Shortly after retiring from the sport at the age of 17, he was offered many starring roles and subsequently began on his film career with director Chang Hsin Yen for Shaolin Temple. Upon its release, Li was propelled into instant movie stardom and the film was an enormous success that spawned two sequels. This led to Li completing 25 successful Asian films before coming to America.
Since his first English language film appearance as the villain in Lethal Weapon 4 opposite Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Rene Russo and Chris Rock, Li went on to star in the highly acclaimed Romeo Must Die, a film that blended hip-hop with martial arts and also marked Aaliyah Haughton's first starring role in a film.
During production on Romeo Must Die Li announced his upcoming marriage to his long-time girlfriend, Nina Li. The couple married in September of 1999.
After Romeo Must Die, Li went on to star in Kiss of the Dragon opposite Bridget Fonda and Tcheky Karyo, and The One directed by James Wong and co-starring Delroy Lindo and Jason Statham.
Following completion of The One, Li returned to his film roots in China to work with renowned director Zhang Yi Mou on Hero, a film which has gone on to achieve significant critical acclaim and international distinction. The U.S. release of this film is scheduled for sometime in the second half of 2004.
After Hero Li once again teamed up with Producer Joel Silver and co-star DMX on Cradle 2 the Grave which was released in theaters in early 2003. Following Cradle Jet returned to Europe to work again with Producer Luc Besson on Danny the Dog, co-starring Morgan Freeman and Bob Hoskins. Danny is scheduled for a 2004 release.
Biographical Data
Birth: April 26, 1963 in Hebei, China.
Family: 2 Older Brothers, 2 Older Sisters, Father passed away in 1965 and mother passed away in 2002.
Spouse: Nina Chi Li
Children: 2 daughters from a previous marriage, 2 daughters from current marriage
Name: Li Lian Jie (Mandarin), Li Lin Kit (Cantonese)
Height: 170 cm / 5'7"
Weight: 66 kg / 145.5 lbs.
Let's start at the beginning, since childhood experiences are the events which mold your perspective on the world and your views on spirituality. In my case, these early experiences would eventually lead to my practice of using taiji to analyze the world: the relationships between people and governments, men and women, teacher and student, work and life.
Lots of people ask me if I was sent to study wushu because I was a naughty kid. Actually, I was a poster child for obedience. The mischief came later...
Yeah, I was such a good kid. My family consisted of my mother, two older sisters and two older brothers. I was the youngest. When I was two years old, my father passed away, so I never knew my father's picture in my mind. Because I was the smallest, my mother never allowed me to go swimming or ride the bicycle. Any risky activity -- any kind of exercise that was even slightly dangerous -- was off-limits. So while kids my age were out playing in the street, this docile little boy stayed inside. "Don't touch that!" adults would tell me, and it would never occur to me to touch it. "Don't eat that!" -- and I would leave it alone. Those are my earliest memories. That's the kind of environment I grew up in.
Even after I started going to school, I didn't know how to ride a bicycle. Everybody else was riding around, and I didn't get around to it until I was 14 or 15! Swimming, ice skating...these were all things that the other kids could do, but not me. My mother had said no, and I would never try it behind her back.
I was already 8 years old when I started school, which made me a year older than all the other kids. For some reason, I was very popular with the teachers. I have no idea why! Maybe because I was always honest and did what I was told. The teachers liked me so much, they made me Physical Education monitor. In every class, certain outstanding students are appointed to be monitors; they assist the teacher by keeping order, recording attendance, things like that. There were Reading Monitors, Math Monitors, but the Physical Education Monitor was responsible for leading grades 1 through 6 through the daily set of national calisthenics.
So there I was every day, standing on top of this big platform, leading the masses. "One, two, three, four... Two, two, three, four..." Some people might not be familiar with the Chinese school system. After the first two class periods, there's a recess and all of the grades line up in the schoolyard. Everybody starts doing state-mandated exercises in time to the recorded music playing over the loudspeakers. And me in front of everybody, on that platform. Very serious. "One, two, three, four...Two, two, three, four..." I don't know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing that the teachers coddled me, but I find it interesting that I ended up earning 100% on every test. In every class.
Sometimes, while taking a test, I might forget to write a dash or a decimal. When I would go up to the teacher's desk to turn it in, she would ask me. "Are you sure you want to turn that in? Are you sure you've thought everything through?" Lying directly in front of me was a copy of a perfectly-scored test. "You sure you're ready to turn in your test?" she demanded. "Have you checked everything?"
