“I don't believe in the word 'master.' I consider the master as such when they close the casket." – Bruce Lee

 

There was a discussion in one of the chat groups that I’ve been part of, on the intrinsic selfishness of the Chinese race (just about everyone in the group being ethnic Chinese). One of the most famous examples of “Chinese Selfishness” is that of the Kung Fu Master who only teaches 80 percent of what he knows because he (most of them are men) do not want their students surpassing them.

As with many stereotypes, there is an element of truth. In Singapore, we describe ourselves as being “kiasu” or scared to lose. You could say that being kiasu means we work harder so that we don’t lose out but at the same time, the kiasu mindset makes us comically petty. One only has to think of the number of school kids who hide reference books to ensure that no one else gets a chance to score higher marks in a test. In fairness to Singapore, I’m told that it also happens in Hong Kong.

This strange mentality is not something that people grow out of. If anything, the kiasu mentality is encouraged and carries on into the work place. It’s been said that in the professional industry, firms try to keep young employees limited in silos so that they never really learn the full extent of what their particular industry has to offer.  As with the urban legend, we are a nation filled with Kung Fu masters who are terrified of being surpassed by their students and so they hoard knowledge in order to stay superior.

Ironically, one of the people who lived a life that goes against this strange stereotypical Asian mentality, was a hero to Asian boy living in the Western World. Bruce Lee was the small Oriental guy who spent an entire lifetime showing smaller built Asian guys that they could more than hold their own as long as they trained hard.

However, whilst people like me grew up thinking of Bruce Lee as an “Asian Hero,” he was, in fact, only able to do what he did because he had certain Un-Asian qualities to his mindset. One of the most prominent things about him was the fact that he was open to learning from other people and other styles and using techniques that worked regardless of style.

One of the most visible signs of this was in his relationship with Chuck Norris. If you talk to enough people (especially Americans), you’ll always end up in a discussion on who was would have won a fight. Its as if the two men needed to exist in a rivalry in the way that tennis in the 1990s could only be seen through the prism of the Sampras-Agassi rivalry.

The truth of their relationship was rather different. Both men were friends and had great respect for each other. The worked out together and swapped techniques. Chuck Norris once described Bruce Lee as being “too good” to be his teacher. However, as Black Belt magazine reports, the teacher student relationship wasn’t a one way thing. Chuck Norris influenced Bruce Lee to use high kicks:

https://blackbeltmag.com/chuck-norris-influenced-bruce-lee

 

 The World wants a rivalry – the truth being – they were collaborators who brought out the best in each other.

Bruce Lee famously said argued that he was a “student-master,” or someone with the expertise of a master but was constantly learning and seeking to improve.

Their students become machines which imitate martial art forms." He was true to his word. The man was famous for Chinese Wing-Chun, but also practiced Western boxing and Eskrima (which he studied from his student Dan Inasanto).

If you think about this man, you’ll see that his secret was openness to knowledge and an understanding that the more knowledge he gave, the more he could absorb. The man did not think of his special skill as making him part of a magic circle. He said, “The other weakness is, when clans are formed, the people of a clan will hold their kind of martial art as the only truth and do not dare to reform or improve it. Thus, they are confined in their own tiny little world.”

One of his greatest services to Kung-Fu was to teach Non-Chinese. Got into hot soup with other kung-fu masters but the fact that he became identified with the art says it all.

Let’s be honest here – what Bruce Lee said about martial art cliques is true of professional cliques. We study a profession. Then, we work in a profession in the same manner as our “masters.” We only mix with fellow professionals and marry fellow professionals so that we can produce kids who follow our profession. Mixing outside the profession becomes sacrileges and it becomes a holy mission to spend your life bitching about everyone in the profession to everyone in the profession because no one else exists outside the profession.

Nobody sees the idea of being like water where the professional is meant to serve the persona and not the other way round. Remember someone said something to me about not forgetting my profession of PR when I became a part-time waiter. My view was different. I am not “PR” guy or a “F&B” guy or an “Insolvency” guy. I am merely a guy who picked up a set of skills in one industry (PR) and used them to be a little functional in two non-related industries (F&B and Corporate Insolvency). I’ve reached the stage where I don’t want to be labelled as belonging to an industry or a profession.

My refusal to belong to a profession does make me a failure in Singapore. However, the world is changing and reality doesn’t care about your magic circle just as the reality of a punch in the face does not care if you are “Wing-Chun,” or “Boxing” or “MMA,” or Taekwondo” guy.