SUMMARY: When his father dies, Yusheng must return to the remote village where he was born to help his mother make arrangements for the funeral, which she insists must follow the old custom of carrying the dead home on foot. As Yusheng tries to find a way to do what his mother wants, he recalls the story of how she— a girl from the village—and his father—a teacher trained in the city—met and fell in love.

SYNOPSIS (Contains Spoilers): The film opens in black and white, with a land rover driving down a mountain road in winter. A male voiceover tells us that the narrator's (Yusheng's) father has died suddenly, and he is returning to his birth village for the first time in years; he says "I am very worried about my mother."

Yusheng goes into a house, and calls to his mother, who is not home. Two men come in, one of whom is the town's mayor. The men tell Yusheng that his father died after getting stuck in a big snow storm; he was the village school teacher, and was traveling to try to secure funds to rebuild the village school house. After he was found, it was discovered that he had a heart condition that no one knew about. The mayor tells Yusheng that he father's body is at the provincial hospital, and that rather than driving his body back to the village for burial, his mother wants it carried back on foot. This is an old tradition meant to assure that the deceased will not forget his way home. This is a problem because there aren't enough young people in the village to do it. The mayor also tells Yusheng that his mother spends all of her time at the old school house where his father taught and will not speak to anyone.

Yusheng goes to the old schoolhouse, where his mother is sitting outside. When he speaks to her, she begins sobbing, saying "Your father is dead! I will never see him again!" Yusheng takes hi smother back to her house tries to get her to go to bed and rest; she asks him to being her loom to her, so that she can weave a shroud for his father's coffin. Yusheng offers to buy the shroud instead, but his mother rejects this idea. Yusheng gets the loom out of a storage room, and then takes it to someone in the village to get it repaired. The repairman notes that Yusheng's mother prefers to stick to the old customs.

Back at the house, Yusheng's mother begins weaving. Later, at dinner, Yusheng tries to convince his mother to consider alternatives to carrying the coffin back on foot, like pulling it with a tractor and walking alongside. She rejects this idea, and begins crying again. He also asks her to stop working on the burial cloth, but again she refuses; she tells him to sleep in his father's study, so that she can work without keeping him awake.

In the study, Yusheng he looks at a photo of his parents taken just after they were married, while his mother works at her weaving in the outer room. Yusheng's voiceover tells us that the story of his parents' courtship is well known in the village, and a dissolve transitions from the image of the photo to a rural road; the film is now in color.

His mother was eighteen, his father 20, when his father was assigned as a teacher in the village, arriving by horse cart. We see the cart approaching along the road—which is really more of a track, with a ridge of grass down the center and grass fields along both sides. The villagers are gathered to watch him arrive; someone from the village introduces him as "our new teacher," Luo Changyu. Yusheng's mother, Di, watches him, and seems to catch his eye. We see her running home along the road, wearing a bright red quilted jacket.

At home, speaking to he mother, Di tells her that the new teacher will live at the village council office and eat with a different family each night. Di also changes her clothes, which her mother notes as unusual. Yushengs's voiceover tells us that Di's mother (his grandmother) was blind by this time, and that Di told him that he mother cried until she went blind when Di's father died. According to Yusheng, Di's mother's main concern is finding Di a good husband, and she has rejected all proposals so far as unsatisfactory.

Di sits down at the loom and begins weaving. The scene here is shot through a gold/yellow filter, giving everything the "magic hour" look; the thread Di is weaving is a rich, bright red, dramatically vivid against the muted colors of the house.

Yusheng says that when Changyu arrived, the school was not yet built, but that all the men of the village were working to help build it, and that it was a tradition to hang a red cloth, called the lucky red banner, from the ceiling beam in any new building. This banner must be woven by the villages "most beautiful maiden"—in this case, Yusheng's mother, Di. Yusheng says: "Perhaps she was already a little in love, because the cloth she made was especially fine."

The next scene opens with Di carrying water buckets to a well. Yusheng's voiceover tells us that the village had two wells, a newer one and an older one; the newer one was closer, but after Changyu's arrival Di began using the older one, because going there required her to walk by the site of the new schoolhouse. She draws the water, clearly not paying much attention to what she is doing but looking down at the construction site from the well. As she walks back, she watches Changyu.

Back in Di's home, we see her cooking. Yusheng says that whenever a new building was constructed, every household in the village would contribute one dish for the workers' lunch; Di tried hard to make something that would impress Changyu if he ate it. For her first contribution, she makes onion cakes, which she brings to the site in a distinctive blue and white bowl. Yusheng's voiceover says that in those days, women were not allowed to participate in the construction of a new building, because this was believed to be bad luck; women could only watch from a distance. Di and several other women of the village gather around the (old) well, watching the workers as they get their food from a large table. The women ask each other what each one has made, and joke about who seems to be eating which dish. The men bring their used dishes back to the table, and the women come and gather them up. Di takes hers, looking back at the construction site repeatedly as she walks away and as she washes the dishes back at the well.

