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| Lin Miaoke |
As audiences the world round sat in awe of the out of this world spectacle that was the Olympic opening ceremonies in Beijing, at least one of the evening’s jaw dropping moments was a pure and utter fake out.
According to the Los Angeles Times, that cute as a button 9-year-old girl named Lin Miaoke who brought the audience to near tears with her touching "Ode to the Motherland" was actually an “ode to fakery.”
Times columnist Bill Plaschke reports the voice actually belonged to 7-year-old Yang Peiyi, who Chinese Olympic officials decided wasn’t cute enough to appear on television.
But unlike past moments of musical trickery like Milli Vanilli, Chinese officials came clean—even going so far as to publicly brag about the decision.
"After several tests, we decided to put Lin Miaoke on the live picture while using Yang Peiyi’s voice," said musical director Chen Qigang in an interview with Beijing Radio. "The reason for this is that we must put our country’s interests first. The girl appearing on the picture must be flawless in terms of her facial expressions and the great feeling she can give to the people."
The announcement by Chinese Olympic officials comes on the heels of reports from journalists that other spectacular moments throughout the evening were fabricated, at least in part.
That huge gust of wind that seemingly blew the Chinese and Olympic flags atop the stadium benefited from a wind a Chicago Times reporter claims existed nowhere else in the stadium.
And those impressive fireworks that exploded across TV screens were allegedly in part digitized because the smog over Beijing was too thick for anyone to see real fireworks.
