See Sa Dingding’s lip-synch blunder, which could cost her her licence to perform
Mainland singer gets caught singing into the wrong end of the microphone – and Ministry of Culture banned the practice after Beijing Olympics embarrassment
Influential mainland folk-pop singer Sa Dingding has put her performing career in jeopardy after being caught lip-synching during a live CCTV gala performance.
During Monday’s Lantern Festival Gala, which bought the station’s two weeks of Chinese New Year celebrations to a close, the singer known as the “Bjork of China” was seen holding her microphone upside down while performing.
The Ministry of Culture introduced a ban on the practice after an embarrassing lip-synching scandal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony – a nine-year-old girl was caught miming a song that was actually sung by a different girl deemed not attractive enough to appear in the ceremony.
The ministry said after the ceremony that it would revoke the licences of professional performers caught lip-synching twice during two years. They are also to be hit with fines, although there has been no official word yet on Sa’s fate.
After Monday’s show, Sa didn’t appear too concerned, with the singer telling her 1.6 million followers on Weibo that she will “try harder to hide her lip-synching next time”.
Sa, a BBC Radio 3 Music Award winner in 2008, hails from Inner Mongolia and sings in Putonghua, Sanskrit, Tibetan – and a language she created herself.
