In 2005, disenchanted with his middle class Canadian existence, Robert McDonnagh quits his job and moves to China to begin a career as an English teacher. Over the next 5 years against the backdrop of the Beijing Olympics, the blizzard of 2008, the Wenchuan earthquake and the 60th anniversary of the PRC, McDonnagh's journeys takes him from the ancient capital of Beijing to the booming Pearl River Delta to the jungles of Sichuan. In the process he discovers that not only is China not what he thought it was-but neither is he.