"Uh... uh..." Eyes skipping back and forth. Maybe my test did need a little more work. I hurried back to my seat to make the corrections. Only music class gave me trouble, because I had no sense of pitch. Whenever I sang, the tune would wander off-key. For the life of me, I couldn't hang on to the key. I knew I couldn't sing. The teacher knew I couldn't sing. So when it came time for the final...well, let's just say that all the students had to sing individually. As I waited for my turn, I got more and more nervous. "I'm dead," I thought to myself. "There's no escape." But I really wanted to keep my perfect record. See, I was a serious student. When I got home after school, the first thing I had to do was finish my homework. Not until it was done would I let myself eat dinner or go outside to play. If I didn't finish, I would feel guilty. But none of that hard work could do a thing for my singing skills.
So the music teacher finally called out my name. (Damn!) I stood up. "Li Lianjie, you have a sore throat today, isn't that right?" I gaped. "Huh?" Here was my chance to escape! But my mother had raised me not to lie, so I just stood there with my mouth open in confusion.
"Uh?"
"If you have a sore throat, then you don't have to take the test. Sit down. 100%."
I started training in wushu during the summer of 1971. School had just adjourned for the one-month vacation and the authorities didn't want kids to run around on the streets because they had nothing to do. So they began to send us to what's now called the Beijing Sports and Exercise School. Students from all the primary schools in the area--there must have been 15 or so in that district alone--were sent there for a month of sports summer school. They divided us up arbitrarily: 1st grade/class 1 was assigned to gymnastics; 1st grade/class 2 learned swimming, 1st grade/class 3 played soccer, 1st grade/class 4 started learning wushu, etc. Somehow I got assigned to the wushu class. I had no idea what wushu was--none of us did--but if the teacher told you to practice it, you had to practice it!
All of the other grades were split up in the same way, so each sport had a total of about 1000 students ranging from 1st to 6th grade, with one cohort from each grade. During that vacation, everybody spent two and a half hours each day training in our respective sports. We all thought it was pretty fun, though. Most kids had nothing else to do.
When school started again in the fall, almost all of the 1000 kids who had been learning wushu were "fired." That is, they were told that they didn't have to come back. For them, it was merely a fun summer experience that had come to an end. About 20 of us, however, were told that we were to come back here every afternoon after school to continue training. It became something of a point of pride for schools to boast how many kids had been chosen from their ranks. I remember that there were five or six from my school alone, but of them, I was the only first-grader. Being selected out of a thousand made you rather famous in your class. Everybody else had been rejected, but you were special! Nobody--least of all me--knew why I'd been asked to continue training, but it was a terrific feeling.
From then on, every day after school, all the other kids lined up to go home and I waited separately for the 4th and 5th graders who had been assigned to come pick me up; I was so young that I had to be accompanied by older kids on the 15-minute walk to the sports school. The other students looked at me enviously, which I enjoyed.
After a few days of training, though, I began to think: "Hey, wait a minute...this is stupid!" Because after the novelty wore off, I began to realize: "All of my classmates get to go home and play, but I have to go to another school for another grueling two hours of lessons. That's not fair!" I began to rethink the glory of being chosen.
In any case, those of us who had been selected went through another three months of training, after which the group of 20 experienced another massive set of "lay-offs." The four of us who were left joined the other ten or so students who had started wushu during the previous year's winter vacation.
The training got more and more rigorous. When wintertime came, we had no choice but to practice outside, because we had no indoor facilities. Beijing's winters are very cold, and our hands hurt constantly. Doing handslaps were a no-win proposition: if you didn't slap hard enough to make a sound, you'd get scolded. If you did make a sound, it stung like mad!
A year passed. I turned nine years old and began preparing to attend my first competition. Actually, it was the first national wushu competition to be held in China since the Cultural Revolution in the 1960's. Technically speaking, since there would be no official placings or prizes, it wasn't even a standard competition--more like a grand demonstration of forms. Only a single award would be issued: the best performer was to be recognized for "Excellence." Nevertheless, the best athletes from all over China were coming to perform.
The competition was to be held in Jinan, the capital of Shandong Province. It was to be the first time I'd ever left home--the first time in my life I'd ventured out of Beijing. I remember being very excited about the prospect of riding the train. My mother, however, was heartsick at the thought of her baby going so far away from home. The morning that I was set to leave, she started weeping. I felt awful and offered not to go. But that wasn't possible either, so I went to Jinan and I made a great effort.
I ended up winning the award for Excellence.
After I returned to Beijing, I suddenly received a notice informing me that from now on, I only had to attend school for half a day. As far as I was concerned, this was great! What kid doesn't want to cut back on school?
