Scene 17 – Time/Day – Location/Alishan Township Health Center
Characters/Yang Wenhua, Lin Xiuling, Shen Zhiwei, Zhang Meihua, Director Li Mingli, Nurse
△ In the health center director’s office, Yang Wenhua and the other three team members bid farewell to Director Li.
Li Mingli: Wenhua, you are the host here. After the trip is over, if your companions are not in a hurry to leave, you should take them to your home as guests and do the honors of a host.
Zhang Meihua: Director, the three of us had already planned to do that!
Shen Zhiwei: Of course the three of us won’t let you off, Senior Wenhua.
Yang Wenhua: It’s certainly no problem for you to come to my house as guests. But my family has already started getting busy picking the winter tea, and with not enough help, as for everything to eat and drink, we’ll have to prepare it ourselves.
Shen Zhiwei: Piece of cake, no problem!
Lin Xiuling: The three of us will go help Senior pick tea together!
Zhang Meihua: Exactly, we can’t just freeload off Senior!
Shen Zhiwei: (laughs) Meihua, there’s a flaw in what you just said, you know?
Zhang Meihua: What flaw? Zhiwei, you’re talking nonsense!
Shen Zhiwei: Just now you clearly said that Senior is, is an idiot!
Yang Wenhua: Alright! As your senior, I’ll let you freeload off me for a few days!
△ Shen Zhiwei and the other two first freeze for a moment. After they realize the joke, they look at each other and laugh.
Zhang Meihua: Senior, so you’re actually very good at teasing people too!
Yang Wenhua: Picking tea is really hard work. By then I’m only afraid that the three of you will be whining to me before even half a morning has passed.
Lin Xiuling: (raises hand, as if swearing an oath) I guarantee I absolutely will not whine!
Zhang Meihua: (also raises hand, as if swearing an oath) Me too, I guarantee I won’t whine, but I might scream and yell!
△ The four young people look at each other and smile.
Li Mingli: (laughs) Haha! You young people should be exactly like this right now, full of youthful energy.
△ The three bow together to Director Li and, with perfect coordination, say:
All Three: Thank you, Director Li, for taking care of us these past days.
Li Mingli: (waves hand, smiling) Go back to the dormitory and pack your luggage!
△ Yang Wenhua leads the three of them, waves goodbye to Director Li, turns around, and leaves the health center.
Scene 18 – Time/Morning – Location/Yang Family Tea Plantation and Coffee Plantation, Dabang Village
Characters/Yang Wenhua, Lin Xiuling, Shen Zhiwei, Zhang Meihua, Yang Mingda (Yang’s Father), Su Yuzhen (Yang’s Mother), Yang Wenqing, Yang Wenying
△ In the morning, a thin mist drifts through the mountains. A sedan arrives at the Yang family tea plantation in the mountains of Dabang Village. The four get out of the car, and Yang Wenhua waves toward his family, who are picking tea.
△ Yang’s parents and his two sisters all remove the bamboo baskets from their backs and pause their work, walking toward the path to welcome the guests.
△ Yang Wenhua walks forward and separately hugs and brushes cheeks with his parents and his two sisters. Lin Xiuling and the other two witness the Western-style interaction among the Yang family members, and expressions of both surprise and envy inevitably appear on their faces.
Yang Wenhua: Our family is Christian. We learned Western etiquette from the pastor.
△ Lin Xiuling gives Zhang Meihua a meaningful look. The two of them, with perfect understanding, step forward and hug and brush cheeks with sisters Wenqing and Wenying. Seeing this, Shen Zhiwei also takes the initiative to hug and brush cheeks with Yang’s parents.
Su Yuzhen: We knew you’ve been busy recently, so we didn’t dare bother you.
Yang Wenqing: Little brother, thanks to you, every time you come back Mom adds extra dishes. This time you brought classmates back, so my younger sister and I get to have a feast again.
Yang Wenying: Brother, which one is your girlfriend?
△ Yang Wenying asks this question very directly. Zhang Meihua quickly points at Lin Xiuling. Xiuling smiles and does not deny it either.
Yang Wenhua: Don’t scare them. They are my junior schoolmates.
Yang Wenying: Hurry up and marry sister-in-law into the family, so that my older sister and I can also have some company!
Yang Wenhua: They came to our house as guests. You’re overthinking it.
Shen Zhiwei: Uncle, Auntie, we came to experience country life.
