Even in his eighties, Kunming Magician Meng Wende can easily chain ten rings together, representing the highest level in the Chinese magic community.

In Kunming, capital  of Yunnan Province, there is a magic association – Meng’s Magic Troupe. The master magician Meng Wende is already more than 80 years old and is still an expert at ring puzzles. Some good magicians can handle six or seven rings at a time, but Meng Wende can easily chain ten rings together, representing the highest level in the Chinese magic community.

According to Meng Wende, he began to learn magic when he was ten years old. At that time, some magicians often did magic tricks at the east gate of Kunming, where he would watch for a whole day without feeling tired. Once a magician noticed how fascinated he was and asked him if he wanted to learn, he nodded hard. Then the magician said that he must pay to learn. Meng Wende took out fifty cents, which could buy a meal, so the magician taught him tea- and wine-serving tricks. Later he paid more money for a magic trick called “money fan” and became even more obsessed with magic.

Having learned several magic tricks, Meng Wende fell hopelessly in love with magic and has never stopped learning and practicing magic ever since. 

Now, according to Meng Wende, he can do more than one hundred magic tricks on stage, which he can perform for a whole week without repeating any of them, though he is most adept at puzzle rings. During the interview, he took out ten jointless rings. When he gently swung them, now the rings became interconnected, and then they became separate. Soon the ten rings were chained together. All his apprentices want to learn the ring puzzles, but the best of them can only manage six rings. Even in the whole country, hardly anybody else can do the ring puzzles with ten rings at a time. 

(Guan Xian)