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Contemporary China Studies
In the last few decades, China has been experiencing tremendous changes in her economy, society and infrastructure. Her leaders dream about revival of the Chinese race: domestically, they want to lead nationals out of poverty towards a reasonable standard of living; internationally, they want to propel the realization of an economic corridor, via both land and sea, and draft a blueprint for a rising power. Leaders have dreams, but what do their subjects dream about?
Each episode of "China Stories" shows audience around in China by presenting them with the stories of some characters, as well as some images, in the hope that they may understand what the present-day Chinese think, do, and care about.
1. The vanishing shadow
2. The invisible citizens
3. The Rise of Online Celebrities in Mainland
4. Guangxi 1968
5. Building a Utopia
6. Speedy Home Coming
7. The last animal tamer
8. Blind Soccer
9. Human-Elephant Conflict
10. Invisible Wings
10 DVDs / 2016 / 300 minutes
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Founded in 2006, China's Blind Football Team has got countless of awards over the decade. They never stop chasing their dreams even without lights in life, and they win for their country and their wonderful life. The team is heading for Rio 2016 Paralympic Games this year although full of injuries. After this game, they're supposed to retire, how's their life going to be? However, the shortage of young team seems to be a stumbling block of the road of the team keep running on.
DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes
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In China, to live a better life, you have to be better-off.
Is there another way?
Tang Guanhua, contemporary artist, believes so.
He took the road less travelled by. And that has made all the difference.
In 2011, Tang closed his profit making design company and founded the "China Self-sufficient Laboratory" in the rural outskirt of Qingdao. For 5 years, Tang and his wife had tried to survive by their own wiles, producing everything from shoes to electricity, giving up prestige job and. The experience strengthened his belief that the more one relies on money, the less independent thinking they can have.
Now he goes a step further.
He strives to build a utopia - or in his words, an Intentional Community, the first of its kind in China. On a rural farmland in Fuzhou, Tang and his followers pursued their dream. Having the same visions and values, they want to form a self-sufficient community, sharing skills and talents. It should be environmentally sustainable and it should have its own social structure, education and welfare system. Decisions are to make through deliberation.
While cities in China are crippled by smog, mercenaries and wealth gaps, is such community an alternative for our future generations?
DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes
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Cultural Revolution in Guangxi
DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes
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Man vs Elephant
Yunnan Province is the last habitat for China's remaining wild elephants. Since 1992, due to the depletion of natural habitat caused by human activities, elephants have frequented villages in Xishuangbanna where they've destroyed crops and houses and injured people.
DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes
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In the Xishan District, thirty or so kilometres away from the city of Kunming, is a kingdom that is known for being a paradise on earth. Everyday, pilgrims from throughout the nation pour in. But the land of stories isn't all magical, even fairytales can be disturbing. The theme park is painted as a loving community but just like the outside world, the park is full of cliques. People under the height of 1.5 metres, who suffer from dwarfism like Chen Jianquan number at 8 million in Mainland China. They are seen as outsiders, and it is difficult for them to assimilate into society. What Chen Jianquan hopes for the most is to return to his parents.
DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes
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In the last few decades, China has been experiencing tremendous changes in her economy, society and infrastructure. Her leaders dream about revival of the Chinese race: domestically, they want to lead nationals out of poverty towards a reasonable standard of living; internationally, they want to propel the realization of an economic corridor, via both land and sea, and draft a blueprint for a rising power. Leaders have dreams, but what do their subjects dream about?
Each episode of "China Stories" shows audience around in China by presenting them with the stories of some characters, as well as some images, in the hope that they may understand what the present-day Chinese think, do, and care about.
DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes
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2016.1.1 marks the end of China's one-child policy, allowing all couples to give birth for second kid since draconian family planning rules were introduced more than 30 years ago.
The policy is said to be an elixir for the aging community in China, albeit previous fine-tuning policy such as "selective two-child policy" fails to encourage couple to have two kids.
