Original subtitles

As a reporter,

I've traveled the Middle East for many years.

It's an area that is always fascinated me.

But in my work, I've mainly covered its war zones,

its crises and its tragedies.

This journey, which takes me down the Silk Road,

in the footsteps of Marco Polo

gives me the opportunity of exploring

the great historical and cultural significance

of this part of the world.

Its ancient melting pots of peoples and civilizations

that have contributed so much to our own.

(upbeat music)

Gansu Province is situated on the principal routes

of the ancient Silk Road,

where it passes between the grasslands of Mongolia,

and the vast Tibetan plateau

before arriving in China itself, that of the hand.

(gentle music)

In the center of this province

stands the Zhangjiajie National Geopark,

known for its geological formations, sandstone masses

and colorful stripes.

It attracts tourists from all over the people's republic.

(gentle music)

Aside from having the largest population in the world,

China is also one of the largest countries,

covering 9.5 million square kilometers,

15 times the size of France.

Historically, the Chinese have always considered themselves

as being the center of the world,

which explains the name they give their country,

the Middle Empire.

Access to this Empire has to be earned.

From the Wei Yuan territories of central Asia,

the caravans needed to travel a good 1,000 kilometers

due east to arrive in latter day China.

(dramatic music)

This stretch of the Silk Road

is nicknamed the Hexi Corridor.

Following this trail from Dunhuang

is a bit like taking a journey of initiation

from the world of barbarians, that is to say, the West,

to the Chinese Empire.

(dramatic music)

(goats bleeting)

(gentle music)

Several times of the course of its history,

China has closed its doors.

Sheltered behind the Great Wall,

the Middle Empire preferred to live introspectively.

Then, the following century, China would once again

open up to the world, and to new ideas.

Centuries of expansion, centuries of contraction,

this swinging movement has regulated China's history

for the last 4,000 years.

(dramatic music)

[Narrator Voiceover] Over hundreds,

not to say thousands of years,

the Middle Empire remained voluntarily isolated

from the world.

But this period is well and truly over.

When you see this, you realize that the Chinese

are intent upon the dialogue between cultures.

Faced with a monument, and homage to Roman legionaries,

it's really quite impressive.

(dramatic music)

A Roman legionary greeting a Chinese soldier

with karateca salute.

This encounter could appear incongruous,

but it synthesizes 2,000 years of history

along the Silk Road.

(gentle music)

(speaks in foreign language)

The explanation behind the statue in fact,

goes back to the beginnings of the caravan trail

when the Romans discovered silk

following one of the worst defeats of their history.

During the first century BCE, Crassus, son of Triumvir,

was jealous of the glory acquired by his colleagues,

Julius Caesar and Pompeii,

so he decided to invade Asia Minor,

but he was crushed by the calvary of the Parthian Empire.

This was the Battle of Carrhae in the year 53 BCE.

The Parthians exiled those they had beaten

to the other end of the Empire,

where the captive Roman soldiers

took part in a second battle, this time against the Chinese.

Once again defeated,

the Chinese deported them even further east.

As legend has it, they ended up here in Liqian.

As proof, there are villages here whose eyes and hair

are considerable lighter than most Chinese people.

They consider themselves to be the last descendants

of the lost legions of Crassus,

and refer to each other as blonds.

[Narrator Voiceover] Is it difficult to grow up blond

as a small child in China,

or were you like any other children in the village?

When we were small,

when we were school children,

we attracted a lot of attention.

Sometimes our classmates gave us nicknames.

They'd call you blue eyes, or even the foreigner.

Yeah, really, they would call you the foreigner or English.

We were always made fun of.

Oh, the blondie, they'd say, as if it were an illness.

The other children teased us.

When they got annoyed, they would say,

How come you look like a monkey with blond fur?

No one really wanted to play with us which made us angry.

That's what it was like.

(laughing)

Recent DNA tests have confirmed the presence

of Caucasian genes in Liqian,

but nothing proves that this is inherited

from the Crassus legions.

It could just as well be related

to a population from Siberia,

or simply the mixture of peoples drawn to the Silk Road.

