It's a pity that I have missed the interview, but I have received a list of questions which was intended to be used in the interview, I guess my answers can still be considered as a good reference for some Chinese magic hobbists, here you go:
你为何喜欢上魔术的？有过老师吗？通过什么途径进行魔术学习的？
After I graudated Form.5 in secondary school, I went to do a summer job in the Hong Kong international airport, my employer was a magician, he performed some magic tricks to me, but didn't teach me much, I was triggered to learn more since then. I became manically interested in magic after I finished my secondary school.
Yes, I had one mentor, Ben Yu, he' s an excellent Hong Kong card magician. I used to stay in touch with a Scotish Card Magic master, Peter Duffie, by emails, he has taught me one of the most important moves in my arsenal- The Pass.
At the very beginning, I searched the public library, and borrowed all the books about magic, learnt all the tricks and sleights on my own. Shortly after, I started to buy books, props and videos from magic shops, and then I had Ben Yu as my mentor, who taught me a lot about magic.
魔术带给你什么样的感觉？魔术对你的生活、交友、工作有怎样的帮助？你的乐趣在哪里？有过怎样的遗憾？希望能告诉我们一个具体的故事。
I always have a love and hate relationship about magic, sentimentally, I love magic in general, but there are something that I dislike as well, say, some unethical magic dealers, stuck up magicians and those who abuse the use and secret of magic.
The influence of magic on me is tremendous:
Life:
I become a creator, a performer, an author and a lecturer, it gives me multiple identities.
While I have been publishing magic materials in various forms for sometime by now, but my highest expectation goes to the forth coming book -- Philosopher’s Stone. The book bears much significance to me, it's written in english and it's also my first book. As far as I know, this is probably the first time a Hong Kong magician whom ever publish an english magic book internationally too.
However, the most valuable lesson that I learned from magic is: You can't please everyone, so Be Bold and Do the Right Thing.
Someone asked me why I always be the “first” one for so many things, I said that's because I believe we should be proactively do something to persue what we want, especially when we are young, an age that is nothing to lose and priviledged to make mistakes.
Social Connections:
Back then in 2002, I released an instructional video, namely --Impossible Twist, it was marketed by a magic company in U.K. Then, I was interviewed by some magazines and newspapers in Hong Kong and invited by some professional organizations and govermental departments for performances, such as: Hong Kong Barrister Association, Hong Kong Correctional Service, Hong Kong Custom and St. Patrick's Society of Hong Kong... I believe that I have left them with good impressions and establish some connections as well.
Making Friends:
Does this include making opposite sex friends as well? haha…
Being a magician at my age can be quite problematic, most guys think magician is very appealing to girls and they have this wrong impression that it's very easy for magicians to make friends with girls. I can testify the fact is about just the opposite, many girls tend to associate magicians with players and we are often not trusted. I think most girls are more than happy to watch magic performance, but they are often highly suspicious about our loyalty and honesty, hahaa, very pathetic.
Another major problem is being labled as a magician, and I can't tell whether it is a good thing or not. The merit is people easily remember you, because magic is very unique which allows you to give people a very strong initial impression, and instantly they will be interested in you, and for the most of the time they do appreciate your works. The drawback is, however, most of them only remember you as a magician, and they tend to ignore other aspects of you as a person.
Enjoyment:
As a magic hobbist, I see sleight of hand as the purist _expression of magic, therefore I love to see beautifully performed sleight of hand magic, and I also love to see some fresh presentations for old routines or some brand new tricks. As a creator, I enjoy the process of creating a routine very much, whenever I create or discover a new move or a new routine, I can be happy for days.
As a performer, I love to test the different approachs to perform a trick, see which one works best for me and I can get better reaction with.
There is one thing that is particularly close to my heart, when I was studying at City University, I once delivered a lecture to the School of Creative Media in my University, it's called Magic and Creativity. Many tutors, lecturers and professors attended my lecture, and they actually impressed with my lecture, it's such an honour of mine, I considered that as one of the highlights of my campus life.
Regret:
My biggest regret in magic is that we still don' t have a set of proper magic reference books in Chinese. Currently we don’t have the Chinese titles for many English magic terminology, there are much confusion among the Chinese magic hobbists. I was particularly disappointed when I advocated for the Chinese-lization of English magic terminology in Hong Kong, reponses from many Hong Kong magicians were very negative, some of the comments were extremely mean spirit and arrogant that I don't even want to talk much about.
你表演魔术有过失手的时候吗？对你的信心有过打击吗？
Haha..many times.
Murphy's law: if anything can go wrong, it will. I can't even remember how many mistakes that I have made in live performances. And I believe I am still going to make some mistakes in my future performances. But my confidence and ego was never affected by my mistakes, because I see mistake as a part of life.
Of course every magician will try their best to practice and rehearsal in order to prevent mistakes from happening, this is professionalism. But there is no way for any magician not to make any mistakes at all. There are just too many variants in the world which will inflict certain unpredictable changes on you and your performance.
Mistake is something that is not aviodable and to be honest, even if I make some obvious mistakes in my performance, I wouldn't care too much and I would just carry on. It's better to spoil a trick instead of the entire performance.
