Hong Kong

‘What do I do?’. Two plane journeys and 2,340 miles from India, and I’m looking over to Hong Kong City at the tallest buildings I’ve ever seen. Hong Kong is made up of a number of islands; Kowloon, which I’m on, looks over to Hong Kong City’s skyline, captivated. I look at it for the first time and say to myself, out loud, ‘what do I do?’ – I can’t take a picture that’ll capture the panorama fairly, and the buildings are too exclusive to go and explore or play in just yet, so I just watch for now, mouth open.

I slept for most of the first day, owing to little rest on the journey (an hours lightning storm out of the window - terrifying and amazing - didn’t help). The next day I spent doing what I’d dreamt of for the past two weeks in India – swimming. I’m a rubbish swimmer, I’m not even particularly fond of water, but to be floating around freely, surrounded by beautiful skyscrapers reflecting the sky silver-blue, was a dream after the repressive heat of Delhi, tramping on hot stone and cracked earth all month.

Hong Kong is manic. Everything moves at triple speed here; walking, talking, even food preparation all moves super fast, and with precision. After a month of adjusting from Britain to India, arriving in the centre of Hong Kong is a huge rush - exciting, confusing, and overwhelming. I feel like I’m travelling to different worlds, not just countries. The landscape, architecture, language, people, history and culture all have a completely different and unique being, a world apart from what I’ve seen so far. I like the initial rush of excitement of seeing new parts of the world, the fear that I’m lost and have no idea what I’m doing here – but I’ll never get used to it.

Step 1 – find my feet again…

Tom DeVoe World Trip - India Video (HD)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USchySWm7xA

Here it is - the HD, full-screen video of my time in India. Featuring scenic footage across New Delhi, an impromtu after-show at Fever 104FM, performing for the Hindustan Times and shooting footage for CNN-IBN.

CNN-IBN

So I made it to television. The boss at the radio show had called CNN while I was in his office, and a few days later I got the invitation. They sent a car to pick me up and I had a long journey to prepare my nerves. The plan was to perform at their news room, a little something at each desk – spoonbending at the sports desk, mindreading at the politics desk and so on…and then something for the whole newsroom, all of it filmed for their news programme as well as their entertainment show.

After half an hour of performing tricks, I then had to do some links and other material to the camera. I was pretty exhausted and I’d just been blindfolded, with sticky tape over my eyes, for the past five minutes, so I wasn’t feeling my strongest, but I think it all came across pretty well. I was quite clueless as to what they wanted from me, I wasn’t sure whether to play it cool (as I do so well) or be a little more full of life – we’ll have to see how the show comes out. The sound technician managed to recorded some footage with my camera too, so that’s completed the video, which I’m uploading now, very nicely. The reporter said that he’d also send me the finished piece so hopefully that’ll get onto youtube soon too.

What a great way to finish things here in India. I only have my next destination to think about now - Hong Kong - got my Lonely Planet here already, and we’re ready to go.

Hindustan Times

He Can Read Your Mind

Rajesh Ahuja

Twenty one isn’t an age to indulge in mind reading. Tom DeVoe feels the same. But the British lad still can’t help being a mind illusionist. In the Capital recently to put some of his choicest tricks on display – like splitting a spoon into two pieces by channelling positive energy towards it – the artist gave us a peek into his own grey space. “I have been studying mind reading for seven years. My talent may be unusual, but I am not a freak”, he said with a chuckle.

The sociology graduate from Leeds University derives pleasure out of surprising people with his talent and loves to wax lyrical about his escapades across the world. “I left home on my 21st birthday and plan to return when I turn 22. I think mind reading is still an untapped field which the world is finally waking up to”, he said.

DeVoe, who hails from Wales, started out by performing for friends and charity. “I’ve followed illusionists like David Blaine and Derren Brown through books and videos. But unlike magicians, human psychology intrigues me. I’ve always been good at guessing what others are thinking. This is an extension of that”, he added.

For someone who’s dead set against looking for ‘cheap publicity’ through talent hunts like Britain’s Got Talent, Tom would rather have his work do the talking. “Artists don’t need TV shows to display their talent”, he said. Are his parents cool with his trampling this unexplored territory? “Oh yes, they are. They don’t think I’m a jerk”, he said with a laugh. Good for you, brother.

A Long, Lucky Day

Two big events yesterday; a radio show in the morning, and then an interview for one of India’s biggest newspapers in the afternoon. Fever 104 FM is a young, modern station owned by Virgin on a floor high up in the huge Hindustan Times building in New Delhi. The guy who works in the elevator, taking it up and down all day, took me up to the studios. The show went incredibly well – did a few mind reading things with the DJ, working out words he was thinking of. His reaction – ‘we’ll have to bleep this out…F**K!’. They challenged me to try it with a caller. I showed the DJ that I’d influence her think of the number 69, and after a quick chat with her I asked her to name two numbers – ‘six’, then ‘nine’. They couldn’t believe it. She said later that she’d also had the image of blue boxer shorts in her head for some reason. I gave the DJ a peek of mine. It was my lucky day – blue.

In my closing routine, I got people to blindfold me up, with coins taped over my eyelids and a borrowed scarf to wrap around it all, and I was to work out and describe in as much detail as possible what objects people in the room were holding in their hands. I even had someone get out a bank note and I called off its’ serial number. This played so great and I was in darkness for quite a while. The boss came in and asked me to name the make of his watch – ‘TAG heur’. When I was unbandaged, the studio and mixing room outside was full of people all wanting to get a look at what was going on.

I was well taken care of. The boss pulled me into his office afterwards, got me lots of food and chai, and we talked for a long while about what I do. He made phone calls, and grilled me about the possibility of taking to the sweepstakes and even sitting me down opposite his main rival to see what I could get out of him. I told him it wasn’t quite like that. On the subject of spoon bending, he got excited and rallied the whole office together for an impromptu show with some of the canteen’s silverware. People kept coming to me and giving such amazing compliments, compliments I’m too modest to list, but too proud to not mention. One woman asked if I meditated, if that was where I got my ‘powers’ from. I told her it wasn’t quite like that either. All in all, it was an amazing morning, with the paper interview still to go.

The Hidustan Times is an Indian institution. With a readership of 6.6 million, it is the second most-widely read English newspaper in India. The reporter who met me got me straight up in front of his colleagues to perform. I was pretty exhausted from the morning, but gave it a good shot. More mind reading and metal bending, we had the interview and they took some photos. A long and tiring day, but a really memorable one with lots of footage, and hopefully a good article in one of India’s most popular papers.

India will have one single video that captures my time here, some scenic footage, some performance. It’s already in the making and will be awesome. Two weeks left today.