In 1983, Ma Jian turns 30 and is overwhelmed by the need to break free from the confines of his life in Beijing. China is caught up in a whirlwind of change: Deng Xiaoping is introducing economic reform but clamping down on "Spiritual Pollution"; the youth, torn between Western influences and tradition, are rebelling. With his long hair, jeans and artistic friends, Ma Jian is under surveillance from his work unit and the police. His personal relationships are in shambles: his ex-wife is struggling to seek custody of their daughter; his girlfriend has been seeing another man. Severely disillusioned, and finding that he no longer has the inspiration to write or paint, Ma Jian awakens one day with the simple desire to escape.

Ma Jian's journey would last three years and take him through deserts and overpopulated cities, from scenes of barbarity to havens of tranquility and beauty. The result is an utterly unique book: an insight in to the teeming contradictions of China that only a man who was both an insider and an outsider in his own country could have written.