Source: My UM
Matt Chan, a handsome fourth-year student from the Faculty of Business Administration (FBA), is a famous magician both at UM and in Macao. His performance has brought joy to audiences in different age groups. Due to graduate next year, Chan plans to study magic tricks overseas after graduation.

Magic Brings Joy
At a magic show held on campus not long ago, Chan won thunderous applause from the audience. Always confident and poised on stage, Chan feels an enormous sense of satisfaction when he sees the audience intoxicated with his performance. A magic show usually takes more than three months to prepare. But seeing that his performance brings joy to the audience makes it worth all the effort. ‘I learned to play magic tricks precisely because I wanted to bring joy to myself and the audience,’ says Chan.
From Interested to Interesting
Chan was first introduced to the world of magic tricks at a graduation ceremony when he was a sixth-grade student in primary school. A classmate who needed to play magic tricks at the ceremony asked Chan to be his assistant. ‘That was when I fell in love with magic,’ he says. ‘The laughter and applause from the audience are what I love the most about doing magic.’ From then on, he would go to a magic shop every day after school to chat with shop clerks. Over time, he learned some basic tricks, which he would practice repeatedly at home.
One word that often comes to mind at the mention of ‘magic tricks’ is ‘deception’. Chan thinks that while magic tricks are not real magic, they are nevertheless fundamentally different from tricks designed to cheat, because to quote his words, ‘The audience won’t sustain any loss after watching a magic show. To the contrary, they reap a lot of joy.’
When he was less experienced, Chan had some embarrassing yet funny experiences on stage. ‘I gave my first performance in the University Hall during my first year in college, and that was also the first time I tried the pigeon act,’ he says. ‘But when I was backstage, the pigeon suddenly flew out to the centre of the stage where a guitar group was performing. I had no choice but to hurry to the stage to retrieve the bird. The audience found the incident hilarious.’

Most Cherished DreamChan is the president of the Magic Society under the UM Students’ Union. In 2015, he won a prize at the Magic New Stars Competition 2015. He performs both on and off campus. Recently, he became a resident magician in a restaurant of a large local hotel. ‘It is a relatively stable part-time job, and I mainly do close-up magic tricks,’ he says.

Despite a better pay when performing outside, Chan actually prefers performing on campus. ‘Some event organisers hire magicians just to jazz up things,’ he says. ‘The audience doesn’t really pay attention to what you are doing on stage.’ Well-prepared but treated like a disposable backdrop, Chan naturally feels unhappy, but he understands that this is one of life’s trade-offs that he has to make. When he performs on campus, however, he feels alive, because students actually watch. So he usually doesn’t care about the pay when performing at UM. ‘When the audience pays attention to what you are doing, you feel it’s worth it,’ he says.

With graduation just around the corner, Chan has already made a plan for himself. Next year, he will go to Chavez Studio in Chicago, United States, to study magic tricks. ‘This will be a huge challenge for me,’ he says. ‘If I can achieve something during this period, I may be able to keep pursuing my dream to become a professional magician.’ Chan has confidence in the prospects of this profession. He wants to explore opportunities in different places, believing that if he stays in Macao, it would be very difficult for him to become a professional magician. Now with many professional shows under his belt, he cares more about innovation and often tries to create new tricks so as to preserve an element of surprise for his audience.