Just before an American college student is set to leave for the airport after visiting her extended family in Ethiopia, she realizes her suitcases are too heavy. A fight breaks out between her relatives about what items should travel with her at their behest, versus which ones deserve to be left behind.

A young Chinese-American girl deals with her delusional and manipulative grandmother when her grandmother visits from China.

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.

After losing her mother, a young Chinese American girl in New York City struggles to keep the rest of family together and grapples with the loneliness of being the less-loved daughter.

A woman finally forms a relationship with her half-sister, but becomes concerned for her well-being; the half-sister and her husband each tell the woman a different story.

After one woman's husband has an affair with the neighbor, the two women erect a bamboo fence so they never have to look at each other. Once the husband leaves, the married woman's son grows sicker as he longs for the company of his half-sister next door.

A mother and her three boys are on a small Greek island, where they prepare to reunite with her husband. Before they leave, they attend a party, and spend time reflecting on the possibility that they may never see their missing loved one again.

An American married couple in Turkey cannot stop arguing over the husband’s nonsensical novel and the wife’s alcoholic tendency until a life-or-death accident forces them to reevaluate their relationship.

After a terrifying illness, an Indian grandmother drops everything and moves to live with her son and his wife in California. What she finds is a family that has begun to leave behind the traditions she cherishes, and her desperate attempts to save them only intensify her suffering.

A somewhat estranged family grapples with the impending death of their mother.