Yang Peiyi, the little girl that SHOULD have appeared ....

johnsenior1973 · 13 Aug 2008, 21:20

I was watching synchronized diving the other night and the chinese girls couldn't have been 16! I mean... I know the average chinese person is smaller than the average american but come on... these girls looked like they were 8 or 9! No Joke!

If they weren't 16 years old doesn't that make the fact they are competing in the Olympic Games even more impressive?

david_h · 13 Aug 2008, 21:32

@johnsenior1973 said:

Belief in the Olympic Spirit should disappear soon after belief in the tooth fairy. The true Olympic spirit is $$$$$$$$$.

Why do you think the IOC had no qualms about selecting a murderous, totalitarian regime to host the games. to Protect the market of 1 billion consumers --plus they hold a good piece of the marker on our huge debt.
I think they do have a new event for this Olympics tho'--The 800 M tank Stare-Down

All due respect to him, but Michael Phelps is no Jessie Owens

pmiller · 14 Aug 2008, 00:31

@mike lucey said:

Hi John,

In the case of Pavorotti lip-syncing, I am not familiar with this
story, but I imagine he was doing it with his own recorded voice.

This is a somewhat different matter. The China Olympic people
were misleading the World and selling the true singer short (excuse
the pun).

Mike

What about the rich tradition of voice dubbing, the most famous of which has to be Marni Nixon?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marni_Nixon

Mike Lucey · 14 Aug 2008, 01:27

I did think of that argument Paul, but singers that sell their
services to Movie Studios to be dubbed by actors / actresses
is a little different than this case. The song / singer was
normally noted in the film credits.

This was not the case with Yang Peiyi. If this had been done
from the start I would not see hat happened as a problem.

Daniel · 14 Aug 2008, 08:33

@unknownuser said:

I was watching synchronized diving the other night and the chinese girls couldn't have been 16! I mean... I know the average chinese person is smaller than the average american but come on... these girls looked like they were 8 or 9! No Joke!

The 16 yo age limit applies to gymnastics; for diving, it's 14 (which Britain's Tim Daley just turned in May). I don't recall seeing any who looked 8 or 9.

Ross Macintosh · 14 Aug 2008, 09:41

I'm okay with the lip-syncing & CG fireworks. I thought the opening was fantastic. Much more entertaining than previous openings (and makes Superbowl halftime seem like a joke by comparison).

It seems to me that these Olympics are the best organized of the ones I've been watching over my years.

What seems worse to me is the TV coverage. It sucks! While the video is great (provided by China), it sucks that the coverage being televised here in Canada, but also in the USA, is overly Nationalistic. We watch the CBC & NBC coverage - flicking between channels. Rather than show the best of the Olympics both countries focus the vast majority of their coverage on their own athletes. They will show their own performances & edit out those of the competitors. The result lacks context and reduces everything to a stupid flag-waving exercise. The problem is intensified by the relatively limited coverage being offered this year. I remember when Olympic TV coverage was on almost continuous many hours each day. This year CBC & NBC seem to be showing just a couple of three-to-four hour blocks a day. With most of what they do show edited to feature only their own nation's performances. My niece is in South Korea right now and she says the coverage there is even more nationalistic than here. I hope it isn't the same everywhere around the world.

Regards, Ross

mateo soletic · 14 Aug 2008, 10:40

I agree with Mike that this little girl Yang Peiyi should not have been
substituted by Lin Miaoke. This is a big injustice to the little Yang who
obviously has the tallent but hasnt got the required looks or at least
someone thinks this way.

And for the people that think that this is fuss over nothing let me tell
You something about these countries like China.
I lived most of my life in a socialist/comunist state that was once
called Yugoslavia. In those countries being a individual is nothing .
The individual only exists to serve bigger cause. So now they took
her voice tommorow they will take her kidney . Believe me I have
been there.
And the worst thing the communists did is with peoples minds.
If these people had to choose between democracy and totalitarism
The majority would even now choose the latter.

It will take generations to change this. And if we keep saying that
this is fuss over nothing it will take even longer.

Mateo

Daniel · 14 Aug 2008, 12:21

Ross, I would bet that coverage world wide tends to be nationalistic. Given the number of competitions taking place each day, and the limited hours they have to cover them, I can see where broadcast companies would concentrate more on the home team. Also, don't forget many of these athletes compete nationally, and their fans in their home countries naturally want to know how they are doing. There are quite a few althetes there from the Univ. of Tennessee; a night doesn't go by that the local news doesn't inform us how they are doing.

Mike Lucey · 14 Aug 2008, 13:20

Yeah Ross, I find that also. Irish TV was concentrating on our rowers
and boxers. Still I was interested to know how they were doing. Ireland
normally does well in the boxing but I can't see a medal coming back this
time around but as they say 'It's the ........

Saw a great documentary on the first Post WW2 Olympics held in London.
The place was still crippled after the bombings. One story did however
show how ordinary people can make a difference. To accommodate the
athletes a prisoner of war camp was tidied up. Some of the POWs were
held on to complete maintenance works. At the time the British
Gymnastic Team had just been formed and had no idea what exercises were
involved. It transpired that a German gymnast became the 'real coach'
to the team although his name did not appear on the Team List. But
everyone and their dog knew about it

Mateo, I agree with your point. You speak from experience and this
reinforces it all the more.

Mike

jim smith · 14 Aug 2008, 13:44

@mike lucey said:

I did think of that argument Paul, but singers that sell their
services to Movie Studios to be dubbed by actors / actresses
is a little different than this case. The song / singer was
normally noted in the film credits.

