kind of, like, motley crew of guys that are all clearly very into him. And, like, that guy Taki is, like, way older than him and 18 years older. He's got these, again, people that have, you know, are just looking for something to belong to and are very interested in different styles of martial arts. He's just got this little. I don't want to say gang, because that makes it sound sinister, but just, like, crew of dudes.
- [26:23]
Jeff Chang
Yeah, it definitely was, like, that kind of a vibe, though. Like, they like to get together and fight, you know, so they. That's what they did. They got together every week, and they would practice, and they'd bloody each other up, and. And they'd all go and eat afterwards. What.
- [26:36]
Luke Burbank
I mean, this is the part of the book that I particularly geeked out on growing up in Seattle. And, you know, all those neighborhoods are neighborhoods that I, you know, grew up in, and schools that I went to and stuff. He goes to the University of Washington, wants to study acting or drama that never really comes together. He's. Then he's opening martial arts studios and closing them. And he gets to this moment where there is the biggest ever martial arts demonstration probably that's happened in the US In California. And he just blows everyone away. What is he doing that day that's just so unique?
- [27:08]
Jeff Chang
Well, one thing that's happening is this is, like, the first big national championship. And Ed Parker, this Kanaka Maoli, this native Hawaiian guy, has brought together folks from all these different types of styles. And what he's trying to do is to really break Asian martial arts big. And so his idea is, let's have a competition. This is kind of like the plot of Enter the Dragon, but without the nefarious slaves and drugs and all that kind of stuff. But basically, he brings all them together. And Bruce is like, I don't fight. Like, I don't Fight for competition. If you're going to fight me, I'm going to, like, kill you. Right? That's what I'm. That's the reason I'm going to get into a fight. And so it's like, okay, all right, all right.
- [27:51]
Okinja Afroso
Cool, cool. Calm down.
- [27:53]
Jeff Chang
We want to have you do a presentation about your philosophy, right? Like, why you're mixing these different types of styles. Like, he's. Basically, his message is, you want to be efficient. You don't want to be sitting there in a horse stance waiting for somebody to throw a punch at you. It's not going to work. Like, you want to end the fight as soon as possible. And that's why he's been working with all these folks who know these different types of skills and styles.
- [28:16]
Luke Burbank
Like, his big thing is, why not throw a punch that also blocks?
- [28:20]
Jeff Chang
Right?
- [28:21]
Luke Burbank
So it's one move, the intercepting fist.
- [28:23]
Jeff Chang
Yeah, Jeet kune do. That's his idea.
- [28:25]
Luke Burbank
Like efficiency.
- [28:26]
Jeff Chang
It's taken from fencing. So he's blending in. Fencing like karate, judo, jujitsu, all of these things. They're like experimenting, right? And this becomes sort of what is known today as mixed martial arts. But he's out there and he's giving this demonstration and he's pissing off half the crowd because they're in their schools waiting for their sensei or their sifu to tell them what to do next. And he's like, why are you waiting? Like, you can do this yourself. And so he's pissing off a lot of sifus and senseis. And then the other folks are like, this is. It's the 60s. This is our kind of talk, right? Like, right on, brother. So he does this thing, he does the one inch punch, right? Which is just this punch where he just puts the person here and punches them and then they go flying back.
- [29:14]
Luke Burbank
He barely moves. His fist is only going an inch.
- [29:17]
Elaina Passarello
It's like putting your card in an ATM. That's the distance between.
- [29:20]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, except the ATM flies back 10ft
- [29:23]
Okinja Afroso
after you do it.
- [29:24]
Elaina Passarello
Hits the bank. Yeah.
- [29:25]
Luke Burbank
It's almost like defies the laws of physics, basically. People see it and he's a big hit at this show. But then it turns out at the show is a guy who's like a hairdresser to the stars. Jay Sebring, who is like, oh, that guy's amazing. And then that, in a roundabout way, leads to him getting cast in the Green Hornet as Cato.
- [29:49]
Jeff Chang
Absolutely. Yeah. And he was up for the part of number one son of Charlie Chan.
