Proposal calls for Bruce Lee statue in San Francisco's Chinatown
SAN FRANCISCO -- As the Bay Area celebrates Lunar New Year and the Year of the Dragon, there is a proposal to install a statue of the martial arts legend Bruce Lee in San Francisco's Chinatown.
Shannon Lee, Bruce Lee's daughter, supports the idea. She was in the Bay Area representing her father for Bruce Lee Night at a recent Golden State Warriors game at Chase Center against the Detroit Pistons.
"My father was born in San Francisco," said Shannon Lee. "My brother was born in Oakland, so the Bay Area is a very rich and vital part of our legacy. We are just amazed at how much support, how much love there is for Bruce Lee in the Bay Area."
During a halftime performance at the game, Dancel's Academy of Tae Kwon Do paid tribute to the martial arts legend.
"I just love how he combined his art with everyone else's, how he flowed as he says," said Theodore Wong of Dancel's Academy of Tae Kwon Do. "He flows with everyone else."
"He's like an idol to me," said Austin Yee, who is also part of the academy.
Inside his San Francisco home, Jeff Chinn has his own personal museum which he calls his Bruce Lee room.
"I've been collecting Bruce Lee memorabilia for over 50 years," Chinn told CBS News Bay Area.
Chinn has dedicated his life to keeping Lee's memory alive with the most widely recognized Bruce Lee collection in the world. For Chinn, it's extremely personal. He was bullied and called racial slurs as the only Chinese American in his middle school class. But Chinn found strength from a poster of Bruce Lee.
"I looked at that poster, and I was crying," said Chinn. "It was almost like Bruce Lee was speaking to me, saying, 'It's okay, Jeff because I, Bruce Lee, am Chinese American and have probably faced more racism than you have, and I want you to be proud of your heritage.'"
Pointing to a narrow, turquoise weight bench and dumbbells, Chinn said, "This is the original weight bench and dumbbells that Bruce Lee used."
Chinn is now working with the Bruce Lee Foundation to honor his hero with a statue like the one in Hong Kong, but in San Francisco Chinatown's Portsmouth Square.
"I think it would be amazing to have the statue here," said Shannon Lee. "I think to have some sort of representation of those roots, that history. It is really important. I think San Francisco Chinatown is one of the oldest Chinatowns. It's such a part of history and culture. We celebrate that on our show Warrior which he created. My father wanted to celebrate that. It's a very vital part of him and to have a statue here would be sort of like a coming home."
A final homecoming for Bruce Lee, who decades after his death, continues to inspire and unite.
"My father said under the sky, under the heavens, we're one family," said Shannon Lee. "We really want to make that a truth."
The San Francisco Arts Commission is currently reviewing and deciding upon monuments and memorials around the city, including Chinatown's Portsmouth Square.
More than $600,000 has been allocated toward public art with around $350,000 dedicated to new art installations. They are welcoming all ideas and community feedback.