While kids that are born in and after 2016 are "contributors" to the aging problems in China, kids that were born before were called the "invisible men" simple because their parents.
As seen through the eyes of the second kid without identity, this documentary further examines the pains and problems left as a result of the one child policy and the greater meaning it holds about the essence of birth control.
DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes
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Taogou Village is a county in Suzhou city, Anhui Province, the only place where training animal for circus performance in China, it's also called the origin of the Chinese circus because 90% of the circus teams are from here. In the village, hundred of lions, tigers, bears are conducting "talent training" every day, there are over 300 circuses in the village with over 20,000 employees, annual income over 300 millions, circus becomes the biggest business in the town.
Wei Zheng joined the circus when he was in 17 and now is a circus owner, the 3rd generation of the circus family. Wei's family started circus performance over 100 years since his grandfather. However, the law of anti-abusing animal implied recently, the way of training animal is claimed as inhumanity, despite the fact that the circus industry in China has a long history, it declines as a result. As a national intangible cultural heritage, how will it survive? Is it time to be banned? Will Wei Zheng be the last animal tamer? All those questions are harassing him.
DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes
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Web Stars - a New Force
"Online Celebrity" is becoming a trend in mainland. Through sharing their eye-catching photos or videos, they display a beautiful lifestyle that fulfills the aspiration of their internet followers. Furthermore, these online celebrities have find a way to turn this virtual fame and support into real fortune.
Eve Cheung, a famous online celebrity from Shanghai, has started her online boutique which sale over hundred millions every year. Adonis Liao, another online celebrity from Beijing, believes that the digital age allows even the most ordinary people to display their talents to the world, which he found good-looking is definitely an advantage that he wants to pursue...
DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes
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Does the rise of GDP reflect the rise of a great nation? Wang shao-sen, Sen, does not agree. Sen is a post 80's youth who owns a silk cloth company in Dalian. Two years ago, he watched a shadow play show held by E Wen-wu, an 80 years old Chinese shadow play show artist, in an old cinema. Sen was impressed by the show. He designed to prepare a nationwide shadow play tour for the old artists. However, he finds it is hard to renew people's interest on traditional culture even he gave up his own silk business and lost 20 thousand RMB to promote the shows.
Finally, he finds a way out with an unexpected channel-internet crowd-funding platform in China. What will happen when the traditional culture and the new media collide?
DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes
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The one-child policy, a part of China's family planning policy, was a population planning policy of installed by the Chinese government. It was introduced in 1979 and began to be formally phased out in 2015
"Only Me Generation" is a documentary that explores the effects of the China's "One Child Policy" from the perspective of the policy's first generation point of view.
Almost 30 years ago, the Chinese government first introduced the "one child policy" to alleviate social, economic and environmental problems. Three decades later, they are now looking at a relaxation of the policy. The result is that the babies born under the current policy are a unique population set with issues and challenges that are different from those of other Chinese generations; most notably that they grew up as "only children".
This film provides a unique look into a unprecedented government policy that changed the rules of a society, impacted far more than a generation, and can now be studied on a variety of fronts. The film raises numerous questions and serves as a wonderful launching point for discussion and debate.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of "only children" in a generation of only "only children"?
What are the pressures that these children, the results of the policy, have lived under?
How have parental expectations changes due to family limits on the number of children permitted?
What are their social experiences now that these Only Me Generation children are now adults?
What are the ramifications, if any, of relaxing the policy now after so many years?
DVD (Color) / 2016 / 58 minutes
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By J.P. Sniadecki
Filmed over three years on China's railways, THE IRON MINISTRY traces the vast interiors of a country on the move: flesh and metal, clangs and squeals, light and dark, language and gesture. Scores of rail journeys come together into one, capturing the thrills and anxieties of social and technological transformation. THE IRON MINISTRY immerses audiences in fleeting relationships and uneasy encounters between humans and machines on what will soon be the world's largest railway network.
