Huangyangchuan, Gansu Province, is an arid mountain area with poor living condi­tions. Ma Bingcheng is a respected local doctor. Thanks to his good medical skills, he has many patients, most of them farmers. While waiting in the cramped clinic to see the doctor or get medicines, the patients usually chat to each other about their lives, local conditions, or things that have happened to people they know. This small country clinic becomes an open space in which the information and experiences of the different patients intertwine, revealing the living conditions of the local farmers, and the interconnected fates of the younger and older generations. The experiences of the farmers of Huangyangchuan are not unusual; they can be seen as typical for all of China. Life and death, illness and old age - they are like the changing of the seasons.