Bruce Lee's enduring legacy of adaptability

As Washington steadily broadens its national security restrictions to encompass an ever wider range of Chinese products, politics has proved far less successful at disrupting something more enduring: the cultural connections between the Chinese and American people. California's decision to establish an annual Bruce Lee Day offers perhaps the clearest reminder of that reality.

In late June, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation to establish Bruce Lee Day, the first annual celebration dedicated to a Chinese American in the state's history. When the first Bruce Lee Day is observed on May 17 next year, it will not be just a belated salute to the martial arts icon, but will for the first time carve a Chinese name into the state's legislative memory.

The date itself carries symbolic weight: May 17 was the day Lee left Hong Kong for San Francisco at the age of 18, a pivotal moment that launched his career in acting and martial arts teaching. Bruce Lee's journey across the ocean and his legendary rise on both sides of the Pacific encapsulate his life's meaning. The deeper question, however, is not why California honored him, but why Bruce Lee still commands such reverence across the West more than 50 years after his death, and what that says about a cultural bridge that politics cannot break.

Bruce Lee's enduring influence rests on more than his martial arts or movie stardom.

Bruce Lee changed how Asians were seen in popular culture. In the Hollywood of the 1960s and 1970s, Chinese characters were depicted as sinister villains or comic relief. Asian men were rarely heroic, let alone desirable or wise. Bruce Lee shattered that frame with his fists, speed and unapologetic presence.

In his pathbreaking film Fist of Fury, when his character kicks down a sign reading "No Dogs and No Chinese Allowed" and declares that the Chinese are no longer the sick men of Asia, he reclaims dignity for an entire people on a global stage. As Assemblymember Matt Haney, who authored the California bill, put it: "Bruce Lee represents the very best of California: innovation, diversity, determination and the courage to challenge convention." His ability to force Western audiences to see a Chinese face embodying strength rather than servility was revolutionary.

But rebellion alone does not explain his lasting impact. A mere avenger would have faded with time. Bruce Lee endured because he offered something beyond action. "Be water, my friend," he famously advised — formless, adaptable, yet unstoppable. Rooted in Taoist thought, distilled into a deceptively simple English phrase, the idea arrived at a time when the United States was convulsed by Vietnam, civil rights and a generational revolt against rigid institutions.

Bruce Lee transformed the dojo into a classroom and the fistfight into a lesson in survival. He became a spiritual mentor to millions who never set foot in a martial arts studio. That is why his gravestone in Seattle reads that "Your inspiration continues to guide us toward personal liberation".

Bruce Lee's universal appeal was rooted in his own liminal identity. Born in San Francisco and raised in Hong Kong, he moved through US suburbs and Asian backlots with equal ease, fluent in both languages yet not fully at home in either culture. He was not a Confucian sage nor a Westernized caricature; he was a living translation, equally able to explain yin and yang to a California surfer and demonstrate a straight punch to a Hong Kong street fighter. This duality is precisely why both sides can claim him without contradiction. When California honors him, it claims a Chinese icon as its own. When China celebrates him, it takes pride in his global influence. Shared ownership is not a contradiction here; it is the essence.

Bruce Lee is not alone in this pattern. Audrey Hepburn, born in Belgium to a Dutch mother and a British father, became one of Hollywood's most beloved faces and later used her experiences of wartime deprivation to advocate for children's welfare as a United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund Goodwill Ambassador. Bob Marley carried the sound of a small Caribbean island to every corner of the globe, singing of resistance and unity while refusing to align with any political camp. Each of them, like Bruce Lee, transcended their origins to become vessels of universal values such as dignity, resilience and self-overcoming. "Be water" is as portable an idea as Hepburn's grace or Marley's rhythm. That portability is what turns a national figure into a cultural bridge.

Bruce Lee matters more today than ever. In an era of great-power suspicion between Washington and Beijing, his example challenges the notion that cultures must be adversaries. He was Chinese in heritage and philosophy, yet quintessentially American in his individualism and his faith in self-invention. He never chose a side, because he belonged to the water between the shores. His legacy enriches both cultures without diluting either.

Some may dismiss Bruce Lee Day as mere symbolism, irrelevant to realpolitik. But symbols shape perception, and perception influences policy. If a generation of Americans grows up seeing a Chinese face as a symbol of wisdom and strength rather than threat, and if Chinese citizens see their own hero honored in the US, the foundation for trust is laid not in summit communiques but in the shared imagination of ordinary people. That is the long game of cultural diplomacy, and more than 50 years after his death, Bruce Lee remains one of its most effective players. His fist was fierce, but his message was harmony — and in a fractured world, that message has never been more urgent.

Water does not choose a bank; it connects them. Sometimes that connection outlasts every wall we build.

The author is a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Chongqing University.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

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