This was not the case with Yang Peiyi. If this had been done
from the start I would not see hat happened as a problem.

They get voice over credits today but in the good old days of Hollywood, it never came out that the on screen singing of Marilyn Monroe, deborah Kerr (The King and I), Natalie Wood (West Side Story), Audrey Hepburn (My Fair Lady) and a number of other actresses with inadequate pipes were dubbed - and uncredited- by the undercover studio singer Marni Nixon.

Could it be the Chinese powers that be are just looking at too many old American flicks?

johnsenior1973 · 14 Aug 2008, 13:57

@unknownuser said:

Could it be the Chinese powers that be are just looking at too many old American flicks?

Seeing as the desire to want to produce the best show possible is obviously a Communist trait, it's pretty obvious that the Communists took over Hollywood and the American entertainment industry. Milli Vanilli, body doubles, the massive use of cosmetic surgery, CGI, lip-synching. The evidence is overwhelming.

I reckon Senator McCarthy was really just a great guy trying to do a honourable job. It was a fantastic mind-trick that the Communist Hollywood bosses pulled on the world to make him look like a crazed witch-hunter.

bubbalove · 14 Aug 2008, 16:35

Yes it is an amazing thing for these girls to be competing as young as they are! I'm not denying that in anyway... but there are rules set by the IOC that you are supposed to follow and the Chinese have decided to bend or break (depending on how you see it) them so they can have more golds than the US! IMO that is all they're trying to do! It is easier for a 10 year old diver or gymnast to do all these moves because they're compact and a whole lot more flexible... but it really doesn't matter because we will never know how old those girls really are!

[Edit] Maybe this will help: http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/summer08/gymnastics/news/story?id=3534544

igor · 14 Aug 2008, 18:13

i myself find this whole scandal to be an outrage. that little girl that was supposed to sing competed in a grueling competition in order to sing at one of the greatest world gatherings. only for the Chinese government to say "no, your not pretty enough" to her and instead have another little girl with no singing talent steal her place and her voice. at least the chinese government told the world that it was faked, if they didnt say anything about it and i found out, i would be furious.

and whats more, the chinese government started to find online threads and discussions about the scandal and soon after started to delete them! youtube videos have been blocked, threads deleted. i think that this forum isnt in danger of that happening.

287

johnsenior1973 · 15 Aug 2008, 00:27

@igor said:

i myself find this whole scandal to be an outrage. that little girl that was supposed to sing competed in a grueling competition in order to sing at one of the greatest world gatherings. only for the Chinese government to say "no, your not pretty enough" to her and instead have another little girl with no singing talent steal her place and her voice. at least the chinese government told the world that it was faked, if they didnt say anything about it and i found out, i would be furious.

and whats more, the chinese government started to find online threads and discussions about the scandal and soon after started to delete them! youtube videos have been blocked, threads deleted. i think that this forum isnt in danger of that happening.

287

But it didn't happen like that.

The girl who performed at the Olympics was always going to be the one who was performing. But at a late stage it was decided that she wasn't singing well enough, so they made the decision to substitute her singing to her miming to the best recording.

Of course, the foreign media decided to write that the 7 year old girl wasn't chosen because she was too ugly. Somehow I doubt that the show organisers would have phrased it like that when they told her that the performance would be performed to her singing. So something that would have been a true accolade becomes a scandal because of the worldwide media and the morons who believe them. Well done.

igor · 15 Aug 2008, 06:32

well, that's another way of looking at it. Though I did find you coment a refrshing break from the monotony of the news about the scandal. You may have just proved me wrong.

And don't get me wrong ( no pun intended), I love being wrong. I means that there is another way of looking at something and that way might just make more sense than mine.

291

Mike Lucey · 15 Aug 2008, 12:48

John, have you a link to the 'true' story as you believe it?

Mike

david_h · 15 Aug 2008, 14:04

It's not just the performance you know. . it's about stage presence. . .and I just Simon and Paula liked the Cuter girl better.

johnsenior1973 · 18 Aug 2008, 00:34

@mike lucey said:

John, have you a link to the 'true' story as you believe it?

Mike

I simply did a Google search with olympic lip synch scandal and read a couple of stories from the front page.

And when I just did the same search a few minutes ago the first few links I clicked on said that the 7 year old was replaced because she wasn't pretty enough.

david_h · 18 Aug 2008, 13:21

great cartoon in our paper yesterday. . .

Faked fireworks
faked Little Girl Singing
Fake 16 year old gymnasts
Michael Phelps Gold medals. . .chocolate coins

bellwells · 19 Aug 2008, 03:01

@mateo soletic said:

I agree with Mike that this little girl Yang Peiyi should not have been
substituted by Lin Miaoke. This is a big injustice to the little Yang who
obviously has the tallent but hasnt got the required looks or at least
someone thinks this way.

And for the people that think that this is fuss over nothing let me tell
You something about these countries like China.
I lived most of my life in a socialist/comunist state that was once
called Yugoslavia. In those countries being a individual is nothing .
The individual only exists to serve bigger cause. So now they took
her voice tommorow they will take her kidney . Believe me I have
been there.
And the worst thing the communists did is with peoples minds.
If these people had to choose between democracy and totalitarism
The majority would even now choose the latter.

It will take generations to change this. And if we keep saying that
this is fuss over nothing it will take even longer.

Mateo

Thanks for saying this, Mateo. I DO think this substitution is a big deal. It shows how desperate the Chinese government is to put on a happy face to the world. I'm not fooled. In fact, things like this just reinforce my sentiments.