Director: Qiu Wanting

Synopsis

Beijia was born at the foot of a remote mountain, with ranges stretching into the distance and a small river in front of her house. The only sign of modern civilization in the area is perhaps the elevated railway behind the house. On this day, as usual, her mother tells her to turn off the radio and take a basin of laundry to wash in the river. Since childhood, Beijia has endured village gossip about her origins. Not far from the river, an old man often walks from the roadside to the lake, scattering seeds single-mindedly along the way, and her conversations with him leave Beijia thoughtful. Sensitive and emotional, Beijia has no outlet for these pent-up feelings, but Xiaoxu always quietly comforts her. One day Beijia takes a cassette tape to find Xiaoxu, but he is gone. At a loss, she remembers the tape Xiaoxu gave her some time ago and goes home to look for it. She finds the tape, and also an adoption certificate; now she knows the answer about her origins. She reads the letter the boy left on the tape and learns that she has missed Xiaoxu's farewell. In turmoil, after an even fiercer conflict with her mother, she plays Xiaoxu's tape and, on impulse, leaves home. At the station, Beijia looks back at the place she is about to leave, unable to put her feelings into words. She takes a few photos, and while changing the film she finds, in a film canister she took by mistake, a childhood photo of herself and her mother. For a moment she still feels the pull of family. Watching the trains heading toward the unknown and the crowds coming and going, she weighs the debt she owes for her upbringing against the freedom she longs for, along with a trace of feeling toward the unknown world.