Rice Ticket

People keep an eye on Belinda Zhang, with her Chinese dream of living overseas, partly because of her interest in foreign men, and partly because she is prone to violence after she's had a drink or two. An attractive married woman in her early forties, Belinda works in the Performing Arts Department of Dong Hu (East Lake) university in Wuhan, Central China.

Nineteen-year-old Silvia Li lives near Dong Hu with her father, a bean curd salesman. Desperate to get away to a better life, she notes the arrival of two foreign men on the Dong Hu campus - Christopher Chinley, from England, and Jeffrey Ward, from the USA. Here, she imagines, could be the source of a "rice ticket" to help her escape.

Chinley however is on a trial separation from his wife, and at this point in the story is immune to any overtures from the opposite sex. And Jeffrey Ward is already involved with Belinda. But Silvia manages to 'insert' herself into the picture, and Ward abandons Belinda once he sees he has a hold over the younger woman. To all appearances Belinda seems unaffected by this, even though Ward continues to jinx and humiliate her. In reality, however, she is waiting for her minders to 'drop' their guard, so she can slip quietly away from their surveillance and exact her revenge.