bar. Downstairs was the museum, where there were lots of photos, original movie posters, nunchakus, a replica of the mask Bruce Lee wore in Green Hornet, etc.
More than 20,000 people came from all over the world to visit Bruce ' s museum. The Hong Kong government appointed me as an Ambassador of Good Will for helping bring so many tourists to Hong Kong. It was a memorable time, but it got to a point that it was difficult to maintain. Because of its location, it wasn ' t easy to find, I asked for help to different official establishments, but things in Hong Kong are very slow and I had to let it go. At that time, Hong Kong was economically down and Shanghai was booming. I decided to close it and move here. Now it ' s a cheap Chinese restaurant... is quite sad. All of the museum collection items are stocked in the warehouse of the company that owns the distribution rights of the films of Bruce Lee."
When it was first opened, the news about the museum & Café appeared in a good deal of publications in the West, not only in those of Martial Arts, but also in " Los Angeles Times ", " Newsweek " magazine, " The Financial Times "... " I have six albums of clippings about the museum; even Linda, Bruce ' s wife, and Shannon, his daughter, visited the Bruce Lee Caffè and told me that they greatly appreciated what I had done. I don ' t know why the government refused to do more. "
Many of those tourists asked John if Bruce Lee had taught him some martial arts tricks. " I learned some basic things from him, but I never trained seriously nor followed any discipline, although people must think otherwise, because nobody bothers me."
John was in Hong Kong when Bruce Lee died. He recalls, " When I learned of the death of Bruce Lee, I thought it was a joke. When I could confirm it, I went to the funeral home, there were tens of thousands of people. Between the people in the hall and those in the surrounding area, there were over 20,000 persons. There was no way to get close, so after trying for a while, I could not get near him, I left with sadness. All his fans were shocked, and with good reason, Bruce Lee was their idol, the person that had won the respect for the Chinese people around the world and they knew it; they had lost their hero."
On the causes of his death, John is very clear: " In his training Bruce reached the end, crossing limits, until finally a vein broke in his brain and killed him."
John was one of those few selected ones who had the fortune to meet and work with the " Little Dragon ", a fact that would marked his life changing it forever: " My job in the filming lasted two weeks, Bruce not only lived his life intensely, anyone who shared his company did it too; in some cases, like mine, marking it forever, to the point that it ' s been forty years and people still remember me for my work on " The Return of the Dragon ". There are people that in a few weeks, live what others in years, Bruce was one of those rare cases, I was very fortunate to meet him and work with him. "
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