The heartbreaking tale of a young girl sold into an arranged marriage with a 2 year old boy who she must raise as his nanny until he is old enough to marry her. She is expected to honor tradition and to toe the line so far as social proprieties are concerned, but the young girl rebels against the edicts of her elders until at 16, she falls in love with another man - Though set in turn-of-the-century China, The Girl from Hunan deliberately parallel the state of affairs in the China of the late 1980s.