By Bill Lee

"Suddenly Sifu appeared out of nowhere. He was driving by and noticed his disciples in trouble. He jumped out of his car and into the fracas. The fighting ended abruptly when one of the gang members began vomiting blood after Sifu collapsed his lung with a punch to the chest. That was the strength of his chi kung(internal power). My friends jumped into Sifu's car. They drove off just as additional gang members arrived, armed with guns."

Review by Jonah Ewell

This is not your typical martial arts book. In fact, at the risk of venturing off-topic, it's not about martial arts at all. This is a harrowing tale of gang life in San Francisco's Chinatown--one man's personal journey from street thug to corporate thug, and his struggle to move beyond the violence that filled his life from early childhood.

Lee was a member of the Joe Boys, the gang that carried out the infamous Golden Dragon Massacre. Although Lee was not a party to that particular incident, he was involved in beatings, extortion, compulsive gambling, and pool-sharking in the violent underworld of San Francisco Chinatown.

About three quarters of the way through, there's a very interesting twist. The book goes from your standard "life was hard so we were hard" gang memoir to corporate thug memoir. When he manages to pull away from the gang, get a BA from my alma mater, San Francisco State University, and enters the corporate world, he discovers his gang-related skills serve him well.

Performing my job well required an enormous amount of deceit and lying. I was so driven that what little ethics I had were compromised. The executives, like my father, implied that the end justified the means. I had no qualms about that...

The atmosphere was not unlike the environment I grew up in--use of profanity was prevalent; fear was instilled in the work force; everything was about "kicking butt." Individuals were commodities judged by their "value added" to the "cause."

Mind you, this is after 3/4 of the book is spent on some real harsh gang life stuff. His friends are tortured and killed over stupid BS like "that guy looked at me funny," unless his friends were the ones doing the killing.

Then, at the very end, it becomes a very uplifting spiritual memoir. When he thought he pulled away from it all, there's one more extremely violent, bloody incident that he's in the middle of (won't give it away). He experiences some kind of spiritual and emotional catharsis and is (somewhat) healed.

There are only a few mentions of kung fu throughout the book, but it's worthwhile to note that Lee's experiences with martial arts seem to be respites from the harshness of his life.

During that period, I was also hanging around the Dhon (East) Ping Yuen housing project. Some of the guys who lived there studied Tong Long (Praying Mantis) kung fu with Wong Joc Mun, the Sifu who fought a famous duel with Bruce Lee in the early 60's. Wong Sifu's studio was located on Pacific Avenue and we hung out there as well. Everyone there called me Little Soul Brother. When Wong Sifu wasn't around, we used to turn off the lights and spar in total darkness. We also engaged in full-contact, "tag-team" matches. It was wild.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in Chinese American issues, gang life, and martial arts. Very straightforward writing style, easy to get through.