The following scene begins with Di carrying the red banner she has woven toward the new schoolhouse. A young man intercepts her and takes the banner, complimenting her on her work. In answer to her questions, he tells her that the teacher does not eat with the men of the village, because he is "a city gentleman" and it would not be "proper." He tells Di that they give the teacher the first pick of the dishes. He also tells her that the school is nearly done.

The next day, Di again leaves her dish on the communal table, arranging it just so, so that it will be chosen. The men come and take the dishes, and she watches from a distance to see who takes what. A montage shows this happening several times.

Once the new schoolhouse is finished, the villagers gather outside, listening as Changyu delivers a lesson. Di walks around the building, listening to Changyu's voice; Yusheng tells us that his mother thought Changyu had a beautiful voice, and that although she never learned to write and had no interest in school she would go everyday to listen to him from outside—for 40 years.

Changyu walks some students home, and Di waits along the way for him to pass by. (Though she seems to want to avoid actually talking to him, at least when he is with students; she watches him from a distance, from up in the trees on the hills along the side of the road). She waits until he is walking back, on his own, and then follows from behind. She does this day after day: we see her sitting on the ground, hear Changyu and the students coming, stand, and turn and walk to a point where she can see them. She goes through almost identical motions, over and over again.

Finally, one day, she walks directly past him; he nods, and she smiles. She has left behind a basket; he calls her back and hands it to her. As Di walks away, Changyu asks the students what her name is, and whether she is from the village. A student calls out to her that the teacher is asking about her.

In the following scene, Di again passes by the school house on her way to the well; Changyu sees her while she is standing outside the fence, and he picks up his own buckets and begins walking toward the well. A man from the village (the young man whom Di met bringing the cloth to the school) stops him and insists on fetching the water. As she walks back down the hill from the well, Di passes Changyu and tells him that tomorrow is her family's day to feed him. He responds, "I know."

The next day, Di wakes up early to begin work on lunch. When lunchtime comes, she waits shyly just in the doorway as he approaches; Yusheng tells us that his father later described her as "like an image in a painting" at that moment, "an image he would never forget." Changyu meets Di's mother, who remarks on his height; he joins her at the table and begins eating. Di watches him from the kitchen through a small window. Di's mother asks him about how he likes the village, and how he ended up there. He says that he could not find work after graduation, and when he saw a man in the street signing people up for rural teaching jobs, he signed up and was assigned to the village. He says he does not regret it, because he likes living there. Di's mother asks him if he is married or engaged; he says no.

Di comes in to collect the dirty dishes. She asks him if he recognizes the bowl he has been eating from, and when he says no her mother tells him how Di made her best dishes and brought them to the construction site, hoping he would choose them. He then claims to remember eating things from the bowl, but when asked what he cannot name anything. She tells him what she made, and offers to make him mushroom dumplings for dinner. On his way out, he compliments her red jacket (which she is not wearing at the moment), saying he remembers it from the day he arrived in the village. In the next shot, Di is chopping mushrooms for the dumplings. Her mother tells her she should not get her hopes up, because Changyu is out of their class.

In the next scene, Di is at the well again; looking down on the school, she overhears Changyu arguing with someone, saying "I will not go back!" The other man responds that he does not have a choice.

Back at home, Di appears listless; Changyu arrives, she comes out, and he tells her he is there to say goodbye, and that he has to return to the city to because "they want to ask me a few questions." He promises he will return, and that he will be back no later than the 27th. She invites him to dinner, telling him to bring the man from the city with him; he says he will, but we don't see whether this actually happens or not. He gives her a hair clip, "to go with your red jacket."

Changyu rides out of town on a horse cart with the mayor; the villagers gather, watching him go. One tells another that Changyu "is in some political trouble," which he does not understand. Di, wearing her red jacket and new hair clip, runs to try to catch the cart to give Changyu some food (mushroom dumplings) for the trip, but they are moving too quickly. Running over the hills and trying to cut them off, she falls, drops the food and breaks the bowl she had been using to bring him food at the construction site. She cries for a while, then bundles up the food and pieces of bowl and begins to walk home. She discovers that her new hair clip has fallen out, and begins searching for it, retracing her steps but not finding it. Yusheng's voiceover tells us that she repeated this every day, searching for the clip. One day, returning home, she sees it under the gate of her own front yard.

Winter comes; we see the hills that line the road into the village covered with snow.

A pottery repairman walks through the village, calling out to offer his services; Di's mother calls him in to repair the broken bowl. A tight shot shows his hands, working on the bowl. He tells Di's mother it will cost more to repair the bowl than to replace it, but she does not care. She tells him it belonged to a man who left and took her daughter's heart with him. Later, Di finds the repaired bowl in the cupboard, and cries at the sight of it.

