Growing up, my buddies and I used to debate really Earth-moving stuff all the time. For instance:
Could The Flash outrun Superman?
Who was stronger? The Bionic Man or Spider Man?
Who did you think is cooler? Luke Skywalker or Han Solo?
We thought we were so darned sophisticated, debating such highbrow stuff. The best debate, however, went like this:
In a straight up fair fight, who would win – Bruce Lee or Muhammad Ali?
As any kid growing up in the western hemisphere, it was only natural that I put all of my ice cream money on the greatest boxer of all time - Ali. After all, he floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee. It seemed to be a no-brainer. “But,” my friends would remind me, “Bruce Lee uses all that mysterious kung-fu stuff.” And, yes, in those Saturday morning karate movies, Bruce and his enemies seemed to do a lot of floating and stinging as well.
Believe it or not, that was the first exposure I had ever had to Eastern cultures. From there, my mind was opened to these strange and mysterious things and practices. Chinese food (the kind we make here in the United States), Japanese cars (everyone remembers the movie Gung Ho, right?) and the martial arts took me to lands far away on the other side of the Earth.
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