The Fun and Frusrating Experience of Doing Tricks in China- by Brinson

This is how the Chinese enjoy my magic tricks.

1.      They are speechless

2.      They look at me amazed

3.      They grab the trick

4.      They say: "teach me how you did that"

Here is an example. Once I went to a big park and people started to gather around us. I decided to do a few little tricks and by the time I got started 30 people had gathered around me. I went to the middle of the circle, unzipped my backpack, and got out my first trick. I showed the first one to them and they looked amazed. Then an old man grabbed it and showed everyone how to do it. Meanwhile, I was kindly trying to get it across that I wanted it back and wanted to teach them that you’re supposed to either be amazed or say to yourself, "well that’s really cheesy" and then quietly stand there. And, just to help you out in the future if you grab a magic trick from a magician he will be quite upset with you and he may have a lifelong grudge against you. But as a small loving child I had grace and mercy upon that old man and let him go on with his demonstration. When he was finished he gave me back my belongings and I went on with the show. The next trick I did was one when I take a coloring book and make it go from completely blank to drawings without color to drawings with color. First they stood speechless. Then a young girl about ten or eleven grabbed it from me for the second time and I was kind of getting tired of it. Then we had to go and I felt pretty excited for the next time I had the chance to do some more magic tricks.

Turns out it is just a few days later when ten students came over to our house. They were amazed and, of course, grabbed the tricks. It is kind of risky to do the hard ones in front of a lot of people because the more people the more eyes and the more eyes the easier to see the trick. So they figured out a lot of them because of three reasons.

1. I messed up a few times

2. There were a lot of people

3. They grabbed the tricks.

Then a few days later we invited two students over and I rocked the party out! They didn’t figure out a single one! And they also helped by not grabbing any of them. And to make it better, one of them (who my mom named Joy) videoed every trick. I also learned to keep my distance from the eager little tentacles reaching out to me. I'm getting used to the customs of doing tricks in China.