[Narrator Voiceover] In the old village of Liqian,

what was the proportion of people

born with light colored eyes and fair hair?

In the old village of Liqian,

there are slightly more than 350 inhabitants,

of whom about 50 to 60% have Caucasian traits.

Like, for example, an aquiline nose,

blond hair or fair skin.

There are more than 100 people with these traits.

[Narrator Voiceover] And if you had the choice,

if you could choose for your children or grandchildren,

would you like them to be born blond

like the old inhabitants of Liqian

or dark haired, like the other 1.3 billion Chinese?

I'd prefer them

to be born like the Chinese, and not blond.

(laughing)

But there's not a lot to be said for it.

(laughing)

[Narrator Voiceover] And what do you think?

Today, for those of us

with European features, be it a long nose,

very fair skin or blond hair,

we're above all Chinese.

History is history.

Today, we have our feet firmly on the ground.

We are Chinese.

As far as the appearance of our children

and grandchildren is concerned,

the important thing is that they're happy in the village

and our society, that they're keen to see our village

and ourselves develop well.

It matters little what they look like.

(laughing)

Today, the authorities are keen

to further the notion of these supposed ancestors.

The sons of the sky who deified their emperors,

paid homage to another emperor who became a deity, Augustus.

(gentle music)

They've gone as far as building a pagoda

in the form of a Roman temple

to pay homage to these ancestors.

What's more, construction work has already begun

for a vast fun park and a cinema studio.

(gentle music)

In the Buddhist doctrine,

everything is an eternal recommencement.

And in Liqian, the conquering soul of the legionaries

seems to have found its reincarnation

in today's inhabitants.

[Narrator Voiceover] Oh, they're crazy, these Romans,

while these Chinese, to build on the edge of the Gobi Desert

a legionary castrum,

a cinema studio to film historical epics, and what's more,

this enormous Buddhist temple

in the form of an ancient Roman temple.

So whether you agree with the theory

of the lost legions of Crassus or not,

it's none the less an impressive demonstration

of dialogue between cultures,

and the message is clear,

modern China is open to the world.

(dramatic music)

(gentle music)

To the south of Liqian

is the capital of the province of Gansu, Lanzhou.

The city stretches along 30 kilometers of the Yellow River,

or Huang He, a vital artery of northern China.

Historically, it was crossed on rafts,

made of inflated sheepskin sacks,

some of which are still in service.

[Narrator Voiceover] It's funny to find yourself

on one of the oldest forms of transport,

dating back to the depths of prehistory,

in the middle of an ultra modern city

of five million inhabitants with an aerial lift,

bridges, and skyscrapers everywhere.

(birds chirping)

(group singing)

Here, there's no doubt about it,

we are well and truly in China.

Mandarin is spoken by everyone, and sometimes sung

as with these retired people

who meet up in the public parks to practice.

Marco Polo spent more than a year in Lanzhou,

employed as an Imperial official.

He wrote a description of the famous Dujiangyan system

which was used to irrigate the outskirts of the city.

(gentle music)

(snapping)

(upbeat music)

[Narrator Voiceover] One thing

which is striking in Lanzhou,

apart from prosperity and the enormity of the city

is the smell.

The city is extremely polluted, and you can smell it.

This is indeed one of the great challenges

that China is faced with.

Equating the economic boom with ecological necessities.

(dramatic music)

As an industrial city,

Lanzhou uses coal extensively,

which explains the air pollution,

made worse by the sunken relief along the river.

In the higher parts, away from the modern city,

can be found numerous temples, including this one,

dedicated to the Taoist doctrine.

It's called The Three Stars, in homage to prosperity,

longevity and good fortune.

(gentle music)

The way of Tao is one of the three great pillars

of Chinese thinking.

It draws upon the teachings of Laozi,

a sage of the sixth century BCE,

time which Chinese historians call

the Spring and Autumn period.

It's to Laozi that's attributed

the Book of the Way and of Virtue,

at the heart of the Taoist doctrine,

notably structured by mystic quietism,

and the search for equilibrium

between the opposing principles of yin and yang.

A philosophy, a life ethic, and a religion,

Taoism irrigates numerous aspects of daily life,

particularly including Chinese medicine

and architectural feng shui.

