The Woman of the Plateau tells the story of Han Chunhua, a Hui woman from the Qinghai region of the Tibetan Plateau, and how she meets and falls in love with Xie Yingyong. Just as the two are about to marry, her fiancé is killed in battle, and they are separated forever. To ease the grief of the Xie family elders, kindhearted Han Chunhua agrees to marry Xie Yingyong’s younger brother, Xie Yingming.
After the wedding, Han Chunhua cares for the elders and supports the Xie siblings. Through her own hard work, she goes from being a temporary worker at a carpet factory to a permanent employee. She, her husband Xie Yingming, and her close friend Sun Chuanfang work at different factories in the same compound. When their factories close one after another, the three of them start over from scratch.
Her sister-in-law dies in childbirth, and Han Chunhua resolutely takes in her newborn daughter, Xie Jingyi, and raises her. When Jingyi is not yet a year old, Han Chunhua becomes pregnant. Unable to care for two toddlers at once, she chooses to terminate the pregnancy, but the procedure damages her health. Han Chunhua never complains that fate has treated her unfairly, and raises Jingyi to adulthood through hardship and toil. During that time, she falls seriously ill, and the Xie siblings take turns caring for her until she makes a full recovery.
Han Chunhua in The Plateau Above is like a flower growing on the plateau: resilient, patient, and stern, yet deeply kind at heart. No matter how difficult life gets, good people keep moving forward, step by step, climbing toward the highest reaches of the plateau.