- [29:54]
Luke Burbank
Oh, right before that.
- [29:55]
Jeff Chang
Right. So, I mean, these are the roles that they're affording Asian Americans at that point. You can be the evil villain like Fu Manchu, or you could be the model minority Charlie Chan. But then you can't even be that. Like, those guys have to be played by white guys.
- [30:07]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, Charlie Chan and Yellow Face.
- [30:08]
Jeff Chang
Right. You can be the backup to Charlie Chan or you can be the assistant to Fu Manchu. That's like, that's the best that you can do as an Asian male. So this is going to be the first Asian male lead. And of course, like, they're not ready for it. So they're like, we'll give you the sidekick to the Green Hornet because Batman
- [30:25]
Luke Burbank
is like this breakout hit. Nobody expects. This is like the, you know, Adam west campy Batman. And everyone's like, oh, this is. We love this. So they're like, we got to get more of this, like, superhero stuff. So they do the Green Lantern, Green Hornet, rather with. With his sort of sidekick. Kato was. He was Bruce Lee conflicted at all. I mean, obviously he needed the job and it was good for his career. But he was a person who was very self possessed and was very aware of how he was being perceived. What were his thoughts about playing this? He didn't want to be, I believe you write in the book, the Asian Tonto.
- [30:56]
Jeff Chang
Right, right. And I think that he eventually realized that's kind of what he was playing. But I think he went in, you know, eyes wide open, trying to play the game. You know, he gets an acting coach. They get the scripts. The acting coach and him sit down. They're like, where's your lines? He's like, oh, I guess I don't have any lines. You know, they didn't give him any lines because nobody bothered to think about what an Oriental would say on like national tv. And so, you know, he has to kind of work through it. And I think that he plays the game. At first. What happens is he's always saving the Green Hornet's butt. Because the Green Hornet, he's like a backseat boss. He's basically like, drive, drive, Cato. Like kung fu Cato. Like, save me, Cato. And. And so the kids are watching and they're like, oh, we know who the real hero is.
- [31:49]
Luke Burbank
Like, the Cato merch starts, like outselling the Green Hornet because people are like, wait, actually Cato is way better.
- [31:55]
Sponsor Voice
Right?
- [31:56]
Jeff Chang
Exactly. They love Cato. And so eventually they're like, okay, Bruce, what are your ideas? And that's where he's able to kind of work a little bit. Of Asian philosophy and Asian fighting arts into. Into the Green Hornet.
- [32:07]
Luke Burbank
And even though the Green Hornet, it goes one season and then after that, Bruce Lee is now kind of looking for acting work again. He's now teaching martial arts to like Steve McQueen and Roman Polanski for like a lot of money. So that's good. He's like friends with Kareem Abdul Jabbar, but he. Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, they've started showing the Green Hornet. They're calling it the Cato show, right? They're like, this guy, they know what's up. So he goes back to Hong Kong for like an anniversary of his father's passing, I believe, and all this. Everyone's like, oh my God, Bruce Lee is here. So he starts making or he's approached to make some films over there. And that's when his career really goes to another level. What's happening for him then?
- [32:47]
Jeff Chang
Well, what it is, is he's, you know, he really wants to break in the US he wants to break in Hollywood. So he goes out for a part for a TV show that's called Kung Fu.
- [32:57]
Luke Burbank
Huh, Interesting.
- [32:59]
Jeff Chang
And of course he's.
- [32:59]
Luke Burbank
You think you'd want like a kung fu master who happens to be Asian American to play that role?
