Here’s a part-time cooking job chronicle for you readers out there. I had performed one effect or another, I don’t remember which one. My fellow coworker was from China and in response to my trick, he said he had a “Chinese magic trick” to show me. I was very curious, so I asked him what it was.
He told me to pick absolutely anything in the kitchen. He said it could be a single splinter of wood, or the dot in the “i” within the logo of a utensil. It could be as big or as small as I wanted. It could be any item. I ended up choosing the handle of the fryer basket.
He gestured to his girlfriend in the hall, working as a waitress, and said to her “Black Magic”. She just nodded and waltzed into the kitchen.
“Drew is thinking of something, is it this?” my friend asked, and pointed to the whiteboard on the wall.
“No.”
“Is it this?” He pointed to the marinating beef ribs in the cooler.
“No.”
“Is it this?” He pointed to the rubber non-slip mat on the ground.
“No.”
“Is it this?” He pointed to the handle of the fryer basket.
“Yes,” she said, and without waiting for confirmation walked away with a smile.
I thought he must have blinked or done something to indicate my chosen thing. But he said he didn’t do anything. He said he could do this even over the phone, and he could just ask her “is it X” or “is it Y”.
I was stumped.
“Think about it,” he said with an annoying smirk. A few hours went by and I was still stumped. After some persuasion, he finally explained it to me.
“She knows what it is because I point to something black before I point to your thing. That’s why it’s called “Black Magic” in China.”
While it’s not the coolest magic trick ever, it was some food for thought and I thought it offered a very clean and simple coding system.
I was keen to try out the coding system so I told him he’d be my assistant. I went out to the front when the restaurant was dead, and found a waitress to do “Black Magic” on. Her name was Cynthia. Cynthia had a reputation for being a little dumb, so I thought she’d be a good testing dummy in case I somehow mess this thing up.
I explain to her what the game is, and we get going. I call my friend from the kitchen out and start pointing to random stuff that isn’t her object. Eventually, I point to a black thing and then point to her chosen object. My friend says “Yes, that’s it!”
She has almost no reaction. “I know how you did it…”
My heart almost stopped, because I had thought about how this effect was done for hours to no avail. I thought of many many alternate “magician-y” methods, but not the exact one my friend used. Cynthia the dummy had apparently figured it out instantly.
“Well… how?”
“He just says yes to the last thing you point to!”