Yang Mingda: Welcome, welcome!
Lin Xiuling: Little Sister Yang, later you have to teach me how to pick tea!
Yang Wenying: Pretty big sister, my name is Wenying. Dressed like that, you won’t be able to pick tea! Tomorrow early in the morning, after you change clothes, I’ll teach you how to pick tea.
Su Yuzhen: Wenhua, take your classmates around for a look, then go home and rest for a while. We’ll go back a bit later. We have already prepared food and drinks.
Yang Wenhua: I’ll first take them around here a bit, then go to the coffee plantation.
Yang Mingda: The ridges between the fields are slippery. Be careful when you walk.
△ Yang Wenhua leads the three of them, walking among the ridges in the tea plantation.
Shen Zhiwei: Senior, does this entire large tea plantation on the hillside belong to your family?
Yang Wenhua: Yes! All the way down to that row of roadside trees below the road, this whole area belongs to us.
Zhang Meihua: Wow! With such a huge area, how can you possibly manage it all?
Yang Wenhua: We just do as much as we can. So once tea-picking season arrives, the family gets so busy we’re completely overwhelmed.
Lin Xiuling: No wonder as soon as winter vacation started, your roommate said you had gone home.
Yang Wenhua: The family is short-handed. I help as much as I can. In a little while I’ll take you to look around the coffee plantation.
Zhang Meihua: Don’t tell me it’s another huge area like this?
Yang Wenhua: (laughs) Slightly smaller than this tea plantation.
Zhang Meihua: (puts a hand to her forehead) Oh, my God!
▲ The camera pulls back and fades out.
▲ The camera fades in.
△ Shen Zhiwei and the other two follow Yang Wenhua, weaving through the coffee plantation. The coffee trees have just borne fruit, hanging with clusters of coffee cherries.
Yang Wenhua: Everything planted here is Arabica coffee. I planted it together with my father when I was in elementary school.
Lin Xiuling: So this is what coffee beans look like! I thought they were like cocoa, all wrapped inside a large fruit.
Zhang Meihua: Xiuling, no way? You’ve never seen a coffee tree before?
Lin Xiuling: I don’t like drinking coffee! So I never paid special attention to it.
Shen Zhiwei: Senior, the coffee trees in this plantation seem to have had their height deliberately controlled. They are all only about the height of one person.
Yang Wenhua: Zhiwei, you observe carefully. You really understand the idea! Farmers control their height to make harvesting easier. The more than one thousand coffee trees here will start being harvested one after another in another month, and that will keep us busy for an entire month too.
△ Zhang Meihua and Lin Xiuling walk together.
Zhang Meihua: It looks like country life really isn’t easy! Xiuling, you’re not seriously thinking about marrying into this place, working at sunrise and resting at sunset, and living the life of a farmer’s wife, are you?
Lin Xiuling: (calmly, looking at Wenhua’s back) I like the mountains and forests here, but when it comes to matters of love, one can only leave it to fate. Besides, if I truly wanted to return to the mountains and forests and live a secluded life, I would have to wait until I had achieved success in my career. That would definitely be after middle age.
Zhang Meihua: That’s good. I was really worried that you might be so swept away by love that you’d lose your head.
Scene 19 – Time/Day – Location/Yang Family Courtyard and Dining Room, Dabang Village
Characters/Yang Wenhua, Lin Xiuling, Shen Zhiwei, Zhang Meihua, Yang Mingda (Yang’s Father), Su Yuzhen (Yang’s Mother), Yang Wenqing, Yang Wenying
△ In the Yang family courtyard, Yang Mingda and Su Yuzhen sit together with Wenhua’s classmates around a large solid-wood table in the courtyard, drinking tea and chatting.
Shen Zhiwei: Uncle Yang, Auntie, with Wenhua, your son who is a doctor, for you to rely on, in the future you won’t need to work so hard farming anymore. You can go with Wenhua to Taipei and enjoy your old age in comfort.
Yang Mingda: I’m a rough man who barely knows a few written words. Since childhood I followed my parents in reclaiming this land. After working for decades, if you really wanted me to follow Wenhua to Taipei and enjoy an easy life, I’m afraid I would not actually be happier.
Su Yuzhen: Yes! The two of us have never had the idea of relying on our children. As long as we can guard this land and have enough food and clothing, we are fully satisfied.
