 I didn’t know Bruce Lee used to live in Seattle. At first I wasn’t interested in this martial artist, and even I was misunderstanding him just as a... comedian action movie star. This image might have been made by his funny face captured pictures which have often been used as meme on the Internet, weird scream that he made sounds when performing actions with wearing yellow training suit, and mixed with images of other Chinese action movie stars like Jackie Chan, I don't know why though.. With a little bit of curious about him, I went to Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience to attend Chinatown tour talking about Chinatown’s history and Bruce Lee’s trace. And! As I’ve got to know about this figure, I was so.. inspired! How inspiring person he was! He was not only just a martial artist or action movie star but also very inspiring life mentor who were quite philosophic. The exhibition, <Day in the life of Bruce Lee> which is one of the series of <Do you know Bruce?> talks about Bruce Lee’s mindset how to live life, motto, and his daily lives. The exhibition organized his life by categorizing eight motto he said before. But I think I can summarize his lessons just one word, that is ‘being constant’ Great men who have been recognized and respected by all the world, and have influenced on the particular fields or to the world seem very special and unique unlike other majority of ‘normal’ people. Yes, maybe those ‘great’ men might be really special human beings who have nearly superhero abilities or some innate personality to be easy to succeed. So I used to admire those great men and despise my ordinariness. But when I saw the life of Bruce Lee, who also has been considered one of great man in modern history, I felt that his life was similar with me and other normal people’s lives. writing schedule daily everyday, exercising every morning and practicing same martial actions repeatedly. trying to eat healthy food, reading lots of books and writing letters and poetry, working movie scripts and directing, trying to spend lots of time with his family and friends etc. Those are what we people also do in daily lives and try to do constantly! Kindly, the museum pointed not to try to ‘be Bruce Lee’ but to refer to Bruce Lee’s life to ‘be yourself’ like Bruce Lee also said before, “Always be yourself. Do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.” This exhibition and Bruce reminded me an ordinary person who hadn’t expected that he would achieve his dream and have influences to Korean history study. I got to know this unknown figure even to Koreans in an exhibition of Seoul Museum of History. Yu Manju, who was a nobleman living in the late 18th century in Korea, wrote diary everyday for 13 years(!) before he died in the age of 34. He wanted to be a historian so his diary contained not only the stories about his daily lives but also the 18th century of Korean society and culture. But he was so introvert and pessimistic person, and even too seriously being negative to his ability and even himself. I really related with him, because he also hated his ordinariness and worried too much about his ability and future. If you read his diary, you would feel like you read your friends's Facebook, Twitter or Instagram because he very honestly wrote his good and bad experiences, the state of his minds of everyday, worries about his future, many kinds of inner conflicts, and social criticisms that these days people especially young people have as well. Eventually, he couldn’t become a historian which was his dream, and died the early age. He left his father a will saying to burn his diaries because he thought his life and his diaries were failure. But Yu’s father couldn’t destroy his son’s diaries, and asked son’s friend to sort out the diaries and keep it. And then... after over 200 years, he and his diary became the main theme of the exhibition in history museum! He became a historian, and his diary became the one of history book that shows the 18th century of Korean history. When he was alive, he used to think ordinariness is worthless and hate it. But well.. unfortunately to him, his thought was proved wrong. I think his writing diary constantly and honestly in itself proved he was a normal man as well as a great man. Bruce Lee and Yu Manju, these two people who are seemingly very different each other, made me convince that it’s okay just to keep doing things I’ve been doing so far. Thanks! Bruce Lee's exhibition : blog.naver.com/jnlee89z/221174736942 Yu Manju's exhibition : blog.naver.com/jnlee89z/220945492024
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