One of the times when I was probably around 7-8 years old, I persuaded my mother to look for magic books for me at the library. Then, a visit to the Bukit Merah Library is like a weekly affair for my mum, sis and I.
My mum managed to find a magic book that is in Chinese! OH boy, I couldn’t really read Chinese that well then and had to depend on my mum to read it to me. She chose one using a matchbox and I made it up. Here’s how it looks like:
I performed my first magic show for my classmates. My classmates got excited and got the attention of my teacher. (If I didn’t remember wrongly, her name was Mrs Chua. Mrs Chua was a funnily interesting teacher who believes in learning through repetition. She’d make us repeat a word about 10 times.) Mrs Chua got me in front of the class, and I performed the matchbox trick! She was stumped. She took the matchbox away from me. I couldn’t protest. I am a kid, she is an adult and my form teacher. She pushed the matchbox in, push it the other way, wondering why so. Finally, she pulled on it and tada, she revealed the secret to the whole class.
I cannot remember what I was thinking then. But it is probably my first performance in front of such a big crowd.