This made news headlines and I can see why. The real story isn’t that the girl lip-synced but rather, she lip-synced to the voice and song of another girl. Personally I don’t see the fuss. I mean, we already know that the Chinese government mandated that factories closed and cars banned from the roads in Beijing so that the image of the Olympics is nothing but perfect.
Though I must agree with the sentiment of one of the commenters in the Gizmodo post about this story:
But there’s one thing you gotta ask yourself - how come in a nation of 1.3 billion people they couldn’t find a girl that looked “cute” and “sings good”. Come on you can’t tell me that combination doesn’t exist among that many people.
Surely China, which now includes the territories of Macau and Hong Kong, which have produced hundreds of hottie singers and actresses from its own entertainment industry, shouldn’t have had the problem of doing the above?
But I can understand why people feel the need to talk about it. I saw how the local tabloid TV beat it up. To some, this supports their notion that “made in China” means low quality and that since the Chinese are good at making counterfeit goods and general fakery, why should we be surprised?
Besides the slight xenophobic tones and racism of how some choose to interpret this event, I think that only some Chinese netizens, who’ve felt that the other girl was wronged and was robbed of her rightful limelight, and this post at Jezebel grasped the real problem with it and that is,
Is it appropriate to tell a little girl that she isn’t pretty enough to represent her country?
Last night, my friends had prior engagements earlier in the night and will only be going to the clubs late at around 2am, and I wasn’t sure I’d be in the mood to wait till then. Yet I was antsy and bored at home. I thought I’d popped a caffeine pill, listen to some dance music and have a party by myself in my room and not go out at all.
So, there I was tweaking on a caffeine high, listening to the music blaring through my headphones and surfing the net looking at anything and everything. Pretty soon, in a span of about an hour I had bought stuff off Amazon, Think Geek, the Apple store and the iTunes store. Yeah, on this night boredom plus caffeine made me buy stuff.
All of a sudden at around 11:30pm I felt this intense urge to just get out of the house and be around people. I had changed my mind and it didn’t matter that I’d be alone. I know I will know at least one person at The Deen, Sam the bartender so I quickly changed and hopped into my car. Half an hour later, I was amidst the loud music and party-goers.
I saw Sam, chatted with her for a while and quickly bought two drinks from her. I downed the Jager bomb and nursed my Jack and Coke for the next half hour. I was buzzing, smiling and people watching. Seeing pretty girls was invigorating.
Although, there’s something about being alone in a sea of people that can make one depressed. I saw a couple making out in the queue earlier and that made me wished I was there with someone. Then out on the dance floor, I saw this girl with tears in her eyes lose it completely and was yelling at her boyfriend without caring who was looking at them. And I thought, “Ok, sometimes being with someone is not necessarily better than being alone.”
I was there for close to 2 hours by myself being entertained by the house music and the spectacle of other people. 2am came along quickly to my delight. I had managed to kill time in a most pleasurable way and I was elated.
The Deen was closing so I hopped to The Rise where I was suppose to meet up with Simon, Lydia and Kayo. And my night continued and began anew. I didn’t get home till about 5am. I was so glad that I didn’t stay home after all.
I first tried Mother, the energy drink by Coca-Cola Amatil for the Australian market at Two Tribes Music Festival 2006. I had liked it but it appears that I was in the minority. A lot of people thought it tasted too medicinal and it was pulled from the market after a year or so.
It was recently relaunched with the tag line, “New - Tastes Nothing Like The Old One!” and with the ad below parodying how serious and how sorry they are for botching it up in the first place.
TV ad for Mother, v2.0
My colleagues Phil and Sam, who is now in Melbourne have this tradition called “3 o’clock Red Bull” which is exactly what it means. Like Wednesday is the hump of the working week, 3 o’clock is the hump of the working day. Sometimes you just need that little push to get over it.
Today Phil had wanted to try the new Mother, and that prompted me to get one too because I didn’t sleep well last night. Off to the supermarket I went - $3 for a 500mL can! Bargain!
After my first few gulps of the new fruity flavoured Mother (apple and lemon FTW!), I felt the buzz slowly built up. There was a warm tingling sensation in my limbs. Had I been in a dark nightclub with loud music playing I would have been jumping up and down. As it was, I just sat in my desk arms and fingers fidgeting, and legs shaking away. Good for energy!
I said to Phil, “This is good buzz.” He agreed. I was physically trying to talk slower and I think I succeeded but my fingers were typing at a crazy speed, but with no errors though. Good for concentration!
I felt the buzz and tingles for a good two hours as I gulped the drink away. This was expected as I was drinking the equivalent of two cans of Redbull. Sweet! I could feel my heart racing so this is probably not a good drink to be drinking a lot of on a daily basis. But still … sweet! If they sell this in the clubs, it’d definitely do well. It’s now my new favourite party drink. Yay!
p.s. Any Coke reps out there reading this? Send me a case of this stuff!
One of my favourite shows on TV is “How I Met Your Mother“. The show spins a comedy around the relationship issues of a group of friends in their early 30s where two of them are married and the other three are single. The dynamics of their discussions are always fun because everyone has a different point of view due to their personalities and circumstances.
So apart from the married couple, one’s the straight-guy (as in follow the rules, have morals etc.), one’s a woman with all that that entails, and the other is the sleazoid player. And he’s called “Barney Stinson” and is played by Neil Patrick Harris.
He’s my favourite character on the show because he utters lines like these:
Because we just hooked up last night. I can’t call the girl the next day, I have to wait at least like…forever, Oh Snap! Nevergonnacallher.
This better be good. I’m about to enter Nirvana. By the way I should get you Nirvana’s phone number, she gives a great massage. Say whaaaat?
You invited me up to your apartment to play Battleship. Is that not an international recognized term for sex?
There are only two reasons to date a girl you’ve already dated: Breast implants.
This girl is blinding you with her shiny hair and boob-shaped boobs.
Look around Lily, you are in the heart of bachelor country. And as a woman you are an illegal immigrant here. Now you can try to apply for a sex visa but that only last 12 hours. Fourteen if you qualify for multiple entry.
Wherever girls want to get back at their ex-boyfriends we’ll be there. Wherever women deal with their daddy issues through promiscuity and binge drinking, we will be there. Wherever a bachelorette party drives through the city in a limo sticking their heads out of the windows yelling ‘What’s up New York?.’ We will be what is up New York.
Bringing a date to a wedding is like taking a deer carcass on a hunting trip.
The only reason to wait a month for sex is if she’s 17 years, 11 months old.
Other Barneyisms in the show include the “Bro Code” (one of which is that one should never make eye contact in a “devil’s three way”), and the “Lemon Law” (you are allowed to cut a date short within 5 minutes of the date if it sucks).
The other night I met this guy who immediately reminded me of Barney. How I know? Because he mentioned a get together like so, “it’s the birthday party of the girl that I’m banging”. Heh. In a way, I wish I could be more like this guy, more like Barney. I wished I could be more thick-skinned when it comes to women, and base it all around “going for the percentage”.
Though as funny as Barney and this guy is, and as true as some of their theories about women and relationships are, I can’t because I don’t see the point of being a player. I don’t feel the need to try and score every time that I go out, and I am not afraid that my “skills” will fade away if I don’t use it.
Though the guy and I did agree on one thing: older girls are easier because they know what they want, and if you’ve got what they want, it’s a sure thing if you play it right; there’s less mind games and it’s less of a mind-fuck. Well, usually anyway.
