Chinese filmmaker Weijun Chen's film will follow the election of 4th grade schoolchildren to depict the aspirations of Chinese and the workings of democracy in the country.

China is not a democratic country. The several short-lived democratization waves in China have been crushed by violent or non-violent suppression. Though ordinary people have strong desires for democratization, China today still forbids public discussion on any topics concerning democracy through media.

Thousands of years’ feudal system and the past decades’ despotic dictatorship have fostered an ideology of “official standard”. In China, the official power and authority have seldom been checked. Once one has the power, then one has everything. Therefore, the whole nation desire to become government bureaucracys. One case in point here is that, 60% of the college graduates choose government as their first ideal destiny.

Another example is that, on average one government official feeds on 25 Chinese people. One thing worth noting is that the Chinese government officials are not the civil servants in the Western mindset. Rather, they are the ones who possess real power. The above information might reveal the tip of the iceberg of the huge number of Chinese government officials.

The sense of loss from the huge inequality buds among Chinese the simple wish for democracy. They hope democracy could help change their status quo. However, once they become of the elite, they immediately throw away their past pursuit and embrace the new game rules and privileges.

Eventually, they become the safeguard for the establishment. Democracy in China therefore remains a sort of ordinary people’s complaining appeal to the authority. It has never evolved to be a passionate pursuit for a new lifestyle.

This distorted social mindset has also influenced the children, the future generation of China. Once I conducted a simple social investigation among a group of kids ranging from 8-12 years old. The results indicated that 78% of them aim to become government officials. The 8-year old showing in this video has a more extreme thought. Two years ago when he was 6, he wanted to become another Jiang Zemin, the then general secretary of the Party, the chairman of PRC, and the highest governor of the country. Now this boy wants to be a 2nd Hu Jintao, who becomes No.1 after Jiang retired.

I asked those kids why they choose to be government officials. Their answers are unanimous: to make big money, to control and preside over people. One wants to become a government official so that he could command others to abandon their cars to walk with him, because right now he does not have a car. The naïve childish talk expose people’s mental pictures for the government officials: they are unruly; they pursue to maximize their self interests through eliminating rivals and silencing different voices.

The bad social influences on the children go beyond mere thinking; they actively practice them in their daily lives. In the beginning of every semester, these kids would exhaust their means to get elected on the class board. Some parents would join the campaign through courting or even pressing school teachers with the social resources and privileges they enjoy.

In such a social climate, some conscientious teachers initiate democratic elections in their classes, hoping to instill into these kids some sense of service and ideas of democratic election procedures.

Children’s thoughts, forged together by society and parents, merely reflect the mindset of the society. Children mirror society best not only because they are so prone to whatever handed down, but also because they have not learned to hide their points of view. Thus they speak and act out the acknowledged social values more bluntly than the sophisticated adults. Democracy demands restrictions, regulations and service, which clash head-on with the deep-rooted “official standard” mentality. No wonder the budding of democracy on this land has been so difficult.

Therefore, I will zoom in on a 4-grader student cadre’s election. This election is totally different from the “who will become the president” game in American schools. Instead, it will be a cutting-throat competitive democratic election. The children ingrained with “official standard” ideology will find their first encountering with democratic rules. Their joy and sorrow, their winning and loss, will truly reflect the tough yet hopeful democratization process in China.
The children will disclose their thoughts on the following questions:

1. How to understand government officials?
2. How to be a government official?
3. Through what means to become a government official?
4. What is democracy?
5. Which is better, democratic elections or teacher’s appointments?
6. How would parents influence children’s election through the resources at hand?
7. What do parents think of their children running for elections ?
8. Children’s subtle and tricky after-election relationship?
9. As the designer and arbitrator of the election rules, how would the teacher define his (her) relationship with his (her) students?
10. How do society and parents influence their children’s performance in this election process?