While living in Beijing, Hayoun made friends with a waitress who spoke about her constant desire to escape to Hangzhou. Sometime later when Hayoun went looking for her, he discovered she had done just that. Here we see her in the uniform of the job she hated, imagining her future. Her everyday heroism is magnified by the figure of Su Xiaoxiao, a mythical Chinese poet on the horse of her longed-for lover. Meanwhile, Hayoun and his great grandmother endure the heat of summer; hating to be touched and hating the shame of perspiration, their shared form of radical refusal.