The big news lately has around the “misrepresentations” apparently undertaken by the organizers to make the lavish Olympic opening ceremony as perfect as possible. The iconic scene where a young girl sang “Ode to the Motherland” (歌唱祖国) was, apparently, dubbed with the voice of another, less attractive girl. A fireworks show of footprints leading up to the stadium, which was not visible from the Olympic stadium, was digitally added to the stadium skies for the broadcast version of the ceremony. These topics have not only dominated Chinese chat boards the past two days, but were apparently news-worthy enough to make it to the front page of the New York Times website.

Most of attention here seems to be indignation concerning the Chinese government’s concern for image over individuals. It’s a good (though hardly new) point about the government, but also surprisingly unworthy of all the attention it is receiving: no one was really harmed by the dubbing or the faked fireworks, after all, and the decisions seemed to be mostly artistic ones, with little real political significance. At any rate, it’s not the first time that a singer’s performance was dubbed in an Olympic opening ceremony, just two years ago Pavarotti lip-synced to a recorded track at the Turin games.

What Beijing wants the world to see is different than what they’d like it to hear.

Much more significant–and relatively unreported–was the snubbing that the high-profile Hong Kong celebrities slated to perform at the ceremony, including Jacky Chan, Karen Mok, Andy Lau, Joey Yung and Nicholas Tse, received when organizers turned on the lights and began herding people out to the exits as the performers took the stage. The performance, which the singers troopered on with, despite having only a token audience, was not broadcast and got recorded, apparently, only on the personal cameras of a few attendees.

To be fair the ceremony had gone overtime and the performance seemed, from reports, intended to serve as primarily an after show, not as part of the main attraction. However, it is noteworthy that all but two of the performers were from Hong Kong and some of them (like Jackie Chan) had taken a lot of flak for decisions to participate in the Olympics in precisely this capacity. Moreover, from an interview on a Hong Kong radio station with Jackie’s son, Jaycee, it would seem that the performers had been under the impression they would be the closing event of the ceremony, rather than the exit music.

A reasonable analysis here would suggest that a mistake had been made, for which the Hong Kong performers got left by the wayside. Regardless, the significance is glaring. In a ceremony that was so obviously important that officials decided to use one aesthetically child’s face and another’s singing (though both were experienced performers) to convey just the right image, to simply forget the entire contingent of Hong Kong performers shows, at best, the the mainland thinks its entertainment industry has overtaken Hong Kong’s and, at worse, that Hong Kong has lost its special status in China as a model for culture, democracy and economics (however poor a model it may be on some of these fronts). Either way, it’s an ill portent for the former British colony.

Jackie Chan has stated that he is just happy to have had the chance to perform at the ceremony. One wonders if he is still, pleased seeing as nobody seems to care.

Snubbed, but nobody cares.