DVD (Color) / 2014 / 83 minutes
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By XU Huijing
Mothers is a gripping cinema verite documentary that shows how China's one-child policy plays out in the daily lives of women in a northern Chinese village.
There are not a lot of job prospects in Ma, a community of 2,000 in Shanxi Province. Factories have closed, young people are leaving, and declining numbers are more of a problem than over-population. Still, town officials must strictly enforce the one-child policy. In the case of Ma, this means meeting an annual quota for the sterilization of women who have had more than one child.
At the heart of the documentary lies a high stakes cat-and-mouse game. On one side are the male deputy mayor Zhang Guo-hong and the female local director of women's care, Zhang Qing-mei, On the other: a schoolteacher named Rong Rong who is a mother of two - and who has managed so far to avoid sterilization. Now - faced with the prospect of failing to meet their quota - Qing-mei and Guo-hong are determined to make sure Rong Rong doesn't outwit them again. They appear at her house early in the morning, try to track her down through her relatives (including a grandmother who emphatically berates Guo-hong), and hold out a carrot in the form of the residency papers she will need for her second child.
Meanwhile, Qing-mei also travels through town on her red scooter, spreading the gospel of family planning at rallies and celebrations, and trying to exhort as many women as possible to submit to sterilization.
Without resorting to voice-over, Mothers offers a powerful feminist perspective, as we watch men developing and enforcing reproductive policies for women. Here, women's bodies are not an ideological battleground, but the epicenter of the conflict over the most banal of undertakings: meeting a quota. Eventually, even Guo-hong admits to the camera, "We're just scared of losing our jobs. Do you think I am really committed to this?"
DVD / 2013 / 68 minutes
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By Zhu Rikun
"Early in the morning on July 24th, 2012, after meeting some friends in Hongkong, I drove a car of my brother back to Shenzhen and got Guo Feixiong and three other friends who take part in human rights protection to the car and went on driving to Xinyu, Jiangxi Province to cheer Liu Ping and two other local independent candidates. They have been oppressed by the government and the police for taking part in the election and other human rights protection events.
We hurried to Xinyu before dawn on July 25th. By the time dawn broke, we found a hotel and put our luggage there, then we went to meet Liu Ping and others, went to see a lake where Liu had been imprisoned nearby, and interviewed them about their experiences. While doing these things, we found ourselves tailed. At 11o'clock at night, we came back to the hotel, there were some police cars and a group of policemen scattering by the building. The owner of the hotel came to us in a hurry and told us that the police had already been into our room before, and said it had never happened before. At 12 o'clock at night, some policemen came to our room and started the so-called "room inspection."
As they began to knock at the door, I turned on a small camcorder which was prepared in advance. This short film is the record of such a moment." - Zhu Rikun
DVD (Color) / 2013 / 21 minutes
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By Bo Wang
An observational essay shot in the southwestern city of Chongqing, CHINA CONCERTO probes the uses of public spectacle in contemporary China.
Born and raised in Chongqing, filmmaker Bo Wang visited his hometown at the height of now-disgraced politician Bo Xilai's campaign to revive Mao-era "red culture", promoting among other things the public singing and dancing of Communist songs.
Alongside these participatory street performances, CHINA CONCERTO looks at images from the media, including Michelangelo Antonioni's Chung Kuo-China, and news media and advertising that address the capitalist present in forms reminiscent of the communist past.
The situation is explored in a narration modeled on Chris Marker's Sans Soleil, which is delivered by a woman with an ambiguous accent. Perched between an insider and outsider perspective, CHINA CONCERTO considers the persistence of totalitarian ideologies and images.
