Olympics: Child singer revealed as fake
In my previous blog entry about Lin Miaoke (林妙可) singing with the voice of Yang Peiyi (楊沛宜) in the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony, I failed to mention that the Chinese government (through that one Politburo member) was indirectly sending negative messages to little girls across China that, even at the age of 7, if you don’t look “flawless”, your hard work and talent are still not good enough.
As if the acute gender imbalance problem (China has millions more men than women, see the “Demographic time bomb in China” story) is not enough, the action of rejecting Yang further send wrong messages to females in China.
It is also interesting to see how the Chinese government’s attempts to cleanse the news reports of this scandal. The Hong-Kong-based newspapers Mingpao and Apple Daily have some informative coverage in Chinese here (開幕禮以假亂真 天籟童音有代唱 腳印煙花是錄製), here (29個腳印煙花 28個屬電腦3D), here (「政治局委員 最後一刻令換人」美聯社引述音樂總監), and here (幕後代唱者被指不可愛遭犧牲 林妙可天籟歌聲作假). Compare the above to a cleansed official version here (《歌唱祖國》演唱者另有其人 楊沛宜幕後獻聲), pay attention to what information was skipped and the tone used.
I personally think that Yang Peiyi (楊沛宜) should be given a chance to perform at the closing ceremony because she is a beautiful little 7 year old with a lovely voice.
Of course, the deep-seeded issues that drove a country to pursue “excellence” by using computer generated effects to create 28 out of 29 firework displays, and substituting the face of a 7 years old girl, may not be easily overcome in a few days. But one can hope. In fact, one must hope.
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[…] The news from China get better and better. We had fake digitised fireworks and fake singers. […]
[…] the controversies about the opening ceremony, I hope our friends in Beijing will worry less about giving us a perfect and flawless show. In life […]
I think it is quite unfair to assume that the Chinese public concur with the switching of Yang for Lin. As Zhang YiMou has mentioned in his interviews that the switch was a last minute decision, pressured/forced on the entire team by some state officers. In fact, the state officers had paid “dozens” of visits throughout the preparation stage, and have interfered and ordered quite a few modifications on the entire program despite Zhang’s protest. As Zhang said so himself: “You couldn’t tell them, no that is not a good idea, so let’s leave everything to what has originally been planned and practiced.” Yang is cute enough by Chinese standard, and we would have been just as proud to present her to the world. Just because some dumb and superficial state officers forced a change on the performer, it doesn’t mean that their decisions reflect the general public’s opinions.
Plus, I am not sure about Mingbao, but I certainly wouldn’t put all my trust on Apple Daily. Apple Daily is known for making up things and twisting and exaggerating what has been told. What Zhang has disclosed in his interview is that the state officers thought that “Lin is prettier than Yang”, not that “Yang is ugly”. That makes a big big difference to what is to be inferred. People in Taiwan and HongKong know better that 90% of what has been reported in Apple Daily are untrustworthy. They are mostly paparazzis, not reporters.
Thanks for taking time in commenting on an almost 4 years old post. One main thing I want to reply on is that I didn’t and I think many people also didn’t assume Chinese public concur with the switching. In fact, I used the words, “the Chinese government (through that one Politburo member) ”
Thanks again for commenting.