There was a special reason why my training schedule was being increased, though. China was gearing up to host for a very important diplomatic event: the Pan-Asian-African-Latin American Table Tennis Championships. For China at that time, it was a huge event--as big as the Olympics. Sure, it wasn't exactly the Olympics, but you must remember what China was like in those days. Nobody paid attention to China then. The government had closed the door to foreigners for so many decades; now they were actually inviting a small number of competitors from other countries and continents to visit China. Suffice it to say that the government placed very high importance on this ping-pong competition. A great deal of cultural and political pride was at stake.
For the opening ceremonies, the organizers were planning a whole slate of artistic performances to represent the best of Chinese culture: Peking opera, dance, and of course, wushu. Our group was scheduled to perform five programs, and I was in three of them. Practice was impossibly tiring; our motherland was expecting us to give a performance that was nothing less than perfect. We rehearsed the forms and routines countless times. The event was being held in the largest stadium in Beijing, and as I recall, we went there on 12 separate occasions for official rehearsal-evaluations. Each time, yet another high-ranking official was there to assess us: the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Defense or some other very important leader. That was the first time I felt the pressure of representing many people with my performance. There was no room for mistakes.
When it came time for the actual performance, I guess all of our hard work stood us in good stead. The officials needn't have worried. We'd practiced so hard that we probably couldn't have turned in a bad performance if we'd tried.
Afterwards, in fact, we were invited to meet with Premier Zhou Enlai, the head of state (at the time, Chairman Mao was still alive, but he was already in seclusion). Just imagine: to be chosen to represent your country with wushu and to meet the leader of your country--and then to hear him praise you for your performance. That was an indescribable honor in China, not to mention a thrilling experience for a 9-year old boy.
I started training in wushu during the summer of 1971. School had just adjourned for the one-month vacation and the authorities didn't want kids to run around on the streets because they had nothing to do. So they began to send us to what's now called the Beijing Sports and Exercise School. Students from all the primary schools in the area--there must have been 15 or so in that district alone--were sent there for a month of sports summer school. They divided us up arbitrarily: 1st grade/class 1 was assigned to gymnastics; 1st grade/class 2 learned swimming, 1st grade/class 3 played soccer, 1st grade/class 4 started learning wushu, etc. Somehow I got assigned to the wushu class. I had no idea what wushu was--none of us did--but if the teacher told you to practice it, you had to practice it!
All of the other grades were split up in the same way, so each sport had a total of about 1000 students ranging from 1st to 6th grade, with one cohort from each grade. During that vacation, everybody spent two and a half hours each day training in our respective sports. We all thought it was pretty fun, though. Most kids had nothing else to do.
When school started again in the fall, almost all of the 1000 kids who had been learning wushu were "fired." That is, they were told that they didn't have to come back. For them, it was merely a fun summer experience that had come to an end. About 20 of us, however, were told that we were to come back here every afternoon after school to continue training. It became something of a point of pride for schools to boast how many kids had been chosen from their ranks. I remember that there were five or six from my school alone, but of them, I was the only first-grader. Being selected out of a thousand made you rather famous in your class. Everybody else had been rejected, but you were special! Nobody--least of all me--knew why I'd been asked to continue training, but it was a terrific feeling.
From then on, every day after school, all the other kids lined up to go home and I waited separately for the 4th and 5th graders who had been assigned to come pick me up; I was so young that I had to be accompanied by older kids on the 15-minute walk to the sports school. The other students looked at me enviously, which I enjoyed.
After a few days of training, though, I began to think: "Hey, wait a minute...this is stupid!" Because after the novelty wore off, I began to realize: "All of my classmates get to go home and play, but I have to go to another school for another grueling two hours of lessons. That's not fair!" I began to rethink the glory of being chosen.
In any case, those of us who had been selected went through another three months of training, after which the group of 20 experienced another massive set of "lay-offs." The four of us who were left joined the other ten or so students who had started wushu during the previous year's winter vacation.
The training got more and more rigorous. When wintertime came, we had no choice but to practice outside, because we had no indoor facilities. Beijing's winters are very cold, and our hands hurt constantly. Doing handslaps were a no-win proposition: if you didn't slap hard enough to make a sound, you'd get scolded. If you did make a sound, it stung like mad!
A year passed. I turned nine years old and began preparing to attend my first competition. Actually, it was the first national wushu competition to be held in China since the Cultural Revolution in the 1960's. Technically speaking, since there would be no official placings or prizes, it wasn't even a standard competition--more like a grand demonstration of forms. Only a single award would be issued: the best performer was to be recognized for "Excellence." Nevertheless, the best athletes from all over China were coming to perform.
