Bombast in Beijing
Sir: David Tang is right (Diary, 16 August) that Zhang Yimou, the choreographer of the Olympic ceremony, produced ‘maniacal... bombast...’. Mr Tang suggested Pyongyang as a model. But years ago Mr Zhang told me that he could get his films on screen in China, where they were hardly shown, if he made one like Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will about the 1936 Nazi Olympics.
Mr Tang mentions the ‘sleight of hand’ of the faked fireworks — which would have got a similarly faking athlete sent home. But that is only one example of the ceremonial Potemkin. The Chinese internet sites admitted everything, afterwards. There was the little girl singer, miming because according to a Politburo member the real singer wasn’t pretty enough; but Zhang Yimou said the little girl on our screens ‘sang pretty well’. The poor thing didn’t know until her father told her after the ceremony that she had been dubbed. There were the 55 ‘ethnic children’ — so described in the programme — who were all Hans, ethnic Chinese. A genuine Tibetan might have suddenly said or done something unpatriotic.
In the gymnastics, that cute little girl described as being 16 (she looked about 8) was last seen on an official Chinese website last year, described as 13. No need for Tessa Jowell, if she is still around, to ‘gush with praise’ for what she saw. There was plenty in Beijing for London to avoid in 2012.
Jonathan Mirsky
London W11
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