Letters from Yunling

One is a young man returning from overseas, traveling all the way from Southeast Asia to Yunnan with his father's ashes to fulfill his last wish.

The other is a local girl with money on her mind, but her heart belongs to her hometown.

A single contract sends two people with nothing in common on a journey through the mountains and countryside of northwestern Yunnan.

Following the old notes his father left behind, he searches for the people and stories scattered across the depths of Yunnan. She harbors ambitions of starting a business, calculating how to turn the local scenery, ancient villages, and intangible cultural heritage into a tourism business that can really make money.

From ancient tea mountains to ethnic villages, from traditional crafts on the verge of being lost to little-known folk customs and culture.

They argue along the way and run into one setback after another, while witnessing the hardships facing rural communities: young people leave for faraway places, old crafts have no one to carry them on, and the culture hidden deep in the mountains, precious as it is, can never seem to make its way out.

Can tourism be about more than checking in at attractions? Can intangible cultural heritage be passed down through more than just passion?

Can the landscapes and culture of one's hometown give local people a solid foundation for making a living?

As the old ties between Southeast Asia and northwestern Yunnan gradually come to light, the goals of the two quietly begin to change as well.

This is a journey about finding one's roots and returning home, and the story of a group of ordinary people putting down roots in northwestern Yunnan, using tourism as a bridge and intangible cultural heritage as their lifeblood as they seek new ways for rural communities to thrive amid changing times.