Outdoing Ching Ling Foo

Abstract

In 1910, the eyes of many passers-by strolling through the streets of the British port city of Bristol were no doubt drawn to the wall of brightly colored posters announcing that Chung Ling Soo, celebrated Chinese conjuror, would be appearing soon at the Palace Theatre. If, like a flaneur, someone had paused and stepped out of the crowd to examine them, that person would have noticed patterns amidst the jumble of the images: sinuous Oriental dragons, colorful Asiatic fans and paper lanterns, and (most prominently) a slim figure with his hair pulled back tightly into a queue. In one poster, he rode a charging warhorse and carried a yellow silk pennant that fluttered at the end of a lance. In another, his face was emblazoned on a giant blue ginger jar, around which a tiny woman in a silk shirt and trousers shyly peeked. In yet a third—this one occupying

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