Top: Avon Lee breaks his own world record for the most teleportation illusions in a minute in a performance for a CCTV Guinness World Records show recorded in Beijing. Bottom: A Civil Aviation Department-led team at Chek Lap Kok this year set Guinness World Records for the heaviest combined weight of aircraft pulled simultaneously (474.72 tons) and the heaviest aircraft pulled over 100 meters by a team (218.56 tons). Photos by Red Door News, Hong Kong

Hong Kong has more than 70 record holders listed by Guinness World Records, more than many countries and regions with far bigger populations. What makes a relatively small city excel at being the best at what they do? Simon Parry reports.

Hong Kong policeman and amateur magician Avon Lee could be forgiven for looking like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders when he stepped forward on the stage of a shopping center three months ago to try to earn his place in the record books.

After all, the 33-year-old had invested years of his free time and more than HK$1 million of his own money into 60 nerve-jangling seconds in which he would attempt to set a brand new Guinness World Record for the most teleportation illusions in one minute.

"I was very nervous," he told the China Daily. "I not only had the pressure to break the world record but I was had to bear the cost of staging the show. It's hard to describe how tense I felt when I stood on that stage - but luckily I had a great team as well as family and friends supporting me."

Avon, a constable based on Hong Kong Island, had to pay out of his own pocket to hire the Tai Po shopping center for the event and hire five female dancers after three months or negotiation with Guinness World Records to persuade them to accept the bid.

Then, in front of a hushed crowd and a steely-eyed adjudicator from the Guinness World Records office in China, Avon - who says being a policeman and a magician both require mental and physical discipline - coolly made five women disappear and reappear in less than 60 seconds.

"When it was over and I had set a new world record, it felt unbelievable," he said. "I had been preparing and training for this challenge for so long so to see it all pay off and to be recognized as the fastest magician in the world when it comes to large-scale teleportation was really amazing."

Remarkably, Lee went on to break his own world record a fortnight ago when China Central Television (CCTV) invited him to Beijing to attempt six teleportation illusions in a minute for a Guinness World Records TV show to be aired in October.

This time, the TV station footed the bill for Avon's performance for a nationwide audience - but once again, Avon was ice cool under pressure as he rewrote his entry in the record books.

"I am delighted to have a place in the Guinness World Records," he said. "One of the reasons I did it is because I wanted to tell the world that even though Hong Kong may be a small place, there is an awful lot of talent here.

"Traditionally, this kind of magic trick has been performed best by great Western musicians. This is a rare occasion when someone from Hong Kong has shown that they can do it too and I was very happy that it was shown on CCTV because of that."

As well as establishing himself as an elite magician, Avon is now a member of an exclusive but steadily growing number of Hong Kong people to win places in the Guinness World Records for a diverse range of feat both individual and mass participation.

Hong Kong - whose records are counted as part of China's haul of 454 records - currently holds 71 world records, making a significant contribution towards the mainland's seventh place ranking in the countries with the highest number of Guinness World Records.

Within China, only Beijing holds more records than Hong Kong - and Hong Kong's 71 records compare to 300 for the whole of India, a country with 160 residents for every one Hong Kong citizen.

All of which has meant a lot of visits to Hong Kong for the Guinness World Records adjudicator for China Wu Xiaohong from her office in the northern Chinese city of Shenyang - she has come to Hong Kong to cast her eye over record attempts in Hong Kong three times in 2011 already.

One of those visits was to watch Avon make five women disappear and reappear in the space of a minute - but for Wu, marathon journeys to witness people attempt the bizarre are not unusual. "We do not call these things strange," she said. "In this job, we think all things are not strange. We just think they are ordinary."

To be fair, Wu has seen odder sights. She turned down world record bids by a man from Xinjiang who could wiggle his ears non-stop for four hours at a rate of four wiggles per second, a man who said he could inflate balloons with his eyes, and a man from Nanchang who claimed to be able to blow 80 smoke rings from a single puff of a cigarette.

She also rejected a 35-year-old laborer from Hubei province who walked 100 meters wearing iron shoes weighing more than 100 kg each on the grounds that the record was too specific and he was probably the only person who could wear the shoes.

Interest in setting new Guinness World Records has spread rapidly through China since a Mandarin-language version of the annual records book was first published a little over a decade ago. The launch of popular CCTV show featuring record-breaking attempts like Avon's has fuelled the world record fever.

"I think one of the reasons Hong Kong has so many records is because most people speak English and they knew about Guinness World Records earlier than people on the mainland," said Wu.

"When I adjudicate events in Hong Kong, I have asked organizers why they want to try to set a record. Generally speaking though, people apply for records because they want to be recognized as No 1 in a particular field. They want to show they are the best at the thing they like.

"Hong Kong people also tend to do a lot of these events for charity. They collect money for people by doing these things, and that is much more common in Hong Kong than it is in other cities.

"A lot of them involve mass participation records and they often do this because they want to promote their community."

One 2005 record involved nearly 2,500 people skipping with ropes simultaneously for three minutes.

"People treat mass participation records as a means to promote their city and to promote their community and to work together for a common goal," said Wu.

That spirit was captured earlier this year when a team of airport and airline workers led by the Civil Aviation department set two Guinness World Records by pulling aircraft along the tarmac at Chek Lap Kok.

The records were for the heaviest aircraft pulled over 100 meters by a team (a 218.56-ton Boeing 747) and the heaviest combined weight of aircraft pulled simultaneously (474.72 tons), and were set to celebrate the centenary of powered flight in the city in a "unique and memorable way".

"The teams were very excited and thrilled when they set the two records," said Eunice Chau, a spokeswoman for the Civil Aviation Department, which organized the event with the help of Cathay Pacific, Dragonair, HAECO (Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company Limited ) and the Hong Kong Airport Authority.

"The team pulling the planes jumped up and down with joy. They were delighted and they thoroughly enjoyed themselves."

Chau said the event reflected Hong Kong's strong sense of team spirit and its ability to organize complicated mass participation events.

"This team effort showed the spirit of Hong Kong as a city in terms of having a common goal and the determination to succeed and to excel in performance," she said.

The even showcased the creativity and innovativeness of Hong Kong people, their ability to organize effectively and coordinate strategy and their cooperative team spirit and determination to success, according to Chau.

"Our determination to break the Guinness World Records demonstrated the cooperative team spirit of Hong Kong people in overcoming obstacles and striving for excellence," she said.

"The pullers had actively participated in the briefings and trials to practise pulling the aircraft despite the weather conditions of the freezing cold and rainy winter early this year."

For Avon, his achievement was more of a team effort than an individual effort, helped by his family, friends and assistants.

Above all, his record-breaking feat would never have been possible without the help of his colleagues at work, he said. "My superiors and fellow officers are all very supportive," he said.

"When I need to appear and perform they are all willing to reshuffle their work schedule to let me do it. They take a lot of effort to help me. And the police force has set up a special group within the force to teach young children magic."

Asked whether he feared the possibility of another magician claiming his record-breaking performance, he replied: "I would welcome anyone to challenge my record - and if anyone can break it I will work very hard to regain the title again."

The rising number of Hong Kong and mainland records raises the question of whether China can one day claim No 1 position among the global Guinness World Record holders.

With the US and Britain - the two countries where the book of world records was first launched in the 1950s - so far ahead of the field with around 5,200 and 2,700 records, respectively, adjudicator Li thinks it unlikely.

"I don't think China can every really be No 1," she said. "But I do think we could one day be No 3 or No 4 in the world."

(HK Edition 09/02/2011 page4)