NEW YORK, Dec. 17 (Xinhua) -- When Shin Lim decided to learn magic while in high school 11 years ago, he thought he could find a girlfriend by showing off some cool tricks.
That dream failed. But the decision has helped him find his real passion and possibly a life-long career -- becoming a professional magician.
Today, 27-year-old Lim is one of the hottest names in card magic. In "The Illusionists," an ongoing Broadway magic show featuring several world-class magicians at the Marquis Theatre in Midtown Manhattan, Lim dominates both the opening show and encore, stunning audience with self-choreographed routines in superior dexterity, precision, as well as grace.
During the show, Lim sits face to face with a randomly selected spectator, who chooses a random card and signs on it. Then the mind-boggling scenario begins -- often with a wisp of smoke and Lim's signature touch of hair -- as the card repeatedly disappears and reappears in unbelievable places such as an envelope on the desk, Lim's back pocket, and even his mouth, within the blink of an eye.
To make the whole thing more unbelievable, Lim then asks two spectators to each bite on a signed card between the teeth. With a snap of the fingers, the cards secretly switch place when taken out.
These are just among an array of jaw-dropping tricks Lim has created during his journey of exploration in magic. He was crowned the 2015 International Federation of Magic Societies champion for close up card magic, and came out on top of NBC's America's Got Talent in September, becoming the first ethnic Chinese winner in the show's 13 seasons.
When asked the secret of his success, Lim pondered before telling Xinhua that it might be "always trying to do things differently from how people have been doing before."
"Sometimes magic can be a little bit repetitive, or can be a little bit easy to figure out," he said. "So I'm always trying to create something new. Everything you see in this performance is created by me."
Born in Vancouver, Canada in 1991, Lim's magic dream was initially not supported by his Chinese-Singaporean parents.
"A-Minus is not enough," Lim chuckled while recalling that his parents often asked him to focus more on academic performance instead of other things, a common demand in Asian families.
So he learned the tricks secretly, mostly through watching videos on Youtube, plus thousands of hours of practice, which eventually evolved into an obsession.
Piano training since childhood has also helped his dexterity, especially for sleight of hand, said Lim, who attended the Lee University in the U.S. state of Tennessee as a piano major.
Lim tours the world performing and regularly visits China to take part in various theatre and TV shows.
During a show in August 2017, Lim proposed to his girlfriend Casey Thomas using a magic trick in front of over 2,000 people at the House of Magic in Macau, China.
And she said yes -- the perfect answer to Lim's original aspiration 11 years ago.
