China: Beijing Olympic singing girl star was a fake: ceremony director
Posted by chinaview on August 12, 2008
AFP, Aug. 12, 2008-
BEIJING (AFP) — The little girl who starred at the Olympic opening ceremony was miming and only put on stage because the real singer was not considered attractive enough, the show’s musical director said.
Pigtailed Lin Miaoke was selected to appear because of her cute appearance and had not sung a note, Chen Qigang, the general music designer of the ceremony, said in an interview with a state broadcaster.
Photographs of Lin in a bright red party dress were published in newspapers and websites all over the world and the official China Daily hailed her as a rising star on Tuesday.
But Chen said the girl whose voice was actually heard by the 91,000 capacity crowd at the main Olympic stadium was in fact seven-year-old Yang Peiyi, who has a chubby face and uneven teeth.
“The reason why little Yang was not chosen to appear was because we wanted to project the right image, we were thinking about what was best for the nation,” Chen said in the interview that appeared briefly on the popular news website Sina.com on Tuesday before it was wiped from the Internet.
Lin was seen to perform the patriotic song “Ode to the Motherland” as China’s national flag was carried into the stadium, a key moment in the three hour opening ceremony.
“The reason was for the national interest. The child on camera should be flawless in image, internal feelings, and expression,” he said.
“Lin Miaoke is excellent in those aspects. But in terms of voice, Yang Peiyi is perfect, each member of our team agreed,” he said.
- AFP: Olympic child singing star was a fake: ceremony director
This entry was posted on August 12, 2008 at 4:38 pm and is filed under Beijing, Beijing Olympics, Children, China, Event, News, People, Politics, Social, Sports, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
zack1000 said
IS china crazy a seven-year old singing a adult could of done better.
Saya said
I guessed it as much that the girl was miming but never guessed that another girl’s voice was used instead. And it’s sad that they thought the real singer wasn’t attractive enough.
sjfakjf said
It was very obvious to everyone watching that the girl was lip syncing. It really put a damper on the opening ceremony…and on the apparent Chinese morals. Sad.
sjfakjf said
and further. Do Chinese officials honestly believe that people will accept their story that it was an eleventh hour decision. Please…that girl in red dress was very well rehearsed. And she clearly had been told to lie about it all to media afterwards. And organising the dress to fit her, the music tape, etc etc would have taken days and weeks, not an hour. Why dont officials just admit they made a very large mistake.