So that cute little Chinese girl who sang the solo at the Olympic opening ceremony and "won the hearts of the world," to quote one tabloid headline, was not all she seemed to be . The beautiful voice belonged to Yang Pei Yi, a cute enough child in the way of those round faced Chinese dolls little girls used to play with when I was young.
As well as looking very enthnically Chinese, Yang is also getting her adult teeth. This was not deemed photogenic enough for western television audiences the Chinese Olympic authorities decided. They decided to use Yang's recording but drafted in a more western looking girl for the live appearance. Lin Mi Oke, a child with fine bone structure and the wide cheekbones and narrow jaw typical of Eurasians in the South West of China was bound to appeal to the millions of Westerners who would be watching, particularly those mothers who push their daughters into junior beauty pageants and the paedophiles who lust after the prematurely slutty-looking contestants.
What we saw while watching the opening ceremony was not lovely little Li singing live but Li Lip-syncing to the recorded voice of the more tuneful Yang.
Cue outrage!
"The Phoney Games" blustered one newspaper as on the back of the singing scandal it emerged that some fireworks in the spectacular pyrotechnics display were actually not fireworks at all but computer generated visual effects footage. Even worse was to come, we learned next that volunteers were being bussed in to fill empty seats at the venues for certain niche sports such as synchronised diving, small bore shooting and sticking baguettes up your nose.
But are the Beijing games any more phoney than any modern entertainment event. Soon the crowds will rapturously applaud the pharmaceutically enhanced efforts of runners, jumpers and throwers; for years singing superstars lip sync at live gigs and there was no fuss about applause tracks being used on "live" T.V. shows.
As if all that was not enough phoniness, we are happy to see "best live performer of the year" awards going to performers who have never sung live in their lives. So if it's good enough for Madonna and The Spice Gilrls, why not for the Olympic games?
We live in a phoney world and what we see on television is virtual reality. As Tony Blair once said, "presentation is everything."
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Comments: 37
Well yes, but we shouldn't be expected to accept anyone else's phoniness.
Right! Do not accept any phoniness except our own.
Windows is not fit for purpose.
Dr. Ruth is (or was) a virgin.
In The Jackson 5 Michael was played by a 42 year old midget
Male Porn stars wear false moustaches and chest wigs
Pat Robertson is a closet Catholic.
The Pope eats steak on Fridays
The Flat Earth society don't really belive the earth is flat.
Denounce phoniness NOW!
Computer animation? That sounds like a Mickey Mouse degree.
Sorry, I could not help myself.
Taking a cellphone to the poolside is never a good idea, but the synchronised diver who went in at the deep end about his partner's phone all was a 14 year old upstart.
And at 14 the last people a boy thinks anyone should talk to are parents. I mean they just don't understand anything do they?
As a scientist you should be very impressed. Here in Britain we think the medals should be given to the pharmacists not the athletes. :-)
Now I'm not sure which joke you want me to do here, some dark irony about China's crimes against humanity or a wisecrack about shooting small bores.
I'll work on it.
If the Chinses viewed the opening ceremony as an entertainment event that could be the basis of a complaint about false advertising.
Opening ceremonies for these shidigs are pure torture.
Mind you, the Romans regarded torture as entertainment.
These days Eddie is indistinguishable from many middle aged slightly loony Brit. And there are a lot of us about, thanks to our being weaned on The Goons and brought up on Monty Python
I think this one might have ended that. Don't see how anyone could top it.
For that money they could have made 100 British movies and still helped a lot of poor people around the world.
Yes I know, unbelieveably trivial issues for a post bu me and my kid sister at Boggart Blog (where I originally posted this) decided to do all the jokes and satires we could on the Olympic theme, thus packing our blog with Olympic keywords to attract searches.
And here am I berating The Chinese for cynicism.
The British opening ceremony in 2012 will feature a couple of dozen street entertainers playing to the crowd queueing to get in the stadium, a display of morris dancing and cockney crooners Chas and Dave singing a medley of their hit while a thousand children do silly walks.
The Chinese may be extravagant but we have style.
Thanks for that, see my response to Sandy above which also replies to your point
Quagmire of the soul, how bleak you make the human condition sound.
Can we stick with Long Dark Lunchtime Of The Soul please, its not so disheartening :-)
Very prescient. Or perhaps you have noticed how the British sneer at America for its crassness, conveniently forgetting how crass we were back when we dominated the world :-)
And Ian Thorpe is young, tall, rich, superfit and he makes me sick.
But on the other hand I'm a poet and he can barely string a sentence together :-)
Funny, I thought they were going to be in Vancouver, Canada with Celine Dion singing her little girl heart out!
As the 2012 Olympics have already cost the British taxpayer an arm and a leg and they haven't even got the foundations down for the stadium yet, all of us except for the politicians whose vanity project it is, whould be happy to see the Games switched to Canada.
What about that South African guy who has both legs amputated at the knee. He runs on a couple of those spring things and naturally, I mean unnaturally gets record times. He wanted to compete against able bodied athletes. They were going to let him until the athletes protested.
If he had got in, why not allow a guy who does the 100m on a motor bike.
Still wouldn't beat usain Bolt though.
Don't forget the display of synchronised binge drinking to the music of The Kaiser Chiefs "I Predict A Riot." (followed by choreographed projectile vomiting)
The possibilities of our downsized opening even are ENDLESS!