Yang Peiyi is the one who really sang the solo “Ode to the Motherland” at the beginning of the 2oo8 Beijing Olympic Opening Ceremony! Lin Miaoke was put on the stage and lip singing, because director Zhang Yimou considered Yan Peiyi’s appearance was not attractive enough. From her picture we can see that Yang Peiyi does have a chubby face and uneven teeth. But I think 7 year and half years old Yang Peiyi is a very cute little girl as well. Lin Miaoke didn’t really have the voice to be singing in front of an audience of billions.
This was absolutely a successful business operation. But, what message has this thing told us? A pretty face is more important than real talent? Hope the Mr. Zhang’s decision won’t hurt these two innocent girls’ soul or bring any negative influences to them.
Yang Peiyi(Left) and Lin Miaoke(Right)
Yang Peiyi
Yang Peiyi
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Lin Miaoke (林妙可)，the sweet nine-year-old girl who sang “Paean to the Motherland”
《歌唱祖国》when the Chinese national flag entered the Bird’s Nest Stadium during the Olympics Opening Ceremony, is now the hottest child star in China. Her image was also on the front page of the New York Times and thousands of other print media reaching billions of readers around the globe. But in a recent interview with Beijing People’s Broadcasting Station, Chen Qigang (陈其钢), the General Music Designer of the Opening Ceremony, revealed that the voice everyone heard singing at the Opening Ceremony was actually a pre-recording of another child,
Yang Peiyi (杨沛宜), a student of the Attached Primary School of Beijing University at Zhongguancun . The following excerpts are from the interview with Chen Qigang, translated by CDT:
Chen Qigang: The first condition was that the director wants the image to be very cute. We selected about ten children… Then we had to choose one from those who had a good image who can sing well…
We chose one ten-year-old child, whose voice was really good. All the rehearsals were using her singing… In the end the director thought her image was not the most appropriate, she was a little too old… so regrettably, we had to let her go.
Then, as we chose another singer, the standard was that she needs to be seven years old. Lin Miaoke (林妙可) was one of them, another was Yang Peiyi (杨沛宜), and there were others.
Then we went to the Central People’s Radio Station to do the recording…
Finally we made the decision that the voice we would use was Yang Peiyi’s.
TV Host: Yang Peiyi?
Chen Qigang: Yes.
…The reason was for the national interest. The child on camera should be flawless in image, internal feelings, and expression.
Lin Miaoke is excellent in those aspects. But in the aspect of voice, Yang Peiyi (杨沛宜) is flawless, in each member of our team’s view.
TV Hostess: … So the one in front of camera is Lin Miaoke, but the voice [we heard] is from Yang Peiyi?
Chen Qigang: Yes. This was a last minute decision, we had to do it. We had been through several inspections，they were all very strict. When we rehearsed at the spot, there were spectators from various divisions, especially leader(s) from the the Politburo, who gave the opinion: It must change. This is to say, we had no choice.
