Shun Li works in a textile factory on the outskirts of Rome and hopes to get Italian citizenship so her eight-year-old son can join her in Italy. When she is suddenly transferred to Chioggia, a small city-island in the Veneto lagoon, to work as a bartender in a pub, she meets Bepi, a Slavic fisherman, nicknamed 'the Poet' by his friends, a regular at that pub for years and a writer of doggerel verse. Shun Li shares with Bepi stories of Qu Yuan, China's most celebrated poet, and the two strike up a friendship that has the potential to become something more. However the budding relationship is threatened by the objections of both the Chinese immigrant population and the local Italian fishing community.
Shun Li works in a textile factory on the outskirts of Rome and hopes to get Italian citizenship so her eight-year-old son can join her in Italy. When she is suddenly transferred to Chioggia a small city-island in the Veneto lagoon to work as a bartender in a pub she meets Bepi a Slavic fisherman nicknamed 'the Poet' by his friends a regular at that pub for years and a writer of doggerel verse. Shun Li shares with Bepi stories of Qu Yuan China's most celebrated poet and the two strike up a friendship that has the potential to become something more. However the budding relationship is threatened by the objections of both the Chinese immigrant population and the local Italian fishing community.
