An aging couple living in post-Mao Beijing hide their disabled daughter from the world, and help a man conceal his affair as their own marriage is eroded by a secret.

A young woman reunites with an old college friend who has immersed himself in Marxist ideology and begins falling in love with his deep political passion.

A woman married to a much older man feels miserable during pregnancy, having abandoned frequent alcohol consumption, insecure about her husband's obsession with his ex-wife, a dead political poet, and missing her carefree youth. When she finally gives birth, she begins to see her aging husband as disgusting and infant-like and begins to contemplate divorce.