Bruce Lee ( Early life )


Bruce Lee as a baby with his parents, Grace Ho and Lee Hoi-chuen
Bruce Lee was born on November 27, 1940, in the Chinese Hospital, in Chinatown, San Francisco. According to the Chinese zodiac, Lee was born in both the hour and the year of the Dragon, which according to tradition is a strong and fortuitous omen.[21] Lee and his parents returned to Hong Kong when he was three months old.[22] Bruce's father, Lee Hoi-chuen, was Han Chinese, and his mother, Grace Ho (何愛瑜), was of Eurasian ancestry.[23] Grace Ho is reported as either the adopted or biological daughter of Ho Kom-tong (Ho Gumtong, 何甘棠) and the half-niece of Sir Robert Ho-tung, both notable Hong Kong businessmen and philanthropists.[24] Bruce was the fourth of five children: Phoebe Lee (李秋源), Agnes Lee (李秋鳳), Peter Lee (李忠琛), and Robert Lee (李振輝).
Grace's parentage remains unclear. Linda Lee, in her 1989 biography The Bruce Lee Story, suggests that Grace had a German father and was a Catholic.[25] Bruce Thomas, in his influential 1994 biography Bruce Lee: Fighting Spirit, suggests that Grace had a Chinese mother and a German father.[26] Lee's relative Eric Peter Ho, in his 2010 book Tracing My Children's Lineage, suggests that Grace was born in Shanghai to a Eurasian woman named Cheung King-sin.[26] Eric Peter Ho said that Grace Lee was the daughter of a mixed race Shanghainese woman and her father was Ho Kom Tong. Grace Lee said her mother was English and her father was Chinese.[27] Fredda Dudley Balling said Grace Lee was three-quarters Chinese and one-quarter British.[28]
In the 2018 biography Bruce Lee: A Life, Matthew Polly identifies Lee's maternal grandfather as Ho Kom-tong, who had often been reported as his adoptive grandfather. Ho's father, Mozes Hartog Bosman, was a Dutch Jewish businessman from Rotterdam.[29] He moved to Hong Kong with the Dutch East India Company and served as the Dutch consul to Hong Kong at one time. He had a Chinese concubine named Sze Tai with whom he had six children, including Ho Kom Tong. Bosman subsequently abandoned his family and immigrated to California.[30] Ho Kom Tong became a wealthy businessman with a wife, 13 concubines, and a British mistress who gave birth to Grace Ho.[31][32][33]

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