A white American man and a Chinese-American woman visit the woman's family in China. After the woman's cousin compares the woman's Chinese to a toddler's, she stops speaking English and decides she wants to stay in China for awhile before returning, to reconnect with her family and her place of birth. Upon returning to the United States alone, the man, initially disinterested and unmotivated, begins to learn Chinese.

In Long Beach, California, a religious Chinese immigrant finds a job caring for a teenage boy suffering from leukemia. By watching M*A*S*H and reading the Bible, they find solace in one another during the last months of his life.

A Chinese woman reminisces on her relationship with her geologist husband, reuniting with him after a work-separation and his eventual death by sickness. Their communication centers around the husband's assistant, the Human Phonograph, who sings on command.

A Canadian graduate student and his wife are living in France and often socialize with their peers at concerts and dinner parties. They soon make friends with an established novelist, but as the student continues to meet people he begins to question who he can trust and who his real friends are.

When a guitar-wielding teenage girl moves into the house next door, a boy suddenly finds his world of stellar debate performance and strict Nigerian parentage at odds with his newfound love of heavy metal.

A Chinese American woman living in contemporary Wisconsin plans out a vacation to England rather China, her usual destination. The thought of abandoning her home country takes her back to the more difficult moments of her life, from her estrangement from her parents to her failed marriage.

Young woman recounts her childhood growing up in China in the 1970s and meeting the old maid that the village has ostracized, this encounter forever changes her.

A young female aspiring writer goes to a salon and learns about the hair stylist's tragic love story. The hairstylist begs her to write the story, but the writer feels she doesn't have the skills to write such an unbelievable love story and feels jealousy toward the hair stylist.

A young Chinese woman has just been divorced by her husband and wonders what her next stage in life will be. However, her dark past makes her wonder if her life is worth living, until she meets an older gentleman.

A high school dropout tries to make his dreams of being a rockstar come true in California. There, a mysterious hotel's beautiful guests seem to offer him the trinity of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, but he quickly finds himself in an endless cycle of exploitation that's difficult to escape.