The fireworks show was a sight to behold during the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Games.
When it comes to fireworks, the Chinese apparently have no equal.
Or so went the stereotypical thinking on the night the opening ceremonies were being beamed into America’s homes.
Only it was not true.
Those fireworks that lit up the Beijing sky came from a computer-generated video.
Beijing’s organizers might as well have stuck Tom Cruise’s image in the video and had him parachuting onto the stadium floor, whereupon they could have placed a sofa in the video and had Cruise jump up and down on it in excitement.
The Chinese sure are a clever people.
The IOC awarded China the Olympics, and the Chinese gave us Hollywood-like magic, right down to the cute little girl lip-synching “Ode to the Motherland” because the little girl who actually sang the song was deemed too ugly.
That is a harsh message to send to a 7-year-old girl, no matter how frighteningly ugly she is. Not that she is frighteningly ugly, judging from the photograph that has been published in newspapers.
You would think in a nation of 1.3 billion, China’s organizers could have found a little girl who could both sing and be shown to the world.
Then again, maybe it is not as easy as you would think to find a little girl who can both sing and be shown to the world in a nation that is experiencing a female shortage because of its one-child policy.
Bela Karolyi was not too happy with the fraudulent practices of the Chinese, at least as they pertained to the female gymnasts.
He limited much of his analysis on NBC to questioning the age of the Chinese competitors, a few of whom looked to be only a few years removed from wearing diapers, hardly old enough to meet the minimum-age requirement of 16.
“They are using half-people,” Karolyi said. “One of the biggest frustrations is - what - arrogance. These people think we are stupid.”
As America’s female gymnasts either fell or completed faulty routines en route to the silver medal in the team competition, Karolyi felt compelled to note the questionable ages of the Chinese competitors.
He could have been asked about the cuisine in Beijing, and he undoubtedly would have found a way to turn the topic back to the doctored age records of China’s female gymnasts.
“What kind of slap in the face is this?” Karolyi said. “They are 12, 14 years old, max.”
Beijing’s Olympic organizers claimed every event was sold out after the last tickets were put on sale two weeks ago.
This does not jibe with the high number of empty seats being shown in the U.S. Of course, it is possible there could be fannies in those seats that have been digitally removed from the video we are viewing.
You just never know in the Seeing is not Necessarily Believing Games.
Maybe Jason Lezak did not overtake Alain Bernard in the 400 freestyle swim relay in what possibly will stand as the premier moment of the Beijing Games.
Maybe the United States did not win the gold medal over France by a touch.
Maybe the Zimbabwe relay team won the event instead.
Otherwise, the Chinese are accumulating lots of gold medals in the Gen. Tso cook-off competition, as planned by the communist government that has adopted the old Soviet Union system of identifying tots with athletic potential and whisking them away to training facilities.
China’s gold-medal haul is intended to show the rest of the world just how wonderful it is to live and work there.
At least that is the thinking, superficial though it may be.
China’s message is getting out, all right.
It is about putting forward a face that reflects best on the communist state, and darn anyone who spoils the contrived image, starting with a 7-year-old girl.
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