为什么要把你创新的魔术发表出来？
There are five reasons for me to do publications:
Money
Advancement of the art
Glory
Individual _Expression
Credit [recognition]
Money: I can't deny the fact that I am earning money with magic, obviously, it would be way too pretendious if I say this is not a concern.
Advancement of the art: At the beginning of this year, I started my China National Lecture Tour, I delivered magic lectures in Shen Zhen, Beijing and Shanghai. Nowadays, some foreign magicians will lecture in China as well, but they tend to turn their lectures into magic product demonstration. It is understandable, because they want to make more money but it is nevertheless a pity for Chinese magic hobbists and magicians. Therefore I decided to do a lecture tour with no products for sell except a set of lecture notes. It is my purpose to teach Chinese magic hobbists some magic theories, which I consider as the most important thing that they need.
We are standing on the shoulders of giants, the reason why we are exposing to much higher quality magic these days is that the giants in magic have been generously sharing their creations and discoveries with the fratenity, so that we have a solid basis and develop upon. For the same reason, I feel obligated to reveal at least some of my creations, so that the future generation can work on them and perfect them.
Glory: In the field of close up magic, the western world knows very little about Chinese magicians. There are some reasons, firstly, we don' t have that many good close up magicians in the Chinese community, secondly, Chinese magicians seldom publish any original and professional materials internationally. In fact, there are many Hong Kong and China magicians and dealers do not comply the ethics standard, they did much harm to the reputation of the entire Chinese magic community, I feel sorry that Chinese magic dealers are more well known for their misconducts in the international scene. I personally hope, by publication, I can win some glory for Chinese magic community.
Individual _expression: To me, magic is also a means to express my individual artistic preference. I have some reputation for a particular style magic, some of my creations are very consistent and similar in terms methodology. Some magic hobbists actually call it as “The Zenneth’s brand of card magic”. I tend to use a very direct and bold approach when I solve a card question.
Credit: Now this is the bit where I can satisfy ego and vanity. When you publish a move, it is named after you. Other magicians will learn it and sometimes use this move in their routines. When they develop something base upon your technique, they have to give you credit. That is also why magicians will publish their creations on magic magazines or other periodicals. I am proudly to say, I have left a mark on the history of Chinese magic.
魔术这个行业有潜规则吗？
The Practice: Yes, we have many rules in the practice, and most important of all would the code of ethics.
Practice well before you perform
Do not repeat the same trick in front of same group of spectators
Respect peer magicians
Never reveal a magic secret not for value
And many more……
This is to protect magic as a form of performing art and magician as a form of profession.
I wrote an elaborated version of the code of ethics awhile ago, I think it is posted on at least 80% of all the Chinese magic wesbites.
你向大众揭秘过别人的魔术吗？
Public Exposure:
We are very strict when it comes to the protection of secrets, and as a creator myself, I am in a better position than many other magicians to understand the value of secret. That’s why I won' t explain magic secrets to the public, with one exception- exposure as a set up. In magic we have some tricks called Sucker Tricks, where sometimes we explain the first bit of the trick to spectators, this is to lead them into belief that the said method is the way that we perform certain tricks, so that they are off guarded, and then we hit them hard with a totally unexpected climax.
Believe it or not, the major reason why I could establish some reputation in Chinese magic community is the piracy of my video-- Impossible Twist. If you do a little research on the internet, you will see many magic dealers in Taiwan and China are selling the VCD version of Impossible Twist. I believe if I can get $10 RMB for each pirated copy sold in Chinese community, I can live on that for the rest of my life.
Anyway, my point is, it may well takes years for a creator to come up with a marketable idea, if the secret is revealed and being made publicly obtainable for free, then no one will be interested in paying money to get the information. As a result, creators will have less incentive to put out their creations, and then the entire magic community suffers.
你感觉中西方魔术最大的不同体现在哪里？
The difference is huge and I reckon it actually lays on their status!
Western magic has been elevated to a state of art, while Chinese tricks remained to be a tool for buskers.
Let's not talk about celebrity magicians such as David Copperfield or David Blaine, who are making millions every year, let's talk about someone more appraochable. A busker magician in western world is considered as an artist, but a busker Chinese tricks performer is considered as a cheat.
Aside from the publications about pure techniques and routines, there are countless books in english discuss the psychology, perception, spectator management, creativity, ethics, showmanship, and presentation etc…
On internet forums, you will see people arguing how to present or perform magic everyday. But you won’t be able to see anyone talks about Chinese tricks, there are just too little “insiders”.
All of the western magicians claim magic as “our art”, they don’t merely see magic as entertainment.
是在表演风格上、创新能力上、培养机制上，还是观众的欣赏口味上？
Yes, all of them(are signficantly different).
I am not sure about whether this is true or not, but I have an impression that traditional Chinese tricks are not allowed for much variations.
Let me use an example:
Cups and Balls & 仙人摘豆
As far as I know, the methodology are very different but they share many similarities in terms of the basic effect. But, western magicians have been developing the Cups and Balls ever since it was created thousand years ago, I can easily name 20 versions of Cups and Balls which feature different kind of climax and presentation.
