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Aww, too bad, so sad. But hey, it's all about the image eh?

Not surprising coming from a country with an economy based on child slavery.

i knew it. i saw it and thought to myself "thats someone else singing from tape". the fireworks didnt fool me either. CHINA CANT FOOL ME! muhaha.

norway did something similar in their 94 olympics. not on this scale.. i'll see if i can find a clip.

can't find a video of it. it was during one of the long distance ski events, and the producer cut to a picture of a fox or a bunny or something that playing in the snow. but the fox was pre-taped! it was there the day before, not on the day of the actual event. oh, the deception!!!

Why are people so surprised by this. You could totally tell live. Haven't you people watched Bollywood films?

Same as half the popstars on TV

It's Milli Vanilli all over again!

Wow, thats scarring for life.

"The Government says you are too chubby, and you have crooked teeth"

haha because we in the west would never be so shallow. the chubby little girl would've been sent home crying at the first casting call....

i think the sports cheating is worse; did anyone see basketball between spain and china? some very odd things happening in that match.

I used to sing in a bar band, my voice is not that good. But That little girl on stage was faking... you can see it.

She overacts her singing.

By the way if you think that china doesn't have a home field judge advantage then look at the scoring in gymnastics.

A few years ago I saw a fascinating documentary about the actual origin of the olympics as we know it (not the original re-makes featured in the movie Chariots of Fire). Basically, it was the Nazis that brought the olympics back from obscurity and into a giant marketting campaign for their own superiority at the 1936 Berlin olympics. It was the Nazis that added all the ceremony and even the olympic symbol if I remember correctly.

Of course, their plan to use it as a showcase of the superiority of the master race kind of backfired when Jesse Owens (an african american) trounced them winning four gold medals... (edit: whoops, I checked wikipedia and while it is true that Jesse Owens "owned" at the olympics that year, the Germans did in fact get the most gold medals overall... sorry, guess they were the master race )

Going back to China... really, in this day and age, I find it kind of disengenous. I know that the Olympics are supposed to be about bringing the world together, but it seems more like that we all just get together and "look the other way" in regards to the major problems. It is highly corporate, political, and ultimately doesn't seem to address anything important. Some people get together and play some games. Meanwhile all the millions (if not billions) of dollars that are poured into this event don't quite serve to make anyone's life that much better.

The fact that we have to drug test everyone is yet another sign of the fake-happy-face nature of the event.

yeah, can you tell I'm not a sports fan in general

Well other than the immediate economic activity that the Olympics create, it's more or less seen as a long term PR investment for the country in attracting venture capitalists and foreign direct investment. Other than that, the symbolic step of hosting the olympics is essentially an inaugural rite of passage for joining the international community, and again any agreements that aids in negotioating further trade contribute to long term prosperity.

How representative of China as a whole? This was their opportunity to show the world what they are made of, and they did. Meretricious all across the board.

Who cares. The IOC approved it, China approved it. You would have done the same thing if you were trying to promote your country wouldnt you?

Are there no more important issues to read about then someone lip syncing?

Don't blame Chinese officials, blame those that would judge a country blanketly and unilaterally based on the attractiveness or perceived cuteness of a young singer. There's obviously no doubt this kind of thing happens all the time, just it's swept under the rug more often than not.

>> ^RedSky:
Don't blame Chinese officials, blame those that would judge a country blanketly and unilaterally based on the attarctive or perceived cuteness of a young singer. There's obviously no doubt this kind of thing happens all the time, just it's swept under the rug more often than not.


But add that up with the other oddities that have happend and it starts to not become playing to the crowd but being a deciver. The more and more odd things that happen make it seem more like PR than playing to the crowd.

>> ^Oblyvious:
Who cares. The IOC approved it, China approved it. You would have done the same thing if you were trying to promote your country wouldnt you?
Are there no more important issues to read about then someone lip syncing?


I care and no I wouldn't have. The actual little girl is very cute and was shamefully robbed of her opportunity to display her voice in front of the world. Sure there are more important things to read about, but I happened to come across this and my opinion on the matter is "Shame on them".

where's penn and teller "The Olympics: Bullshit!"
?
anyone got a link? because it might be one episode i actually agree with.

This is upsetting, and only one example of China's efforts to cover up problems instead of investing the 20 billion they spent on the Olympics in poverty alleviation, etc. On the bright side- I read somewhere that London is planning its improvements for the 2012 Olympics in a way that is responsible and will substantially contribute to the city's infrastructure.

With their state controlled media, the Chinese just aren't used to things like this getting uncovered and every little skeleton getting shown to the world. It's obvious the girl would be lip-syncing, they aren't going to leave that to chance, but for it to be someone else is pretty lame.