The competition was to be held in Jinan, the capital of Shandong Province. It was to be the first time I'd ever left home--the first time in my life I'd ventured out of Beijing. I remember being very excited about the prospect of riding the train. My mother, however, was heartsick at the thought of her baby going so far away from home. The morning that I was set to leave, she started weeping. I felt awful and offered not to go. But that wasn't possible either, so I went to Jinan and I made a great effort.
I ended up winning the award for Excellence.
After I returned to Beijing, I suddenly received a notice informing me that from now on, I only had to attend school for half a day. As far as I was concerned, this was great! What kid doesn't want to cut back on school?
There was a special reason why my training schedule was being increased, though. China was gearing up to host for a very important diplomatic event: the Pan-Asian-African-Latin American Table Tennis Championships. For China at that time, it was a huge event--as big as the Olympics. Sure, it wasn't exactly the Olympics, but you must remember what China was like in those days. Nobody paid attention to China then. The government had closed the door to foreigners for so many decades; now they were actually inviting a small number of competitors from other countries and continents to visit China. Suffice it to say that the government placed very high importance on this ping-pong competition. A great deal of cultural and political pride was at stake.
For the opening ceremonies, the organizers were planning a whole slate of artistic performances to represent the best of Chinese culture: Peking opera, dance, and of course, wushu. Our group was scheduled to perform five programs, and I was in three of them. Practice was impossibly tiring; our motherland was expecting us to give a performance that was nothing less than perfect. We rehearsed the forms and routines countless times. The event was being held in the largest stadium in Beijing, and as I recall, we went there on 12 separate occasions for official rehearsal-evaluations. Each time, yet another high-ranking official was there to assess us: the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Defense or some other very important leader. That was the first time I felt the pressure of representing many people with my performance. There was no room for mistakes.
When it came time for the actual performance, I guess all of our hard work stood us in good stead. The officials needn't have worried. We'd practiced so hard that we probably couldn't have turned in a bad performance if we'd tried.
Afterwards, in fact, we were invited to meet with Premier Zhou Enlai, the head of state (at the time, Chairman Mao was still alive, but he was already in seclusion). Just imagine: to be chosen to represent your country with wushu and to meet the leader of your country--and then to hear him praise you for your performance. That was an indescribable honor in China, not to mention a thrilling experience for a 9-year old boy.
I started training in wushu during the summer of 1971. School had just adjourned for the one-month vacation and the authorities didn't want kids to run around on the streets because they had nothing to do. So they began to send us to what's now called the Beijing Sports and Exercise School. Students from all the primary schools in the area--there must have been 15 or so in that district alone--were sent there for a month of sports summer school. They divided us up arbitrarily: 1st grade/class 1 was assigned to gymnastics; 1st grade/class 2 learned swimming, 1st grade/class 3 played soccer, 1st grade/class 4 started learning wushu, etc. Somehow I got assigned to the wushu class. I had no idea what wushu was--none of us did--but if the teacher told you to practice it, you had to practice it!
All of the other grades were split up in the same way, so each sport had a total of about 1000 students ranging from 1st to 6th grade, with one cohort from each grade. During that vacation, everybody spent two and a half hours each day training in our respective sports. We all thought it was pretty fun, though. Most kids had nothing else to do.
When school started again in the fall, almost all of the 1000 kids who had been learning wushu were "fired." That is, they were told that they didn't have to come back. For them, it was merely a fun summer experience that had come to an end. About 20 of us, however, were told that we were to come back here every afternoon after school to continue training. It became something of a point of pride for schools to boast how many kids had been chosen from their ranks. I remember that there were five or six from my school alone, but of them, I was the only first-grader. Being selected out of a thousand made you rather famous in your class. Everybody else had been rejected, but you were special! Nobody--least of all me--knew why I'd been asked to continue training, but it was a terrific feeling.
From then on, every day after school, all the other kids lined up to go home and I waited separately for the 4th and 5th graders who had been assigned to come pick me up; I was so young that I had to be accompanied by older kids on the 15-minute walk to the sports school. The other students looked at me enviously, which I enjoyed.
After a few days of training, though, I began to think: "Hey, wait a minute...this is stupid!" Because after the novelty wore off, I began to realize: "All of my classmates get to go home and play, but I have to go to another school for another grueling two hours of lessons. That's not fair!" I began to rethink the glory of being chosen.
In any case, those of us who had been selected went through another three months of training, after which the group of 20 experienced another massive set of "lay-offs." The four of us who were left joined the other ten or so students who had started wushu during the previous year's winter vacation.
The training got more and more rigorous. When wintertime came, we had no choice but to practice outside, because we had no indoor facilities. Beijing's winters are very cold, and our hands hurt constantly. Doing handslaps were a no-win proposition: if you didn't slap hard enough to make a sound, you'd get scolded. If you did make a sound, it stung like mad!
