With a flawless card trick, a 26-year-old magician from Taipei has become the first Taiwanese to win a top prize at the World Championship of Magic.
Horret Wu (吳何) was the winner of the close-up card magic category, performed in close proximity to the judges and audience.
“Card magic is commonly a European area of expertise,” the Chinese-language United Daily News quoted Wu as saying. “There aren’t many that can take the championship from them without remarkable innovation and skill.”
Wu said he was advised to change categories to increase his chances of winning, but for Wu the competition was not just about winning, it was a way to challenge himself, he said.
Wu is the first Asian to win that category, giving a performance that was considered a flawless display of card trickery at the highest level of technical skill.
Following his performance, Wu received a five-minute standing ovation for his first performance in a global competition held by the International Federation of Magic Societies (FISM).
He has won multiple awards from the Taiwan Magic Association and he placed second last year in a different category at a FISM competition in South Korea.
A self-described “underground master of sleight,” Wu specializes in card magic and sleight-of-hand. Well known on the Taiwanese magic scene, he has crafted original acts.
The FISM is one of the top organizations in the international magic community, founded in 1948. The triennial World Championship of Magic is the most prominent FISM event, which is attended by thousands of magicians from around the world.
This year’s competition was held in the Italian town of Rimini from July 6-Saturday last week.
For Wu, the next step is Japan and France, with the aim putting Taiwan into the international magic spotlight.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do
RSS