When a man visits an old village called Ain Tadouirt to visit an old friend and conduct research, he becomes captured by a tribe and forced to entertain. He must figure out how to escape a life of enslavement in a foreign land.

A daughter and a mother wonder what the lesson of their story is.

A young Native American man visits a burial site on a nearby island and must reflect on both his allegiance to his culture and to himself.

A professor finds himself attracted to one of his students, allowing her to skip the final exams - but her resultant grade causes her to lash out at him and reveal harsh truths about his own life that he finds difficult to accept.

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.

An older Japanese man reflects on his past and learns more about the American culture through small encounters with strangers on a train.

Set in Canada in the 1980s, an Indian-Canadian immigrant woman travels abroad, attempting to learn how to grieve her husband and sons after a terrorist attack on the plane kills them on their way to India.

A creative writing teacher sits through a conference with one his favorite students. He takes us on a journey through the characters in the story, and in his life.

A Polish immigrant feels her mind slipping away, as her surroundings and even her own body seem unfamiliar. After she's diagnosed with Alzheimers, she reflects on the importance of her memories and her past.

The child of two American expatriates in modern Zambia walks through a party, discovering the secret life that servants lead when she isn’t looking.