the main attraction for chinese tourists in sihanoukville the casinos. gambling is a favorite pastime for many chinese but it's illegal in mainland china here however casinos are springing up like mushrooms. alongside luxury apartment blocks at prices ordinary composed ians could never afford. by any measure cambodia is a poor country but its economy is growing fast and largely that's due to the massive amount of chinese investment pouring in and much of that money goes into construction projects like the one you can see here by the end of last year chinese construction contracts in cambodia were worth some seventeen billion dollars and that's almost as much as the country's g.d.p. itself the influx of chinese money is a blessing for those who managed to land a job here they can earn two to three times as much as others feel. i'm rich now but at least i'm no longer poor. i used to not have any savings at all now i have some money at home maybe one or two thousand dollars things have definitely improved compared to when we were poor. we have about fifty o