DVD (Color) / 2012 / 50 minutes
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By Huang Ji
Huang Ji's brave personal film is one of the most auspicious debuts in recent Chinese cinema. Set in her home village in rural Hunan province, EGG AND STONE is a powerful autobiographical portrait of a 14-year-old girl's attempts to come to terms with her emerging sexual maturity. Since her parents moved to the city to work, she has been forced to live with her uncle and aunt for seven years. Alone with her own inchoate fears and desires, she grapples with a terrifying world of sexual awakening and danger. Huang Ji's visual sophistication, narrative fluency, and technical polish belie her youth. Cinematographer Ryuji Otsuka (also the film's producer and editor) contributes beautifully crafted cinematic images, fearfully intimate, softly pulsing with light, saturated with complex emotional power.
DVD (Color, Hunan with English Subtitles) / 2012 / 98 minutes
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By Wang Bing
One of his generation's most important documentary filmmakers, director Wang Bing is at the height of his powers in THREE SISTERS. The film introduces viewers to 10-year-old YingYing, 6-year-old Zhenzhen and 4-year-old Fenfen, who live alone in Xiyangtang, a tiny rural village in the high mountains of China's Yunnan province. Their father is away working in the city; their mother left the family long ago.
The girls help their grandfather or aunt in exchange for meals. They spend their days at grueling tasks: herding sheep, goats and pigs, searching for firewood, collecting dung. Games are few and far between. The eldest, Yingying, is her sisters' primary caretaker, shouldering responsibilities far beyond her years.
Wang's hand-held footage beautifully captures the region's dramatic landscapes and plunging, mountainous scenery in THREE SISTERS, an essential part of the international film canon.
DVD (Color, Mandarin and Yunnan dialect with English subtitles) / 2012 / 153 minutes
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By JI Dan
On the outskirts of Beijing, two teenage girls from a migrant family struggle to earn the money to pay for their brother's schooling with little help from their troubled and eccentric parents.
Growing up in a rickety hut on a garbage-filled lot, Xia, Ling, and Gang recognize that a good education is their only possible ticket to a better life. Their older sister, who left school to begin working, has disappeared, likely kidnapped and sold into prostitution.
As migrants, they are prevented by China's hukou (residence permit) system from attending a free public school, and when the school that had provided them with scholarships closes, they are forced to look for new options. With very little money to their name, they place all their hopes in Gang, the older brother.
Their complicated home life doesn't make things any easier. Their alcoholic father and their mother are frequently at one another's throats, and do not seem to understand the gravity of their children's situation.
Director Ji Dan, one of China's preeminent female filmmakers, first met Xia, Ling, and Gang in 2004, while making a film about education in China, This intimate, patient portrait grew out of their close relationship over many years.
WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS at once explores the particular dynamics of one family and exposes the widespread difficulties faced by migrants living at the margins of Chinese society.
DVD (Color) / 2012 / 144 minutes
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Directed by WANG Jiuliang
Photographer Wang Jiu-liang travels to more than 500 landfills, fearlessly documenting Beijing's unholy cycle of consumption through poignant observational visits with the scavengers who live and work in the dumps.
While China's economic ascent commands global attention, less light has been shed upon the monumental problem of waste spawned by a burgeoning population, booming industry, and insatiable urban growth.
Award-winning photographer Wang Jiuliang focuses his lens upon the grim spectacle of waste, excrement, detritus, and rubble unceremoniously piled upon the land surrounding the China's Olympic city, capital, and megalopolis, Beijing.
Eking out a dangerous living within are the scavengers, mostly migrant workers from the countryside, who struggle to uphold familial and cultural systems amid their occupation's Dickensian bleakness.
Wang renders the decimation of once-essential rivers and farmlands in the backdrop of gleaming high-speed trains, stadiums, and skyscrapers; the sinister cyclical pattern of construction's consumption and garbage, and moving images of the daily lives of scavengers who labor at their own risk.
DVD (Color, Mandarin with English Subtitles) / 2011 / 72 minutes
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Directed by XU Tong
The colorful life of a countryside fortune teller provides a candid and deeply revelatory look at people living on the fringes of Chinese society.