Zhang Meihua: My parents think the same way too. They say that all my abilities are to be regarded as my dowry. In the future, after I marry into my husband’s family, I just shouldn’t turn around and cause trouble for them.
Yang Mingda: We won’t put pressure on the children. In the future, whichever of our children is willing to take over managing things, this land will be left to that child.
Zhang Meihua: (gives Xiuling a meaningful look) Xiuling, Yang family’s parents are so open-minded in their way of thinking. You really have to seize the opportunity...
△ Su Yuzhen hears this and smiles at Lin Xiuling. Xiuling meets Mother Yang’s eyes, secretly glances at Yang Wenhua, and discovers that Wenhua is also staring at her. Xiuling shyly lowers her head.
△ Yang Wenqing, wearing a household apron, walks to the doorway.
Yang Wenqing: Dinner is served!
△ One after another, the group gets up and enters the house, sitting down in order. On the large round table are more than ten dishes, all Tsou tribal specialty dishes.
Yang Wenqing: This is Tsou-style cuisine. You can’t eat this outside.
Shen Zhiwei: Thank you, big sister.
Yang Mingda: Help yourselves!
Yang Wenying: This dish is fried stream fish, and that one is crispy salted stream shrimp.
Shen Zhiwei: This one I know. It’s stone-grilled mountain boar meat.
Yang Wenying: This dish is betel blossom salad with maqaw spice. It’s not easy to find this outside.
Shen Zhiwei: Then I absolutely must try it, otherwise wouldn’t I have come for nothing?
Yang Wenying: Most of the food here uses local ingredients, preserving the original flavor as much as possible.
Yang Wenhua: Everything on this table is my sisters’ specialty. Classmates, don’t be polite.
△ Everyone helps themselves. The three guests eat with great relish.
Scene 20 – Time/Night – Location/Yang Family Bedroom, Dining Room, Courtyard, Dabang Village
Characters/Yang Wenhua, Lin Xiuling, Shen Zhiwei, Zhang Meihua, Yang Mingda (Yang’s Father), Su Yuzhen (Yang’s Mother), Yang Wenqing, Yang Wenying
△ The sky is dark, and thick fog envelops the mountain area.
△ In the bedroom, Lin Xiuling hears movement from the next room and shakes awake Zhang Meihua beside her.
Zhang Meihua: (sits up, then falls back down again) I still want to sleep a little longer!
Lin Xiuling: (pulls her hand) If you keep sleeping, you’ll miss tea-picking.
Zhang Meihua: (sits up, rubs her eyes gently) Alright, alright!
△ The two women get out of bed one after the other and put on their clothes.
△ Lin Xiuling goes into the bathroom first to brush her teeth and wash her face. Meihua sits on the edge of the bed and closes her eyes again.
▲ Camera cuts.
△ In the dining room, the Yang family and Shen Zhiwei sit around the dining table eating breakfast. On the table are a pot of sweet potato porridge and several dishes of stir-fried vegetables, dried anchovies, fermented tofu, and so on.
△ Lin Xiuling and Zhang Meihua walk in.
Yang Wenying: My brother said not to wake you two up.
Lin Xiuling: (smiles) Don’t listen to your brother.
△ The two women pick up bowls and chopsticks, each serves herself a bowl of sweet potato porridge, and takes some vegetables from the table.
Zhang Meihua: Senior, during tea-picking season, do you go out this early every day?
Yang Wenhua: Yes! We arrive at the tea plantation at five o’clock. Around eight o’clock, when the fog clears, we stop work.
Zhang Meihua: Then that’s only three hours. I thought it would be much longer!
Yang Wenhua: (makes a face) Heh heh! Then you can experience it for yourself.
Lin Xiuling: (smiles, confident) Senior, we’ll be fine.
▲ Camera cuts.
△ In the courtyard, the Yang family and Shen Zhiwei and the other two have all put on a full set of tea-picking clothes. In single file, they walk to the doorway, board a farm flatbed vehicle, and drive toward the tea plantation.
Scene 21 – Time/Morning – Location/Yang Family Tea Plantation, Dabang Village
Characters/Yang Wenhua, Lin Xiuling, Shen Zhiwei, Zhang Meihua, Yang Mingda (Yang’s Father), Su Yuzhen (Yang’s Mother), Yang Wenqing, Yang Wenying
△ The flatbed farm vehicle arrives beside the tea plantation. Wenhua and his sisters lead Shen Zhiwei and the other two into the tea plantation.