- [33:03]
Jeff Chang
Jeff, he's like the guy that's popularized kung fu, right? He's. And every Asian American actor is looking at this going, oh, he acts, he does kung fu. That's we're not even going out for this part. And they say we can't understand what he's saying. Now, Bruce has a British accent, right? It's just that he doesn't have the right face, right? So they give it to, of course, a white guy. They give it to David Carradine, who they tape up his eyes and they darken his skin. And David Carradine says, later on, I stooped on the set so I could be more oriental. And he realizes at that point, oh, that's how they see me. Like I see myself as a main character. Hong Kong Golden Harvest, they're willing to give me a shot. I've gone and made this movie. It's become a record breaking movie in Asia. Like it's broken all of the records. It's the top of the box office, but they won't give me this part in the US and so he decides that he's going to try to stay in Hong Kong, but he's always got
- [34:06]
Luke Burbank
his eye on Hollywood and he's making these movies and he has this tremendous run of making these films that are making you know, millions and millions, breaking box office records and are really sensations all over the world. And he's finally sort of wrapped shooting on Enter the Dragon, which is going to be really his big. He's having this fight about what it's going to be called, and he's able to win that argument, which speaks to his, you know, the authority that he has. And then, of course, he passes away totally unexpectedly, very suddenly at the age of 32.
- [34:37]
Jeff Chang
Yes.
- [34:38]
Luke Burbank
I mean, which I would imagine, as happens with people when they die at a young age, they're sort of frozen in time and in the kind of. In a snapshot for us. I mean, do you think that's part of the mystique of Bruce Lee is that we only know him at his most, at the height of his kind of Bruce Lee ness?
- [34:54]
Jeff Chang
Yeah, absolutely. I think it's also a part of the story of that particular period. I mean, there's another contemporary of his from Seattle who comes up at the same time, similar type of story. Like Jimi Hendrix has to go overseas to be seen and become a star, and then comes back and dies young, very early, way before his time. And so, like, Jimmy and Bruce are kind of frozen in time for that particular period. And I think it's especially melancholy for Asian Americans because, you know, he breaks through. There is no stereotype of Asians as martial artists before Bruce Lee. Right. Bruce Lee makes it.
- [35:35]
Okinja Afroso
Right.
- [35:36]
Jeff Chang
And so the stereotype then happens after Bruce Lee. But there's just that one breakthrough, and so that's a stereotype. We don't get the range of representations that we wanted. If Bruce had lived, what could he have done? Could he have starred in a movie with Sophia Loren or Elvis Presley or all of these types of things were there.
- [36:01]
Elaina Passarello
Do you ever do that in your brain? Think about the movies that were made in the 15 years after he died and cast him in, like, you know, the Thomas Crown Affair or something. Do you have a list of movies that you wish you would have done? Like, damn. Like, he could have been really, really good in Star wars or whatever.
- [36:19]
Jeff Chang
Well, and actually, there's so much Asian philosophy in Star Wars. Yeah, right. I mean, George Lucas was, you know, studying a lot of that, and a lot of the folks were, you know. And again, this is one of those things I try not to think too hard about because it just hurts too much. Like, it takes another generation to get to Brandon, his son, trying to break through and this sort of efflorescence of Asian American films in the early 1990s. And then Brandon Gets killed on the
- [36:44]
Luke Burbank
set in a totally tragic freak accident with a weapon that's supposed to be shooting a blank, and it ends up killing him. I mean, just the tragedy of that lineage is really hard to process. There's something that you write about in the book, and I guess you were kind of alluding to it, Jeff, which is to think about Bruce Lee as the sort of way he was perceived in Hong Kong, or to think about the way he's perceived maybe by white Americans is kind of. Or Americans who are non Asian, is maybe missing the group of people he was maybe the most important to. Which would be Asian Americans, like that category of folks. And he was something really special to folks like yourself.
- [37:22]
Jeff Chang
Absolutely. And I think that in sort of reverse engineering the book, you know, thinking about what he means to us as an Asian American, was also a way to understand why Bruce continues to actually be so important to so many people all around the world. And it's that he represents an underdog, right? And it's not because of the way he grew up in Hong Kong, and it's not because he assimilated and became just like a white person. It's because he experienced life as a racial minority, as an Asian American for 12 years in the US and went through these things that he undergoes this transformation to identify with folks who are downtrodden. And I think that's this process of Asian Americanization that a lot of us kind of go through. And so that's the point of view that I kind of wanted to write the book from.
- [38:12]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, the title of the book is Water Mirror, Echo. Why did you choose those words?
