In 21st-century China, a journalist and a former dissident, once the best of friends, lead very different lives. When one goes to jail, the other confronts rampant corruption to find his friend.

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.