A year passed. I turned nine years old and began preparing to attend my first competition. Actually, it was the first national wushu competition to be held in China since the Cultural Revolution in the 1960's. Technically speaking, since there would be no official placings or prizes, it wasn't even a standard competition--more like a grand demonstration of forms. Only a single award would be issued: the best performer was to be recognized for "Excellence." Nevertheless, the best athletes from all over China were coming to perform.
The competition was to be held in Jinan, the capital of Shandong Province. It was to be the first time I'd ever left home--the first time in my life I'd ventured out of Beijing. I remember being very excited about the prospect of riding the train. My mother, however, was heartsick at the thought of her baby going so far away from home. The morning that I was set to leave, she started weeping. I felt awful and offered not to go. But that wasn't possible either, so I went to Jinan and I made a great effort.
I ended up winning the award for Excellence.
After I returned to Beijing, I suddenly received a notice informing me that from now on, I only had to attend school for half a day. As far as I was concerned, this was great! What kid doesn't want to cut back on school?
There was a special reason why my training schedule was being increased, though. China was gearing up to host for a very important diplomatic event: the Pan-Asian-African-Latin American Table Tennis Championships. For China at that time, it was a huge event--as big as the Olympics. Sure, it wasn't exactly the Olympics, but you must remember what China was like in those days. Nobody paid attention to China then. The government had closed the door to foreigners for so many decades; now they were actually inviting a small number of competitors from other countries and continents to visit China. Suffice it to say that the government placed very high importance on this ping-pong competition. A great deal of cultural and political pride was at stake.
For the opening ceremonies, the organizers were planning a whole slate of artistic performances to represent the best of Chinese culture: Peking opera, dance, and of course, wushu. Our group was scheduled to perform five programs, and I was in three of them. Practice was impossibly tiring; our motherland was expecting us to give a performance that was nothing less than perfect. We rehearsed the forms and routines countless times. The event was being held in the largest stadium in Beijing, and as I recall, we went there on 12 separate occasions for official rehearsal-evaluations. Each time, yet another high-ranking official was there to assess us: the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Defense or some other very important leader. That was the first time I felt the pressure of representing many people with my performance. There was no room for mistakes.
When it came time for the actual performance, I guess all of our hard work stood us in good stead. The officials needn't have worried. We'd practiced so hard that we probably couldn't have turned in a bad performance if we'd tried.
Afterwards, in fact, we were invited to meet with Premier Zhou Enlai, the head of state (at the time, Chairman Mao was still alive, but he was already in seclusion). Just imagine: to be chosen to represent your country with wushu and to meet the leader of your country--and then to hear him praise you for your performance. That was an indescribable honor in China, not to mention a thrilling experience for a 9-year old boy.
After winning that first national competition, I was no longer required to attend school at all -- not even in the mornings! They asked me to move into the dormitory at the sports school. From that point on, I lived and trained there all week. I went home on Saturday, and returned to the dorms Sunday night. On Monday morning, the training would begin all over again.
The only word I can use to describe our training is "bitter." It was exceptionally harsh.
There were about 13 of us who all trained under one coach. Every morning at 6 a.m., we would be awakened by a very loud bell.
RRRRING!
Within 90 seconds, we had to get dressed and line up outside in the field, standing at attention. After one hour of practice, we had the chance to brush our teeth, wash our face, and eat breakfast. Practice resumed at 8:30 a.m. and lasted until 12 noon. After lunch, we would get the chance to rest for a while. That didn't necessarily mean that we had the afternoon off, though. See, our sports school was quite well-known in Beijing. It became something that all the foreign tourists wanted to include on their sightseeing itinerary.
Most of us liked to take a nap after lunch. Often, just as we had fallen asleep, we would be awakened by the announcement -- "Tour group!" That was our signal to scramble outside immediately to perform for the foreigners. This happened more often than I like to remember.
We would start training again after dinner, usually at 7:30 p.m. The one good thing about the evening practice was that we could finally work out inside the gym. Mornings and afternoons, we had to train outside. There was only one gymnasium at the school, and other sports took priority during the day: gymnastics in the morning, basketball or volleyball in the afternoon, etc. Wushu was only able to get the gym at night, when everybody else had gone home! Evening practice lasted from 7:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. -- sometimes 10:30 p.m. Our workouts usually came out to 8 hours of training a day. It was tough.
At the time, China was very poor. Electricity blackouts were not only common -- they were mandated. There wasn't enough power to keep the entire city lit; every night of the week, a different district would go without electricity. For us, it was Friday night. The whole world went dark on Friday evenings, and we couldn't have been happier. No lights meant no training -- we loved it. Friday night never came soon enough.
