Su Phan and her family live in South Vietnam where they know war is happening but in their remote village it all seems so far away. It becomes more and more real however when the Communist soldiers destroy her father’s shop and arrest him for not being Communist enough. As more bombs fall, the villagers flee to live in the jungle. Su Phan’s family is poor now and they earn money and trades by selling dim sum and doing laundry for the neighbors. It is seven years before Chung Bo, the father, returns from prison. Based on the true experiences of Fay Tang, which she wrote down in her ESL classes in the United States.