In an area south of Chengdu, a quickly evolving metropolitan city in the remote high mountains, lies the home of the Moso people, an indigenous ethnic minority in China. In 1943, Xiao Shuming, then a high school girl in Chengdu, was taken against her will by a Moso headman all the way to Lugu Lake to be his concubine. After 54 years of living with his tribe and having raised two sons and two daughters, this 70 year old woman finally succeeds in sending her granddaughter back to Chengdu, the "civilized world" from where she came.