The Three-Wheeled Donkey

By the Songhua River, Liu Mancang supports his family hauling goods on a reverse tricycle, facing backward with his eyes on his son, Liu Tie, in the cargo bed. The bed is a classroom, the chain a test, and his father's ribs the brakes. In 1989, Mancang crashes into a tree while saving a student taking an exam. Gravely injured and sent to the hospital, he is then "taken away in a jeep" and disappears. Liu Tie burns the reverse tricycle and heads south to Shenzhen. From sleeping beneath bridges and working at docks to founding Backward Logistics, he builds a family and a career, but always keeps an empty chair for his father. Sixteen years later, volunteers bring his father home. He no longer recognizes anyone, only the tricycle and its bell. When the truth comes to light, the reverse tricycle is rebuilt, and father and son exchange roles, the words "A reverse tricycle never dies. It just reaches its destination" finally come to rest with three generations. Liu Tie's son, Liu Nian, and Xiaoyu, who is not related to them by blood, sit together at the front of the electric tricycle Liu Tie rides backward, heading into the morning of 2009.