The World of the Chinese

On the coast of Cambodia, in only a few years a sleeping backpacker village has been transformed into a gigantic city with casinos, hotels and nightclubs. Sihanoukville is built and populated by Chinese citizens and Chinese investors and fortune seekers flood the city. Cambodians are in the minority, unable to compete and no longer recognize their own city through all the Chinese billboards that are being put up. Ruben Terlou drinks $6,000 cognac with the boss of a nightclub, gets to know a Chinese dancer and meets a Cambodian worker who has lost friends and family after a Chinese construction project had collapsed.

Chinese companies enjoy doing business in the exotic, remote Madagascar. There is a lot to be gained, because the country is rich in natural resources. And because the population is poor, labor is cheap. Ruben Terlou goes diving with local fishermen and talks with the crew of a Chinese fishing fleet that has just been chained down by Madagascar's new president. Inland, Ruben sees entire families working on Chinese cotton plantations under a scorching sun. And he meets a Chinese cotton boss, whose investment went horribly wrong.

Serbia and China are close friends, partly because of their shared communist past. The Chinese are rolling out railway lines in Serbia and have taken over the ailing heavy industry. But the Serbs pay a hefty price for that support. The steel factory, that once again is fully operational because of the Chinese, leads to terrible pollution and desperate villagers. Down in the gold and copper mines, Ruben Terlou meets a woman who left her family in China for love and he celebrates Chinese New Year with the Chinese miners. Which is not a particular festive evening this time, because the pandemic in Wuhan has just broken out.

Lots of Chinese settle in California, for different reasons. For some it's the American Dream, others want to offer their children a better education. What's striking is that a lot of Chinese-Americans are very conservative and vote for Trump. But Ruben Terlou also meets advocates of diversity, such as Chinese-American rapper Jason who's using his music to represent the America of everyone. In the desert Ruben visits an anti communistic artist who offers a home to political refugees from Tibet and Hong Kong. They've come for the freedom.

In Prato the last few decades, the biggest Chinese community of Europe, has taken over the textile industry, which is the pride of Italy. The locals are longing back to the past, but there also those who want to connect the two cultures. In the Tuscan city Prato live and work 50,000 Chinese, the local population doesn't recognise her city anymore. Right wing politicians reproach the Chinese with unfair competition and bad integration, but there's also another sound. Ruben Terlou follows a Chinese woman who campaigns and hopes to become the first politician from Chinese descent in Italy.

After Ruben Terlou has met Chinese across the globe, he's now looking into the Chinese presence in The Netherlands. Who are these Chinese that have settled in our country? In Giethoorn lives a ingenious Chinese entrepreneurial family who really are a jack of all trades. At Groningen University Ruben meets a physics student who's about to return to China. In Tilburg a local entrepreneur has built a logistical imperium by doing business with the Chinese state. And Ruben speaks to adopted children who wrestle with their identity.