- [38:17]
Jeff Chang
Well, we all. Maybe most of us know, you know, Bruce's famous maxim, you know, be like water, my friend. Be water, my friend. It's part of this passage in the lici, which is a Taoist book. And I think Bruce read this probably when he was about 17 or 18, because when I was looking at his papers, it kind of repeats over and over again. This is like a riddle that he's trying to solve his entire life. And it's three lines, and the three lines are moving. Be like water. Still. Be like a mirror. Respond. Like an echo. And he lived, I think, like water. He was trying to figure out how to, like, get in, right? You got doors set up around you. We're gonna go around this, right? We're gonna. We're gonna be elusive. We're gonna be adaptable. We're gonna try to be like water to try to break in. But I don't think he ever really got to the tragedy of his life is that I don't think he ever really got to feel like what it would mean to be like a mirror. Right. He was absolutely a mirror to aspirations and ambitions of so many folks, right. Asian Americans and so many other folks. And then, of course, now we're here on a stage talking about him where we aren't talking about Steve McQueen or James Coburn, who are the biggest stars of that particular time.
- [39:32]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's an incredible book. It's Water Mirror, Echo, Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America by Jeff Chang. Jeff, thank you so much for coming on livewire.
- [39:41]
Sponsor Voice
Thank you.
- [39:48]
Luke Burbank
That right there was Jeff Chang, recorded at the Alberta Rose Theater. His book Water Mirror, Echo, Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America is available right now. Can't recommend it highly enough. Go pick it up. Hey. Special thanks this week to Shira Fedeli of Eugene, Oregon, and Tim Harkins of Carson, Washington. Shyra and Tim are part of the Livewire member community and are generously supporting us with a donation each week. And, boy, are we grateful for that support because, let me tell you, we could not do this without folks like Shyra and Tim. So a big thanks for keeping LIVEWIRE going. It's LIVEWIRE from prx. Our musical guest this week is a singer, percussionist, guitarist, and dancer who has transformed the deep rhythmic traditions of Ghana's Gadangmi people into something that is entirely his own. The New York Times says his music exalts in modern technology and cultural fusions, which is totally what I was going to say, but then they beat me to it. So just take a listen for yourself. This is Okinja Afroso, recorded live at the Patricia Research center for the Arts in Beaverton, Oregon. Welcome to the show.
- [41:12]
Okinja Afroso
Thank you.
- [41:13]
Luke Burbank
I've been having such a great time this week listening to your music and getting familiar with the form, which I wasn't familiar with before. What can you tell me about it? When did you start playing music just in your life?
- [41:23]
Okinja Afroso
I started dancing first. Music came way later. My dancing was actually really bad. I shouldn't be dancing in public, but I didn't care because it made me feel something that I don't feel otherwise. So I kept dancing. And then after I got a teeny bit better, I joined the National Dance Company at University of Ghana. They thought I was not good, but if they train me, I could be better. And so that's how my journey started. Music just happened to be playing in my head all the time. And for instance, I would Take the guitar or I'll play guitar lines with my mouth to people, and they couldn't play quite what I want. So I thought, hey, let me teach myself to play the guitar. And so I hop on YouTube. YouTube about seven years ago, and the rest has been a journey.
- [42:34]
Luke Burbank
Did you realize that you were also creating a kind of a bit of a new genre or you were creating this fusion?
- [42:42]
Okinja Afroso
You know, I've been in America for about 26 years, and so I soaked up a lot of music from American music to South America and also where I came from, Ghana. But at some point, I wanted to take that out of my head to be able to create something that I can call my own. I was looking for my own voice, and I think all the influences have made my music what it is today.
- [43:15]
Luke Burbank
How do you create a song? Where do you usually start?
