When Lin Miaoke, 9, belted out "I Sing for My Country" as the Chinese flag entered the national stadium, she became an instant celebrity and was quickly dubbed a "smiling angel." The image of her dressed in a pretty red dress appeared around the world.

But she apparently wasn't the one singing. Chen Qigang, the ceremony's music director, told state broadcaster CCTV that the voice hundreds of millions of people heard was that of 7-year-old Yang Peiyi. Yang had the voice and was supposed to perform but was yanked at the last minute because she had crooked teeth.

"It was for the national interest," Chen told CCTV. "The child on camera should be flawless in image, internal feelings and expression."

The Chinese Internet quickly lighted up, with many online users condemning the apparent bait and switch at the government's big show.

"Fake singing for national honor? What kind of lessons are we giving such a small child?" asked an anonymous posting on 163.com, a news portal. "Is this national honor or national shame?"

China's propaganda ministry moved in today, deleting many online discussion entries and blocking access to video links showing Lin's lip-syncing.

Another sleight of hand involved the massive fireworks display that exploded the length of Beijing at the culmination of the ceremony. The display was real, involving 29 pyrotechnic "footprints" exploded sequentially from Tiananmen Square to the Olympic Village.

But the 55-second version that most TV viewers saw was an animated three-dimensional studio re-creation, Gao Xiaolong, visual-effects team leader at the Crystal Stone animation company, told the Beijing Times. Only the last "footprint" closest to the stadium known as the Bird's Nest was filmed in real time.

"Most viewers thought these were live shots, so our work achieved its effect," Gao said proudly.

Gao said planners earlier decided that capturing all 29 "footprints" on camera would be too difficult. So the studio spent nearly a year crafting the clip, which was inserted into the live coverage.

To make it as seamless as possible, Crystal consulted with the weather bureau to re-create Beijing haze at night, Gao told the newspaper, and included a slight shaking to simulate shooting from a helicopter. The company declined to comment today.

Early estimates suggested that the opening event was viewed by 4 billion people worldwide, although Reuters news agency in a country-by-country analysis put the figure closer to 1 billion, most in China. The vast majority of Chinese were pleased and impressed by the ceremony, which they saw as a moment of national glory.

"There are too many things to be taken care of; it's understandable that errors will occur," said another anonymous posting on 163.com.

Many viewers didn't realize that most of the 15,000 "volunteer" performers were from the army or paramilitary.

Internet postings speculated on whether the revelations of lip-syncing and animated fireworks would topple careers. Enormous secrecy surrounded the lead-up to the ceremony. Korean television reporters were chastised for leaking footage of a practice run, while those working on the production were told they faced seven years' imprisonment for disclosing details.

The Beijing organizers weren't the first to use lip-syncing for an Olympic performance. Luciano Pavarotti did so at the Turin Winter Games in 2006, although it was his own voice and he was in great pain from pancreatic cancer. He died last September.

Kang Xiaoguang, a social science researcher with the Chinese Academy of Science, said it was good that China had more online debate, a sign the society is maturing, but he added that the singing and fireworks misrepresentations, if true, are disconcerting.

"Society also needs basic trust and justice," he said.

China has suffered a string of recent scandals involving fake news stories, bogus photos of a rare South China tiger and a sham TV report that vendors filled dumplings with cardboard. Social experts bemoan the lack of morality or trust among government agencies, companies and individuals.

Another source of online grousing this week was the opening ceremony's aesthetics, orchestrated by director Zhang Yimou. The three-hour extravaganza presented an idealized vision of Chinese history and culture, with Confucius heavily represented and Chairman Mao kept from sight. But some found it pompous and lacking heart.

"It was nationalist clothing over authoritarian underwear," said Sichuan province-based writer and blogger Ran Yunfei.

The one reminder that more than 70,000 Chinese died three months ago in the massive Sichuan earthquake was a young survivor walking beside basketball star Yao Ming.

"This scale of earthquake has not occurred before. Do we have to avoid it during the ceremony simply because we host the Games?" said online user Little Snow Gentle Breeze and Light Clouds on the 163.com website. "Why can't we spend three minutes to mourn the victims in the ceremony?"

Zhang, who directed "Raise the Red Lantern" and "House of Flying Daggers," seemed pleased with the outcome, however.

"This kind of three-dimensional performance is a first for the world," he told a news conference. "If London also wants to do it this way, I estimate they won't surpass us in a short time," he added, referring to the host city of the 2012 Games.

Ai Weiwei, an avant-garde artist, said the ceremony focused primarily on giving "face" to the government.

"They tried so hard and wasted so much money," he said, adding that the oversized torch atop the Bird's Nest, which he helped design, resembled an ice cream cone. "The ceremony was stupid, a real wasted opportunity," he said.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-fg-lipsync13-2008aug13,0,3009926.story