The Magic Café
Username:
Password:
[ Lost Password ]
  [ Forgot Username ]
The Magic Cafe Forum Index » » The words we use » » Patter in another language (0 Likes) Printer Friendly Version

trampabroad
View Profile
New user
81 Posts

Profile of trampabroad
Hi all,


So my friend and I are putting together our first magic show, to be performed for a cosmetic company in a Chinese mall.

Only problem is:
(1) all the spectators are Chinese;
(2) We are not native speakers. We speak decent Chinese for everyday situations, but when it comes to delivering puns and punchlines and witty asides for misdirection I suspect we may be over our heads.

Anyone ever encountered this kind of problem?
george1953
View Profile
Inner circle
Mallorca (Spain)
5943 Posts

Profile of george1953
I live and work in Spain and work to English , Spanish , German and lately Russian audiences. Although my Spanish is good the humour is completely different. You have to really understand the different cultures. I have lived here for over 30 years and still struggle when it comes to comedy.
By failing to prepare, we are preparing to fail.
Anatole
View Profile
Inner circle
1916 Posts

Profile of Anatole
The original post was on August 1. When was the performance slated for and how did it go (assuming it has already occurred).

Jokes and puns don't always translate well from one language to another. In a situation with non-English speakers, it would probably be better to use situational comedy rather than verbal comedy. Also, you don't mention whether the audience would have been speakers of Mandarin or Cantonese.

Horace Bennett's rope routine "Nightmare in the Spaghetti Factory" might have been a good choice since noodle dishes were invented in China and brought to Italy by Marco Polo.

I used to do a Chinese New Year magic show and used tricks like Joanne the Duck and covered her eyes when cards were selected and shown around because I called her a "Peking duck." But again, that pun would likely not translate to Chinese well since Peking in Mandarin is Beijing. Tricks with paper would have been good because paper was invented in China.

"Six Card Repeat" would have been a possibility since it wouldn't be hard to learn the numbers from 1 to 6 in either Cantonese or Mandarin. You could maybe also do the Linking Rings, again counting the rings in Chinese.

You could probably find some Chinese coins at a coin shop for some coin magic. The coins with a hole in the center would be great for a "coin off shoelace" effect.

Silk was another Chinese invention, so any silk tricks or productions would have been appropriate. A Rice Dragon Silk would have been a crowd pleaser since the dragon displayed on those silks is a Chinese dragon rather than a European dragon.

Chinese restaurants have paper Chinese Zodiac placemats or napkins that could maybe be used for a torn-and-restored effect. Many cities have Chinese gift/novelty shops that you could visit to look for ideas.

----- Sonny
----- Sonny Narvaez
Hydrostevo
View Profile
New user
Stamford, England
56 Posts

Profile of Hydrostevo
I work across Europe with my day job and have a similar problem. I get round it by lots of mime and keeping the tricks very simple and direct. I am working on a more involved mentalisum Equivoque using small flash cards in the native language. I will let you know how it goes Smile
The Magic Cafe Forum Index » » The words we use » » Patter in another language (0 Likes)
[ Top of Page ]
All content & postings Copyright © 2001-2024 Steve Brooks. All Rights Reserved.
This page was created in 0.01 seconds requiring 5 database queries.
The views and comments expressed on The Magic Café
are not necessarily those of The Magic Café, Steve Brooks, or Steve Brooks Magic.
> Privacy Statement <

ROTFL Billions and billions served! ROTFL