In a Thai village, the life of a boy who the head monk believes has unlocked the highest state of enlightenment is jeopardized when the village chief seeks to exploit the local festival of floating lanterns for profit. Upon finding out the Thai village chief's evil scheme for the local lantern festival, a precocious child's life is threatened.

A Japanese businessman reflects on his experience with Chinese people and longs to visit China.

Three myths from human groups on other planets describe the origin of humanity, and the necessity of respecting nature.

In a world brimming with magical realism, a young girl in Communist China confronts a malicious member of the Red Guard when he threatens her ailing grandmother.

In the magical Ancient Chinese world of astrology, a candyman with a knack for communicating with the zodiac animal spirits must lift a curse on his friend's teahouse by settling a dispute concerning the emperor's prized missing tea between two animal spirits.

When a strange boy arrives in her small town of Little Nova to live with the local Hmong shaman, a young girl thinks she might finally have a friend to confide in. After the boy gets a mysterious illness and other inexplicable things start to happen around them, the girl isn't so sure the stories she was told as a child are just stories after all.

A Chinese-American man reads messages written on live origami animals that his estranged mother folded for him before she passed away.

In the Old West, after witnessing an elderly Chinese prospector win a fight against a couple of outlaws, a young girl forms a deep bond with him, learns that he may be a god in disguise, and must defend him when he is called to trial over his treatment of the outlaws.

A researcher delves into the story of a small town ravaged by unusual violence. When tigers massacred the townspeople and hoards of children disappeared into the woods — never to be seen again — the survivors of the event and the generations that came after seek answers and reflect on their history, as well as the prevalence of tigers in their culture and mythology.

In a futuristic world, a well-intentioned African witch doctor kills a newborn baby that according to his culture was a demon. However, Maintenance, white people from another planet, disagree with the witch doctor’s cultural traditions and try to stop this practice.