China Prep
As the world's attention turns to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, "Wide Angle" reports on how the next generation of Chinese leaders is being molded. "China Prep" follows four Chinese students through their final high-pressure year at an elite high school in Sichuan Province, where a class of 1,800 teenagers is competing for 59 spots in China's top two universities. The students' lives are regimented almost every minute of the day as they study Monday through Saturday from 7:00 in the morning to 11:00 at night, preparing for the end-of-year exam that will determine their fate. Those who fail will be forced to take low-paying jobs or at best be relegated to trade schools. The program follows Zhang Lie, who wants to study law and join the Communist Party elite like her father; Mei Jiachin, a genius mathematician from a farming family; Chen Zhibo, a misfit science student with big plans to become China's Bill Gates; and Gao Mengjia, a self-professed nerd who loves money and aspires to be a hedge fund manager. Nicknamed the "I want" generation by the Chinese press, these only children – the sole focus of their parents' and grandparents' nurturing under China's one-child policy – will be the new class of corporate managers, lawyers and civil servants who are expected to propel 21st-century China to surpass the United States as the largest economy in the world. How do the ambitions of these teenagers reflect the realities of today's and tomorrow's China? Who among them will be most likely to succeed? Who will be the boss?
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