Remember Ashlee Simpson's infamous performance on Saturday Night Live?  It was reminiscent of Milli Vanilli's "coming out" only it was her voice on the recording.  Well lightning has struck again... It appears the event planning team for the Beijing Olympics ignored the lesson to be learned from Rob and Fab during the opening ceremony by placing a lip synching young Chinese girl center stage and a not-quite-as-cute girl's voice on the recording.

According to the Associated Press, "A 7-year-old Chinese girl was not good-looking enough for the Olympics opening ceremony, so another girl with a pixie smile lip-synched 'Ode to Motherland,' an official said."

I blogged yesterday about how China was hoping the Olympics, and the opening ceremony especially, would change world views of the highest populated country on the globe.  Now the PR work the Beijing Olympics committee has worked so hard to spread internationally - portraying China as a technological world leader and advanced society - is being seen for exactly what it is.

Lin Miaoke, the little girl the whole world thought was singing, was really just moving her lips to the voice of Yang Peiyi... who, I consider, to be adorable.

Why all this fuss?  Maybe because it's China and it's the Olympics. 

Just last week, news surfaced that the guy in the FreeCreditReport.com commercials (you know, driving the sub-compact car or working in the seafood restaurant) doesn't sing the songs we all have stuck in our heads after seeing one of the commercials.  In fact, he's French Canadian and apparently has quite an accent - BUT he has the look, so he got the part!

It's really not uncommon for actors and actresses to lip synch or even be dubbed over.  For instance, Andie McDowell was in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" but her voice wasn't.  The actress we heard was Glenn Close.  Apparently her voice was perfect for the role but she didn't look the part.

My argument is this: Lin Miaoke is an actress.  The planning committee for the opening ceremonies selected her to be the child who sings "Ode to the Motherland" because she was cute and was seemingly unafraid to be center stage at the largest global event of 2008.  The committee realized that while she looked the part, she did not have a good enough or strong enough voice to sing the part... enter Yang Peiyi, a Chinese girl who could sing leaps and bounds above the other young girl but just didn't have "the look" the planners had in mind.

"'The national interest requires that the girl should have good looks and a good grasp of the song and look good on screen,' Chin [Qigang] said. 'Lin Miaoke was the best in this.  And Yang Peiyi's voice was the most outstanding,'" reported the AP.

That's show business, baby.