In the next scene, we see Di from behind, working at the loom; suddenly she hears the sound of multiplication tables being recited at the school, and she immediately runs toward the building— but when she arrives no one is there, and the building is falling into disrepair, with the paper in the windows torn.

Later, struggling through blowing snow, Di returns to the schoolhouse with new paper to fix the windows. The good luck banner is still wrapped around the central beam of the ceiling; Yusheng says that Changyu told Di that he would think of her and her red jacket whenever he saw it, and would not let the mayor finish the ceiling—including putting in proper insulation—because he wanted to be able to see it. Di carefully replaces the paper in the windows, cleans the benches and desks and chalkboard (carefully leaving all the writing on the board in place, cleaning around the characters), and puts stencil decorations of flowers in the windows. She sits by herself in the schoolhouse for hours; she is seen by the mayor, who soon tells everyone else. Yusheng tells us that in those days, arranged marriages were the norm, and "the freedom of falling in love was unfamiliar. This was a first for our village."

The next scene opens with Di tearing a page off of a calendar on the wall to reveal the date of the 27th— the day Changyu said he would return. She waits for him, beginning at dawn, and the voiceover repeats his promise. It is still very cold; the wrap she has over her face and her hair both have frost on them. The hills are covered in show. She waits all day; the sun moves from one side of her to the other, it begins to snow, and the daylight dims. Finally a horse cart approaches, but Changyu is not on it.

Di returns home, and her mother discovers that she has a high fever; she is bedridden for some time. As she lays in bed, Di's mother tells her that she should give up on Changyu, because he is in "political trouble"; but as soon as she can get up (and long before she is really well), she gets up and says she is going to the city to find him. We see her struggling through blowing snow; Yusheng says that she did not make it to the city, but fainted by the side of the road and had to be retrieved by the mayor. According to Yusheng, the people of the village were afraid for her life. Back at Di's house, several people are gathered around her as she lays in bed, delirious; a doctor says she will recover. Di's mother asks the mayor whether Changyu will return; the Mayor says he does not know.

Di slowly comes awake, and her mother tells her that the teacher has returned, and that he came to see her as soon as he arrived. A tear travels down her cheek. As soon as she can, she runs down to the schoolhouse, from which the sound of children reciting can be heard. The villagers are again gathered around the school; when Di arrives, someone yells in to Changyu that she is there to see him, and he comes to the door.

Yusheng's voiceover says that Changyu left the city without permission when he heard about Di's illness; now that she is better, he has to leave again. "For this disobedience, my parents were kept apart for another two years." On the day he returned, Di again waited by the road for him in her red jacket. After that, he never left her again.

The next scene returns the story to the present (and back to black and white), and Yusheng explains the importance of the road from the city to the village (by which Di waited for Changyu to return).Yusheng speaks to the mayor, saying he wants to carry out his mother's wishes; he suggests hiring men from the next village to carry the coffin. The mayor tells him they will need 35 or 36 men paid at 100 yuan each, plus money for cigarettes and wine, totaling about 4000 yuan. Yusheng gives him 5000.

Everyone drives to the hospital where Changyu's body is being kept. They take the coffin and carry it home, through a snowstorm, shouting along the way to let him know where they are going. Yusheng's voiceover says that over 100 people showed up, including many of his father's former students; the mayor then tells hime that nobody would accept the money they were offered.

There is a long montage of the crowd walking along the road, with overlapping images from different perspectives; the journey continues well into the night, and the cars following behind the procession turn on their headlights.

The next scene open with a shot of Changyu's grave and headstone; Yusheng says that his mother wanted Changyu buried next to the old well, which no one uses any more. She says she wants to be buried next to him.

Yusheng and his mother give the mayor money to pay to rebuild the school, in order to fulfill Changyu's wishes. They return to the old school, which is falling apart; she speaks to Changyu, and promises to weave a new lucky banner for the new building. She then tells Yusheng that Changyu wanted him to be a teacher too, and that he would be happy if Yusheng would teach for one day. Yusheng tells her that a new teacher is coming, but Di says the new teacher will not sound as good as Changyu: "After 40 years, I still love that voice."

Back at the house, Yusheng suggests to his mother that she come to live with him in the city. She refuses. She then tells him he needs to find a wife, as he is "not young anymore." She says his father used to worry about him; she begins to cry. It seems clear that she wants him to come live in the village, though she does not say this.

Later, Di is sitting by herself in front of the stove when she hears the sound of teaching again from the schoolhouse; she walks there, and discovers Yusheng there, leading the class from the same book his father had used on his first day at the school (a book he wrote himself). The present scene blurs into the ones from the past; see young Di running home, along the road, in her red jacket again, laughing.