In China, just before the year 2000, Tao, a girl from Fenyang, is being courted by two of her childhood friends, Zhang and Liangzi. Zhang, the owner of a service station, is assured of a promising future, while Liangzi works down a coal mine. With her heart torn between the two men, Tao will have to make a choice which will influence the rest of her life and that of her unborn son, Dollar. Over a quarter of a century, between China in times of great change and Australia with the promise of a better life, we follow the hopes, loves and disillusions of these characters facing their destiny. When you are young you do not think about growing old, when you get married you do not think about divorce, when your parents are alive you think they will never die, in good health you never think about being ill. But, at a certain age, you develop these thought processes which are those of the present but also projections into the future. The theme of the film is the link between feelings and time; you can only really understand feelings by taking into account the passage of time.