A CHINESE girl with the voice of an angel was excluded from the Beijing Olympic opening ceremony – because she had wonky TEETH. Linn Maioke captured the hearts of millions around the world with her performance at the Olympic opening ceremony. But the nine-year-old was not actually singing – she was lip-synching to the voice of seven-year-old Yang Peiyi. Yang's crooked teeth meant she missed out on the opening ceremony's top spot. The revelation has stirred up anger in China’s Internet chat rooms and on comment pages. “That’s bull****. Any little boy or girl who is not so good looking and sees such an explanation will sob their heart out.”

Even more than the Red Sox winning the wildest game of the century, this is the story everyone will be talking about today. Personally I can't wait to hear all the indignant howling and self-righteous anger about what an abombination this is and what a backwards, Third World hellhole China must be to put cute girlish good looks ahead of wonky-toothed vocal talent. Because of course, something like that could never happen here. No, we're way too progressive to pull a stunt like letting someone lip synch just because they're prettier than the actual singer. OK, we gave a Grammy to the craptacular Milli Vanilli. And we gave another to C+C Music Factory who put Zelma Davis in their videos instead of big fatty Martha Wash. Oh, and there was that creepy fertility mom who pumped out the litter of septuplets and Newsweek photoshopped out her wonky teeth. But never let it be said we're hung up on looks like the Chinese are.

Sarcasm aside, this whole controversy just shows how far China has come. Because maybe you can "be not so good looking" in some Communist dictatorship or England, but if you want to join the developed world, you want to showcase your talent and become an international star, the first stop is the dentist.