In 1940s Taiwan, during the last days of Japanese rule, an impoverished farming village is less concerned with colonial politics than with feeding their families. One day, an American bomb falls onto a field, where it lies unexploded.
During the Vietnam War, the US military planned to send soldiers to Hualien for vacation. The owners of three brothels in Hualien jointly rented a large house, preparing to open a bar to make a lot of money, and invited teachers from school to teach the bar girls to speak English. Dozens of prostitutes were carefully selected, even Afen, the mistress of the brothel owner, was recruited. The teachers began to teach the girls how to speak English, mix cocktails, and even taught them how to wear condoms when receiving American soldiers to avoid contracting sexually transmitted diseases.
Zang Guang-xing is a veteran soldier from Mainland China who married a young Taiwanese woman. He has been working as a supervisor in a construction company for seven years. Everyday he rides the same motorbike to work. He suffers enough misery from riding that motorbike, and dreams of buying a car. So he asks around for decent second-hand cars. His son doesn't like any car he chooses. His wife, a typical Taiwanese woman who lives frugally, shaves any penny she can. She is the one who pays for the family's new car. They go out on trips happily, and become the envy of the neighborhood. Zhang thus gets the new car he's always dreamed of, but he starts to worry about it getting dirty, because it's simply too new, too nice for him. The car thus becomes his son's vehicle. He rides the old bike to work again, just like he has during all these years.
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