0:00 Yeah, make sure you keep saying that so that people can make a super cut of how many times you want to bring that up. >> I'm gonna say it at least three more times. Ching Lingling Fu. >> That's pretty sick. Now I want to see an actual Chinese prestige get made. That'd be sick. >> This is Chinese prestige. >> Would you guys like to hear a ancient Chinese tale of a very famous magician >> from the 1800s? Yeah, I'm allowed to do it. >> It's a very interesting story and I think uh you'll enjoy it a lot. So, um there's a magician, his name's Chung Ling Sue. >> You're close. This guy's real close >> from the late This is around like in the 1890s. And he's a really really famous uh magician. >> It's like Last Emperor era. >> Yeah. In the in the vaudeville circuit,
0:51 you know, like during like vaudeville and those that era. So at one point he had an even more famous rival named Ching Lling Fu >> and um this is a story of their rivalry. >> So Fu versus Sue. >> Fu versus Su. Yeah. You have Chung Ling Su and then you have Ching Ling Fu. Okay. >> Stop laughing, dude. >> I'm not [clears throat] laughing. >> You're laughing. >> Oh my god. Are you really? Those are funny names to you. >> I'm not laughing. He's laughing. Watch the video. Roll back the tape. >> Laugh it up cuz the story doesn't get funnier. gets very serious. >> All right, so uh this is a story about these the rivalry between these two magicians. Okay, so Ching Ling Fu, this guy is um touring America and he's like the he's the famous magician at this point and he issues a public challenge to everybody. Um if they can figure out
1:43 how he's doing his tricks, he's going to pay them $1,000. And in 18 1891 money, that's >> 38 grand. [laughter] >> Oh ████ Holy ████ I thought it'd be a million dollars. What the ████ >> So, um >> thousand bucks is damn. >> Yeah. So, that's Ching Ling Fu basically going around being like, you know, if you if you know how I'm doing this, let me know. I'll pay you this money. Ch um Chung Ling Su actually does figure it out and he's like, I want that money. I'm going to tell you how he does it. Of course, like another Chinese guy cracks the Chinese guy. [laughter] >> So, um, Chong Lling Su tries to uh collect the money and tell him how the tricks are done, but Ching Ling Fu refuses to meet with him at all. So, he's never paying him the money. So, Chung Ling Su gets really upset and he
2:33 decides that um >> time to kill him. >> Not even worse. So, this guy doesn't want to kill him. He they just end up having a feud. And now Chung Ling Su takes the knowledge of Ching Ling Fu's act and just copies it and basically rips off his whole act. >> Oh, that's the part when Hugh Jackman takes his disappearing man thing. >> Yeah, this is like the Chinese Prestige. >> Yeah, it's very It's similar. It's remember that in Prestige you see that old Chinese guy thing. It's like that. I think that might be a It might be a shout out to to this guy. >> Yeah. So um so he steals the idea and then he begins performing in Paris with the same exact act and then eventually he steals his whole character and and the whole thing. So people pretty much start thinking that's him and then he gets so good that he ends up being way more famous than the original.
