19. Pretty Puppets and Ugly Faces

Our first day in Chengdu ended on a big bang - many bangs on flowery drums in a variety show at the Shu Feng Ya Yun 蜀风雅韵 Tea House. Literally, "Shu Feng" means the airs of the province of West Shu, ie., Sichuan and "Ya Yun" means artistic tunes. The tea house is in the center of town inside the Chengdu Culture Park and our tour bus driver had to maneuver through very narrow streets to get there. We all thought we were going to hit something but amazingly, at the end, the bus emerged among dense groves to a tiny parking lot and we were surprised that it was filled with large tour buses.

Since it is a tea house, everyone was served a cup of tea on a bamboo shelf right in front of the seat and a bowl of water melon seeds to nibble on. Although the place was 90% filled with tourists, there was only one to two groups of non-Chinese tourists. So, this is still an un-discovered gem known only to Chinese travelers!

Even though it was only a one and a half-hour show, the program was excellent and consisting of a Sichuan opera, a comedy show, musical instrument solos, a marionette show and a hand shadow show. But what every one came to see was the famous "Sichuan Changing Faces" show.

First, the stick puppet show:



The stick puppet was hand manipulated by one single person and in this Sichuan version, one can see every movement of the puppeteer and yet it does not distract from the performance of the puppet. Apparently, this is an ancient art that has been touted as having been around for two thousand years. The puppet was simply beautiful as the story told was about a fairy who descended from heaven and fell in love with the beauty of our world.


Next, the world famous face change show. For those who has never heard of the art of face changing, this is quite an incomprehensible act somewhere between magic and dance - the actor first put on a colorful mask on his face and perform dances. Then, in the middle of a movement, in an instant, his face color changes to a different face mask with a totally different color. The very skilled performer can change the face so smoothly and fast that the audience can only ooh and ah and wonder how it can be done. In this show, the actors went through 5-6 faces (I lost count while enjoying the art). I think the world record was something like 15 changes. If you want to search on google, here are the two Chinese words to copy and paste: 变脸. Amazingly interesting!