Pang Tong - Purple Taoist Face

Taoist Face

This makeup is similar to the three-tile face, Its distinguishing features are kidney shaped eye sockets and floral patterns around the nose pit and mouth. In the center of the forehead is a red pearl-like object or nine dots, signs that the character has been initiated into Buddhist monkhood. The principal color is white, red, yellow or blue, white being the most common.The face may be clean shaven or have a curly mustache, called qiu.

A Taoist face is made by joining the two brows or eye sockets of a three-tile face. Pang Hong's makeup in the opera "A Meeting of the Elite" is an example of a purple Taoist face. The man's Taoist identity is represented by a diagram of a cosmological scheme or the Eight Diagrams painted on the forehead.