Chinese Tutor - It's time to save face and keep the magic

ENTERTAINMENT / Hot Pot Column






It's time to save face and keep the magic

By Ravi S. Narasimhan (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-02-07 10:06


I have a hotelier friend an accountant of all people who, though by no
means a Copperfield, is a brilliant magician in his own right and in
great demand at parties.

He can light a cigarette by blowing at it or light mine from a distance
without any lighter in sight, and make coins pop out of his ears at will
but never reveals how he does it.

I'm bound by the code, he says, and his perennial excuse is how boxing
legend Muhammad Ali was banished from an amateur magicians' circle for
revealing a trick to the public.

So it is with more than a little disappointment that I read on the China
Daily website on the weekend that someone was offering to sell the
secrets of bianlian, the Sichuan Opera technique of "changing faces", for
a measly 3,000 yuan ($380) on a popular auction website called taobao.com.

As if it were some consolation, the online vendor has some caveats: He
will teach the tricks only to Chinese citizens, and only to one person in
any city. And it comes with a catch: You would have to practise, of
course.

Fat consolation.

My fascination with face changing springs from at least two reasons:
convenience and cuisine. There is this wonderful restaurant near the
China Daily office where I can entertain foreign guests, have a nice meal
and not be late for work on the night shift. And the guy has far more
ways of changing his faces than Robin Williams has with his voice.

Face changing, to me, is the most accessible aspect of Chinese culture
you can fine dine as you appreciate it instead of being stuck in a
three-hour opera recital in an auditorium.

I don't want my comfort zone spread around; and totally agree with the
famous Sichuan Opera maestro Peng Denghuai, who said: "The art of face
changing is a national treasure, not magic. Selling the secret on the
Internet disrespects not only face changing but also our cultural
heritage."

Taobao.com can follow the example of eBay, which more than once has
withdrawn auction items for fear of a popular backlash.

A representative of the Chinese company, to its credit, was quoted as
saying that "we will pay close attention to it, and suspend the sale once
it violates any regulations".

Therein lies the rub: No one seems to know if it violates any
regulations. But Internet regulators in the country have a reputation for
efficiency. If they have managed to get rid of much "undesirable"
content, surely they can do so with this.

I have good reason for saving face: On three visits to California, I
resisted the temptation to go visit a film studio. I didn't want the
magic of the movies to be explained like how Bruce Willis stunts were
done, that the Titanic was a little model boat in an aquarium or Jurassic
Park dinosaurs were mechanized models.

Let's leave room for a little magic in our lives.


(China Daily 02/07/2007 page20)








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