The Flawed and Flawless Children of China

It has been revealed today that nine-year-old Lin Miaoke, who sang the “Ode to the Motherland” at last Friday’s Opening Ceremony in Beijing, was not actually the voice that was heard over the loudspeaker.
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↵↵That voice belonged to seven-year-old Yang Peiyi, whose picture you can see above, on the right. Deemed to be a better singer than Lin (on left) but not attractive enough, Yang’s voice was dubbed over Lin’s performance. ↵

↵↵To say that Yang’s is a face for radio is to considerably overstate the case. She’s a very cute little girl in my book – yes, she has braces, but so do a lot of seven-year-old girls. So did Stacy Sanders, the girl I had a crush on when I was seven. I don’t know – the braces actually did something for me.↵

↵↵Anyway, the fact remains that however you slice it Yang is no Lin on the cute-ometer, and clearly the Chinese wanted to have their cake and eat it too on this one. Chen Qigang, the musical director of the Opening Ceremony, explained the decision to dub Lin’s voice by saying, “The reason was for the national interest. The child on camera should be flawless in image, internal feeling and expression.”↵

↵↵Flawless. You hear that? Flawless dammit. WE ACCEPT NO FLAWS IN OUR CHILDREN.↵

↵↵Is it me or are these Olympics getting creepier by the hour? ↵

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