This practice had gone on for a very long time. It was practically an institution.
One Friday evening, we were all enjoying ourselves when we suddenly heard a bizarre sound.
RRRING!!!
It was that awful bell! Confused, we rushed out to the field. The coach took one look at us and promptly bawled us all out. Instead of wearing our athletic shoes, we had on slippers. Our clothes were rumpled and untidy. We were like a group of ragtag soldiers and our drill sergeant was demanding to know: "Where the hell's your gun? You call those boots?"
"So," drawled the coach, "you weren't expecting to practice tonight?"
"It's FRIDAY," we all thought. None of us, however, actually said this out loud.
Our coach sent us all back to put on the proper shoes, then yelled at us again for taking so long. As punishment, we had to run several laps in the moonlight. After running for a long time, we were told to jog into the gym.
"But there aren't any lights," we thought. "What point is there in going inside?"
TO BE CONTINUED ...
As soon as we lined up inside, the coach -- that evil, evil man! -- pulled out a flashlight. Using that beam of light, he pointed out thirteen spaces. "You...stand here. Next one...stand over there..." Then he clicked off the light.
"All right -- begin!"
There's something you've got to understand about our training. We all took wushu seriously...but let's just say that there wasn't a single one of us who didn't slack off when he or she had the chance. The coach only had one pair of eyes, after all, and he couldn't monitor everybody at once.
If he was watching you, the pressure was on to perform with extension and power and focus.
When he turned his back, though, arms would soften and stances would wilt.
If he whirled around to face you again--? Kicks would miraculously have snap again, punches flew with power, backs would arch, shoulders would roll back and we were once again the paragons of good wushu form.
Under normal circumstances -- that is to say, if there had been light -- we would have done our usual thing and no one would have been the wiser. In the dark, though, we had no way of knowing when the flashlight would click on again. What if the coach suddenly shone the light on you just as you happened to be taking a little "break"? The punishment would be unimaginable. We were experiencing true fear. In the pitch black gym, where absolutely nobody could see how hard we were working...I trained as I had never trained before.
Until I misstepped. I don't know how it happened, because I couldn't see anything, but I suddenly stepped wrong -- probably on some uneven surface -- and twisted my ankle. The pain was horrible, but I was too afraid of that accursed flashlight to stop practicing. So I kept going, limping with each step.
Practice finally came to an end.
We had regular practice the next morning. My foot hurt.
We had to perform for a tour group that afternoon. My foot still hurt.
We had to go out to perform for another group later that night. The pain just got worse.
By the time I finally went home on Sunday, I could no longer walk. My foot had swelled up like a loaf of steamed bread. I didn't know what was wrong with it, and I didn't dare bring it up.
Why not? Because we had discovered long ago that complaining about an injury would cause the coach to assign you some new hellacious set of exercises that made you wish you'd never spoken up in the first place. Say, for example, a student told him that she'd hurt her arm -- could she take a break from practice?
"Hmm," he would say. "You're right. You shouldn't overwork your arm. Why don't you work on leg exercises instead?"
Two thousand kicks, or maybe Five thousand stances. Whatever reason you came up with to shirk training, the coach was ready with ten alternatives to counter you. He didn't care whether the injury was real or faked. All that mattered was that he would find some exercise involving another part of your body. "Your knee hurts? Okay, you don't have to run. Do a thousand sit-ups instead." The new assignment would leave you in greater pain than actually running on the bad knee. Complaining only made things worse for yourself. You vowed to keep your mouth shut in the future.
On Monday, I returned to the school -- limping badly as I walked. Seeing the state of my leg, the coach set me to practicing upper-body exercises. I just stood there, facing the mirror, punching away dutifully. It just so happened that another instructor was visiting the class that day. He noticed me in the corner and stopped by to ask me why I wasn't training with the others.
"My foot hurts," I said.
"Oh, that's why you're practicing arm exercises. Hey, let me take a look at your leg."
When he saw the big swollen ham hock that was my foot, the other instructor took my coach aside and said, "Maybe you should let this kid go to the hospital. This might be serious."
When the X-rays came back, they showed that the bone had cracked clear through.
I had been practicing on a broken foot for two days -- because I'd been too scared to bring it up to anybody! I guess that would count as my first major injury. Well, at least I can laugh about it now.
I was outfitted with a big plaster cast that pretty much immobilized me from the waist down.
So I finally got my break from wushu, right?
Hardly.
For the next few weeks, an older classmate would carry me on piggyback to the field every day. He would set me down, and I'd stand there practicing arm movements all day. One thousand, two thousand... No one was allowed to leave the training grounds -- that was the rule!