Some of them use only 1 cup, some 2 cups, and some 3 cups
Some of them produce baseballs, lemons under the 3 cups as a climax, but some will produce candies or little chicks as the climax
Some of them use paper made cups on the spot, some of them use a potato chips can as the cup
Some of them use entirely see through cups
Some of them use three cups to perform the routine but eventually showing you two even all three cups are solid.
I heard once in a close up magic competition in China, almost every competitors performed 仙人摘豆, and oddly enough, literally of them use the same routine!
你喜欢中国戏法吗？他与西方的魔术最大的不同在哪里？
I like traditional Chinese tricks, of course, but I do have some opinions. The difference between Chinese tricks and western magic is the mentality of the performers. Western magicians tend to vary the effects, they always develop upon the existing routines and materials, and for the most of the time, they are encouraged for making such a variation. Yet I think it is almost exactly the opposite in China, especially when it comes to some old school Chinese tricks performers. I believe most teachers will say it’s a wrong for the students not to follow the traditional methods.
怎样让戏法让更多的人喜欢，你有建议吗？
Yes, absolutely!
New Presentation and Re-Package!
While the original method must be preserved, we must also allow new variations.
女子十二乐坊 is a perfect example, I am not an expert in Chinese traditional music, therefore from a purely musicial perceptive, I am not sure it's a real success for them to fuse the traditional Chinese music together with Western music, but they certainly come up with something that is welcomed by the general public in both China and some Western countries.
If such a fusion could be done in music, I don't see why we can't do it with Chinese traditional tricks.
你怎么评价：什么样的魔术是一个好的魔术？它至少应具备几个条件？
This is a really difficult question. Details make perfection but perfection is no details.
There are many areas of magic, some emphasize the visual impact and some emphasize the mental impact.
Performer must not make obvious and unrectifiable mistake, of course.
The actual effect of the routine must be highly “Impossible”, so that spectator can not easily come up with a logical explanation for the effect.
Build Up
Strong Suspense
Spectator involvement
Showmanship
But the “good” magic all have one common characteristic: It must be “Dramatic”, you must create a geniue expectation for the spectator, and you can either fulfil this expectation or furstrate it with an even more surprising climax.
魔术会成为你的职业吗？会给你带来经济上的收获吗？你现在学习的法律与你喜欢的魔术是怎样的关系？
Magic has been my part time job for awhile, especially now in Australia . I think I will always see magic as a serious hobby, and I do work as a performer, author and lecturer to make some money. But at the present stage I can't really see myself to work as a professional magician for the rest of my life, and I have a feeling that I might be more successful in magic if I don't have to use it as the sole means of income.
The experience of studying in Sydney has a huge influence on me, and I started to read Time magazine more often, these two things make me more interested in serving the society and country with my legal knowledge in the future, as I personally see that as a more solid and substantial contribution.
Law & Magic
In one set of my lecture notes, I explained a trick which is called “ The Dark Contract”, this trick makes use of some contract law as a presentation. A couple of years ago, I actually tricked Alan Leung, the ex-president of Hong Kong Barrister Association with this routine. Back then he had some opinions on the legislation of article 23 of Basic Law in Hong Kong, and I was invited as a guest to perform in Bar Mess. I performed this trick and had him signed the face of a card, and eventually I revealed there is actually a sentence written on the back of the card: The Article 23 of Basic law is a great piece of law!
I forced him to read it out loud in front of 200 Hong Kong barristers and judges, everyone were bursted into laughs. I later heard my performance was one of the most talked things of that night.
Because of the very nature of magic, I think it can be an ideal area for those whom interested in the intellectual property rights law to study.
魔术原本是一门现场的艺术，后来又出现了专门做给电视观众看的电视魔术，似乎与我们理解的魔术有所区别，你认为电视这种传播手段对魔术会带来怎样的利弊？
The real Television magic started with David Copperfield, he is a real master of this form of magic. When he presents his magic, there is always an emotionally hook, it is much more than just an illusion, he gives his magic a meaning.
Now we have some new T.V. magic stars, David Blaine, Criss Angel and the latest Cyril Takayama. Most effects that they do on T.V. are actually performable in real world, they didn't cheat by post editing, much.
I personally like T.V. magic very much, because it is very carefully planned. A magic performance is no longer the matter of a single performer, it’s a matter of the whole crew. The script, the presentation, the props and set up, everything are carefully thought out beforehand. This is to ensure the best moment of magic will be captured and dramatized, resulting in a perfect performance, it makes the maximum delivery of the magic effect possible, which is in fact the dream of every magician.
There are two sides of a coin, of course. T.V. magic probably has more impact on real world magic performers, I have been really busy answering the questions from my spectators whether I can duplicate certain effect performed by these celebrity magicians on T.V. Some spectators pose question in such a way as if you are not a good magician if you can’t perform the same stunt.
In recent years, many people getting interested in magic, especially in U.S. and many David Blaine wannabes emerged. So there are more and more young people these days performing on the street before they had a chance to receive some proper training of magic, that’s obviously a bad thing. We certainly hope as time pass by, they will have a better understanding over magic, and contributing to magic instead of doing more harm to it.
