Ching Ling Foo

On the eve of the 20th century at the height of anti-Chinese xenophobia and the China Exclusion Act, Ching Ling Foo, one of the greatest illusionists ever seen on American soil, along with his talented family of Chinese musicians and acrobats overcomes on stage attacks, headline generating deportation attempts, homeland tragedy, crooked managers and a diabolically clever American copycat to make an indelible impact on American culture becoming the highest paid and most popular act in the United States twice! First, between 1898 and 1900 then once more between 1912 and 1915 when they did it again! "FOO"tells the incredible story of the Foo troupe's rollercoaster ride to unprecedented fame and luxury private railcar riding fortune. The excitement of the 1898 World's Fair, turn of the century Broadway, the Boxer Rebellion, the bizarreness of early 1900s vaudeville, the 1905 London World Championship of Chinese Magic,and an adorable bilingual toddler who transitions to teenage ragtime sensation. All this plus international intrigue, nativism, and industry ending technological disruptions. Ching Ling Foo: America's First Chinese Superstar has it all!

Samuel Porteous is an award-winning Shanghai-based artist/author with close to 20 years experience living and working in China. for the last ten years he has been Chief Creative Director of Drowsy Emperor, a Hong Kong/Shanghai based small boutique design/content studio serving Chinese and Western audiences. Samuel's work focuses on the special place China holds in the Western imagination. His China analysis drawing on his earlier career as top China based corporate investigator and intelligence analyst has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, South China Morning Post, Globe and Mail, and Hong Kong Standard among others. He has also published widely in academic journals and authored ground breaking government reports on the geopolitics of economic intelligence, trade policy and international organized crime. He is currently artist in residence at TanYuan Gardens. Samuel also wrote and illustrated the graphic novel series " Constable Khang's Mysteries of Old Shanghai" for the China market which will soon be released in North America.