When practice ended, the classmate would hoist me onto his back and carry me back to the dorms. That's how it was for several weeks as my leg healed.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
In 1974, I was chosen for another special training course. Little did I know that the experience would eventually start changing the way I saw the world.
The Chinese government was implementing a program to identify the finest young wushu athletes in the country. The process of selection took several months. A group of us would train together for a while, and then the coaches would sift and screen out those who weren't good enough. This process was repeated over and over again, until they were satisfied with the team they had created. Thirty of us made the final cut.
Our first big assignment would be to represent China (and her 20 million wushu practitioners) on a goodwill tour of the United States. As you can imagine, it was a very significant visit. Sino-U.S. relations were still very touchy at the time.
In preparation for this visit to the West, we were put through an astonishingly detailed training course. And I don't just mean wushu training -- we were used to that by now. This time, we were required to learn the ins and outs of Western social etiquette. Not only were we taught how to eat with a knife and a fork, but we had to know which knife and fork were used for each course. And then there were the little social graces: under no condition were we to let the knife touch the plate, or to show our teeth while chewing, or to use a toothpick in an undignified manner.
Our teachers also instructed us on the proper demeanor and deportment for air travel: how to board the plane and how to sit quietly. We were taught the proper protocol for answering the telephone, how to listen and respond when an American asked us a question, how we were expected to behave when surrounded by crowds, etc. Everything was so complicated. It took half a year, that etiquette training! And we had to learn all this in addition to all the wushu forms that we were expected to perform flawlessly.
We were thrilled when the classes came to an end at last and we could set off on our goodwill tour. We would be visiting four cities in the United States: Honolulu, San Francisco, New York, and finally, Washington, D.C.
From Beijing, we flew first to Hong Kong, then from there to Mexico, where we gave wushu demonstrations for half a month. Then we flew to Hawaii, setting foot on American soil for the first time. I remember very clearly that I inadvertently became the center of a comic scene there...though at the time, it almost turned into a huge international incident.
At Honolulu International Airport, I happened to see an airplane on the runway with the words "China Airlines" written on the side. China Airlines was then (and still is) owned and operated by a Taiwanese company, but of course, I didn't know that. Terribly excited, I began yelling, "Wow! Look, it's an airplane from China! A Chinese airplane! Look, everyone! Look!"
Immediately, some adult put his hand over my mouth and barked: "That's enough!"
Huh?
Because, of course, Mainland China was Mainland China and Taiwan was Taiwan. In the mid '70s, there was no policy more fundamental than the differentiation between the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China. It was a very sensitive political issue.
Me, I'd just been excited to see what I thought was an airline operated by my country. When the adults hushed me, I quickly realized that I'd done something wrong. I was scared to death. Thought they'd send me back home for sure.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
In 1974, I was chosen for another special training course. Little did I know that the experience would eventually start changing the way I saw the world.
The Chinese government was implementing a program to identify the finest young wushu athletes in the country. The process of selection took several months. A group of us would train together for a while, and then the coaches would sift and screen out those who weren't good enough. This process was repeated over and over again, until they were satisfied with the team they had created. Thirty of us made the final cut.
Our first big assignment would be to represent China (and her 20 million wushu practitioners) on a goodwill tour of the United States. As you can imagine, it was a very significant visit. Sino-U.S. relations were still very touchy at the time.
In preparation for this visit to the West, we were put through an astonishingly detailed training course. And I don't just mean wushu training -- we were used to that by now. This time, we were required to learn the ins and outs of Western social etiquette. Not only were we taught how to eat with a knife and a fork, but we had to know which knife and fork were used for each course. And then there were the little social graces: under no condition were we to let the knife touch the plate, or to show our teeth while chewing, or to use a toothpick in an undignified manner.
Our teachers also instructed us on the proper demeanor and deportment for air travel: how to board the plane and how to sit quietly. We were taught the proper protocol for answering the telephone, how to listen and respond when an American asked us a question, how we were expected to behave when surrounded by crowds, etc. Everything was so complicated. It took half a year, that etiquette training! And we had to learn all this in addition to all the wushu forms that we were expected to perform flawlessly.
We were thrilled when the classes came to an end at last and we could set off on our goodwill tour. We would be visiting four cities in the United States: Honolulu, San Francisco, New York, and finally, Washington, D.C.
From Beijing, we flew first to Hong Kong, then from there to Mexico, where we gave wushu demonstrations for half a month. Then we flew to Hawaii, setting foot on American soil for the first time. I remember very clearly that I inadvertently became the center of a comic scene there...though at the time, it almost turned into a huge international incident.
