His air balls do not miss; in fact, they are big hits
Published: 02 May. 2003, 23:27
Blowing soap bubbles has mesmerized 41-year-old Fan Yang since his teenage years. What began as a hobby has now taken over his life. Applying physics and chemistry, he has succeeded, during 20 years of practice, to form bubbles that no one else can imitate.
“It’s not easy to create my bubbles,” says Mr. Yang with no modesty.
The part-Vietnamese, part-Hungarian fellow popped into Seoul recently, at ― you guessed it! ― a bubble event, specifically the Gymboree Mega Bubble Show held at the Seoul Hanjeon Artspool Center in Seocho-dong, southern Seoul. He will perform there three times daily, at 11 a.m., 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. through next Saturday, with an 8 p.m. show on Sunday and Monday.
Using a 61 centimeter-long (2 feet) plastic, transparent pipe Mr. Yang creates bubble domes the size of television sets and even bigger ones in which one or two adults can stand. Want baseball size bubbles? Done. Want a string of basketball-size bubbles? You got ’em.
Mr. Yang got all bubbly over this hobby when he was growing up in a rural town in Germany. “Living on the outskirts of the city, surrounded by woods, I was in love with nature,” he says. “Especially, I was fascinated with the beauty of the rainbow.”
When Mr. Yang was 17, a friend gave him a bubble blower as a gift. You know, the complete set -- the lollipop shaped wand and the bottle of liquid. “That’s how I started blowing bubbles.” Soon after, he noticed the reflection of a rainbow on a bubble. “It was beautiful,” he recalls. Since then, Mr. Yang has devoted himself to creating the perfect artificial rainbow -- with bubbles. In the pursuit of that goal, he has claimed seven Guinness Book of World Records, including the largest spherical bubble and the world’s largest bubble wall.
Mr. Yang has performed in Germany, England, Japan and Singapore, and on the popular American TV show, “Late Night with David Letterman.”
by Lee Ho-jeong
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
To write comments, please log in to one of the accounts.
Standards Board Policy (0/250자)