Dongguan, Guangdong, 2008.
Eighteen-year-old Blue Star leaves her hometown in Hunan for the first time, squeezed in with her younger sister on a southbound green train, her head full of the glittering city life she has seen in Hong Kong and Taiwanese dramas.
When she arrives, she finds an assembly line, factory badges, communal dormitories, and a little world called an electronics factory waiting for her.
There she meets a group of fellow young migrant workers: the loyal Sister Fang, a gentle best friend, and Qing, the boy who makes her heart flutter for the first time.
She thinks she has found a shoulder she can lean on, but one night she catches him embracing someone else.
Her first love shatters just like that.
Then there is Zhou Yi, a handsome boy she meets at the skating rink. He pursues her with great fervor, but after they start dating, he moves to another province.
Then there is Xiao Kai, a boy she meets at an internet cafe. He moves into the apartment across from hers and comes up with new ways to get close to her every day...
In those years, the factory machines never stop, day or night, and their youth passes along the assembly line too.
Some leave, some stay, some settle down in Dongguan, and some never manage to leave.
This is a story about migrant work, love, and growing up.
It is also the true story of the youth of countless young women who headed south to work.
