James Chan has been doing magic for more than half of his life, having started out performing alongside his father — popular magician Daniel Chan — at libraries and birthday parties at the age of 5.

The Fremont resident is 12 now, so one expects that he’ll likely only get better at doing magic in the years to come.

Of course, he is already pretty good at it — just ask some of the other, much older, magicians who went up against him, and lost, in a recent competition.

On Aug. 12, Chan triumphed over many magicians twice his age as he won a major competition sponsored by Ring 216, which is the San Jose chapter of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, the world’s largest association of amateur and professional magicians. The competition was held via Zoom.

The first place finish adds to Chan’s growing list of accomplishments, which includes having won the  “People’s Choice” award in the Parlor Magic competition for Ring 216 in 2019.

Chan, who is also an accomplished juggler, has performed at corporate events for such notable organizations as Airbnb, Twitter, Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and the Golden State Warriors. Also, James and his sister Grace appeared in a segment for “Kids Say the Darndest Things” on ABC starring Tiffany Haddish.

For more information on Chan, you can watch a cool short documentary video about him on YouTube. You can also visit www.danchanmagic.com/jameschan.html.