Magic defies the rules of nature and physics. During the 2009 CCTV Spring Festival gala, magician Liu Qian managed to drop a coin into a glass placed upside down and transformed a finger ring into an intact egg, under the close and watchful eyes of the studio audience, leaving tens of thousands of viewers mesmerized by his showmanship.
The mind-blowing performance has set off an enthusiasm of magic all over the country. However, people seldom know that more than 3600 years ago, the history of magic in China was already underway.
In China, magic goes back many years and has evolved from superstitious wizardry into a technologically inspired, sophisticated art form.
Ancient Chinese magic made its appearance as early as 1600 BC, and was closely associated with divination and wizardry, according to Biographies of Exemplary Women (Lie Nu Zhuan) by Liu Xiang, the renowned historian of the Han Dynasty (206 BC- AD220).
In 108 BC, Liu Che, emperor of the Western Han Dynasty, gathered more than a hundred acrobats and magicians in the imperial palace and hosted the biggest magic show in history. Zhang Heng's Western Metropolis Rhapsody (Xi Jing Fu) records that Duke Huang of the Eastern Sea (Donghai Huanggong), a showman and magician, did knife-swallowing and fire-spitting shows at this gathering.
Magic continued to thrive in the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) and began to branch off into separate fields in the Song Dynasty (960-1279). Some traditional Chinese tricks such as "Immortal Plants Bean" and "Ancient Color Trick" marked the start of international recognition for Chinese magic.
In the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), there were many cultural exchanges between China and the West. The first generation of modern Chinese magicians like Ching Ling Foo (Zhu Liankui), Han Pingchien and Mu Wenqing went abroad to perform and also learned to incorporate foreign stunts into traditional tricks.
Email to Friends
Print
Save