Chinese dromen

- Season 1

(2019)

Since Deng's reforms brought prosperity and some liberalization in the PR, raising children in China become harder and confusing. Ambitious parental expectations of Confucian piety and quasi-capitalist ambition conflict with the spoiled attitudes of many 'little emperors' from the one child policy period. Parents invest lots of time and money in tutors, private schools ..., but children suffer under the competitive pressure, especially in boarding programs. Some -especially teens don't accept the family's ambitions, sometimes even landing in private reformatories.

Ruben visits the Yi people, with 10 million a large ethnic minority among the dominant Han Chinese, in the mountainous south. Their economy does badly, so an independent trucker tries to sell his truck and is ready to move wherever he can find a job to support his family. A schoolboy sheds some light on the cultural and ideological indoctrination, which is particularly intense, including the leader cult of president Xi. A tribal chief hastily retract all jocular critic, a shaman pretends the obvious ghost exorcism has nothing to do with traditional superstition ...

Family and marital harmony isn't what it used to be in Confucian feudal days. In Chinqing, Ruben meets a mistress killer, a detective hired by cheated spouses to track down and seduce the partner's flame. In Shanghai he attends marriage counseling by a feminist therapist who tries or instill rather traditional values into women in classes and modern ones into men at couple sessions. Finally he attends a small town rural mobile court attempting to settle a divorce or alternative deal between rowing spouses.

Know what this is about? Be the first one to add a plot.