△ Lin Xiuling and Zhang Meihua hold out their hands for Wenying and Wenqing to tape small blades onto them. Following Wenhua’s example, Zhiwei attaches the small blade himself between his thumb and index finger.
△ The six young people divide into three groups, each taking responsibility for one row of tea bushes. The Yang siblings each teach them how to pick tea.
△ In the group of Wenhua and Xiuling, Wenhua slowly demonstrates with both hands at once for Xiuling to see.
Yang Wenhua: Find the tip of the branch. Keep your palm facing downward. Use your thumb to hook against your index finger, like a crab’s claw, and cut off the tender stem from here. Remember, you pick one young bud plus two tender leaves.
Lin Xiuling: (smiles) Senior, I understand. This movement is faster and saves time.
Yang Wenhua: Mm, once you become skilled, the movement will become light and nimble. This work looks easy, but it is actually only the beginning. The later processing of the fresh tea leaves is what is truly complicated and exhausting in both mind and body.
Lin Xiuling: Mm, I understand. No wonder every year, as soon as winter vacation starts, Senior hurries back to help.
Yang Wenhua: The family is short of help. I hurry back to help and share the family’s workload.
△ Yang Wenying demonstrates the picking motion for Shen Zhiwei. Zhiwei immediately grasps the technique.
Yang Wenying: (gives a thumbs-up in praise) Medical students really are exceptionally intelligent.
Shen Zhiwei: (smiles) Thank you for the compliment.
▲ The camera gradually pulls farther away.
△ The group’s busy figures in the tea plantation. The sky is just beginning to brighten, and behind the mountain ridge a faint golden light appears.
Scene 22 – Time/Day – Location/Train Carriage
Characters/Lin Xiuling, Zhang Meihua, Passengers
△ Inside a Juguang Express train carriage, Xiuling’s seat is by the window, while Meihua’s is by the aisle.
Zhang Meihua: Xiuling, since you like Senior Wenhua, during these past days you had plenty of opportunities. Why didn’t you confess to him?
Lin Xiuling: I did. When we stayed overnight at Basuya’s house in Shanmei Village, early the next morning, I deliberately followed Wenhua to the Danaiku suspension bridge.
Zhang Meihua: And then? Did you take the initiative and confess to him?
Lin Xiuling: Mm. But Senior said he is still waiting for his first-love girlfriend to come back. I said I was willing to wait for him to change his mind, but Senior didn’t give me a promise, so I couldn’t really...
Zhang Meihua: Sigh! It seems that between you and him, you can only let nature take its course.
Lin Xiuling: I will still follow my original plan and go to Shanghai to open a practice.
Scene 23 – Time/Day – Location/Qingxiu Jiaren Cosmetic Surgery Clinic, Commercial District, Shanghai
Characters/Lin Xiuling, Nurse, Female Patient (young mature woman)
(Two years later)
△ On a tree-lined street in a corner of the commercial district is Lin Xiuling’s cosmetic surgery clinic, “Qingxiu Jiaren.” The clinic is an old Western-style building of red brick and black tiles. The storefront has been slightly renovated, and its exterior is elegant.
△ In the consultation room, Lin Xiuling is discussing things with a young mature female patient.
Patient: Doctor, I like Korean actresses Kim Tae-hee and Jun Ji-hyun. Their facial features feel both beautiful and elegant.
Lin Xiuling: (smiles) You have very good taste! Your face shape and facial features are relatively close to theirs. With a little adjustment, the effect will be very good.
Patient: But I feel that my nose is too large, and my lips are very thick.
Lin Xiuling: I will make your nostrils and the tip of your nose a bit smaller. Your lips will be made thinner. The shape of your eyebrows will be refined a little, and double eyelids will be created while lightening the color of the bags under your eyes. When the facial features are matched together, it will look very good. I’ll show you an image on the computer.
Patient: Okay.
△ Lin Xiuling pulls over a mobile computer and brings up the face of this young mature woman, placing it on the software screen.
Lin Xiuling: These are your original facial features. Look here!
△ Lin Xiuling drags over the nose, eyebrows, and lips one by one and pastes them into place.
Lin Xiuling: The adjusted facial features are what you see on the screen.
Patient: Really?
Lin Xiuling: Your face shape and facial features are already very attractive to begin with. There is no need for major changes.