Li Baicheng is a charismatic fortune teller who services a clientele of prostitutes and shadowy figures whose jobs, like his, are commonplace but technically illegal in China. He practices his ancient craft in a village near Beijing while taking care of his deaf and dumb wife Pearl, who he rescued from her family's mistreatment. Winter brings a police crackdown on both fortune tellers and prostitutes, forcing Li and Pearl into temporary exile, during which they visit their hometowns and confront old family demons. Li's humble story is punctuated with chapter headings reminiscent of Qing Dynasty popular fiction.
In Fortune Teller, Xu Tong continues his work documenting China's underclass, whose lives have gone largely unnoticed during the country's boom years. Xu spent a year filming nearly every detail of Li's daily existence and the ancient spiritual practices he administers.
DVD (Color, Mandarin with English subtitles) / 2010 / 129 minutes
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Directed by LI Ning
For five grueling years, Li Ning documents his struggle to achieve success as an avant-garde artist while contending with the pressures of modern life in China. He is caught between two families: his wife, son and mother, whom he can barely support; and his enthusiastic but disorganized guerilla dance troupe. Li's chaotic life becomes inseparable from the act of taping it, as if his experiences can only make sense on screen.
Tape shatters documentary conventions, utilizing a variety of approaches, including guerilla documentary, experimental street video, even CGI. Tape captures a decade's worth of artistic aspirations and failures, while breaking new ground in individual expression in China.
DVD (Color, Mandarin with English subtitles) / 2010 / 168 minutes
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1: A Marginal Group
2: Marrying Into Her Family
3: The Mosuo In The Spotlight
4: Give Me Back The Natural Scenery
5: Returning Support To Rural Areas
6: Monks And The City
7: Sorrow Behind Redevelopment
8: Village Official As Blogger
8 DVDs / 2008 / 240 minutes
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Peasant workers have made silent contributions to the reform and opening-up of China, and have witnessed the transition and development of the history of modern China. Peasant workers return to their native land and there is a shortage of labour in Pearl River Delta, Guangdong. Such phenomenon has become an important issue. Having strived hard to make a living in urban areas, why these peasants decide to go home? The reasons behind are worthy of deep reflection.
This episode tells the true stories of two peasants who work in coastal cities and return to their homeland. The two cases illustrate the employment problems encountered by peasant workers and the changes experienced by this marginal group in the 30 years of economic reform in China.
DVD / 2008 / 30 minutes
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In a traditional marriage, a woman marries into the husband's family, and her children take on the family name of their father. However, in some rich cities in Zhejiang Province, things are changing.
The one-child policy has left some families with only one daughter. Feeling the need to carry on their family lineage, women now look for men who are willing to marry into their families so that their children could take up the mother?s surname. Meanwhile, men from other provinces are finding it hard to make ends meet in the cities, not to mention supporting a family. Because of this, some men are willing to do what it takes for a better life. With supply and demand in place, matchmaking agencies dedicated to this type of marriage are a thriving business.
This could be a win-win situation, but are things always as good as they seem?
DVD / 2008 / 30 minutes
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Sang Chu is a young Mosuo from Dazu Village at Lugu Lake Town, Yanyuan County, Sichuan. His family had been very poor until their family hostel, Gesang Garden, was launched in 2000.
The tide of reforms and opening-up in the new century has swept over the Mosuo at Lugu Lake. After some adventures, Gesang returned to his homeland before the National Day Golden Week in 2007. Like his fellow villagers, he was occupied with the business of his family hostel, making preparation for the Golden Week holiday. During the long holiday, crowds of tourists filled the quiet Lugu Lake with hustle and bustle.
The villagers were busied with touting for business and serving the tourists. Gesang's father expected his son would help the family to repay the low-interest loan soon. Gesang appeared to have devoted himself to the family business, but he was secretly seeking after the dream of becoming a superstar on television. He planned to leave again and look for opportunities despite objection of his family.
