Spring Returns to Zhejiang's Tides

In the summer of 1995, Jing County, a mountain town in Zhejiang, was swept up in a wave of factory layoffs. After Cao Yue'e's husband lost his job at the brewery, his personality changed drastically, and she had no choice but to take her young daughter and seek refuge with her parents. Yue'e's good friend Zhu Qinqin quit her job at the cotton mill. Pooling their savings, the two women went into business together, opening a workshop making refrigerator parts. After a devastating fire, they were left with crushing debts and had no choice but to seek their own ways forward. Yue'e turned to manufacturing motorcycle wheels, while Qinqin started out carrying baskets of chickens to sell, eventually moving into the animal-feed industry. Financial troubles, the lure of profit, difficult moral choices, personal conflicts, and family ties... Through one setback and fresh start after another, the two women gradually found their footing and helped their neighbors find a path to prosperity. Meanwhile, Yue'e's fourth younger sister, Cao Rongrong, had once been a tough girl in the county town. Heartbroken after falling for a male Dan-role performer in Wu Opera, she returned home defeated and started out doing odd jobs for the Wu Opera troupe. Through daily practice of singing, footwork, and water sleeves, she gradually became a pillar of the Jing County Wu Opera troupe. She even took Wu Opera beyond China's borders, bringing the ancient art once performed on village stages to a wider audience. Each of the three women faced her own hardships, and each held on to her own convictions. Their fates were bound up with the sweeping changes in their mountain town. Amid the roar of machinery and the clang of Wu Opera gongs and drums, they wrote a story of struggle that was theirs alone.