Jet Li's Essays

Yesterday I came upon Jet Li's official website and a 'naive' email to Jet Li.

In his website, he actually wrote a few essays on stories of his life, his work, his martial art (wushu) etc. But a set of stories caught my attention. His life growing up in China and his childhood.

It was difficult for me to believe in my heart what the adults (Papi: Chinese government official) had been teaching us: that all Americans were class enemies who couldn't be trusted.

By the time we got to New York, I started to wonder if it was even true that all of our hotel rooms had been bugged with secret listening devices by the American government. Was it really necessary for us to watch everything we said?

One day, feeling silly, I faced the telephone (without picking it up) and said, "Hey, I want chocolate, I want chocolate, I want chocolate." Then I turned to the mirror and said: "I want ice cream, ice cream, ice cream, ice cream." Lastly, I ran over to the flower vase and said: "I want banana, I want banana, I want banana." I was having lots of fun. Then somebody came to tell us to get ready for that night's performance, and I forgot about the whole thing.

Later that night, when we returned to the hotel, I pushed open the door-and nearly died of fright. My bodyguard was horrified as well.

There on the desk was chocolate, ice cream, and bananas. [...]

Check it out. There is another story on how he tries to write a will when the plane he was in was going down!