Chinese investment in neighbouring Laos has locals worried that the rubber plantations and casinos it is setting up are damaging their way of life.
Chinese investments in Northern Laos go a lot further than Boten's casinos.
Several Chinese rubber companies have begun to build offices in nearby Luang Namtha.
Just over the border, China's Yunnan province is a booming centre of the global rubber processing industry, producing rubber for everything from car tyres to condoms.
But with no room left to plant more trees there, Chinese companies are having to look further afield.
The Lao government believes it has spotted an opportunity.
Gambling that Chinese rubber money could open a fast track to development in the region, it has offered generous incentives in the form of tax breaks and land concessions.
Ban Chagnee is a Lao village in one of those concessions.
Lao villagers are concerned by the influx of Chinese companies
I arrive in the village in the middle of a particularly torrential downpour, and a thin young man with a long, drawn face called Borsai invites me in to shelter from the rain.
While his chickens cluck loudly in the backyard, Borsai squats on the floor and pours us both a glass of whisky.
"Four years ago," he says, sliding the glass towards me, "the military came and told us the government had sold our land. Anyone who tried to grow rice there again would be arrested."
The army offered poor compensation.
"They paid me 15 pence for every day's work I had done," he says.
"Nothing for the rice, let alone for the land."
The Lao government argues that the strategy of trading villagers' land in exchange for jobs is necessary to benefit the country as a whole.
But Borsai says only the politicians and the generals profit through backhanders and corruption.
"We prefer the old way of life," says Borsai.
"Yes, we can make money if we work for the Chinese, but our expenses are higher.
"We should spend money on rice but instead we spend it on phonecards and alcohol."
Heaven help him when the casinos and prostitutes arrive.
"We're not rich here," says Han as he smiles with his two remaining teeth.
"Let's just say we have enough."
But Han is not happy with everything that he sees.
"I worry about all the Chinese companies coming into Laos," he says.
"How will they find enough people to work all those trees?"
A rubber plantation requires three or four people per acre to maintain it once in full production.
Add up all the land ceded to Chinese companies already, and that means over a million people are going to be needed.
"Are they planning to bring a million Chinese here to Laos?" asks Han.