DVD / 2008 / 30 minutes
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Thirty years of reform and opening up brings to China as much prosperity as pollution resulted from industrial development. Industrial wastewater led to polluted river, allegedly the root cause of the drastic rise of cancer cases in Wuli Village. Wai Dongying, a barely educated villager, recorded the death cases one by one in her "Diary of Death".
Zhang Changjian, a bare-foot doctor in Xiping, Fujian, witnessed the rising number of cancer patients in his village. As the regional officials turn a blind eye to the crisis, Zhang joined forces with more than 1,700 fellow villagers suing the chemical factory in their neighbourhood. Winning the case, Zhang found himself becoming a marked man...
The plight of the two "cancer villages" reveals the harm to the Chinese people brought by water pollution. China should have by now realised the price to pay for over development and that "good" is more important than "fast".
DVD / 2008 / 30 minutes
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A group of advertising professionals lost interest in food bought from urban markets as large amount of pesticides and chemical fertilizers had been applied. To seek vanishing fine food, they traveled to rural areas and met the peasants. Under the surface of beautiful rural scenery, they witnessed the disparity between the urban rich and the rural poor resulting from 30 years of reforms and opening-up.
Ordinary picnics among a few friends during holidays have gradually become a movement of " Urban-Rural Interaction to Repay the Rural Areas " . Together with the peasants, these professionals make use of their creativity to work on farmland, pigpens, village houses and dining tables, and reflect on their vision of development and ideal lifestyle. They walk side by side with the peasants on the path of rural development, hoping that organic farming may bring higher income to peasants and healthier food to urban people.
Prosperous cities mark the achievements of 30 years of reforms and opening-up. However, such prosperity has been resulted from the continual support and sacrifices on the part of rural areas. Will the cities repay the rural areas in the future? Maybe it would happen in the next 30 years.
DVD / 2008 / 30 minutes
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At 5 o'clock every morning, when the inhabitants of Anyuan Road are still sleeping soundly, over 10 monk students in Jade Buddha Monastery, Shanghai commence their new day as do other monks in the monastery. After praying and taking their breakfasts, these monks get on the "school bus" that is waiting outside the refectory, and travel to the outside world to study in a university.
Indeed, the Jade Buddha Monastery has been promoting the philosophy of "Living Buddhism", i.e. performing secular works with a spirit of indifference. Guided by such philosophy, the leadership of the monastery has selected some monks to study foreign languages and MBA, and strive to bring innovations to Buddhism, including the life of the monks. The monks participate in and organize social activities actively, and do not resist to act in a commercial way.
DVD / 2008 / 30 minutes
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China is transforming with the construction of skyscrapers and modern architectures, which signify rapid economic development and the rise of a powerful nation. However, behind the scene of prosperity, many homes have been destroyed.
Zhang Wei used to reside in Xianyukou District, which belonged to a historical conservation district. Two years ago,the government demolished her home by force for reason of constructing new roads. It pushed Zhang Wei to the path of making appeals to higher authorities, and she determined to prove that the government had violated the Law on the Protection of Cultural Relics by carrying out illegal demolition. Unfortunately, the court delayed the trial deliberately and the police also hindered them from making appeals. It became a tough journey for her.
On 6th August 2008, two days prior to the opening of the Olympics, Zhang Wei was detained for 30 days on suspicion of undermining social order. The absence of an independent judiciary in China makes defending against illegal demolition more difficult.
There used to be over 300 households in Cuobuling Village, Qingdao. After illegal redevelopment carried out by the district government, only the household of Madam Yu remained. To persist in her defence, she had lived a life without water and electricity supply for over a year while expecting the court ruling at second instance. Being unable to seek help from the government, Yu Jian-li, one of the villagers, reported the crimes of corrupted officials on the internet. Consequently, he was convicted of defamation and sentenced to prison.
Although the Property Law has been promulgated for nearly a year, cases of incompliance with the law still exist. If the issue is not resolved, we will see more cases of illegal redevelopment in the future, pushing more people to the path of defending their rights.
