An American woman comes to China to teach English just as that country opens its doors, six years after the death of Chairman Mao. Her clothes, her hair, her charm - the stories she tells of an American childhood, the lessons in casual conversation and pop music - awaken in the men and women she tutors a yearning for the tantalizing West and an unkowable eroticism. She is a witting and unwitting seductress who cannot concieve that when she enters into a love triangle with two of her students - one male, one female - its consequences will be insiduous and inexorably tragic.