Perhaps one of the most striking aspects of modern China,

when you visit a city such as Lanzhou,

is the eternal coherence of this 4000 year old civilization.

Yesterday, the European Colonial intrusion,

followed by communism, now a day sprinkled with capitalism.

In China, modes of government change,

but the essential remains.

(exciting music)

We still have to investigate

one of the most famous aspects of culture in Lanzhou,

which is celebrated throughout China,

it's pasta.

(speaks in foreign language)

Contrary to popular belief,

the Chinese don't only eat rice.

In northern China, the culinary mainstay is wheat,

or rather wheat pasta.

(dramatic music)

(speaks in foreign language)

(speaks in foreign language)

(speaking in foreign language)

[Narrator Voiceover] A bowl of noodles.

A bowl of beef noodles?

How much?

Seven, you want the bowl of noodles.

Oh, that and that.

Okay, I'll take a ticket.

Here's your ticket.

You go over there.

[Narrator Voiceover] Thank you.

(dramatic music)

Hello, bowl of noodles.

Okay.

(speaking in foreign language)

Okay, thank you.

And if you think I understood that...

(dramatic music)

(upbeat music)

[Narrator Voiceover] What do you put in the magic potion?

In this potion, we put Szechuan pepper,

brown cardamom, slices of fresh ginger, and we stir it.

In China, we refer to these ingredients as medicaments.

We let these medicaments simmer to make a broth.

It's more pure and natural.

These are Chinese medicaments.

Ah, they make you strong.

Yeah.

Like obelisks.

(gentle music)

What do you think about the fact

that one of the emperor's officials

who was based here as a collector of salt tax

stole the recipe and took it to Venice?

I'm talking about Marco Polo, of course.

I don't think it's very serious.

The noodles culture knows no frontiers.

We're rather pleased about it.

Chinese noodles have their particularity,

French noodles have theirs.

Italian noodles all have their particularity.

We're rather happy to be able to share this culture.

(upbeat music)

A wealthy entrepreneur, Mr. Marzhun

has built up a fast food chain

based on noodles throughout China,

and even in various Chinese neighborhoods

in several North American cities.

[Narrator Voiceover] More than 400 restaurants

opened in four years.

That seems extraordinary.

How do you explain such a business boom?

At the beginning,

Dongfang Gong was handed down to us by our ancestors

over three generations.

The brand itself was created 17 years ago,

but the know how from our ancestors

dates back over 100 years.

Over the first 13 years,

we took the time to accumulate knowledge, gain experience,

but also administrative skills.

Then we dedicated four years

to developing the 410 restaurants.

Today, people work longer hours,

and they don't really have the time to cook at home,

so they don't have much choice.

They eat out.

But this situation is very profitable for fast food chains.

Between you and me,

are the Chinese strong at financial matters?

Do they like business.

The Chinese have been in the habit of trading

since antiquity.

China was once an agricultural country.

Neighbors would exchange their different produce

between themselves.

Bartering is humanity's oldest way of doing business.

That's what trade is all about.

The Chinese particularly enjoyed doing trade.

They like developing, widening their activities.

Today, in the four corners of the earth,

there are Chinese doing business.

(gentle music)

[Narrator Voiceover] Over the course of my journey,

I've been perfecting my technique by observing the Chinese.

You need to suck in very, very strongly to cool it down,

and then, and it's not easy drinking soup with chopsticks.

(slurping)

Well, there's progress to be made, but I'm getting there.

I'm getting there.

(upbeat music)

(horns honking)

So how does this work?

Here we go.

Even bus stations seem futuristic.

Ah, there aren't many people, I thought it would be crowded.

It's funny, you pay a sort of machine, and it opens.

To fight pollution,

the authorities are constructing

an entire public transport network.

Tramways, underground, bikes, and of course,

the omnipresent electric scooter.

China is trying everything to kick its petrol addiction.

In Lanzhou, it's once again the buses leading the market.

At the time when the Silk Road began,

chroniclers nicknamed this the Golden City.

The Han Dynasty built a whole section

of the Great Wall of China just to protect it.

