Born just one year after the crackdown on Tiananmen Square in 1989, Xiao Zhao is an idealistic young man who considers himself a patriot and has a special connection with Mao Zedong: they share a birthday. Documentary filmmaker Du Haibin follows him closely for five years, starting from his days as a pupil in a small northern village in Shanxi province, going through his days as a student at Chengdu University, and further into his experiences as a volunteer teacher in one of China’s poorest regions, near the Tibetan border. Through Zhao’s increasing bitterness and disenchantment with China’s one party capitalism, he begins to see his country more clearly through the haze of nationalistic fervour. We bear witness to the life of a rapidly changing China, where new prosperity overlaps with corruption and indoctrination. Which way to look, and what to overlook, to remain a patriot?