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There once were two little girls, ages nine and seven. The older girl was the cuter one. The younger girl, however, did not have good enough looks to sing in front of the world, even though she had the more beautiful voice. Beijing music directors want both appearance AND talent at the opening ceremony for the 2008 Summer Olympics held in their city. Since neither girl had both the looks and the voice, how were they able to remedy this problem?

Well here’s a simple solution. Have the younger, more beautiful-sounding, girl record her voice and have the older, more beautiful-looking, girl mouth the words during the ceremony.

Believe it or not, this exactly happened during the Opening Ceremony. 9-year old Lin Miaoke was performing in Beijing singing along to “Ode to the Motherland,” which was actually sung by 7-year old Yang Peiyi.

WHAT!!!??? You’ve gotta be kidding me. As if we haven’t seen enough lip-synch videos from the Back Dorm Boys, we see MORE lip-synching in the country of China ON A WORLDWIDE EVENT? Come on that’s even worse than the time Danny Almonte pitched for a Little League Baseball team…as a 14-year old. Sure he was a great pitcher for the New York Little League team, but the fact at hand is that he DECEIVED us, just like how the Beijing music directors deceived the world. If you were Yang Peiyi, wouldn’t you be ticked off at not being able to perform in front of the world for a quadrennial sporting event that was held IN YOUR HOMETOWN? Wouldn’t you feel like you got robbed of fame and glory?

Apparently not. Yang Peiyi was happy enough to even have her voice heard in the ceremony. But even so, that is deceit right there.

There are lots of people online who make videos where they lip-synch to songs so it sounds like they’re singing it when really they aren’t. Not a big deal. They just do it for fun. And besides, we KNOW it’s not really them singing. Heck I used to do it a lot too! I made a lot of videos where I was mouthing the words to my favorite songs. It was fun, but now looking back, it was quite stupid. But HERE is a different case. They get the voice of a young seven-year-old girl and FORBID her from singing simply because of her looks. Now that’s just dumb. Apparently they haven’t heard the famous saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” It’s not the girl’s face we want to see. It’s the voice we want to hear. It’s not how you look on the outside. It’s how you look everywhere else!

It goes something like this. Let’s say that you are a senior in high school and that you were chosen out of ALL seniors to be featured in a documentary about life in high school. So you get up in the morning on the day of the shooting and you chow down your waffles as fast as Joey Chestnut slammed down his hot dogs on the 4th of July. And then you get in your car and drive yourself to where the shooting is to take place, feeling excited as the second hand on your grandfather clock ticks. And then all of a sudden, as you get out of your car with extreme excitement, the director of the documentary comes up to you and says, “Hey thanks for coming! We need to you serve the food so the actors won’t get hungry while we’re filming.”

Then, an imaginary record in your head screeches to a halt. Wait wait, back that up. Uhh…did he just say I’m supposed to serve food? Not TALK in the documentary? Are you kidding me??? I work up a speech for THREE days and tell my friends and family I am going to be famous on a documentary directed by possibly one of the best directors in the world…and all I do is serve food??? A good student like me should not be subject to such menial labor.

Now wouldn’t you harbor a feeling of deceit, and possibly rejection, after you heard what the director told you? Wouldn’t you throw a tantrum and throw your belongings out the window? Wouldn’t you get so mad that you would feel like you’re turning into the Incredible Hulk? Heck I sure would!

As if that wasn’t bad enough, NOBODY knew about this scandal until Tuesday, when it was announced that Lin Miaoke was not really singing. From the opening ceremony on Friday to Tuesday, we had all thought Lin Miaoke was going to be a superstar singer in the near future. Now, we all know she’s not going on that road anytime soon.

The Beijing music directors not only robbed the little girl from an appearance at the Olympics, but they also robbed THE WORLD for not being able to see the authentic performance in Beijing. Okay, so lip-synching is fine if you want to do it for fun. But FOR A SPORTING EVENT LIKE THE OLYMPICS? Give me a break! When was the last time Celine Dion mouthed the words to “My Heart will Go On?” Did Whitney Houston ever lip-synch to “I Will Always Love You?” NO! Not that I’m taking anything away from Lin Miaoke, but WHY DIDN’T THE REAL SINGER SING IT AT THE OLYMPICS???

If anything, I believe the younger generation kids will think it is okay to deceive others just like how the music directors deceived the world. Maybe they won’t pop in a CD on their boom box and show their friends that they can sing when really they are just mouthing the words. But other comparable forms of deception will soon come about.