First off, the fact that hall monitor elections are taken so seriously in China is a very foreign concept. In this documentary the three students chose to run for hall monitor all have very different personalities and would handle the authority of hall monitor very differently. Luo Lei, who was the current class monitor, was very strict and got the other students to obey him by beating them. Xu interpretation was a very nice, reserved girl who would work hard to  keep her classmates happy. Lastly, Cheng Cheng who was more of the mischievous, bully type, who just wanted to be class monitor for the power. The elections consisted of a talent show, a debate, and speeches.  During the talent show the Cheng Cheng gets everyone to yell mean things at Xiofei before she even starts her presentation and so she starts to cry before she plays the flute. This gives Xiaofei the reputation of a crybaby and really pulls her out  of the running for the rest of the election. Cheng Cheng gets the rest of the students to boo Luo Lei and tell him he is out of tune during his presentation. During Cheng Cheng’s performance everyone was singing along and no one had anything bad to say.

When the three students went home you were able to get a good  insight on their lives at home and what that was like. Xiaofei’s mother was a single mom and she was the least involved in the process, she did tell Xiaofei she need to be strong but she believed she ha to figure things out for herself. It was because Xiaofei comes from a single-mom home that her mom did not think she had a chance of winning. Luo Lei’s father who works for the police department helped Luo Lei to bribe and buy the students votes. Luo Lei was the wealthiest amongst  the three and you could see that from his living arrangement he had the biggest house and stuff. Cheng Cheng on the other hand comes from a rinky dinky little home and he often practiced in his underwear and stuff at home and his parents were very involved  in trying to help him win the elections, by writing his speeches for him and constantly making him practice. Because these families were only allowed to have one kid you were able to see how the parents were very involved and attentive to their kids.

In the end, the students end up picking Luo Lei for class monitor again. Personally, I would have voted for Xiaofei, but she did not have strong leadership qualities so it is understandable why  she was not elected. Cheng Cheng was manipulative, but Luo Lei beat the other students, which you would think would be a  deal breaker, but I guess the other students liked that. At the end of the documentary I asked myself, so did democracy work in China? and I honestly do not know if I can answer that question. The students picked the  same class monitor that the teacher had previously picked who was the most strict and beat them and I am not sure that I understand why. I question whether or not they realize they really had the opportunity to make a change and elect a class monitor that they all could like, for instance Xiaofei who did not have any enemies. On the other hand you see all of the same elements that make this test just like democratic elections that take  place in America and throughout the world. There are a lot of politics taking places: false promises being made, holding each other accountable for all their actions, and criticizing each other for their flaws. These are all elements that were heavily prevalent  in the elections between Clinton and Trump.  So even though it seems like the kids did not learn anything about democracy. It appears that it might be the exact opposite the third grade students mocked a real word democratic election perfectly, without even trying. Watching this documentary makes me question if the democratic election process is the best government system that there is, because it is clearly marked by a lot of corruption.

Also, just a side note someone’s parents said that democracy is people being their own masters. This is a very interesting interpretation of democracy and almost seems the opposite. Yes, you do get to collectively decide what decisions are made, which I guess makes people in charge of their own destiny, but on the other hand because is it a collective decision the majority will get what they want, or mostly what they want and then there are a lot of people that will be unhappy with the decision. I guess you could look at that as the price of democracy. Anyways, describing democracy as people being their own masters just really caught my attention because that is not how I would describe it all.