Have you ever seen an Argentine supermarket on the streets in China? If the answer is no, you may be surprised to know that in Argentina, a Latin American country thousands of miles away from China, Chinese supermarkets abound.

There are about 11,000 supermarkets in Argentina belonging to Chinese families and nine million out of the country's total population of 43 million shop their daily, Diego Ramiro Guelar, Argentine ambassador to China, said in an interview with China Daily website.

Now you might be wondering why are there so many Chinese supermarkets in Argentina? When did those Chinese emigrate there? Which part of China are those immigrants originally from? Above all, how did those immigrants feel in the new country?

From Here to China, an Argentine drama comedy directed by Federico Marcello, may help satisfy your curiosity and offer answers to your questions through quite an atypical way.

Inspired by his observation that most of Chinese immigrants in Argentina are engaged in the retail trade, Marcello interviewed nearly 400 Chinese supermarket owners before he made up his mind to tell a story about the Chinese community, a reticent ethnic group that is often ignored or even misunderstood in his country.

However, instead of directly bringing those Chinese immigrants into focus in his film, the director blazed a trail by telling a story of an Argentine man Facundo who travelled to Xiamen, East China's Fujian province, with his friend and opened the first-ever Argentine supermarket there.

The duo's act is part of Facundo's revenge for his father's business failure back in the 1990s when the arrival of a slew of Chinese supermarkets in Argentina elbowed many local ones out of business and the one owned by Facundo's father was unfortunately one of them.

To the director's mind, a mockumentary portraying two Argentines' struggle to establish a business in an utterly different cultural milieu on the other end of the world can help put his countrymen into the shoes of their Chinese neighbors whose stores dot the neighborhood.

The indie production, made on a tight budget of $80,000, nearly emptied the director's pocket. But to ensure authenticity, the team did not simply opt for the China Town in Argentine as the setting for the film; instead, they packed up some Argentinian delicacies such as mate tea and dulce de leche (caramel), and then embarked on an eastward journey to China's Fujian province, where nearly 85 percent of the first-generation Chinese immigrants originally hail from.

To get by on the tight budget, the film also stars the director himself and his friend Pablo Zapata, producer of the film. Plus, many of Marcello's family members acted in the film and his house was used as the filming location.

Despite a script test and some preparations, everything seemed topsy-turvy when the team first arrived in Xiamen. Their efforts of running an Argentine supermarket were beset by a series of problems – language barriers, falling behind the shooting schedule, low supermarket patronage and more.

Luckily, thanks to the help of their local friends, each of those difficulties were finally turned into results that were beyond expectations, the director said.

Chinese stores have been a part of the Argentines' daily life; therefore, this film has commanded considerable public attention soon after it premiered earlier this year.

Its humorous storytelling and unique perspective have made it popular among Argentinian audiences.

Seeing its popularity in his country, the director heaved a sigh of relief. He said by putting two Argentinians into the shoes of those Chinese store owners, the film aims to invite the audience's empathy.

All the difficulties experienced by the two characters in Xiamen must have been experienced by the Chinese Argentines. The film is successful as long as people who watch it can set aside stereotypes they've held about this group, Marcello said.

Chinese Argentines are hard workers but the first-generation immigrants were generally of poor language skills, which limited their communication with the locals.

Now many of them have carved out their own careers, which are more diversified. Unlike their parents, the second-generation Chinese Argentines branched out into professions like law, accounting and even politics. They have made huge contributions to the social and economic development of Argentina. They've come a long way and I know how hard it has been, the director said.

As part of the 2019 Spanish Day celebrations, the film was screened to the Chinese audience at the Cervantes Institute in Beijing on the evening of June 22, 2019.

Argentine Ambassador Diego Ramiro Guelar, who was also at the screening, shared with chinadaily.com.cn that in the end of the film, due to insurmountable difficulties, Facundo closed the store and flew back home, but his failure can help him reevaluate his attitude towards the Chinese immigrants.

"The most important message of the film is related to the understanding of what it means to be an immigrant. He (Facundo) failed but he can sure have a higher value of the effort of the immigrants from China's Fujian province," the ambassador said.

The ambassador also noted that amid rising nationalism in today's world, the film can remind us that for any country that is receiving immigrants, it is a blessing, because those people have a strong willingness to work and to sacrifice in a new country.