3:24 >> This is Chinese prestige. >> What if the prestige story is Chinese and then they just made it >> like Infernal Affairs and the party? You mean they took that story and made it way more famous? So it's like a double entandra of like an act. >> We got to make the Chinese version. Joe versus Bart. >> Chung Lingling Su, the guy that copied everything. Chung Lingling Su ends up becoming one of the highest paid performers in vaudeville history at that point. >> And um he would and he would never even speak on stage. He would just talk in like broken Chinese English here and there. And then um >> no can do. >> And then he would he would >> long time I'll say. [laughter] Yeah, he would use a translator which was his wife who was named Susin and u that would be the person kind of interpreting for him. So then Ching Lling Fu tried to expose him on several
4:14 occasions and be like that's a fake that this guy like stole my whole thing and nobody seemed to give a ████ And then one day Chong Lling Su was performing one of his famous tricks that he copied. One of the tricks was uh I think this might have been like maybe the first of its kind. was the um you can catch a bullet that you shoot at him. >> This is Chinese prestige. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Make sure you keep saying that so that people can make a super cut of how many times you want to bring that up. >> I'm going to say it at least three more times. Chingling fu. >> That's pretty sick. Now I want to see an actual Chinese prestige get made. That'd be sick. >> This is Chinese prestige. >> Yeah. Um so then the bullet trick was basically um the an audience member will write like a signature on the bullet. My daddy wants to cush a bullet with his bare hands. They write that on the bullet >> and then uh he basically just palms the bullet and puts a different bullet into the gun. The gun is rigged in a very
5:06 specific way that um the gunpowder like ignites and just comes out of the bottom somewhere and it doesn't actually push the bullet out and the bullet just stays in the gun and then and then he go he just goes, "Oh, look here it is. This is Chinese pressing." [laughter] No, you know what? It can't dude editors should just play the first clip of you saying it and just >> I can never evolve the way I say it. [laughter] >> So then uh what happens during uh this one famous um this one famous act that he did uh he had done it so many times that eventually in the chamber a residue of gunpowder was building up in the wrong spot every time they would like he wasn't cleaning the gun basically. So eventually the gun went off and the bullet actually did fire and it and it hit him right in the chest and um
5:59 suddenly Chung Ling uh Chung Ling Su is heard saying, "Oh my god, something's happened. Lower the curtain." And then he died. Whoa. And um and the public had finally found out that he spoke English. And Chong Lling Su was actually a failed magician named William Ellsworth Robinson who had fooled the world into thinking that him and his wife were Chinese. He was just a white guy. >> No, that's not Chinese prestige. >> That's not [laughter] That's prestige worldwide. The funniest thing is there's pictures of them. >> Yeah, I'm going to show I'm going to show I'm show. So, like the the crazy thing is that the whole time Ching Lling Fu or whatever has been trying to tell people that he's just a this dude's just
6:50 a white guy >> AND [laughter] THEY'RE LIKE, "SHUT UP. >> He's obviously Chinese." >> He had like stayed so like true to his act and never spoke to anyone. The whole world thought this fool was just a regular like old Chinese guy. So, I'll just play the video of uh of the summary of it so you can see for yourself. That's crazy. >> Yeah, cuz there's doc there's documentation of it and everything. >> ████ sick, man. This episode is brought to you by the RP Diet Coach app. Remember when I lost over 30 lbs and got ripped for a bodybuilding show? This is the exact app I used. You can adjust your macros your way. Shift your calories from day to day between meals and get instant guidance when your plans change. You tell it what goals you want, and then it gives you the plan to follow. It's super easy to use and it's built by my buddies over at RP. Jared from RP was my diet coach for my
7:40 bodybuilding show where I won double first place so you know that it works. To get our special subscriber pricing, go to rpstrength.com/rpskinny. That's rpstrength.com/rpskny t i m rp skinny time. Link in the description below. That guy, [laughter] >> that ████ is white, bro. >> Oh, that fool's ████ white as ████ >> Okay, this is the legend of Ching Ling Su and Chung Lling Fu. I don't even know if I'm saying it right at this point. >> Ling Su, an American who pretended to be a Chinese orphan trained in the ways of an ancient dying Chinese black [music] magic. He traveled with an English translator and pretended to barely speak
8:31 any English. He even had his American assistant [laughter] as his Chinese wife. >> Susi elaborate charade. >> The daughter looks Chinese doesn't even look Chinese. >> Ellsworth Robinson. He created the character to help him book more shows. [music] Drawing inspiration from a Chinese stage magician named Ching Lling Fu. >> That look Chinese as hell. >> Tried to expose Ching Lingling [music] Fu's illusions. But when that failed, he instead adopted a similar persona and performed an almost identical routine. [music] Chung Ling Suzak became wildly popular and he was booked everywhere, eventually surpassing Ching Lingling Fu in fame and success. His rise to prominence infuriated Ching Lling Fu, who soon discovered that Chung Ling Su was actually William Ellsworth Robinson, who publicly denounced Chung Ling Su as an impostor and became determined to expose him. To generate publicity, who
9:21 promoter announced a challenge [music] would replicate at least half of Chung Ling Su's illusions to prove that he was the original Chinese conjurer. Su accepted the challenge and the two agreed to meet at the offices of the [clears throat] Weekly Dispatch for a press conference before the event. However, when Ching Lling Fu realized that the press was uninterested in Soon's real identity, he backed out of the conference [music] and the challenge. This turn of events proved embarrassing for Ching Lling Fu as it drew more attention to his failed attempt to [music] discredit Chungling Su. Chungling Su reached the pinnacle of his career with his version of the bullet catch trick, which he [music] called condemned to death by the boxers. In the act, a marksman would fire a musket at Sue's chest and he would seemingly catch the bullet in front of a live audience. Tragically, during a performance, [music] the musket malfunctioned and a real bullet was fired into Sue's lung. He died on stage
10:11 and the incident marked the end of the popularity of the bullet catch trick for nearly 70 years. >> This is Chung Su American who >> But if you've never seen a China man before. [laughter] >> Yeah, >> that could convince me. >> He did pretty good. Yeah, >> cuz I mean like how would you know? >> And then he goes and I'm like, "Oh, Chinese." >> Do you think he did the squinty eyes though when he was walking around? >> Probably. Do you think he was just >> And is it racist if he's the originator? Cuz you know how like back then like they had to see a character and then they pretended to be that, right? But this dude was just copying a real Chinese guy and then So he was copying from the source. >> He was stealing. >> So that makes him the originator. [laughter] >> He's the He's the original racist character, but he's the original copy is what you're saying.
