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I had the pleasure last night of watching the 2011 documentary Empire of Dust, a Belgian film that explores interactions between a Chinese construction group and local Congolese in rural Congo. I'm sure many of you have seen it - you've certainly seen this meme - but I wanted to bring it up anyway for discussion, as it was a brilliant piece of film-making and very thought-provoking. The whole thing is available free here on Youtube.
The main theme of the documentary is probably cultural differences between Chinese and Congolese workers. The Chinese complain about how the Congolese are lazy, dishonest, and disorganised and are only interested in beer, dancing, and football. We see lots of glimpses of this, with many scenes of Congolese workers just standing around doing nothing, and seriously dysfunctional industry and construction.
On the other hand, the Chinese foreman, Lao Yang, often comes across as grumpy, abrupt, and occasionally inhumane. He rarely smiles, doesn't engage in any playful or friendly conversation that we see, berates locals for their ignorance, and argues with local Congolese about price constantly. His Congolese translator actually addresses this, saying "he may seem like he's grumpy about something, but that's just how he is all the time." The Congolese by contrast seem generally relaxed, amiable, and friendly (though admittedly difficult to work with).
Lao Yang is at his most engaging and humane, it seemed to me, when he was marveling at the old Belgian infrastructure and talking about how devastating it was to see it completely neglected - "Do you have any idea how hard it must have been to build that railway?" On the one hand, he's still scolding his Congolese contact Eddy, but he comes across as a genuine engineer, sad to see great works in decline.
Also striking to me were the physical differences; despite the poverty and (one assumes) malnutrition, the Congolese men were mostly tall and muscular and generally physically impressive, whereas most of the Chinese we see looked comparatively weedy. Again, Lao Yang addresses this, saying something to the effect that "this is a harsh land where only the strongest survive, which is why everyone here is so well built".
I don't have any grand culture wars lessons here, other than the obvious one that culture matters - China and Congo are very different societies, and what works in one may not work in another. It also made me somewhat more pessimistic about West Africa's potential for economic development, though perversely, made me more positively disposed towards its culture. The movie also has some odd coverage of colonialism; there's no real criticism of the Belgians demonstrated (when discussing the Congolese motivations for seeking independence in 1960, Eddy says simply "we wanted to rule ourselves"), and a general sense of missed opportunities at failing to preserve the infrastructure and development left by the Belgians.
In any case, it's a wonderful film, and now I'm on a documentary kick, I'd love to get some more recommendations. Most of the documentaries on Amazon seem to either be fairly introductory science that I already know (e.g., Cosmos stuff) or else have a focus on individual personalities - true crime, famous sportsmen, outrageous personalities, etc.. I enjoy a good tale of real survival, but in general, I'm more interested in films that help expand my knowledge of the world, especially stuff like geopolitics, history, or culture. Would love to hear some suggestions!
If one is interested in Chinese bossing around other races, American Factory (2019). But if it is Africans one is after, Africa Addio (1966) provides rare depictions of genocides and atrocities forgotten.
I hated American Factory. They could have made a decent documentary, but instead made a profoundly stupid circlejerk.
This town is completely devastated because of the loss of manufacturing jobs. Factory starts up and offers decent pay, but not as good as before when labour was worth a premium because it was scarce. People still have financial trouble because of debt/medical issues. Somehow this is the factory's fault. Very unironic Cophenhagen ethics. We'll mention that the factory cost billions of dollars that have yet to be paid off and is operating at a loss every month once and somehow never actually internalize what that means. They are just greedy businessmen that aren't paying the workers what they are worth.
They intersperse interviews with mainland China workers that have conditions 10x worse than the American ones, but have zero empathy for their plight. Chinese guy talks about how he has worked 996 and never seen his family for 5 years. American guy complaining that he only gets $25 an hour. American guy talking about how they only get an 8 minute break every hour out of some really hot place in a factory, cut to Chinese guy saying they have 12 hour shifts in the hot area where they aren't allowed to leave at all.
They start getting into the union organizing/busting bit. They paid these consultants $200k to come in and do some union busting. It would have cost less to give everyone that worked there $.50 more an hour for a single month. No, I don't understand the difference between a one-time cost and increasing a recurring cost like labour. I will repeat this same argument ten times throughout the movie because I clearly think it is a slamdunk.
They actually give everyone modest pay raises and other concessions that people were pushing for ahead of the union vote. This clearly means they are evil because what the workers truly need is not better conditions and pay, but a union.
It is really awful because you could have taken what they had and made a good movie, but instead made something that only appeals to someone that already agrees with all of their positions. Hell, I'm on board with 90% of what they want and hated it still.
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