- [43:20]
Okinja Afroso
Usually, I think it comes with a melody on the guitar. And since a lot of times, those of us from the continent, I see the continent, you know, from Africa, everything is being pre programmed for us. If you're from Africa, you should play music a certain way. You should sing a certain way. You should have your harmonies be a certain way. And I'm like, you know, I live in 2026 and not 1901, so I want to also show that I'm also evolving. I see beauty in architecture. I see beauty in all the things that everyone sees. And I want to use this instrument to the fullest ability I can. So always comes with a guitar and melody on the guitar, and then I bring that to the words, which the language is really, really suffering. So I want to help to keep the language alive. So I only sing in ga. I'm biased about that. But I speak to my audience in English, so the melodies comes first. Then I wrap the words to the melodies that I'm playing. That's what makes my music a little bit unique.
- [44:45]
Luke Burbank
This is Livewire. We are talking to the musician Okinja Afroso. We gotta take a very quick break, but when we come back, Okinja will play us a song that you do not want to miss. Trust me on this one. So stay. Stick around right where you are. We've got more Livewire coming your way in just a moment. Welcome back to Livewire. I'm Luke Burbank. All right, before we get to our musical performance from Okinja Afroso, a quick preview of what we are doing next week on the program. We're talking to Sam Sanders, who you know, from the Sam Sanders show. He covers all things pop culture. Including his theory that the show In Living Color from my generation, you know that show, it was Homie to Clown Fire Marshal Bill, all that stuff. Sam says it's one of the most influential TV shows of all time. Then we're gonna talk to the filmmaker Sandy Dabowski about his latest documentary. It's called Sabbath Queen, and it follows the life of a rabbi who uses drag performance as part of the God optional congregation that he founded. Really interesting idea. Then we're going to hear some music, including some amazing banjo stylings from the folk duo the Lowest Pair. They will also share with us a story about how they once played a medical marijuana farmers market and forgot their lyrics for reasons that you can probably guess. So don't miss next week's episode of Livewire. It's gonna be a great one. Okay, before the break, we were chatting with Ghanaian musician and dancer Okinja Afroso. Let's actually take a listen to that song that we've been promoting. This performance was recorded live at the Patricia Reeser center for the Arts in Beaverton, Oregon. Check this out. Well, let's hear a song. What song are you gonna play?
- [46:44]
Okinja Afroso
I'm gonna play a song from second edition of the trilogy. The second edition is called Abo Edin Melamine Earth Garden. And this song is called Nukela Nukela Water and Fire. Makasi. Sama. Jamini malay. Nani lakusu mini mana mini mekanamana mini meka mana. J. Thank you. Thank you.
- [51:49]
Luke Burbank
That was Okinja Afroso performing live at the Patricia Resource center for the Arts in Beaverton, Oregon. And that is going to do it for this week's episode of Livewire. A huge thanks to our guests Jeff Chang and Okinsha Afroso.
- [52:08]
Elaina Passarello
Lara Haddon is our executive producer, and Melanie Savchenko is our producer and editor. Eben Hoffer is our technical director, Trey Hester is our assistant editor, and Ashley park is our marketing manager.
- [52:20]
Luke Burbank
Our house sound is by D. Neil Blake, and our house band is Sam Pinkerton, Al Alves, Ethan Fox Tucker, and A. Walker Spring, who also composes our music. The show was mixed by Eben Hoffer and Trey Hester.
- [52:33]
Elaina Passarello
Additional funding provided by the James F. And Marian L. Miller Foundation. Livewire was created by Robin Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff.
- [52:41]
Luke Burbank
This week we'd like to thank members Shira Fedely of Eugene, Oregon, and Tim Harkins of Carson, Washington. For more information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast, head on over to livewireradio.org I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello and the whole Livewire team. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week. Hey, if you appreciate the work that Livewire is doing to amplify riveting and unexpected voices to a national audience, and I gotta tell you, it's a big audience these days, please, please, please consider offering some monthly support by becoming a member of our League of Extraordinary Listeners. Here's how it works. Membership starts at just five bucks a month, and there are great perks at every level, including a special shout out on the broadcast. Impress your friends by being shouted out on Livewire. It means the world to us and really does make it possible for us to do the show. So please, if you can, help, support us by visiting livewireradio.org Memberships.
- [54:09]
Elaina Passarello
From prx.