Please Vote for Me

Forty kids, three candidates, one election. And, five parents. It took place in China where elections are uncommon. When the class monitor was for the first time elected, these lovely kids and their 'think tanks' experienced a battle - against the opponents, the self and the illusion of fairness and reason.

The kids knew much and enough. They knew themselves what is welcome, virtue, a positive attitude and the opposites of the above. In this sense, kids know more about adults as they are straightforward to them. They want a treat, so the actual gain satisfies; they follow the good, so they are against the candidates' faults; when the candidate is proactive, they think he is capable. There shouldn't be anything simpler than such values, but the grown-ups has complicated it.

Democracy is however a lesson of blood when the result matters. If it is as simple as treats - that equally distributed among the needed, or virtues and attitudes that are used wisely and properly, it would have been straightforward (even in the way it is called - it won't be called democracy, but something like 'great-treats' or 'moral-good-leadership' lol). One lesson to be taught in the process of democracy is freedom of opinions, which is against the interest of the uncertain some, as freedom means potential offense to everyone. In this story of monitor election, we see it in the kids' world that the speeches of candidates and non-candidates point to a certain interest relating to the question of 'who is to be the monitor'. When it is expressed freely, the interest of some groups is harmed - they cried with disappointment; imagine when it is not - when monitors were appointed by teachers, they didn't see any interest in them - even though they were beaten by the monitor to obey, they didn't feel the harm to interest instantly. Well this is why democracy is bloody painful: it brings you pain by providing you with options. You are easily hurt by the ruin of expectations. It is by no means straightforward in the sense that it causes pain by delivering treats, and achieving virtues via painful sacrifices.

What do you expect a kid to know about this?

Even grown-ups are not making any progress if they are born to enjoy the gain or born not to - there's little possibility of change to the status quo. Because interest is much connected to each other. And gaming is taking risks. See the parents, their connection to this monitor privilege is just love, (perhaps 'mianzi', too? But I'd think it'd be love in the first case.) and they don't risk to let their kid compete under naïve thoughts when others got sophisticated think tanks.

I will leave the question of political campaign unsolved here. Even though the film is quite focused on the little candidates, my real concern is the little non-candidates, the 'citizens' of this class. The crowds' awareness is decisive to the progress of democracy. The voting public treat it a right to vote for themselves, the candidates see it a duty to meet the public expectation. The voting public in this film, however, most effectively reflects the picture of democratic election in China.

I have been hostile to the term politics all through my school years, finding it unreal, dirty, a waste and a disguise in every single case I encounter. Don't even think of the national authority, our experience in a high school mostly dealt with school level, a class of 50 especially. There was no soil for democracy to grow, and we equaled politics to governance. Now I have known it for years, that

government is closed, politics is open.

But no one tells us about this when we were younger.