DVD / 2008 / 30 minutes
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"Don't think village heads are not cadres" was once a popular saying in Mainland China, meaning although the village head is a low ranking official, he is still a cadre and should not be overlooked.
Shen Yongqiang is the Secretary of the Communist Party Branch and Head of the Village Committee of Xiadongkuo Village in the outskirts of Beijing. Shen is no dimwit. In the summer of 2006, he started blogging to publicize his village, so as to attract investors to develop his ecology resort. It never occurred to Shen that his blog would record a hit rate of over 220,000 for the first two years. It even captured the attention of various media which then sent reporters to interview Shen.
However, Shen's putting village matters online has aroused concern and censorship from Town government. From Shen's happiness and trouble, we can see changes as well as rigidity of rural areas in China after reform and opening-up.
DVD / 2008 / 30 minutes
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Directed by Rachel Tejada
Six documentary shorts chronicle the changing state of China's independent, and underground, film scene.
Join on a month-long trip to post-Olympics China. We traveled from Shanghai to Nanjing to Beijing, and kept the cameras rolling. The result is unprecedented access into China's other film community, where writing, filming, and distribution don't always wait for government approval.
The series starts at the largest underground film festival in China, explores the spirit of independence in Beijing, tours art-film compounds, and discusses the future of Chinese cinema. Along the way, the series features the most important filmmakers, critics, producers, curators, and underground scenesters making films, their way, in China today.
DVD (Color) / 2008 / 18 minutes
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Directed by Weijun Chen
An experiment in democracy is taking place in Wuhan, the most populous city in central China. For the first time ever, the students in grade three at Evergreen Primary School have been asked to elect a class monitor. Traditionally appointed by the teacher, the class monitor holds a powerful position, helping to control the students, keeping them on task and doling out punishment to those who disobey. The teacher has chosen three candidates: Luo Lei (a boy), the current class monitor; Cheng Cheng (a boy); and Xu Xiaofei (a girl). Each candidate is asked to choose two assistants to help with his or her campaign.
To prove their worthiness, the candidates must perform in three events. First is a talent show, where each candidate plays an instrument or sings a song. Second is a debate, in which the candidates bring up the shortcomings of their opponents as well as their own personal qualifications. And finally, each candidate must deliver a speech, an opportunity to appeal directly to classmates and ask for their votes.
At home, each of the children is coached by his or her parents and pushed to practice and memorize for each stage of the campaign. Although their parents are supportive, the candidates feel the pressure. Tears and the occasional angry outburst reveal the emotional impact. At school, the candidates talk to classmates one-on-one, making promises, planning tactics (including negative ones) and at times expressing doubts about their own candidacies.
For all three children, the campaign takes its toll, especially for the losing candidates and their assistants. Viewers are left to decide if the experiment in democracy has been "successful" and what it might mean for democracy in China. Please Vote for Me challenges those committed to China's democratization to consider the feasibility of, and processes involved in, its implementation.
DVD / 2007 / 52 minutes
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Mr Kong, known as Kong Fu to the Chinese and as Confucius to the outside world, was a sort of philosophical government advisor around 500 bc - 200 years or so before the Chinese Empire was founded.
He tried to persuade the rulers of the time that for a harmonious and orderly society the rulers had to behave honourably. "Treat others as you would have them treat you." If the rulers are honourable and trustworthy, he argued, then there is a better chance that the people will be too.
Astonishingly, this simple idea was taken up and put into effect by a long succession of capable rulers and administrators. It had a profound effect on Chinese life over many centuries and still does today.
From a failed communist state in 1979, China has risen to be the world's second largest economy today, a situation of which few of us can be unaware. Who doesn't own a gadget "Made in China"? It's little short of a miracle.
But what would Mr Kong make of the current government? Is it honourable? Can it produce a harmonious society? Will it all end in grief? Given all the problems, what will happen next?