It seems they took on the event like they were producing a movie, and used tools perfectly acceptable in movies.

They were, in a sense, passing off a movie as a document of a real-world ceremony, and many people in many countries don't like the idea that an Olympic Games ceremony was essentially photoshopped a little.

I haven't felt this soiled since Ashlee Simpson got caught on SNL. Oh the humanity!

desperately attempting to avoid egg on their face, they shoved their head under the chicken

What surprises me, is that out 1.3 billion people, they couldn't find one girl who met both criteria.

China? Using propaganda? Never.

Don't worry about the chubby little girl. Angelina Jolie just adopted her.

Now that is a great comment.

>> ^barraphernalia:
What surprises me, is that out 1.3 billion people, they couldn't find one girl who met both criteria.

Actually, I think the actual singer is "cuter" as her talent makes up for any minor flaws in her face. Not unlike "Conny" http://www.videosift.com/video/Six-Year-Old-Conny-Sings-Somewhere-Over-The-Rainbow

The one chosen by the official bugs at me the way Jon Benet's parents do whenever I see a picture of her all painted up "5 going on 25". *shudders*

There be some yucky things going on in the politburo I think..

Discuss:
http://www.videosift.com/talk/The-Faketastic-Olympic-Opening-Ceremony-Broadcast

Yay *Canada - CBC news broadcast video here.

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That lip-syncing "little girl" as you call her will appear later this week as China's 18-year-old star gymnast! Shows what YOU know!

I bet they do this with george bush and he's actually very literate.

As a sweeping generalization coming from my own upbringing and experiences, I think Chinese people (and their government) tend to value aesthetics greatly, and thus a decision like this is upsetting but not very surprising. At the same time, though, this sort of mindset isn't at all an Evil China exclusive; look at magazine photos (where in some magazines, they're more painting than photo now anyway), musician/performer successes, diet trends, fashion trends, the meat of the advertising world ("You're not good enough. Buy this and maybe you'll be less horrible.") etc. And I definitely can't endorse high-and-mighty comments about how evil China is; they're just as evil as everywhere else, but they're not as good at covering it up. You say the Chinese media is state-run like that's uncommon. Did CNN lose its "Joke" status? China's just more transparent about it.

Returning to the topic, I read an article on this earlier in the week (which carried a little more substance to it) and apparently the story is that the girl you SAW was selected early to perform (she IS a singer, and a nice one), but during the last rehearsal a powerful politician decided her voice had to go. Thus the music director scrambled to find another good voice, which he did, but then the owner of that lovely voice was deemed not cute enough to represent China. Both kids and their families say they are okay with it (of course, they might have been instructed to say that), the singer that she's just happy her voice was used to represent China. I think that's a classy way to come off it, and whoever's handling PR for China seems to have done the best they could after the fact (ie not denial). I still don't agree with the decision, as I think both kids were adorable, and I feel confident that if the visible girl made it through auditioning and rehearsals, she was indeed a great singer anyway. It's unfortunate that this one dude with all the power decided otherwise, but hey, that's art.

And finally, to whoever posted that quip about slave labour being related, that's gotta top my personal list of dumbest correlations ever. And further, a country that is known to use slave labour might be a sad thing, but is it much better to be in one of the many countries that quietly but enthusiastically continue to fund said labour?

My overall point is this isn't a good deed by any means, but I suspect that the world is chomping at the bit to cry foul at China, given the one-sided press it gets. And as another poster commented, on the grand scale, who really cares about lip-synching? (Pavarotti lip-synched in the 07 Winters, I think... due to age and cold air?)

PS: Milli Vanilli was AWESOME. Blame it on the Rain was such an awesome song I'm not even upset about the whole lip-synching faking debacle.

>but hey, that's art.

And I say, "murderous totalitarian regime".

Yeah, same thing.



Oh, and I lost all respect for Pavarotti much earlier than when he even started lip-synching. Not much of a role model there.

who gives a fuck.
britney spears was picked only for her looks + mimes in front of millions.

I don't see why this is news. Lip syncing is not a new thing. "Wait! You mean to tell me that there was acting involved in that production?" Who cares?


Why don't we report on how the Chinese athletes (cough*slaves*cough) are torn away from their families when they're 3 and forced to practice and compete and only get to see their families once a year?

And she's not the only adorable little kid faking it at the opening ceremonies. It recently came out that the 56 children meant to represent china's various ethnic groups were all members of the han majority, just dressed up as minorities.

Ironically they included many of the other kids who tried out for the national anthem. Yang Paiyi herself replaced a 10 year old that had originally won the competition, but was deemed too old to be adorable enough.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/olympics/2563786/Beijing-Olympics-Ethnic-children-revealed-as-fakes-in-opening-ceremony.html

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