China obsessed with having ‘face’, resorted to fakes for Beijing Olympics opening ceremony. What next?
Thursday, August 14th, 2008 235 viewsI am sure by now many of you already read in the news or around the blogs on the issues surrounding Beijing Olympics spectacular opening ceremony footage. I was browsing Negaraku.net and I saw some blogs wrote about it, namely my life 4 hire and teddY-risatioN.
It is true, China even admitted shamelessly and see nothing wrong with to have parts of the spectacular, over the top Beijing Olympics opening ceremony faked to put on a flawless, impressive show to the world. If this is not hypocrisy, I do not know what it is.
In order to put on a a perfect Olympics, Beijing has swept its streets of fake designer handbags, pirated DVDs and phoney corporate logos. That dedication to authenticity apparently does not extend to Olympics ceremonies.I f you watched the opening ceremony in front of the television, you were duped into believing it was filmed live.
Olympic Fireworks Faked For TV
The global television audience of more than three billion people watched in amazement as a series of giant footprints outlined in fireworks proceeded through the night sky from Tiananmen Square to the Bird’s Nest stadium - except they were watching a computer animation.
Even the giant television screens within the stadium itself broadcast the fake images.
Stunned viewers thought they were watching the string of fireworks filmed from above by a helicopter.
But in reality they were watching a 3D graphics sequence that took almost a year to produce.
It even included a ‘camera shake’ to mimic the effect of filming from a helicopter.
The dupe was revealed by China’s Beijing Times. Speaking to the paper, the man responsible for the animation said he was pleased with the result.
“Seeing how it worked out, it was still a bit too bright compared to the actual fireworks,” Gao Xiaolong told the newspaper.
“But most of the audience thought it was filmed live - so that was mission accomplished.”
The designers even added some haziness to simulate the polluted Beijing skyline.
(Source: Sky News)
The organiser has this to say:
Organiser said that the footprint fireworks were there for real, but thought it unsafe to try to film them - so they recreated them instead
Here is my take:
1. If you could not get the real footage, forget about broadcasting it. Forget about saving face, I think Chinese are preoccupied with this ’saving face’ culture and will shamelessly resort to anything to maintain a ‘good, pretty, presentable face’. Image over substance, the end justifies the mean. It is really sad to hear what I saw on television and went gaga over it was nothing but a make-believe effect. Where is the pride of the Chinese people ? Down in the drain.
2. Some of the commentators at the blogs I visited equated criticism against this issue as ‘China bashing and another attempt to degrade China, especially by Western press’. It was China’s Beijing Times that first reported this ‘dupe’.
Furthermore, with this kind of revelation, you cannot help but to feel angry no? Anyone being deceived would feel the same way. Wait, I hear you. One by one please.
- We watch $200 million even more fake spectacular movies like Batman, Independence Day.. and we still enjoy it very much.
That is because we KNOW and we are willingly spend our hard earned money to watch the FAKE movies! See the difference? Unless China put a disclaimer before they put up the footage, then it’s another story. The organisers made billions of people thinking they were watching the real thing when they were not! After billions of people singing praises and glory about the stunning remarkable opening ceremony, then we know it was not real.
- Oh it is better then, they put up CGI effects instead of real fireworks, so it is even better! Less air pollution! Less fire hazards esp during the HOT summer now.
Huh?? Ehem, the firework WERE FIRED OFF! The fake fireworks were not replacement for the real ones. China feed the ‘perfect footage which took them almost 1 year to produce’ to international broadcasters after firing the real fireworks.
We I just do not see the need for them to recreate the whole fireworks display for the sake of grandeur and perfection. Utter crap.
That is not all, apparently the very cute girl singing to the song ‘Ode to the Motherland’ was merely lip syncing to the song. Not so bad right? Considering many singers nowadays cannot even sing live and always do miming, but what is more outrageous was, the girl is not the original singer at all!! She was lip syncing to the song originally sang by another not-so-cute girl!! The organisers kept mum about the issue, never even bothered to give ANY CREDIT giving any credit until it was leaked out yesterday and now China enforced a media blackout on the fake song issue. Typical of China.
Left: Original singer, the less cute girl - Yang Peiyi, Right: Lin Miaoke - the cute girl
(Image source: teddY-risatioN)
Chinese media blackout on faked Olympic ceremony saga
BEIJING (AFP) - China enforced a media blackout on the saga of the faked Olympic opening ceremony song on Wednesday and all references to the story were removed from Chinese Internet sites.
Beijing’s Olympic organisers admitted on Tuesday that nine-year-old Lin Miaoke, who was seen by millions around the world singing during the ceremony, was actually miming a song that was pre-recorded by another girl.
The show’s musical director revealed the real singer, seven-year-old Yang Peiyi who has uneven teeth and a chubby face, was replaced by government order because she did not present the right image of China.
(Source: AFP)
Ridiculous! What ‘right image of China’? So this is the right image of China? Resorting to lies and deceptions in order to have that ‘right image?’ Hilarious! It is disheartening and sad, they ruined an otherwise pretty awesome ceremony with those fakes. Little that we expect, for a big country like China to display symptoms uncannily resembles those countries suffering from inferiority complex syndrome.
The issue here is honesty. If China has been honest about all this before first hand, I do not see any problem for people to accept the facts, especially on the ‘fake fireworks’, as it involves safety issue and requires great planning, efforts to film the real fireworks. I have problem with China ’sidelined the less cute girl and presented a cute girl miming to a song, without giving due credit to the original singer - the less cute girl.’
Now, instead of being honest and apologetic over the issue, China made some ridiculous statements and this only add oil to the burning criticism against China, especially after the Tibet and Taiwan issue. Opportunists and China detractors will pounce on this issue, that is for sure.
I sarcastically remarked in my previous post:
It is not uncommon to hear remarks praising Chinese people as ruthless, conniving, greedy and materialistic bastards
This ‘fakes’ issue certainly does not help to change people’s perceptions about Chinese people. Lastly, (ehem, to save my sorry arse I need to have some sort of disclaimer, seeing so many off topic comments at other blogs writing on this issue) before you blast me for highlighting only the negative things about the opening ceremony and brand me as an anti China bastard, think again.
I acknowledged the great, spectacular and stunning feats by many performers during the opening ceremony especially the part where Li Ning ‘running’ across the CGI scroll to light the Olympic flame. I was stunned, totally impressed when they showed suspended performers ‘running across the continents on the globe’ and of course, the beautifully choreographed dances.
But, this post is specially done to highlight China’s hypocrisy on the ‘fakes issue’ and not to write a summary on positive and negative things about China, or to present a balanced view on China. Neither that I am writing to impress you.
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