We can't say. However, the more we appreciate the astonishing Chinese story revealed in these 5 programmes and the contributions it has already made to human society under the benign influence of Mr Kong, the more sympathetic we will be towards its current rise and hopefully the more confident that the Chinese will somehow find a peaceful way forward.
1. The Middle Kingdom: The Democratic Viewpoint, Geography, The Dynasties, Confucius, China Today.
2. Matters of the Mind: Superstition, Confucian Commentators, Taoism, Buddhism, Tibet, Sung Education.
3. Heart and Soul: Bronzes, Ceramics, the Character Script, Poetry, Literature.
4. From Harmony to Discord: Music, Gardens, Painting, Science, The Descent into Chaos.
5. The Rough Road to Freedom: Japan, The End of the Empire, Communism, Overseas Chinese, the current Dilemma.
5 DVDs / 250 minutes
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The Middle Kingdom today - how China is viewed through the eyes of the democratic nations of the world.
Geography - The all important geography of China and how it has affected China's past.
The Dynasties of China - A brief overview of the Dynasties of China, remarkable for their duration and the peace and stability they engendered.
About Confucius - Confucius and his thinking, and how he came to dominate the Chinese world view.
Writing and control - The establishment of the Chinese character script and how it affected the controls of government.
Modern China - The establishment of modern China and its current undemocratic government.
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Superstition - Superstition, like everywhere else in the world, largely dominated the Chinese mind in early times.
Commentators on the works of Confucius - Confucian ideas established themselves but there were many commentators over the following centuries who muddied the waters.
The Han Dynasty - The Han dynasty was principally responsible for making Confucian ideas the norm for government and society.
Taoism - Taoism, growing out of early animism, developed ideas of non-interference in the ways of nature.
Buddhism - Buddhism, imported from India, introduced ideas of rebirth and reward for good conduct.
China and Tibet - Today China rules Tibet as it has always done. A largely Buddhist country, it has problems with the secular Chinese.
Sung Education and the Mandarin Bureaucracy - In the Sung dynasty, education according to Confucian principles was established on a huge and influential scale.
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Art and the Bronzes - After trying to establish what art is we look at the wonderful bronze work of early times in China.
Ceramics - Fine ceramics from many different ages have come down to us; in particular the Tang Sung and Ming dynasty ware.
The Chinese Character Script - The Chinese character script is difficult to learn but beautiful to see and writing it is regarded as an art form.
Poetry - Poets have always been held in high regard in China. Even in translation their particular beauties shine through.
Literature - Literature in the form of plays and novels developed in later centuries just as they did in other parts of the world.
Epilogue - After their early brilliance, under a deeply conservative leadership, the talents of the Chinese in all fields began to be stifled and consequently to decay.
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Music - Music was much enjoyed by Confucius who saw it as a basic element of human harmony.
Houses, Gardens and the Honourable man - With due Confucian regard for order and control over nature, the Chinese gardens are amongst the greatest beauties of the land.
Painting and the Honourable man - For many centuries Chinese painters have wonderfully depicted the people and the landscape.
Science - No society has done so much for science; their great qualities of curiosity and invention have been an immeasurable gift to the world.
Descent into chaos - As the Confucian ethic is dimmed and clouded by blind conservatism, battered by outside forces, Chinese society disintegrates.
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Taiping Rebellion - Driven partly by the injustices suffered by the poor and a muddled view of the religious beliefs imported by western missionaries, the Taiping Rebellion rocked China to the core.
Japan - Japan, looked down on by the Chinese as of little import, displays how it has adapted to the times as the Chinese have not.
The Boxers and the end of the empire - As the empire collapses, a secret society called the Boxers feebly attempts to drive out the foreigners.
Japan and the Communist takeover - Japan invades and after the second world war the Communists take over and impose order.
China and the Communists - The rule of Mao and the Communists.
Overseas Chinese - Effective Overseas Chinese communities.
China: The Great Dilemma - The Great Dilemma which faces the Chinese today is how to bring about the democratic freedoms which society deserves without bringing Chaos yet again.
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