a man of many faces

although this guy (Alex Tan - yeah, he's got a blog on here too! hello, mr. Tan!) does it as a show act, this art of bian lian ("changing the face") is actually used in traditional chinese theater - for mythological scenes, when one character turns into another by magic or miracle. particularly, the Mask Changer is a standard character in Sichuan opera. wish i could do it too :-)

by the way, there is also a chinese movie about this art (rather melodramatic plot, or else it wouldn't be a chinese movie...)