Ning Cai - Who is Magic Babe Ning?

2015 Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited

Cover photography: Joel Low

Stylist: Verna Tan

Make up: Sherry Lew

Poetry on page 1011: Rebecca Lammersen

Photos on page 78 & 87: Weili Chua

FHM covers on page 81 & 121: MediaCorp Pte Ltd

Photos on page 6, 206 and back cover: Greyberry Picture

Published in 2015 by Marshall Cavendish Editions

An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International

1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196

All rights reserved

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National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Cai, Ning, 1982

Who is Magic Babe Ning? / Ning Cai. Singapore: Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2015.

pages cm

ISBN: 978-981-4561-26-6 (paperback)

eISBN: 978 981 4634 87 8

1. Cai, Ning, 19822. Magicians Singapore Biography. I. Title.

GV1545

793.8092 dc23 OCN894100125

Printed in Singapore by Markono Print Media Pte Ltd

To the amazing people Ive met
on lifes journey.

Thank you for all the life lessons
and this gift of friendship.

This book is dedicated to you.

Namaste, Ning.

A wise magician never does the same trick twice. People have seen it already. They are waiting to see how you did it this time, to see what your left hand is doing while your right hand makes a casual and distracting gesture.

I, on the other hand (which is the one with the picklock and the coin hidden in it), have already introduced Ning once. (I introduced Adventures of 2 Girls, the book she did with Pamela Ho. The one in which they go off and have adventures.) Now I have to do it again, and I do not want to repeat myself.

The oddest thing about my friendship with Ning, is that I didnt meet her as Magic Babe Ning, and Im not actually sure how far into being friends we were that I discovered she was a mindreading, magical escapologist sex symbol. I thought she was a photographer.

Pamela Ho was assigned to interview me, when I was at the Singapore Literary Festival one year. She brought along a brown paper bag filled with amazing things to eat, and someone to take the photographs. The person taking the photographs looked familiar.

Ive met you before? I said.

She said yes, wed said hello the last time I was in Singapore, with the British Council. She got me to sign some of her books. Her name was Ning Cai and she was sweet and funny. She mentioned she did some magic.

Ive always been fascinated by magic, and I count too many magicians among my friends. My own inability to do a French Drop or to back palm a quarter doesnt phase them. We traded emails and stayed in touch, and over the next few years she sent me links to what she did.

I discovered that the nice, sweet, funny, down-to-earth lady I knew had a public alter ego of a sexy, knife-wielding escapologist and magician. And that, to the public, she was a glorious combination of Mata Hari and Harry Houdini. It baffled and fascinated me: it was like making friends with a reclusive millionaire and then discovering that he put on a bat-suit every night and went out to fight crime, and, in that identity, everyone knew who he was.

What I love about this book is it gives you both sides of Ning: the daring escape artist and magical genius on the one hand, and on the other, the nerdy girl who uses a little simple science to baffle other magicians; who loves books and yoga and, above all, life. It shows how one of them grew out of the other, and tells us all why, in the end, she is hanging up the bat-suit. Or at least, no longer risking sudden death and loss of limbs when she goes to work.

Im glad I know her. Life is always brighter on a day I get an email from Ning. This book is like getting a long email, which is also an origin story and a journey of discovery.

Shes a wonder, and magical, no matter what shes escaping from.

Neil Gaiman

November 2014

There once was a girl who thought she was brave.

She climbed mountains to prove she wasnt a slave.

She denied help because shed have to admit,

She may need to be rescued or actually commit.

It was a risk she wasnt willing to take.

She knew there was a chance her heart would break.

Then, this life she would surely want to forsake.

She despised the idea of someone else catching her fall.

Cause then, she would owe it all.

See, in her life there was a condition,

For love borrowed without permission.

Somehow, someway she kept hoping and wishing,

That one day there would be someone to love her

In the way shed been missing.

Someone willing to listen,

Even on the days she started slipping.

So she tried and tried to give herself fully.

But no one wanted her,

She was too unruly.

Discouraged, she began to guard her soul.

She refused to be a fool.

Her walls went up,

Higher and higher with each ache,

How could they not?

The pain was too great.

She began to give up until the day

She finally realised

She was worthy.

Extraordinary was always a part of her story.

She didnt need to be brave in order to be saved,