In a small room in a West Beijing cultural center, magician Tian Xueming is working hard to deceive a group of university students from Macau that he has teleported three pearl-sized balls from one ...

What it’s about: At the beginning of the 20th century, audiences across Europe were wowed by a Chinese magician who drew on ancient Asian mysticism to perform illusions and contact the spirit realm.

It’s not quite Asimo, but this Chinese magician automaton (read: crappy wooden robot) does one thing and one thing only: make other wooden automatons appear and disappear from containers (we don’t ...