Flash Profile with Chinese Memory Athlete Su Zehe

Chinese memory athlete Su Zehe just won the 2017 Philippine Open and broke the world record in the IAM's new 5 minute images event. I had the fortune of meeting him at the 2016 World Memory Championship in Singapore and again in Nanjing for the The Brain TV show. I had a chance to do a short interview (more of a flash profile) with him in Nanjing. Hope you enjoy!

At the 2016 World Memory Championship in Singapore. Left to right: me, Huang Shenghua, and Su Zehe.

Name: 苏泽河, Su Zehe (Su1 Ze2He2)

Recent competition results: 2017 Philippine Open – 1st place (full results here), 2016 World Memory Championship – 3rd place (full results here).

Rank: world #9, national (China) #1

You can read Su Zehe’s full IAM profile here.

From: a Southeast province of China, close to Taiwan

Intro to memory sports: came across a book about memory techniques in high school; interest was again piqued by watching memory athletes on the Chinese TV show 最强大脑 (“The Brain”).

Su Zehe was himself a contestant on the show this season. You can watch his challenge here. You can find his Weibo page here (although you will need a Weibo account to view).

Career interests/hobbies: interested in working for a memory company; likes practicing magic.

Training tools/history: practices mostly on paper; will occasionally use the Chinese Extreme Memory website (which had an online competition this past year), although not very often; trained alongside Zheng Aiqiang (world #17); will often communicate with other Chinese memory athletes via WeChat groups.

Systems: 2-digit/1-card, 2 images/locus, similar to the majority of Chinese competitors.

Episode #2 on 最强大脑 ("The Brain" TV Show)

I was lucky enough to go back to China for another appearance on 最强大脑 ("The Brain" TV Show). Pretty nuts, it's like the #1 show there! Thank you to the producers for having me back! This time I was up against... get this... an artificial intelligence robot nicknamed "Xiao Du." The "Du" comes from its makers, the folks at Bai Du search engine (the Chinese equivalent of Google).

My challenge had to be robot-friendly, and since Xiao Du would no doubt flatten me in any conceivable memory task, it had to be something outside my usual memory skill set. Here's what they settled on: Using a photo of one middle-aged couple, I had to pick their 20-year-old daughter out of a lineup of 40 random girls. All Chinese families, mind you. If it sounds impossible, that's because it was! Other than studying eyes and ears and face shape (and then choosing mostly on gut anyway), I had next to no idea what I was doing. But I did my best, and luckily it could've ended worse!

One of the great things about going back was that Cathy and my sister-in-law Dora both came with me, and we had much more time to explore Nanjing, which is an awesome city (photos at the bottom). Check out the full video here (my segment starts around 28:30; again, all in Chinese, except when I speak): Watch Here

(Unfortunately I've had to move the link away from Youtube as the channel removed the video). 

You can watch my first episode on the show here.

My Challenge on The Brain China TV Show

If the video below is removed, you can try this Youku link. Unfortunately the show's Youtube channel has been removing earlier videos.

This past month I've twice had the privilege of traveling to Nanjing, China, to participate on The Brain TV show (known locally as 最强大脑, literally "the strongest brain"; also often referred to as Superbrain, the name of its German forebear). Prior to taping, a producer let me in on the little factoid that the show has 400M seasonal viewers, which didn't do great things for the nerves. Memory competitors have for years though been competing on The Brain, now in its fourth season, so I was excited to take part.

I first competed in a challenge alongside the legendary 2x world champ Wang Feng, who has been a fixture on the show since season one. When I first began with memory techniques, he was one of those larger-than-life figures of memory sports lore. I kept having to pinch myself. Anyway, my first episode--which involved memorizing info about airline flights (take-off and landing times, origin and destination cities, and flight numbers of 50 flights)--was broadcast in China Friday night. It may be difficult to understand for non-Chinese speaking viewers, but hopefully the snappy sound effects and crazy visuals are enough to keep you entertained! It was a good time!

You can watch the episode (which included two other challenges: Marwin Wallonius vs 余彬晶 and Yanjaa Altansuh vs 奕沛) above.

You can watch my second episode on the show here.