Critic on Documentary "Please Vote for Me"

Controversial and thought-provoking as it is, the documentary " Please Vote for Me", directed by Wei Junchen and produced by Don Edkins, talks nothing about the essence of democracy.

The documentary follows the election of class monitor in a 3rd grade class of eight year old children in the Evergreen Primary School in Wuhan, China. The candidates, Luo Lei, Xu Xiaofei and Cheng Cheng, compete against each other for the coveted role and are egged on by their teachers and doting parents. The class uses classic democratic voting principles and debates.However, the result turns out to be a farce.

Luo lei's father works for the government. In order to help his son bribe his classmates, he invites the whole class to ride the light railway for free. Cheng Cheng's mother teaches him to interrupt, jeer and heckle other candidate's performance. The three naive children scheme, connive, and try every way to gain some advantage. At last, Luo Lei wins the election primarily because his father gives each student a small gift before they vote.

Is this the democracy? Is this how democracy will look like in China? Many audience have this question. As far as I'm concerned, this is not a  illustration of democracy at all. First, how could kids know and understand democracy? They don't know what a class monitor should do and what an election means. Second, in a country which lacks the democratic culture, even the children's parents don't understand democracy, so they  lead their children in the wrong way in the election. Third, democracy is not only about election. To guarantee a democratic process, many rules and regulations must be formulated and implemented. The whole process in the documentary is not regulated as it should have been.

The documentary also raised some concern about the ethical issue. It is the director who came up with this idea of democratic election in this primary school classroom. Although the director didn't script anything and expose successfully the dark side of human nature and the illness of Chinese education, it should also be the director's responsibility to think about the subjects he was filming. They were kids, only 9 years old. Will this experience be a lesson or permanent harm to their life?

Official website for this documentary:
http://pleasevoteforme.org/index.html

Documentary: Tomohiro's Railway Tour of China

This is not about hatred. This is not about espionage. This is not about history or cultural exploration. This is only about one man's travel, a travel on record, a travel without any plan.And eventually, a travel ending with warm details and reflections on life. 

Japanese reputed public broadcaster NHK produced this amazing series of documentaries five years ago. NHK invited actor Tomohiro to take on the challenge of traveling 36,000 kilometers (about 22,369 miles) by railway throughout China. The path was designed by computer software, such that the route is an unbroken line, and not a single part of the route crosses another part of the same route.The trip is broken into two editions: Spring and Fall. In the Spring edition, Sekiguchi's trip begins by flying from Japan to Lhasa in Tibet, and ends in Xian - with a distance of 17,000 km. The Fall edition continues the journey, and ends with a combined 36,000 km traveled.

However, except the planned routes, there was nothing else scripted or arranged. The whole team were only Tomohiro, his Japanese-Chinese translator and a cameraman. When Tomohiro gets off from one train, he just walks around, find something to do on his own before it's time for the next train. It's just so hard to imagine how to make a documentary in this way: how to find stories, how to keep audience engaged, how to make this interesting and meaningful? 

But this documentary itself is not structured for something big. Tomohiro just behaves as himself, friendly talking with passengers on the train, asking whatever he was curious about, following local people to check out their real life.This kind of daily ordinary life is hardly seen on any other television programs, movies or documentaries. It's just too ordinary, too simple, too plain, too trivial.However, this didn't make it a failure, instead a huge success.

Through his eyes, China is not an abstract concept, not a powerful country or a nation that has "unpleasant" history with Japan. China is just all about the Chinese people, who are friendly, enthusiastic, kind and simple. These ordinary people are amazing. And this is the reason why audience just want to follow him to see what's going on next. 

What makes this documentary such a success? I would say two reasons:

first it's focus on the most ordinary people; second, it's the attractive childish curiosity of the host. 

Life in one day-an amazing world

It is so amazing to see what people around the globe are doing in one day. Life in One Day is an extraordinary documentary compiled by YouTube and Scott Free UK, and assembled by Kevin Macdonald,the Oscar-winning British director of Touching the Void.

Over 81,000 people from different countries shot their lives and submitted to YouTube on July 24, 2010. They had so many interesting stories and fancy shots. However, how to make all these wonderful stuff into only one documentary? The editing is the most important and creative aspect of this film.

The editors chose a timeline to present the day-from dawn to night. And they divided the film into several segments by topics and questions. For example, they collected answers for the questions" What you do love" and "What do you fear".

Besides, they did not just cut the interesting shots, but use more stories to show the precious emotions in life- parents' love for kids, children's love for their parents, love and relationship, etc. These emotional stories combined the separate shots and distinct parts of the film and brought continuous climaxes.

Background music, natural sound and rhythm, were also impressive elements in this documentary. They controlled the tempo of the film and match with the dynamics and statics of the stories.

Last but not least, the cameras in this film were positioned where our eyes do not usually go. There were lots of unusual and fabulous angles.

2012 China Night in Columbia

2010 Summer in Love Homeland NGO Beijing

Working in a non-governmental organization which dedicates to the service of vulnerable groups, I met people with sad stories. They filled my heart with love and hope. They drive me forward for what I have dreamed and what I could do to make this a better world.

Jianling should be over sixty years old, but her intellectual capacity remains at the level of a two-year-old. There is talk that she became like this after a serious illness when she was a little child. For decades, she has behaved as a two- year-old. Nobody knows where she is from, what she has suffered and what is her story because herself  remembers nothing about this world.

Both Da Xiong("first little bear") and Er Xiong("second little bear")have cerebral palsy, which is congenital and incurable. They are abandoned and sent to this welfare home by the local police.

Lya You has never missed a weekend in the welfare house for years. She is a mother of a young girl, and also the "mom" of the two lovely "little bears".  Once Lya holds them in her arms, they will immediately stop crying. She has great talent for taking care of babies and knows so many tricks to play with them. She can also do massage for Er Xiong, who suffers from asthma.

The fourth bear Xiaoxiao Xiong sleeps peacefully with his toy friends staying around. These toys, which were donated by volunteers, could accompany him for the rest of a week when nobody comes to visit. He is only 8-month old and wants to be hugged almost every second when he is awake.

Sister Su is a full-time caregiver of this welfare home. Except for the weekend when a number of NGO volunteers come and take care of the kids, in the rest of the week, it is only Sister Su that looks after the seven kids at different ages.



Sister Su told me when Lan Lan was brought here, she was lying in a very fancy and beautiful pram. They guess she is from a rich family. For the five years of her life, she has never kept a long hair, but she is a still a pretty little girl. I have never seen her speaking. She's always lying there silently and makes very slight noise by knocking her chest when feeling the pain.

In this about 10-square-meters room lives five babies, who come to this world with different pains, but we are trying to show them the same love as others.