Well well well... I figured the lil girl was not actually singing but I got really upset when i heard why she was lip-synching.

Story here:

Olympic organizers reveal lip-synched child performance

Quote:

In an interview with Beijing Radio, Chen Qigang, the ceremony's chief music director, admitted that the pig-tailed, nine-year-old girl in a red dress shown singing was actually lip-synching Ode to the Motherland to audio of another girl, deemed not as pretty but with a lovelier voice.

What do you guys think about it?

It sounds mean and unfair, but face it. Image accounts for a lot on such a big stage.

Then they could have picked the second best voice and not done what they did. Bahhh to them. It angers me that the performer gets the credit when the singer is the one doing the work.

I should have put this in the Olympics section I guess. Sorry!

All I can say is that it's pretty awful to do that to someone.

How is it fair to the girl who they have to explain, "sorry honey, you're not pretty enough". What kind of message does that send? If I were the other girl's parents, I wouldn't have let my child lipsync if it were not her recorded voice.

Any chance of them suing?

That is horrible to do to a child.. Basically that is telling both of those girls that they are not good enough for the world. There is no reason to subject anyone to that...

It's Communist China. What do you think? Not a shot in the dark I'm afraid..

I disagree with this as well, not to mention lip synching performances in general. If you are in front of a bunch of people with a microphone it better be your own voice.

it's a very "american" view that this kind of thing is wrong, and though I agree with the above posters, I would like to call attention to the other side's point.

I don't agree that it was fair, but I can see what they mean by "we must put our country's interests first." An Asian mindset is generally one of great honour and the willingness to go the extra five steps to achieve what they want. In ancient times, people fell on their swords if they committed the slightest dishonour. If either of the two girl had performed by themselves, the rest of the world might think "she has a great voice; too bad she's not that pretty." or "she's adorable, but her voice isn't very good." These Olympics are a huge honour for Beijing and the rest of China, and it's the first time the epic sports have traveled there, so they want to make it perfect; this is how they did so.

I also hear that part of the fireworks were cgi for the telecasts.

Frankly, I think it was a bad a idea for China to have the Olympics at this time. There's been an awful lot of controversy concerning the rights of the journalists and getting access to what they need, some of the promises of the organizers in China not being fulfilled and now this. No matter how the whole thing ends, this will definitely be one for the record books.