Sheng xi zhi di

It is 1991, and China’s socio-economic transformation is profoundly affecting the lives of individual families across the vast nation. Peasant farmers face challenges and technological advances that are radically reshaping their rural way of life. In response, ten-year-old Chuang’s parents have opted to move away to seek work in the city, leaving their third child behind to be raised by extended family and neighbours in their countryside village community. An intimate yet sprawling saga spanning four generations unfolds, navigating cycles of life through the changing of the seasons. As births and deaths, weddings and funerals take place, we witness the resilience and resourcefulness of ordinary people grappling with the burden of familial responsibility in a modernising world that is increasingly in conflict with the beliefs, traditions and codes of honour and duty they have lived by for thousands of years.