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Taobao.com can follow the example of eBay, which more than once has withdrawn auction items for fear of a popular backlash.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