(gentle music)

The rock star, Yu Kun lives in one

of the numerous modern neighborhoods

of this mushrooming city,

where apartments are built at the drop of a hat,

like in the rest of the country.

As an artist and singer,

Yu Kun has much greater freedom of expression

than most Chinese.

His rock group Deko I sells hundreds of thousands of CD's.

But its hits are mainly downloaded

and pirated tens of millions of times.

(guitar music)

[Narrator Voiceover] So, you come from Liqian,

the village who's inhabitants may have descended

from the lost Roman legions of Crassus.

Do these origins influence your music?

Yes, they influence it a lot.

Since I grew up here,

I take an interest in the history of the place.

People ask me, how come you're not like the rest?

How is it you have a brown beard and curly hair?

So it's interested me since childhood.

And more and more with my musical discovery,

I feel that I have a part of this history in my blood.

I find it mysterious.

I'm interested in the mysterious culture

of the place of my birth.

So I continue to learn, to think, to look and to listen.

I get inspiration when I'm out walking.

(singing in foreign language)

(upbeat music)

[Narrator Voiceover] What made you become a musician?

How do you become one in China?

I was in journalism at university.

But after graduating, I became a journalist.

At university, I used to make music with friends.

So, as I say, I graduated

and started working as a journalist,

but I ended up thinking

that I should find a job which suited me better.

My work allowed me to give my opinion about the world,

about society, but you know, when you work as a journalist,

it's not always good.

You don't always tell the truth.

So I decided to make music in order to express myself.

(upbeat music)

(singing in foreign language)

And before the modern Silk Road,

which internet is to an extent,

how could a kid growing up in a village

in the depths of China have access to music

by the Doors or ACDC?

In our generation of young Chinese,

we discovered rock through audio cassettes.

When they became worn out and were thrown away in the west,

they got past customs, and were copied in China.

The most damage ones were stuck back together.

Our entire knowledge of western music

comes from audio cassettes.

That was the first stage.

The second stage, as internet developed,

consisted of downloading music online.

In China, music is pirated.

(laughing)

(upbeat music)

(gentle music)

The Chinese generally have no qualms about knocking down

all traces of the past when they build something bigger.

But in the province of Gansu,

the authorities wanted to conserve what they call

a reminder village.

The small town of Qingcheng was therefore left intact,

and was even restored to show future generations

how their ancestors lived.

These people playing Xingqi, Chinese chess,

are genuine villagers,

who live in a sort of open air museum.

Time passes slowly in Qingcheng,

which has become the conservatory

of the Confucian traditions of eternal China.

(gentle music)

The village works along the lines of a cooperative,

in which work and leisure are distributed

amongst the inhabitants.

(laughing)

[Narrator Voiceover] Well done.

(grunting)

There's not only ping pong in Qingcheng,

the village notably possesses

a very ancient Confucian academy,

which is both a temple and a school,

teaching the thinking of the sage Kung Xi, or Master Kung.

Equally called the School of the Learned,

Confucianism is undoubtedly the central thinking,

which partially shapes Chinese culture and society.

Notably through respect for the established order,

filial piety and the search for harmony.

(gentle music)

Although the China of the cultural revolution

on the Mao Zedong criticism Confucius, the present regime,

while still officially communist, goes out of its way

to promote the Confucian heritage,

seen as a stabilizing factor

in a country with 1.3 billion inhabitants.

(speaking in foreign language)

Another cultural heritage promoted

in the village of Qingcheng is the famous Chinese opera.

Born here in northern China,

Xiqu alternates dialogue and song.

These actresses are performing for villagers

parts of the most famous piece in the repertoire.

The Xixiang Ji, or the Story of the Western Wing.

This masterpiece is by Wang Shifu, the great opera author,

and propagator of the Confucian message.

(singing in foreign language)

The piece tells the story of thwarted love

between a young orphan girl and a Mandarin,

that's to say, a highly placed official

in the emperor's service.

This story unfolds 1500 years ago, under the Tang Dynasty,

one of the most prosperous periods for the Silk Road.

A period of which everyone in China still remembers today,

15 centuries later.

(gentle music)