Face-changing is a special technique which is widely used in the performing art of Sichuan Opera to build characters, and it is also a very romantic way to expose the thoughts and emotions of different characters of the play.

      It is widely believed that the skill of face-changing could be traced back to ancient times. In order to scare away the dangerous animals and protect themselves, the ancient people painted their faces in different colors, making themselves look fierce and ferocious. Later this technique was absorbed into the art of Sichuan Opera and gradually developed into a unique and famous art form.

     Generally speaking, there are three kinds of techniques of face-changing, including wiping the face, blowing the face and pulling the face. In addition, there is sometimes the skill of changing the color of face by breathing.

     Before performing the technique of wiping the face, the actor will first smear some special grease paint on some certain parts of the face. While on the stage, he could change the color of his face by wiping it. If he wants to change the color of the whole face, he smears the grease paint on the forehead of eyebrows, if he just wants to change the color of the lower part of his face, he could put the grease paint on the nose or one part of his face. If the actor only wants to change the color of a certain area of the face, he just needs to smear the grease paint on that part. The skill of blowing the face could be fulfilled when powder cosmetics are used for the actors to make up, such as powdered gold, powdered toner, or powdered silver. Sometimes a small box full of cosmetic powders is placed on the stage, and the actor just needs to do a movement of kissing the ground. During the process, he blows the box, and then the powders are blown to his face, changing the color into another. In order to achieve this, the actor must close his eyes and mouth, and hold his breath at the moment of puffing the powders.

     The skill of pulling the face is much more complicated. Firstly, the artists have to paint various types of facial makeups on different pieces of silk, and then cut them into the shapes of faces with scissors. After that each piece of them is tied with a thin thread and stuck to the face of the actor. And the different threads are connected to a certain convenient and unattractive part of the clothes, such as the belt. During the performance of the play, under the cover of the dancing movements, the actor pulls each piece of the facial makeups, therefore the color of the face is changed. It is very difficult to perform it, because the amount of adhesives used to stick the facial makeups to the face must be controlled very carefully, otherwise the actor could perhaps pull off none or all of them. What's more, the actor must do the movements very quickly and keenly, and deceptive movements to cover up the action of pulling the thread must be very reasonable to the audiences.

     In a word, the skill of face changing is very unique and amazing in the arts of Sichuan Opera and it has be widely used as a source of reference by many other forms of operas both in China and the rest of the world.

    Sichuan Opera, which is deeply welcomed and loved by the local people as well as visitors in cities of Chengdu and Chongqing has become one of the main forms of local entertainments in these places at night. The performance of Sichuan Opera could be found almost in all the big and small tea houses in the city of Chengdu, Sichuan Province, of which the most famous tea houses include the Shunxing Old Teahouse at No.258 Shawan Road, Qingyang Taoist Temple at the inner part of the fist ring road, and Shufengyajun Teahouse on Qintai Road, Chengdu City.