The Beijing Doh-lympics!

Is anything about the Beijing Olympics real? It's since been revealed that the visual extravaganza of firework footprints lighting the route to the stadium are actually computer generated for telecast - and only the final footprint was the real thing. This morning, a shocked world was told that the ultra-cutesty Chinese girl who sang the "Ode to the Motherland" in the opening was, in fact, doing a Milli Vanilli - and that the original singer was not chosen to appear in the flesh because she did not fit the "correct image"

From the Yahoo news article:

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 Olympic stadium during the spectacular ceremony 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 an interview that appeared briefly on the news website Sina.com before it was apparently wiped from the Internet in China.

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 ceremony.

"The reason was for the national interest. The child on camera should be flawless in image, internal feelings, and expression," said Chen, a renowned contemporary composer and French citizen.

"Lin Miaoke is excellent in those aspects. But in terms of voice, Yang Peiyi is perfect, each member of our team agreed," he said.

He said the final decision to stage the event with Lin lip-synching to another girl's voice was taken after a senior member of China's ruling Communist Party politburo attended a rehearsal.

"He told us there was a problem that we needed to fix it, so we did," he said, without disclosing further details of the order.


God forbid that one should be slightly chubby as a 7 year old with uneven teeth - to be sidelined thus!

The credibility of the Beijing Olympics - already under a cloud (of smog?) from day one - slips further!