Famous People

Mao Ze Dong


Mao Zedong was born in 26 December 1893,a Chinese Communist dictator . Mao Zedong loved swimming. When he was young, he advocated swimming as a way of strengthening the bodies of Chinese citizens, and one of his earliest poems celebrated the joys of beating a wake through the waves. Usually he and his close friends would often swim in local streams before they debated together the myriad challenges that faced their nation. In after 1955, when he was in his early 60s and at the height of his political power as leader of the Chinese People's Republic, swimming became a central part of his life. He swam so often in the large pool constructed for the top party leaders in their closely guarded compound that the others eventually left him as the pool's sole user. He swam in the of
ten stormy ocean off the north China coast, when the Communist Party leadership gathered there for its annual conferences. He led the Communist Party of China (CPC) to victory against the Kuomintang (KMT) in the Chinese Civil War. As the leader of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Mao Zedong, from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 09 September 1976. He would be the most important figurein the history and named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.

Mao had a great interest in the political system, encouraged by his father. He has two famous essays like “On Contradiction” and “On Practice” that are concerned with the practical strategies of a revolutionary movement and stress the importance of practical, grassroots knowledge, obtained through experience. They reflect the guerrilla roots of Maoism in the need to build up support in the countryside against a Japanese occupying force and emphasise the need to win over 'hearts and minds' through 'education'.

After he finished the highest level of schooling, he spent six months studying independently. And then for the first time he introduced to communism while working at Peking University, and in 1921 he attended the organizational meeting of the Communist Party of China (CPC). He first encountered Marxism while he worked as a library assistant at Peking University.

Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee (Lee Hsiao Lung) was born in San Francisco in November 1940. Lee was born in the Year of the Dragon at the Jackson St. Hospital in the Chinatown District of San Francisco. His father is a famous Chinese opera singer. His mother called him “Bruce”, which means “strong one” in Gaelic. In 1941, Lee moved to Hong Kong when he soon became a child star in the growing Eastern film industry. His first film was called the birth of Mankind.

When he was a teenager, he became a member of a Hong Kong’s gangster, and in 1953 began studying kung-fu to maintain his fighting skills. At the age of 19 (In 1959), after Lee got into trouble with the police because of fighting, his mother sent him back to the U.S. and lived with their friends in outside Seattle, Washington.

Lee finished high school in Edison, Washington, and subsequently enrolled as a philosophy major at the University of Washington. Then he also got a job teaching the Wing Chun’s martial art style that he had learned in Hong Kong to his fellow students and others. Through his teaching, Lee met Linda Emery and married in August 17, 1964. By that time, Lee had opened his own martial arts school in Seattle. He and Linda moved to California, where Lee opened two more schools in Los Angeles and Oakland.

In Oakland, 1964, Bruce is challenged by a leading Gung Fu practitioner in the Chinatown Community. In the 1900's, the Boxer Rebellion was severely beaten by Western Forces. The Boxer Rebellion desired the Westerners to be expelled from China. The Western Forces punished this rebellion and gave beatings to the Chinese Army. Therefore, Chinese are reluctant to teach Westerners their martial arts. Bruce accepts this challenge and wins in only a couple of minutes. But Bruce was upset though on why the fight took longer than usual so he begins to re-evaluate his style. Thus, the early concepts of Jeet Kune Do (JKD) were born.