Snow Monkey’s many faces
Performer masters ancient art of mask-changing to keep tradition alive
KUALA LUMPUR: Embodying the Year of the Monkey, Snow Yap Zuo Yun, 20, lives his life in the limelight.
A full-time entertainer, KL-based Yap has taken on the stage name of Snow Monkey. He performs face-changing and magic acts, and stages wushu and Monkey King shows. He also teaches wushu.
Yap had his Monkey King costume custom-made in China, for RM2,500.
The enthusiastic performer started learning kungfu when he was three, and also discovered a love for performing magic tricks.
“I used to earn a little pocket money performing magic at parties,” he said.
That small nest egg – and the friends he made on the magician circuit – would come in handy when he saw his first face-changing performance.
“I was always drawn to Chinese traditional performances, and when I saw a troupe from China performing the face-changing act, I knew it was something I wanted to learn,” he said.
The traditional Chinese art of face-changing (bian lian in Chinese) is a part of Sichuan opera, which falls under the umbrella of the Han Chinese operas.
Highly-skilled performers usually wear masks and switch from character to character very quickly.
In spite of his parents’ objections, the then nine-year-old Yap pooled together his savings and some money his older fellow magicians lent him, and hired a teacher from the Sichuan province to teach him for a year.
“I was already earning some money performing magic at that time, and some of my older fellow magicians also lent me some money to take lessons,” he said.
There are four techniques for face-changing, which include blowing black dust to obscure the face and changing the colour of the beard. Yap uses the “face-pulling” technique, which involves pulling down hidden masks.
Today, Yap enjoys bringing elements of Chinese culture, such as face-changing, to life onstage.
“I just want the younger generation to be able to appreciate it,” he said.