This film is adapted from the novel of Ah Cheng. During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), a young man is assigned to teach in village school.

During the Cultural Revolution, an unschooled young man is laboring in the countryside when he is suddenly assigned to teach in a near-by village school. Gradually, he finds the confidence to encourage the barely literate kids to write about their own lives and feelings. At the same time, through a series of dream-like meetings with a young cowherd, he begins to sense the possibilities of a life beyond the parameters of traditional education.—X