After moving to America, the girl reads library books to improve her English. One day, she stumbles upon a book written by a man who taught English. In the book, the man recalls asking his students to read their essays aloud on their happiest moments. One student reads an essay about having Peking duck for dinner, after which he confesses that he never actually had the Peking duck, for it was his wife, and he was simply recalling his wife’s memory. Reading the memoir, the girl thinks back to her life in Fuzhou.

In America, the girl sleeps in the living room of her grandma’s house. She spends many of her days in a mansion where her mother is the nanny of a boy, and there, both of them get better at English by watching movies with the boy. Meanwhile, the girl’s father undertakes graduate studies at college. Still, after years of being here, the girl’s mother isn’t very proficient in English, and she has difficulty communicating with others. One day, the girl sees ice cream on television and writes in her journal that it’s her favorite food. From then on, she writes many lies in English for practice.

At her MFA program, the girl discusses a piece in her workshop. The piece is about a girl who reads a memoir about an English teacher in China who asks his Chinese students about the happiest moment in their lives, after which one says that his wife ate Peking duck once. The students discuss the story among themselves, after which the girl brings up how she read about it first in a man’s memoir. She and the only other Asian student in the workshop discuss the matter of authorship.

After discussing the piece, the workshop moves onto the girl’s short story, which is about a woman who works as a nanny and brings her daughter along to the mansion she works at. In the short story, a cleaning salesman comes to the door of the mansion and invites himself in, after which the nanny loses her job from the resulting incident. Everyone talks about how the narration is too smooth for someone who purportedly doesn’t speak English, but they say that writing in Chinglish would be much too offensive. Eventually, the other Asian student chimes in and says that the short story carries tired tropes of Chinese immigrants and Chinese women in particular, highlighting the nanny’s submissiveness with regard to the cleaning salesman.

After the girl releases her book, she takes her mother out to a Chinese restaurant. When they finish ordering food, she then hands her an advance copy, after which her mother asks her about where she gets her short stories from. In particular, they discuss the nanny short story and how it was clearly derived from her mother’s actual life. Pointing out how miserable the mothers are in the girl’s pieces, her mother wonders why there’s so much suffering. She then questions how she can really write about her mother’s experiences if she didn’t actually live them as she did. They then briefly argue about the incident with the cleaning salesman, whether or not he was actually dangerous. Eventually, they box things up at the Chines restaurant. When the mother tries to talk to the waiter in Chinese, he admits he doesn’t know any.

Back at the mansion, when her daughter is still little, the mother is making lunch. The doorbell rings, after which she is greeted by a cleaning salesman. After introductions, the cleaning salesman invites himself in to demonstrate the efficacy of his products. He then asks the mother what she’s up to, and she says she’s making lunch. The man says he needs lunch as well and proceeds into the mansion’s kitchen, after which the mother follows him. In the kitchen, the man asks her what Chinese food she can make, including Peking duck, but she says she can make him wushu chicken, accidentally calling it kung-fu chicken.

While the mother cooks, she wonders if she should call 911. She simply feeds the man, after which he encroaches upon her and says that he wants her. He then asks for some beer, which she provides. He says that she doesn’t belong here but that he can take her away from here, into a cabin in the woods, where they can purportedly be self-sufficient. Eventually, she tells him about how her life was in China, after which the cleaning salesman asks her if she’s a communist. She says no and tells her daughter, who has been creeping nearby, to go into another room.

The mother thinks about how she makes up stories for her daughter to listen to, though she never knows how to end them. Soon enough, the mansion’s owners come home. She tries to explain to the mansion’s owner what happened, but the mother’s English fails her. Meanwhile, her husband has appeared to pick her up, though he doesn’t know what to say either. Eventually, the mansion’s owners want her to clean up in the kitchen, though she says it’s not her job, as she’s only here to be a nanny. They argue some more, after which the mother leaves, resolving never to come back. Together, the mother, father, and daughter go into the car. The daughter says that the mansion’s owners just wanted to know what happened. The mother tells her that she doesn’t understand. Their eyes briefly meet in the rearview mirror.