Mongolian Memory Champion Memorizes An Entire Ikea Catalog to Perfection

September 4, 2017

Yanjindulam Altansuh, aka Yanjaa Wintersoul, is a Mongolian award-winning Memory Champion who recently impressed judges and Swedish audiences with her performances at “Sweden’s Got Talent” earlier this year.

Despite reaching the prestigious competition’s finals, the 23-year-old polyglot remains relatively unknown internationally.

Now, Wintersoul is finally making global headlines after being tapped by Ikea and agency BBH Singapore to headline a series of campaigns in Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand as the Swedish furniture giant’s “human catalog”, according to Adweek.

During a two-and-a-half-minute ‘test’ video, Wintersoul is shown recalling images and details ranging from to prices and descriptions from the 2018 Ikea catalog, which she was given a week to study. The memory expert showcased her skills by flawlessly memorizing over 428 listings in the book’s 328 pages, recalling the most minute details with an astounding level of accuracy.

Try as they might, Ikea employees were unable to stump her when they quizzed her on the most trivial information from the catalog’s pages, nailing every question they threw at her.

Watch the video below:

Those who are skeptical about her skills can test or witness her in action on a Facebook Live event on September 6, 2017 at 5–6 p.m. UTC+08.

How does she do it? According to Wintersoul, she uses a special technique for memorizing things in which she connects everyday things to the subject she is trying to memorize.

She said she was able to retain the image of a Bekant table in the Ikea catalog by associating the word “Bekant”, which means acquaintance, to a Swedish acquaintance who she then imagined laying on the table.

Wintersoul, who was born in Mongolia and raised in Tokyo and Stockholm, also uses her memory skills to learn new languages. She currently speaks a whopping 14 languages, according to Mongolia’s News agency.

She revealed that she came across the memory competitions by accident while trying to shorten her university education.

“I was trying to get my bachelors in two years instead of four, so I was spending a lot of time at the library figuring out a way to finish all that course work faster,” Wintersoul said. “By accident, I found a book about competing in memory, and I thought if this random dude can do it, so can I. I entered my first competition a couple of days later and ended up in first place for the event.”

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