A Little Family

The rat race and the choice to lie flat, anxiety and making peace with life: these are conflicts no family in today’s society can avoid. Fang Jinghe is a Chinese teacher, but she has come up short when it comes to raising her son, Xu Zeyu. Old traditions and new ideas collide, and their inability to communicate leaves her physically and emotionally drained. Just as the pressure mounts ahead of her last chance to pass the civil service recruitment exam, she discovers she is expecting a second child. Caught completely off guard, she finds herself lost in the choices before her.

Xu Hui, meanwhile, is a mother of a first-grader, and her two sons give her even more to worry about. A housewife, she turns her attention to cram schools, enrichment classes, study guides, and homework schedules. But her extreme approach leads her into trouble with online loans and credit cards, while her child fights back by running away from home. Her marriage grows strained, trust breaks down, and arguments never seem to end. She struggles to survive amid her anxiety.

New tenant Zhou Lu has just one concern: how can she earn enough money to get better rehabilitation for her firefighter husband? She gives up her job as a preschool teacher and tries all kinds of occupations, hoping to give him more options for medical care. Her timidity and cowardice repeatedly hurt her daughter, Xia Ziqing. Deception and misunderstanding drive a wedge between them, and the mother-daughter relationship grows increasingly tense...