THE UGLY PEKING DUCKLING

The Chinese government declared one of these girls unattractive

Given the oodles of controversies involving the Chinese government, I shouldn't be riled up about lip synching.

But I can't help but comment on the audacity of Chinese officials to hire one extremely talented 7-year-old girl to sing "Ode to the Motherland" at the Olympic opening ceremonies -- behind a curtain -- while an allegedly cuter girl mouthed the words on stage.

Was China unable to find one girl in its pool of 1.4 billion people who was both attractive and euphonious? They should have used their mountains of yuan to import Simon Cowell and launch Chinese Idol.

Instead, China replaced Yang Peiyi (the girl above, on the left) with Lin Miaoke (the girl on the right) because Peiyi has a "chubby" face and "crooked" teeth. (See video clip below.) The persons responsible for the switch continue to defend the decision.

Could there be anything worse for a 7-year-old girl's self-esteem than for her government to declare that she is too ugly to be seen by foreigners? I know I'd be in therapy for decades.

I realize less attractive vocalists get replaced by more attractive lip synchers all the time. Natalie Wood mouthing Marni Nixon's vocals in West Side Story comes to mind.

But there's something more ominous about China's pulling a Milli Vanilli.

Lin Miaoke is now a symbol of the lengths that China will go to hide its dirty business. Her deceptive lip synching leads me to suspect that China's famed Bird's Nest was built upon the mass graves of political dissidents.

On a more positive note, this story is apparently burning up the Chinese blogosphere, which suggests that the government did not censor this news. (Unfortunately, their government is censoring this blog.)

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I'm also agitated by the following quote from the BBC article about this story:

Miaoke's father has told reporters he thinks Peiyi is also cute.

"Yang Peiyi's looks are OK," Lin Hui reportedly said. "In my opinion, she's not ugly."

The first line of that passage is entirely inconsistent with the second!

Lin Hui does not even come close to suggesting that Peiyi is cute.

If somebody says, "you should date my friend Bertha - her looks are OK," that means that Bertha looks like a morbidly obese Wookie.

If somebody says, "you should go out with my roommate Garfield - he's not ugly," that means that he looks like a pus-filled wart on the sphincter of a decaying walrus.

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Finally, for the record, I think Yang Peiyi is damn cute.

--Junichi