At Honolulu International Airport, I happened to see an airplane on the runway with the words "China Airlines" written on the side. China Airlines was then (and still is) owned and operated by a Taiwanese company, but of course, I didn't know that. Terribly excited, I began yelling, "Wow! Look, it's an airplane from China! A Chinese airplane! Look, everyone! Look!"
Immediately, some adult put his hand over my mouth and barked: "That's enough!"
Huh?
Because, of course, Mainland China was Mainland China and Taiwan was Taiwan. In the mid '70s, there was no policy more fundamental than the differentiation between the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China. It was a very sensitive political issue.
Me, I'd just been excited to see what I thought was an airline operated by my country. When the adults hushed me, I quickly realized that I'd done something wrong. I was scared to death. Thought they'd send me back home for sure.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Our group was definitely a high-security proposition. Including our chaperones, there were 44 of us on the trip -- and then add to that the 26 bodyguards from the Central Government's intelligence bureau. Each one of these guards was assigned to guard two of us. In addition, a massive American police presence followed us everywhere we went. Nobody knew what might happen to mainland Chinese in the U.S.A., so patrol cars escorted us in cavalcades and hundreds of officers kept the public away from us. Some of the others might have found it nerve-wracking, but I thought it was great fun. I'd never been so close to policemen before.
I was growing up...and I was becoming mischievous. Lots of the other kids had been very naughty before they joined the wushu school, but gradually, the discipline had made them obedient. I was the opposite. I'd been a very meek little boy, but as I grew older, I was becoming more playful. Cheeky, even. In fact, after being away from home for almost a month, I was starting to feel bolder and bolder about satisfying my curiosity. For example, I was fascinated with the guns that the bodyguards carried. Despite the fact that the guards were officially discouraged from speaking to us, I kept asking the guys if I could look at their guns up close and maybe hold them. I especially remember that I was always trying to joke around with my own bodyguard. Because I was short for my age and only came up mid-torso, I'd gotten into the habit of holding on to his shirt as we walked. He would walk in front and I would tag along behind him. My height gave me excellent access to his belt, which is of course exactly where his holster was located. "Hey, cool!" I'd say as I reached out to touch his gun, and he'd tense up.
I believe I did this at least once every day.
Such nice memories!
During the etiquette training in China, we had been drilled on table settings. Each plate, we were told, would be flanked by an army of forks and spoons and knives and butter dishes. This knife was intended for spreading butter, that one was for something else altogether. Every utensil had its own specialized function, and I was convinced that if I misused any of them that my motherland would lose face and that my future would be over. And to be honest, we kids were having a bit of trouble coordinating the knives and forks. "Please let me not forget my table manners," I told myself over and over again.
But after a while, we noticed that our bodyguards -- who ate alongside us -- didn't always use their utensils properly. In fact, they would grab the chicken with their hands and chomp away. Instead of cutting up the meat carefully with their knives and forks, they would just tear into it with their mouths wide open... as we looked on dumbly.
What you must understand is that the system of etiquette that we'd been taught had come straight from Buckingham Palace. They were the kind of rules you observe if you're dining with the British royal family -- they were that formal.
When seated at the table, keep your legs pressed together just so.
You must never place your arms on the table; instead, keep your hands neatly folded in your lap.
As the host brings out the food, do not move. Only after the host picks up his own knife and fork can you begin to do the same.
In short, we had come to America prepared to be impeccable.
Then we noticed that all the food was prepared in advance and sitting on long tables. What's more, you were expected to pick up a plate and to move along the table; whatever you wanted to eat, you took, and as much as you wanted. Then you walked back to your own table and set your plate down. And you could start eating right away.
Looking to the right, we heard the loud clatter and the hubbub of eating.
Looking to our left, we saw trays being slammed down and people sitting with their legs propped up.
All the rules were being violated -- and nobody cared!
We were experiencing the American style of eating at its most casual. Everywhere we looked, people were slurping up their food and misusing their spoons. I started to realize that everything we'd been taught did not necessarily apply in this society. At the age of 11, I was starting to think for myself -- or at least notice discrepancies.
Back in school, we'd been educated to think: "China is good. Everything in China is good." and "The Western countries are decadent societies. Everything about America is evil." When we actually found ourselves walking around in this Western country, however, we couldn't help but notice how different everything was from China -- and not necessarily in a bad way. "Wow, there are so many cars here. Hey, look at those tall buildings! Geez, Americans actually have swimming pools in their backyards!" There were so many new "wow's" everyday.
None of us dared say the words -- "Hey, it's pretty nice here!" -- but everybody was thinking it.
TO BE CONTINUED ...