Biology Major Finds He Can Change Careers Like Magic

Soon after graduating with a biology degree from Portland State University, Michael D. Wong, 36, moved to Alaska to find a job as a fish and game biologist.

He ended up entertaining Eskimos with magic tricks, sometimes traveling to remote villages by airplane, snow machine and dog sled.

“I was sitting in a nightclub in Anchorage entertaining friends with some magic tricks I learned in college, and the owner asked if I wanted a job,” Wong said. “I accepted.”

That was 14 years ago.

Wong eventually developed an action-packed and comedy-filled repertoire, including escapes from a straitjacket while suspended from hot air balloons.

Most of those acts were in front of bigger crowds in Anchorage and Juneau nightclubs and shopping malls. He also performed with doves and Chinese scarves before entertainment-starved audiences in outlying villages.

Companies drilling for oil in Alaska paid for his performances.

Two years ago he moved to Garden Grove.

“I auditioned for Disneyland, and they said if I lived here, they would use me,” said Wong, who performs as one of the magicians in the theme park.

He will appear Nov. 11 to 17 as a featured performer at the Magic Castle in Hollywood.

“That has been one of the goals of my life,” said Wong, who also uses magic in 45-minute fire prevention, dental health and anti-drug and alcohol assemblies at Orange County elementary schools.

“I wanted to contribute something to society for the things I’ve gotten out of it,” he said. “I don’t drink or do drugs. I want to leave them with a good feeling about self worth and how they can make a difference.

Some of those “things” include being a classical piano player (“I still practice every day”), a Chinese gourmet cook and oil and watercolor painter.

Besides the assemblies and working at Magic Island in Newport Beach, Wong hires out for weddings, banquets, children’s parties, conventions and trade shows.

“I never used my (biology) degree, but indirectly the knowledge and the discipline of study and organizing skills I learned in college helped keep my magic business going,” he said.

Wong believes that his life as an entertainer started when he was 5 years old.

“I remember as a child in day care I would put the chairs together in a circle and stand in the middle and tell jokes as Bob Hope,” he said. “It seems like I was destined to be an entertainer.”

In later years after telling his parents of his work in magic, “they would ask me when I was going to get a real job,” he said.

Wong said he plans to remain a magic performer and hopes to develop a children’s magic television show.

In the meantime, Wong said he wants to return to Alaska where he once worked in a cannery before turning to magic full time.

“I loved the Eskimos. They are a very humble people,” he said. “They don’t have traffic sounds, no pollution and mostly no worries.”