Posted by:gilliebean on August 12, 2008 at 11:14 AM
I didn't catch the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics on Friday,
but I've sure been reading about a whole lot today. A beautiful little
girl, Lin Miaoke, performed "Ode to the Motherland" in a gorgeous,
crystal-clear voice as China's flag was proudly displayed in the
National Stadium. I could almost put aside the politics and conflicts
around the Beijing Olympics for a second and enjoy this little girl
singing for her country with such a sweet voice. Too bad that little
girl wasn't singing at all!
The girl with the beautiful voice is actually Yang Peiyi, who Chinese
officials decided at the last minute was not cute enough to represent
China on the world stage. Seriously, China? You don't have enough drama
going on right now, what with people protesting internationally against
your human rights violations and media censorship? You have to add a
little fuel to the fire by telling a 7-year-old girl she's ugly and
fat? Maybe you should just steal an old lady's purse or kick a puppy or
something. Then maybe your popularity will go up.
This little charade is just representative of the way China operates,
trying to disguise reality with a glossy, pretty, dishonest facade. The
world is already watching China to see if the Beijing Olympics will
motivate any kind of social change-- even the slightest bit of sketchiness makes activists more unwilling to trust the Chinese
government.
What do you guys think about this? (And for the record, Yang Peiyi, I think you're beautiful and you sing like an angel.)
People keep talking about how the olympics are going to unite the world by sports to "make it a better place", but how exactly are they planning on doing that when a girl can't sing freely to the public because she isn't "cute enough". This just goes to show that image is more important than skills to the world in general.
This 5 years-old girl will be remembered for the rest of her life as "the little girl that wasn't cute enough for the opening ceremonies". But China doesn't care about individuals. Image is all that count. What was the price paid by the 8 chinese gymnasts who won gold yesterday? Taken away from their parents at 3 years-old with only 1 visit a year allowed for a gold medal 13 years later.
It just reinforces that these Olympics are a farce and that the only thing China is worried about is IMAGE. They don't intend to change a thing about how their society is structured, improving human rights (as if granting the Olympics to them would cause that to happen), and that they don't really care about anything besides promoting a "China is Great" message to the world. This is a sad example of how far they will go to promote this facade. As if anyone but the Chinese leadership would have thought "how can such an ugly girl have such a beautiful voice"? The whole thing is tawdry. Ewwww. And if this is symbolic of the "Olympic ideals" then I'll pass on that propaganda train.