11:01 >> And if people copy people copy the the Yeah. the the yellow face from this guy. >> [laughter] >> Dude, there's so much information on him when you look up like on like like his actual Wikipedia. He bullshitted so many facts about his life. It's really funny. They were like, "Who's your dad or or mom or dad?" And he said he's born from a that his dad was Arhe. He made up the name Arhe. >> He's like, "That sounds Asian." [laughter] >> A rhe. I'm I'm son of Rhe. >> This is Chinese prestige. Yeah. It's pretty sick. I would want to see this movie though. That sounds it's I think it'll be a good comedy. >> Yeah. I wonder if they actually made a movie of this exact like thing >> cuz it sounds so close to Prestige, but then Prestige I think has like a very like poetic cinema style ending,
11:51 >> but it feels like they drew a lot of inspiration from this rivalry. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Maybe this is just a common thing between magicians. >> Yeah. Magic beef. >> Magic beef. Cuz it's like only magicians know the secrets, right? It might be common because before he started copying this Chinese guy, he was copying some other Arabian guy. >> So, it's not the first, it's not the first time he's done this. >> So, he's like, "Dude, these ethnics got this magic game on." was a Muhammad before >> it was like [laughter] um some some kind of name that was it was really really similar to the guy he was copying because I think he um in the story it's like he knew that this guy was famous this other dude some like Persian Arabian guy and he tried to get people to think he was that guy so he would book these jobs and people people would just think it's the same guy and he he darkened his skin and tried to look like the >> he did Arab face crazy
12:42 >> face and then and I think because back Then it's like how do you really know? Like you've only seen them in person. >> You don't got IDs. You don't >> social media. >> And probably too back then if you were a foreigner, you could sell magic way better. >> Yep. >> Cuz you're mysterious. >> Exactly. You look different than everyone else. So as a white guy, you're like, "Oh, I got in the wrong field." >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. >> Imagine how easy it is to sneak into countries back then. You don't got like TSA pre or none of that ████ [laughter] >> Well, imagine how hard it is to get there, though. You got to take a 3 week ship. Yeah, but you just tell them like, "Hey, I'm ████ Winston Churchill or whatever." And they're like, "Get on the ship." [laughter] >> Yeah. It was a It was a thing too at the at the point where Ching Lingling Fu and Chunglu were performing at the same time. Um it said that like so the original guy had only been booked for it said four weeks and then the fake was
13:33 had a booking for four or three months. So his all of his contracts were just getting like so much better than the original. But it's just crazy that he really was just like a white guy that couldn't make it as a magician. So he just started ripping. >> That means just like a Chinese a prestige. This also has some poetic ending where he just died. [laughter] >> But I would argue he's actually very Chinese cuz he just stole someone's act. >> He might be more Chinese cuz the Chinese guy is being original and that's actually being white. >> That's why uh that's why Timu Timu is just merely reparations. >> Yeah, Timu is like, "Oh, this is a payback for Chingling Fu. >> [laughter]
// end of tape