The Malaysian Sun has a great profile on magician Zlwin Chew this morning.

He went from interested student to major player in Malaysian magic with performances for celebrities, royal figures and the former prime minister.  He has traveled throughout Asia and his YouTube performances garnered the praise of David Copperfield.

We loved his answer on failure:

“If you are a musician and you played a wrong tune, chances are most people will not realise your mistake. But if something goes wrong in your magic tricks, your mistake will stand out like an elephant in a room. So you cannot afford to make mistakes. You need to keep on practicing until you perfect your trick. As far as I can remember, I have only failed once. It happened in the early part of my career. The best thing to do is to learn from the mistake and move on.”

He debunks any theory that magicians are practitioners of Black Magic and says he wants to change the public’s understanding of magic and the role of a magician.

“They think magicians are people with torn jeans with a deck of cards who performed on streets or people with glittering jackets and a magic wand who performed at children parties.

“In the past, whenever I tell people that I am a magician, they will immediately say: ‘Good, you can perform at my children’s party.’  Malaysians do not respect magicians. They are so ignorant about magicians.  I have dreams to perform large-scale illusions in the near future.”

Read the full profile at The Sun here.

Check out Mr. Chew’s impressive website here.