Olympic Balladeer’s Voice Was Dubbed
BEIJING — Pigtailed and smiling, Lin Miaoke, age 9, stood in a red dress and white shoes during Friday’s Olympic opening ceremonies and performed “Ode to the Motherland” in what would become one of the evening’s most indelible images: a lone child, fireworks blazing overhead, singing a patriotic ballad before an estimated one billion viewers.
Except that her proud father, Lin Hui, noticed “that the voice was a little different from hers.” On Tuesday, Mr. Lin said in a telephone interview that he had assumed “the difference might be caused by the acoustics.”
Acoustics had nothing to do with it. Under pressure from the highest levels of the ruling Communist Party to find the perfect face and voice, the ceremonies’ production team concluded that the best solution was to use two girls instead of one.
Miaoke, a third grader, was judged cute and appealing but “not suitable” as a singer. Another girl, Yang Peiyi, 7, was judged the best singer but not as cute.
So when Miaoke opened her mouth to sing, the voice that was actually heard was a recording of Peiyi.
And it is unclear if Miaoke even knew.
