Thien’s sister-in-law Teresa dies in a motorcycle accident in Saigon, although her five-year-old son Dao survives the crash. Thien takes both Dao and his sister-in-law’s body to the rural village where he grew up. There, he sees life in the countryside in a series of loosely connected events. A funeral and other Catholic ceremonies are conducted. Thien meets an old man who fought in the Vietnam War, who tells his stories of surviving when so many did not. He goes out hunting with his host and bonds with Dao, and awkwardly reconnects with Thao, a childhood friend he had attempted to form a romantic relationship with when younger, but who has since become a nun. He arranges for Dao to be taken to the school where she works, where most of the students are highlanders.
Thien leaves the village rather than stick around for an event, and begins aimlessly searching for his missing brother: perhaps to learn of his fate, and tell him that the wife he abandoned was dead and his son needed to be cared for. He also learns that his brother had briefly gone to seminary and had considered becoming a priest, before deciding to marry instead. He shows a wedding picture of the two found on Teresa’s body in a village he thinks might be related, and talks with people, but the search is ultimately fruitless.