Sasha, a young Chinese woman studying in the USA, is four months pregnant from a fling in Beijing with Yang, a nan dan, or male actor who plays female roles in the Beijing Opera. Yang also had a liaison with Boshen, a white American deported by the Chinese Government for helping a Western journalist on a story about AIDS. Interrupting her first year of college in Omaha (Nebraska), Sasha travels to San Francisco for an abortion. However, arriving in the city she is assailed by doubts, while Boshen tries to convince her to keep the baby and set up a family together in the hope of baiting Yang to America.