Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown

Good evening, my fellow citizens.

This government, as promised, has maintained

the closest surveillance

of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba.

This is the Cuba I grew up with.

Mankind teeters precariously on the brink

of a thermo-nuclear war.

The missile crisis, duck and cover,

hide under your desk, kids, cover yourselves

with wet newspaper because we're all going to die.

The flames of crisis burn far stronger,

fed and fanned by the bitter tirades of Fidel Castro.

And this guy, always in the fatigues,

underlining with every appearance that we

were two nations in a never-ending state of war.

Today, the United States of America

is changing its relationship with the people of Cuba.

We will begin to normalize relations

between our two countries.

Cuba has been sitting here 55 years now, half an hour away,

basically giving the biggest superpower in the world

the stiff middle finger.

Fifty-plus years of animosity,

embargo, rationing,

and Fidel Castro is still hanging on.

But recently, there are powerful indications

that everything is about to change.

We are in Jaimanitas, a little fishing town.

This place is called Casa de Santy,

owned by two brothers that go out and fish every morning

and bring fresh seafood.

Okay, humble fishing village,

- traditional fishing family? - Yes.

We're about to eat sushi.

What's going on in this country, man?

Things are changing, Anthony, what can I say?

My name is Hugo Cancio. I was born in Cuba.

I was in one of Cuba's most prominent schools

when I made a joke about President Fidel Castro.

I was a teenager.

The kid that slept on the bunk bed on top of me

recorded our conversation and I was expelled from school.

My mom said the only choice is for us to leave Cuba.

I'm a businessman. I've lived in Miami for 35 years.

It's my home base. I come back and forth to Cuba.

I've been coming to Cuba for over 20 years.

Cuba is a communist country in economic transition.

Since Fidel Castro allowed Cubans to establish

more businesses, there are people that are making money,

people that have created a tremendous amount of wealth.

People with family connections to the States,

people tied to the exploding tourist industry,

small business owners, taxi drivers,

people operating in ever-changing gray areas

of what is permissible.

How's it work right now? If you're Cuban,

- you can sell your property... - To another Cuban from Cuba.

That's what's happening right now, a lot of Cuban-Americans,

a lot of Cubans living abroad are now coming back

and through relatives are buying property.

Obviously somebody has touched this building

with some kind of investment. It's renovated.

It seems to be like a hotel. Somebody bought the building

and turned it into a little hotel.

However you feel about the government,

however you feel about the last 55 years,

there aren't any places in the world that look like this.

- It's utterly enchanting. - It's very seductive.

There's no doubt in my mind that somewhere in the offices

of the Four Seasons hotel chain,

"One of these days."

You know, and cruise ships. What happens then?

Well, look... -Is this an inevitable

march of progress? Am I being a snob?

No, no, you're being very realistic.

That's the concern of most Cubans.

I wouldn't mind seeing one or two Starbucks in Havana.

Hoping that we don't go back to 1958,

when the majority of Cuban companies were owned

by American corporations.

I have got to believe that Cuba wants

some of the value that represents, you know,

the hearts and souls of the Cuban people.

Last time I was in Havana,

a meal at a paladar would have been rice and beans.

Now, sushi.

A certain sign of impending apocalypse.

Ten years ago this restaurant

would have never been allowed, not only because

private businesses were not allowed,

but the external influence that you're seeing, remember,

this is a country where chewing gum or listening to the Beatles

were prohibited.

I don't think we need to have Twitter every day.

One thing I love about coming to Cuba is the fact

that I can put my iPhone away. Who cares?

Look what we have around us. I hope Cubans

continue to have access to free information.

They still want to preserve these family times.

Tourists have been coming to Cuba for some time.

Predominantly Europeans, many of them men of a certain age

looking for, how should we say, company.

But now it looks like Americans looking to live out fantasies

of Godfather II will soon be able to do so.

And it's all still here for them.

But there's new stuff, too.

This is certainly new.

Fábrica de Arte,

the hottest spot in Havana.

A nightclub, performance space, art gallery,

highlighting artists, musicians and DJs from around the world.

Questlove is scheduled to DJ here tomorrow night.

Like a big bag when all the arts can fit inside.

What is going on here?

I ask Inti Herrera and X Alfonso,

two of the young entrepreneurs behind the place.

Nothing like this ever existed before.

Did the government Bureau of Arts help you?

We had, at the beginning, we had subsidies

from the Ministry of Culture.

Even the building, we asked for the building

because it was abandoned for 13 years.

The place is very popular.

- Right now, yes. - Who comes here?

These people that love art,

but at the same time, it's very diverse.

It attracts a once unthinkable mix of foreigners

and locals that enjoys the actual support

of the government, without whom, of course,

it couldn't exist.

Our chef here, Lisette,

is part of the art world, you know, here.

A ceviche of dogfish

with pickled vegetables.

Loin of pork, pan seared with yucca

and a riff on a traditional orange sauce

with garlic and coriander.

- It's good. - Very good.

What do you think's going to happen

when the door opens and you've got hundreds of thousands

of Americans flooding in here,

looking desperately to spend money on anything Cuban?

I don't know, man. We are a small country.

We have to adapt to new things.

But it's a good challenge.

I guess I'm asking how do you keep it real

when you'll all probably be millionaires in a few years?

- Us? You think so? - Yeah. Yeah.

It's not our goal in life, but... that's...

- Doesn't matter. - Yeah, doesn't matter.

We're going to have more factories.

More factories.

Havana still looks like you want it to look.

Or maybe just how I want it to look.

What was once one of the wealthiest cities

in Latin America left to the elements,

left to collapse, were frozen gloriously in time.

In fits and starts, Cuba is changing,

but it's not sugar or rum or tobacco or casino gambling

that is the new god. It's tourism.

All right. So here, Chinatown. Such as it is.

But are there any Chinese left in Havana?

No. There's a few new Chinese.

- Right. - At one point the Chinese

community in Cuba was huge, but they pretty much cleared out

after the revolution, as did most of the Russian,

Jewish émigrés who were here, so the state has erected

a few quintessentially Chinatown gates.

Mustered the 14 Chinese people left in it to...

summon their relatives.

For more than 35 years,

Jon Lee Anderson has been reporting from conflict zones

such as Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

I lied about my age and traveled around Africa.

When I was 13, I told people I was 26.

In the early 1990s, while researching a biography

of Che Guevara, he and his family moved to Cuba

and ended up staying for three years.

You lived here during the special period,

which was not so special. That was the bad times.

- That was the bad times. - The Russians had pulled out.

- Soviets all done. - The economy went like this.

- Completely. - Ninety percent. It just tanked.

Cuba lost 80 percent of its import goods,

which led to widespread hunger, malnutrition,

on the island.

Soviet-style place

with food that was flown in. Quite bad food.

Under Fidel's rule, that's the way it was.

It's like a cargo cult version

of Chinese food here. Dumplings.

The Szechuan chicken dish that's about as Szechuan

as, well, I am.

What's going to happen? What's next?

The uptick in tourism just after the December 17th announcement,

the surprise announcement by Raul and Obama,

in which they said we decided to make friends again,

the surge in tourism and American interests

in Cuba is like this.

You now have an island where every room is for rent