The Qi family was very poor but very close and happy. The fact that dad was under a political cloud (for teaching the wrong music) meant that their standard of living would never improve, and so it was doubly worrying that mum had tuberculosis. One snowy night, as Mr Qi carried his wife to the hospital, they died in an accident. Their four orphaned children ran away from unwelcoming adoptive relatives, and the elder boy Yiku found foster parents for his brother and two sisters. Twenty years on, their fates reflect precisely the homes in which they were fostered. The younger boy is a student at Dong-Bei University. The younger girl is a drop-out, hanging with a rough crowd. Yiku is a taxi-driver in Beijing. And Sitian, the elder girl, is an American-educated orchestra conductor coming home to give her first concert in China. Her ulterior motive, of course, is to track down her long-lost siblings...