The Story of Chung Ling Soo, Asian Imposter
Chung Ling Soo was not many things. He was not a faithful husband: Chung lived with his mistress and only saw his wife, who was also his assistant, during his shows. He was not a good person to lend money to, for although Chung was a vaudeville sensation, he was always in debt. He was not an entertainer with a sparkling smile. He destroyed his teeth by repeated performances of his smoke-blowing trick; a manuever that entailed chewing wads of cotton and igniting them in his mouth. But above all, Chung Ling Soo was not Chinese. Like his magic, his stage identity was a crafty diversion. Chung was born William Elsworth Robinson. He was a Scottish guy from Brooklyn.
Chung was not always Chung. He was first billed as Hop Ling Soo. On the night of his debut, Hop tried to produce a bowl of fish from behind his handkerchief; but he dropped the bowl’s contents, and fish and water poured onto the stage. His disguise was exposed when a contemporary journal of magic denounced the American as “out of his element” and suggested that he wear the usual top hat and tails, rather than his Chinese robes. But Robinson easily recovered from this career setback. With a switch of a surname, William Robinson was reborn, as Chung Ling Soo.
Though Robinson expressed disapproval of European magicians who billed themselves as “the Great American this and that,” Robinson never examined the implications of his own impersonation. If anything, he fully reveled in the exoticism of his purported origins. Chung was a mastermind at selling his Orientalness. Posters displayed his pigtail, his imperial silk gowns, his long nails, and a facial expression as authentic as the meditative face of Confucius. He surrounded himself with paraphernalia that bore his image. From cup coasters to stationery, his promotional items were saturated with his likeness and juxtaposed with various Chinese icons: pagodas, bridges, sinuous dragons, and the writing found on today’s Chinese takeout boxes. He exploited the exoticism of his professional disguise to a point of rococo tastelessness. Chung’s business stationery devoted two thirds of its space to ornate illustrations of smoke, fire and dragons. Below his name and title, “The Marvelous Chinese Conjurer,” there was a meager space for the sender to jot a memo. Perhaps Robinson intended to furnish the reader with a glut of Chinese imagery so as to prevent its recipient from noticing that the letter was actually written in English.
There was no limit to Robinson’s extravagancies. To preserve the integrity of his disguise, he employed an interpreter to “translate” the “Chinese” statements he made during interviews. As his disguise escalated, the more convincing it was to the Westerner’s fantasy. Robinson manipulated his audience so adroitly because he pandered to their conceptions of the “Oriental.” A three-dimensional character could resist being reduced to a marketing ploy, but Robinson’s Chinaman was defenseless. Chung Ling Soo existed as a flat, grounded image: a persona that never evolved, but with every performance, grew to be more exotic and more mystical in the European’s psyche. William Robinson lived in obscurity when he was “Billy Robinson: the Marvelous Robinson,” but as Chung Ling Soo, he was fair competition in a cutthroat market of magicians, who all claimed to be “So and So the Great.”
But in the midst of Robinson’s propulsion to fame, there was one man who attempted to stop him. His name was Ching Ling Foo. There were only two major differences between the two magicians. One, Ching Ling Foo was actually Chinese. And two, Ching Ling Foo’s act existed even before Chung Ling Soo came into being. In fact, Robinson modeled many of his tricks after Ching Ling Foo’s. For five years after Robinson took on the stage name of Chung Ling Soo, the two had operated harmoniously in separate spheres: Ching in America and Robinson in England. But during the winter of 1905, Ching, on tour, ventured to London, the city where Robinson was the magician-in-residence. After receiving lackluster reviews from London papers, which preferred their hometown Chinaman to this foreign one, Ching presented Robinson with a challenge, a magician duel of sorts. Ching attempted to disabuse Londonites of Robinson’s disguise and reveal Robinson for whom he really was: a white man and an inferior magician. Ching not only asserted that Robinson was a quack, but also bet 1000 pounds – roughly equivalent to $5000 American dollars – that Robinson could not successfully perform ten of the twenty tricks that Ching had mastered. On the set date, January 5, 1905, seven London newspapers were present to cover the showdown; but Ching Ling Foo was nowhere to be found. While the journalists waited for him, they reveled in their wit – thinking of headlines like “Did Foo Fool Soo?” and “Can Soo Sue Foo” – which they printed the next day. With or without Ching Ling Foo, Robinson wasted no time in charming his audience. He bested Ching in showmanship by performing the fish bowl trick with a refreshing twist. While Ching usually conjured the fish bowl on a platform, Robinson produced it while rolling around on the floor; he somersaulted, and voila, the bowl of fish was before the crowd’s eyes. The journalists announced him the winner. Ching Ling Foo left London soon after, while Robinson made London his home for the rest of his life, excepting his excursions to Australia and the Continent.
William Robinson is most remembered for being a great magician. His tricks were on a grand and imaginative scale. Ching Ling Foo was hardly as inventive; he didn’t treat his Chinese origins with the same pomp and ceremony that Robinson, his imitator, contrived at every performance. While Robinson conjured a Chinese girl from a giant oyster shell in a trick entitled, “The Birth of a Pearl,” Ching Ling Foo merely turned a bucket of water into a little girl. Ching Ling Foo is remembered as the man who inspired Robinson but could not live up to the white man’s act.
On March 23, 1918, while the rest of the world was embroiled in the Great War, Chung Ling Soo, the self-proclaimed “magician from the Gods” performed to a sold out audience at London’s Wood Green Empire Theatre. While Germany launched its last great offense into Northern France, Chung Ling Soo transfixed a sold-out house with his Oriental splendor. The audience, many of whom were soldiers, marveled at Chung’s warrior uniform and his long black braid that hung down to his knees.
A drum roll resounded through the tense room. Chung Ling Soo was about to perform his most harrowing feat, the “Bullet Catching Act.” For the last sixteen years, he not only survived the barrage of bullets, but also neatly caught them on a china plate. Outside the theater, posters around the city displayed his talent for dodging shells and explosives. Chung bragged that this very skill spared his life during the Boxer’s Rebellion. But on this fated night in this packed house, something went awry. A split-second after his assistant fired the gun, Chung Ling Soo, the “Conjurer to the Dowager Empress of China” cried out in flawless English, “My God, I’ve been shot! Lower the Curtain.” A bullet had punctured the magician’s right lung. He died the very next morning.
Story by Cheryl Locke.