The Heirs Of Opium

Life in the remote villages of Indochina.

Opium has left a void that has changed the physical and human geography of Indochina. After a golden 20th century, the plantations have practically disappeared. With no poppies dotting the mountainsides, the ethnic group that cultivated them has been stripped of all power.

Driven into poverty, and eternally suspected of their grandfathers’ loyalty to the French and American invaders, the opium heirs struggle to keep their identity alive. This is the story of people who stand up and others who give up. Stories of villages succumbing to overwhelming assimilation, of families under siege by the army in the depths of the jungle or falling desperately into the arms of Christian preachers.

They are also the paradoxes of the authoritarian regimes that rule the region, capable of anything to stay afloat. A five-star hotel overlooking the cliff where dissidents were thrown, streets of sex slaves behind a patriotic propaganda mural, or fast food chains where the drugs that financed the colonial adventure were consumed.