Patient: Thank you, Doctor. Can this picture on the computer be printed out for me?
Lin Xiuling: This picture is only for your reference. When I actually perform the surgery, I will still make some detailed adjustments.
Patient: But I want this picture! I can take it back to my company and help advertise for you!
Lin Xiuling: Miss Wen, after the cosmetic surgery is complete, you yourself will be my most concrete advertisement. This draft really cannot be allowed out. It is an unwritten rule in our profession. Please forgive me.
Patient: Alright then, alright then! Doctor, when will you operate on me?
Lin Xiuling: It may have to wait until two months later. At present, the surgery schedule has already been booked for two months.
Patient: I have to wait that long?
Lin Xiuling: I will first deal with your eyebrow shape and double eyelids. The lips and nose reduction will wait until two months later.
Patient: Alright then. It looks like that’s the only way.
Scene 24 – Time/Morning – Location/Surgery Department Conference Room, Guanghua Hospital, Taitung
Characters/Yang Wenhua, Shao Qingyang, Su Junsheng, Doctor A, Doctor B, Attending Physician Chen Binghuang
△ In the surgery department conference room, Shao Qingyang gathers attending physician Chen Binghuang, Yang Wenhua, and several resident doctors for a meeting and discussion.
Shao Qingyang: The two cases recently admitted to our department both have some degree of difficulty. Binghuang and the three colleagues, why don’t you first divide into two groups? Each group can handle one case and share the burden together.
Chen Binghuang: Director, I have already evaluated both of these cases beforehand. The risk of surgical failure is quite high. I recommend transferring them either to the main hospital or nearby to Tzu Chi. They have specialists there in cranial surgery and cardiac surgery.
Shao Qingyang: (gives a bitter smile) If we transfer the patients out, then there would have been no need to hold this meeting today! Binghuang, as you said, with the current manpower at this branch hospital, handling these two cases would indeed be a challenge. But it is not that we are incapable of handling them.
Chen Binghuang: I believe we should simultaneously consider both the patients’ rights and this hospital’s reputation. If anything happens to the patients, none of us will be able to escape responsibility.
Shao Qingyang: (frowns) Pushing the patients elsewhere is not a way to solve the problem. Since the attending physician is unwilling to take responsibility, I will not force you.
Chen Binghuang: Director, I’m sorry. During the next two weeks it happens to be my special leave. Several months ago my wife already booked with a travel agency for the whole family to travel abroad.
Shao Qingyang: (expression displeased) Fine then. The attending physician may leave first.
△ Seeing this, the two young doctors also want to follow suit.
Doctor A: Director, I feel that I’m afraid I may not be competent enough...
Shao Qingyang: (face ashen, waves his hand) You may leave as well!
△ With guilty expressions, the two young doctors follow Chen Binghuang out of the conference room one after the other, leaving only Yang Wenhua and Su Junsheng behind.
Shao Qingyang: Wenhua, Junsheng, I’m very moved that you are willing to stay. But you must think it through. Don’t run away halfway through.
△ Hearing the words “run away,” Wenhua and Junsheng look at each other and smile.
Yang Wenhua: Director, could you give us the medical records for these two cases? Junsheng and I would like to study them first.
Shao Qingyang: (hands over the folders) Here they are! Wenhua, I heard that when you were in school, your grades were extremely outstanding, and that you chose surgery with the number one ranking. As expected, your way of thinking is different from others.
Yang Wenhua: (takes them) Director, please don’t worry. I will not run away halfway through. This is a promise between men.
Su Junsheng: Neither will I. By following Director and Senior Wenhua, I know I can learn many real skills.
Shao Qingyang: (happy, heavily pats Wenhua on the shoulder) Well done! A promise between men. I like the genuine nature of you two. Wenhua, from you I seem to see the me of twenty years ago, that sharp-tongued and stubborn me.
Su Junsheng: I’ve heard this story from the head nurse. Director, you are an all-around surgeon in the surgical field. You have deeply studied every area and personally performed the surgeries in clinical practice.
Shao Qingyang: (pleased) Ha! To be honest, I am only interested in the clinical techniques of surgery. As for what position I hold, I have never cared about it.
Su Junsheng: Yes. Senior Wenhua and I both know that Director regards fame and profit very lightly. You are the Black Jack of clinical surgery.
Shao Qingyang: (happy) Heh heh! I really do like Black Jack, the miracle doctor.
