The Western-centric world of Cardistry, and what the East has to offer
By Teo Chun Chieh
If I mention the word ‘Cardistry’ to you and ask what names are at the forefront of Cardistry, you might say Dan and Dave, Tobias, Oliver, Nikolaj, Zach, Franky, Chase or any of the other Cardistry-Con headliners. You would not be wrong — these people are indeed at the forefront of the art. But they all have something in common. They are all from the West, and I began to wonder why this was.
Not only Cardistry, but the world in general is dominated by western ideas. Perhaps it can be chalked up to Cardistry being a very modern and innovative art form, and that the west is often associated with being modern and innovative while the east is more associated with tradition. It seems to me that magic was also that way until relatively recently: while new illusions and techniques were being created in the west, eastern magicians were still doing magic tricks passed down from generation to generation with the same presentations. Today, the east is innovating and creating more, and the magic world has certainly taken notice of the strength of magic in the east. But in terms of Cardistry, I think we have not done the same to that extent. I think that the two biggest reasons that Cardistry is centered around the west is that:
It began in the west.
The community generally speaks English.
Western Roots
As far as Cardistry originating in the west goes, we can probably trace our origins to Dan and Dave or Jerry and De’vo. But if we decide to dig further we would find Chris Kenner and even further we’d have Bill Kalush. With our card-fiddling hobby originating from the west, it is no wonder that it is western-dominated. We have been watching the west since the beginning. Most instructional material on Cardistry (DVDs, downloads, and books) has been from the west: material like The Encyclopedia of Playing Card Flourishes, Capcuts, Show Off, etc. Even most of our cards come from the west: the USPCC (United States Playing Card Company) provides some of the best cards out there, while cards associated with Asia are usually those made-in-China plastic-coated garbage or knock-offs of USPCC decks. It was only recently with EPCC (Expert Playing Card Company) and LPCC (Legends Playing Card Company) that the east is producing cards capable of competing with the west both in terms of quality and distribution. The Cardistry of South East Asia decks and School of Cardistry Decks by The New Deck Order work with a factory in Asia that is neither LPCC or EPCC, but the quality of the cards still hold up to our standards as Cardists. I see this as a great opportunity for Asia to break out of the stereotype of only producing knock-offs and making excellent playing cards.
Importance of Language
Let’s talk about English being the dominant language of Cardists. It isn’t even the most spoken first language in the world: that’s Mandarin. It isn’t even second: that’s Spanish. English takes bronze, third place (source). It is, however, the most widely spoken second language (source). I find it fascinating that English is the language for Cardistry and even magic: at the Essential Magic Conference they stated that the reason the conference was held in English was so that as many people tuning in as possible could understand the presentations, even though it was held in Portugal.
So with English at third place, why aren’t we speaking Mandarin or Spanish? Perhaps we can attribute it again to the fact that Cardistry as a standalone art form began in the west, specifically an English speaking country: the U.S.
One thing I find very cool is how the guys at Dealersgrip (Tobias, Oliver, and Nikolaj) took advantage of this to change where we look for Cardistry. They’ve shifted the world’s gaze to Europe: if you look in the credits of videos recently you will see their names mentioned nearly every single time. They even influenced the kinds of moves we create; their impact on the Cardistry world is so profound, even with their first language being (presumably) Danish.
Which really has me thinking… why haven’t Asians achieved the same result? But wait! “The Virts!” I hear you say, “what about them?” Yes, they are from Singapore, but I think their branding has led them to transcend location — they have gone international and that’s a great thing; we should aim for this transcendence of location. I also really like how they haven’t forgotten their roots, and have organised events in Singapore and around Asia in general in the past and will probably organise more in the future, even though they do hold events rather sporadically. Also, it probably really helps that Kevin is really close with both Eastern and Western Cardists. I am quite envious of him, as he is able to experience the best of both worlds.
Communities in other countries
A very interesting observation I have made is that Spain pretty much has their own community that is quite separate from Cardistry as we know it. From what I can tell, the idol of the community seems to be Miquel Roman, and he has tutorials in Spanish just for Spanish-speaking Cardists as well that transcend language altogether, with just non-spoken, non-text follow-along tutorials.
