Read a biography or hey I do read other stuff!

During the past week or so I have of course read a lot of things.  From my usual fantasy to paranormal romance to a biography...yes I said a biography.

See we had a day where storms rolled through and power was very iffy.  What is a woman to do but pick up an actually hardcover that has been sitting around on the shelf since I moved to Canada.

That book was I am Jackie Chan.  Yup that Jackie Chan.  See my hubby is a huge fan of the man, as am I.  We all know his amazing movies and I used to own some of his earlier works before i moved to Canada.  So I thought, what the heck and i dove into the book.

It is filled with lots of photographs from his life and it is told from his point of view. You learn all abut his growing up in Hong Kong and in one of the troops of the Chinese Opera.  Now this tale really starts in 1956 when his parents signed him over to the school he was to spend the next ten years at. Times were very different as was the world he was living in.  Mr Chan was not a scholarly child, a bit of a brat by his own telling and a boy who needed to move. 

The school he entered was a very harsh one.  In the world of today he would have been considered abused horribly by the school and his parents would have been brought up on charges but in China at this time they were doing there best to give him a chance at a better life.

While the book needs the steady hand of a good co-writer and editor to match today's standards, this book is actually quite enthralling.  You find yourself gasping in horror and rooting for the young Jackie and saddened at times by the losses in his life and cheering at the good things.  Unlike reading fiction, this book it true.  The master actor/comedian/stuntman and more lived this life and this book makes you believe it.  It is a snapshot of a world that very few know of.

I am told that the book out there now is very different from the copy I have.  It has been rewritten and edited but I wonder if it lost the feel of reality that this copy has?  Sometimes editing and rewriting should be avoided.  This book is one man's view of his life, from a point of view very different than the westerners who read it.  This westerner felt that disconnect but still could not put down the book.  It is a great read and made me glad i knew these things about a very fine man.