#75 ๐๐๐ซ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ซ๐...๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ฉ๐จ๐ค๐๐ซ ๐๐๐ซ๐ ๐ข๐ฌ ๐๐จ๐ฎ๐ง๐!
If you would like to understand traditional Chinese culture, look no further than the annual Spring Festival Gala! There are also fun stuff like magic show too!
The CCTV New Year's Gala, also known as the Spring Festival Gala ๆฅๆ, which airs on the Chinese New Year Eve, is a good introduction for a foreigner if one wants to learn about traditional Chinese culture.
I would say this yearโ Gala is better than last yearโs and it does show that CCTV is keen to retain the interests of the young people with some improvements. In the past, people were happy with Errenzhuan (ไบไบบ่ฝฌ) which originated in the three provinces of Northeast China - Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongiiang. It is a form of performance that involves story telling, singing, and dancing that rotate (่ฝฌ) between two performers. But now, the young people want instant gratification due to the pervasive digital media like short-form video, so if you do not wow them fast, then they will lose interest. Therefore traditional programmes like Errenzhuan, crosstalk dialog (็ธๅฃฐ) etc do face some daunting challenges to capture the interest of the young generation as there is not much visual present.
The talk-about item during Gala on Feb 9 is definitely the second item of magic segment performed by Taiwanese magician Liu Qian (ๅ่ฐฆ) involving 4 poker cards. I have attached the video below with some annotations/translations for those who do not understand Mandarin. I also demystify his magic trick in the below comments with my analysis as it is like a mathematical puzzle which looks at symmetry. and it is an easy card trick that you can impress your friend.
Liu is really a quintessential performer than a magician as he could engage his audience very well and by getting the audience to do the magic trick with him, it helped to wow the audience all over the world on Feb 9 as it was live telecast on social media like Youtube.
Video Credit : China CCTV
How the magic works:
After tearing off the cards, you should get the sequence of ABCD A1B1C1D1 in the cards.
There is a smokescreen to confuse people with arranging of cards based on the no. of Chinese characters in the name.
For a two-character name like Liu Qian (LQ), it becomes CDA1B1 C1D1AB
For the seven-character name like the host besides him, it becomes D1ABC DA1B1C1
Notice that the symmetry in the order, for each card + next 3 cards, one will get the split image.
Next, inserting the first three cards in the lower half means that we are interested to hide the fourth card in the original cards i.e. B1 for LQ and C for Host. This means that we are going to locate the last card in the original cards for i.e. CDA1B1 C1D1AB (LQ) and D1ABC DA1B1C1 (host).
Let us focus on LQ card to understand the next few eliminations and denote X as non-B card for clarity, so it becomes XXXX XXB.
Smokescreen 2 โ northerner, southerner, neither placing card in the lower half and the status is unchanged i.e. XXXX XXB
Elimination 1 (man throws 1 card, woman throws 2 cards) โ XXXX XB
Incantation XXXX BX
Elimination 2 (keep first by placing at the bottom, throw second)
XXBXX
BXXX
XXB
BX
B
Note that the key stage is the incantation to cater for 2 scenarios: man and woman. For man, it would be XXXX BX and for woman, XXBXX. Thus a woman would complete the elimination one step faster than a man.