The comments are all in Spanish, and I assume they are just like the comments we have in English. The Spanish card community genuinely is a community on its own.
Then there are the Russians as well; they too have very talented Cardists:
While I can’t speak for these communities, I think they are having the same issues as the Asians getting their efforts recognised on a global level because of the language barrier.
So some Asians have made it, but the west seems to be consistently pumping out new faces to the forefront of Cardistry. So why aren’t the Asians? The ICO off-season champions and runner-ups were Asians: Vietnamese and Singaporeans respectively . The CDM and WKC champions were also Asians: Indonesian and Singaporean respectively. Despite this, why do they not have a strong presence globally that the Westerners do?
The Game of the Name
Which brings me to another point about language. When you see a Vietnamese name with all these strange lines and squiggles that are not present in English, you don’t know how to pronounce it and so the Cardist gets tuned out and you don’t remember the person, only the hands. It isn’t even easy for a non-Vietnamese Asian to pronounce their names either… I mean, just watch Jaspas get destroyed by the names of rather well-known Vietnamese Cardists he has known about for years:
And while we are on Alvin, I think his success on The Wire can be partially attributed to his name. He undeniably has excellent moves worth learning, but because he has branded himself as ‘Alvin Herp’, this rolls off the tongue much more easily, and is more easily remembered than ‘Hùng Tran’ to most people. I wonder if The Virts would be as successful if they did not use their English names.
We can’t blame it all on the west not noticing us. Perhaps if we want to appeal to the Western community and establish an identity, we might do the same as Alvin has. Alvin is not the only one who has done this.
Incidentally, Kevin and I were talking over Facebook and he said something very interesting about Gangnam Style by PSY, which is that it is a) neither in English (apart from the EEEYYYY, SEXY LADY part of the song I suppose) nor b) set in a western nation, yet it has managed to overcome the language barrier and has acquired over 2 billion views, making PSY a household name. The video has become so popular despite being sung in Korean because of its catchy beat and a certain horse-riding like dance move. Of course, certain well-known cardists and magicians have taken it upon themselves to use the song in a video.
Point being: PSY has branded himself as such (his real name is 박재상, anglicised as Park Jae-sang) and this has made it very easy for non-speakers of Korean to pronounce his stage name and has made him much easier to remember especially since his stage name is very concise and rather unique. This is actually really common in Asia where people tend to have names that people outside their own countries or even town/city can’t pronounce very easily, though the people who do so tend to give themselves ‘normal’ western names. I think this is something we could do if we wanted to appeal to and be remembered by the Cardistry community in the west.
Things We Can Do To Discover Each Other
One thing I feel very strongly about is collaboration. Collaborating on videos with people from around the really brings communities together. I haven’t seen a large collaboration of people around the world since TRY:
I thought the Essential Cardistry collabs were great opportunities for people to discover other great cardists from different parts of the world all in one video, especially the lesser-known cardists. There was supposed to be a 6th collab last year, so hopefully it’ll happen soon.
I also hope that the bigger names in Cardistry will take it upon themselves to discover and bring very talented but lesser-known Cardists into the spotlight; not necessarily only Eastern Cardists, but the world in general. The Fontaine sponsorship program could be a great platform and model for other companies for having lesser-known people be put out there, as well as having a project on larger websites like how Nikolaj’s B-Bundle on D&D’s website gave him quite a boost.
We can also have conventions, which brings me back to Cardistry-Con. It was held in the U.S., so of course it would be mostly attended by people from the States. But I think the ideal convention is to have everyone from around the world in one place, with prominent members of each community headlining and have equal representations to present their perspectives and ideas, thus bringing entire communities together. Yee.
What did you think of the article? Have any suggestions of your own on how Asian cardists can get more international recognition? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!
About the author, Teo Chun Chieh:
ICO finalist from Singapore and creator of Unzipped. Follow him @teochunchieh