Lee and his parents returned to Hong Kong when he was three months old. Names
Bruce Lee's Cantonese given name was Lee Jun Fan The English name "Bruce" was thought to be given by the hospital attending physician, Dr. Mary Glover.
Bruce Lee had three other Chinese names: Lee Yuan-Xin 李源鑫 a family/clan name, Li Yuan Jian 李元鑒 as a student name while attending La Salle College, and of course his Chinese stage name Li Xiao Long 李小龍 (Xiao Long - meaning small dragon). The Jun Fan name was originally written in Chinese as 震藩, however this Jun (震) was identical to part of his grandfather's name 李震彪, which is considered taboo in Chinese tradition. Theref
ore, Bruce Lee's name was changed to homonym/synonym 振.
Family
Bruce's father, Lee Hoi Chuen was one of the leading Cantonese opera and film actors at the time, and was embarking on a year-long Cantonese opera tour with his family on the eve of the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong during the Second World War. Lee Hoi Chuen had been touring the United States for many years performing at numerous Chinese communities.
Although a number of his peers decided to stay in the US, Lee Hoi Chuen decided to go back to Hong Kong after his wife gave birth to Bruce. Within months, Hong Kong was invaded and the Lees lived the ensuing 3 years and 8 months under Japanese occupation. The Lee family survived the war and had actually done reasonably well. After the war ended, Lee Hoi Chuen would resume his acting career and become an even bigger star during Hong Kong's rebuilding years.
Bruce Lee's mother Grace belonged to one of wealthiest and most powerful clans in Hong Kong, the Ho Tungs. She was the niece of Sir Robert Ho Tung, patriarch of the clan. As such, the young Bruce Lee grew up in an affluent and privileged environment. Despite this advantage of his family's status and because of the mass number of people fleeing communist China to Hong Kong, the Hong Kong neighborhood he grew up in became over-crowded, dangerous, and full of gang rivalries.
"Post war Hong Kong was a tough place to grow up. Gangs ruled the city streets and Lee was often forced to fight them. But Bruce liked a challenge and faced his adversaries head on. To his parents dismay Bruce's street fighting continued and the violent nature of his confrontations was escalating."
After being involved in several street fights, his parents decided that Bruce Lee needed to be trained in the martial arts. Lee's first introduction to martial arts was through his father, Lee Hoi Cheun. He learned the fundamentals of Wu style Tai Chi Chuan from his father.[11]
Wing Chun
The largest influence on Bruce Lee's martial development was
his study of 
the Chinese martial art of Wing Chun. Bruce Lee began training in Wing Chun at age 13 under the famous Wing Chun master Yip Man in the summer of 1954. Master Yip Man was also a colleague and friend of Hong Kong's Tai Chi Chuan teacher Wu Ta-ch'i. Yip's regular classes generally consisted of the forms practice, chi sao (trapping hands) drills, wooden dummy techniques, and free-sparring.There was no set pattern to the classes. Yip tried to keep his students from fighting in the street gangs of Hong Kong by encouraging them to fight in organized competitions.
After a year into his Wing Chun training, some of Yip Man's other students refused to train with Lee due to his ancestry (his mother was of partly German ancestry) as the Chinese generally were against teaching their martial arts techniques to non-Asians.[14][dea
d link] Lee's sparring partner, Toe Dai Hawkins Cheung states, "Probably fewer than six people in the whole wing chun clan were personally taught, or even partly taught, by Yip Man." However Bruce showed a keen interest in the art, and continue to train privately with William Cheung and Wong Shun Leung in 1955.
Leaving Hong Kong
After attending Tak Sun School (德信學校) (a couple of blocks from his home at 218 Nathan Road, Kowloon) Lee entered the primary school division of La Salle College in 1950 or 1952 (at the age of 12). In around 1956, due to poor academic performance (or possibly poor conduct as well), he was transferred to St. Francis Xavier's College (high school) where he would be mentored by Brother Edward, a Catholic monk (originally from Germany spending his entire adult life in China and then Hong Kong), teacher, and coach of the school boxing team.
In the spring of 1959, Lee got into yet another street fight and the police were called.Reaching all the way to his late teens Lee's street fights frequented more and included beating up the son of a feared triad family. Finally Lee's father decided for him to leave Hong Kong to pursue a safer and healthier avenue in the U.S. His parents confirmed the police's fea
r that this time Bruce Lee's opponent had organized crime background, and there was the possibility that a contract was out for his life.
"The police detective came and he says 'Excuse me Mr. Lee, your son is really fighting bad in school. If he gets into just one more fight I might have to put him in jail'."--Robert Lee
In April 1959 they decided to send him to the United States to meet up with his older sister Agnes Lee (李秋鳳) who was already living with family friends in San Francisco.
New life in America
At the age of 18, Lee returned to the U.S. with $100 in his pocket and the titles of 1957 High School Boxing Champion and 1958 Crown Colony Cha Cha Champion of Hong Kong. After living in San Francisco for several months, he moved to Seattle in the fall of 1959, to continue his high school education and worked for Ruby Chow as a live-in waiter at her restaurant.
Ruby's husband was a co-worker and friend of his father. His older brother Peter Lee (李忠琛) would also join Bruce Lee in Seattle for a short stay before moving on to Min
nesota to attend college. In December 1960, Lee completed his high school education and received his diploma from Edison Technical School (now Seattle Central Community College, located on Capitol Hill, Seattle).
In March 1961, he enrolled at the University of Washington majoring in drama according to UW's alumni association information, not in philosophy as claimed by Lee himself and many others. He most likely also studied philosophy, psychology, and various other subjects. It was at the University of Washington that he met his future wife Linda Emery, whom he would marry in August 1964.
Bruce Lee had two children with Linda, Brandon Lee (1965–1993) and Shannon Lee (1969–).
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