By Becky Brower (ETA ’15-’18) and Gwangeun Cho / Photograph by Eunice Yu   “Can I go get my cards now?”   “Yes, you can.” With my approval, Gwangeun leapt from his seat and bounded up the stairs to his second-floor homeroom, where his cards were stashed in his desk. Practicing magic energized him, his eyes lit up anytime a deck of cards so much as passed under his nose. The first time I had class with Gwangeun, we played Pictionary and he drew the world-renowned magician, David Copperfield, passing through the Great Wall of China. Much to his dismay, I had no idea who David Copperfield was, so he assigned me the task of watching videos on YouTube to educate myself. Since then, I came to learn that not only was Gwangeun fascinated with the magic performed by world-class magicians, but he also had a knack for doing tricks himself. It didn’t take long before I became an active participant in more magic tricks than I had seen in my entire life. Gwangeun returned with a pack of cards and his black, velvet card mat. “Now, for this trick I have to use a special deck. Magicians call it a marked deck, because each card has a special mark on the back of it. However, only the magician can see the mark.”     The first time I became interested in magic, I was 10 years old and was watching a special New Year’s program on TV while living in China. Liu Chen, a world-renowned magician born in Taiwan, made a regular coin go through a glass. Then, he took a ring from an audience member and made it disappear. He told the audience that the ring was now inside the egg. When they cracked the egg open, indeed, the ring was inside the egg like he said it would be. I was shocked at first. How was this possible? I was curious and tried to find any videos on magic on the internet. However, we don’t have YouTube in China, so I couldn’t find anything. It wasn’t until I moved to Korea later that I could start learning magic.     Gwangeun slid the supposedly marked deck out of its container and spread the cards out face-up on the table in front of me. “They look like normal cards, right? But, they each have a special mark.” As he began shuffling through the deck, he showed me the front of each card, and then the back. I was confused to see that the deck looked normal; with an ace, two, three, four, all the way up to the king for every suit. The backs of the cards appeared ordinary as well, with a red design typical of what one would find on a standard deck. When I arrived at Jangdaehyun School for the first time, I was an outsider. While I knew that I was working with a special group of students that, like Gwangeun, each had a unique story and identity, they all appeared to be regular teenagers. The boys inhaled meals–heaping plates of food, mind you–so they could run outside and play basketball in their free time, the girls were crazy about idol music groups like BTS and EXO, and all of the students had a tendency to fall asleep in class from time to time. Gwangeun was no different, as he could devour two bowls of 돼지국밥 in one sitting, and then claim to be only satisfied at the end. More than once he’s dozed off in an afternoon English class, or forgotten that he had class all-together. Staring at the cards as Gwangeun shuffled through them, I was stuck in that position again of a clueless outsider. Something extraordinary was happening right in front of me, but I couldn’t see any of the “special marks.”     My mother came to China from North Korea when she was eighteen years old, maybe seventeen in American age. She didn’t know any Chinese, so she was tricked and sold to the man who would become my dad. I was born just one year later, and while I was growing up I thought that my mom was Chinese because that’s what my dad told me. If anyone in China knew that my mom was from North Korea, she would be sent back, so my dad used it to control her. When I was ten years old, I fought with my mom. After that, I didn’t see her for a while. Four years later, I was studying in middle school when I got a call from my mom. During the call, she told me that she was in South Korea, and I was confused. Why would she leave her own country, China, to go to a completely different country? Then, I figured out that my dad had lied to me for sixteen years. Two years after my mom called, I decided I wanted to live with her. So, she came to China to get me and we flew to South Korea together.     “First, let me explain what we are going to do. I’m going to have you pick a card, and then I’m going to find that card by using its special mark. So, let’s pick a card…tell me when to stop.” Gwangeun held the deck, face-up, and began pulling cards off the top one-by-one: 8 of diamonds, 3 of clubs, ace of clubs, 5 of hearts, jack of spades…I let about a quarter of the deck slide from one hand to the other before I said “stop.” “Are you sure that’s where you want to stop? Are you happy?” He raised an eyebrow, tilted his head and smiled slyly as he questioned my decision. Gwangeun wasn’t a particularly shy student; he was polite and friendly with the teachers and visitors at school. But, he did get nervous when performing tricks in front of new audiences, and it was no different with me at first. … Continue reading Marked Deck