An unschooled young man, one of the numerous targets of Mao's Cultural Revolution, is labouring in the countryside when he is instantly designated to instruct in a near-by town institution. Progressively, he finds the self-confidence to ditch the Maoist textbook and also encourage the hardly literate youngsters to cover their own lives and also sensations. At the same time, via a series of dream-like conferences with a young cowherd, he starts to sense the possibilities of a life beyond the specifications of traditional education.