This story is about a little girl who lost both parents when she was 2. Then she also lost her grandmother and was taken in by a couple who thought they could not have children. But the couple conceived and gave birth to a son and they started to starve the girl and treat her harshly. The film opens with her running away and fainting in a field where people of a neighboring village found her the following morning.
Their relationship is so beautiful that I could not help shedding tears. Tears from heart strings that were tugged so violently that I felt like my heart was going to burst out of my chest. Tears because of genuine human love, compassion and kindness of an old grandpa. And tears because of true gratefulness, determination and bigness from a little girl. I was left wishing I had a relationship like theirs. I also hoped that someday I can become a little more like the grandpa.
The grandpa lives with his son and daughter-in-law. She's been trying to have children for years and has tried herbal medicine and meditation into a fertility god poster to no avail. She is selfish with a quick temper and resented that she used to have one extra mouth to feed and now she has two. So she tries to get rid of the girl whenever she can, even though the girl has been doing most of her chores. Even though the son isn't mean to the girl, he simply pretends she's not there and never talks to her. Finally, the grandpa and the little girl put some rocks together to make a stove and cooked meals for themselves to avoid bad feelings and conflict.
Grandpa is illiterate, but he decides that the girl should go to school seeing how smart and self-motivated she is. (She secretly learned 25 words from neighboring children who were playing a word game). He began to cut brush and weave baskets to fund her education. The girl did not disappoint him and always places first in her class because she loves to see the smile on her grandpa.
One day, the girl heard the daughter-in-law (whom she calls aunt) say that crickets help fertility. So every day after school for a week, she would bring a jar and catch crickets in the mountains. Once she's collected enough, she brought them to the aunt and says that with the crickets the aunt can give birth to a little brother. From this event and others, the daughter-in-law's hard heart eventually melted and was so moved that she just cried. One day, out of the blue, the son asked the girl a question. The little girl was so excited and surprised that he talked to her that she ran all the way to the field to tell grandpa the good news.
The son and daughter-in-law then cooked a feast and asked grandpa if they would be willing to eat together as a family again. Grandpa replied with a grateful smile saying that he would. So the family was reunited and later the daughter-in-law asked the girl not to call her aunt, but to call her mother.
Because of the love of the grandpa for this orphan girl and the lovable nature of the little girl herself, the village chief (an old friend of grandpa) gathered everyone in the village and asked for donations in the form of rice, dried dates or cash to help fund her education. The village chief then disclosed the secret that the son himself was also an orphan that grandpa had picked up 30 years ago. He continued to say the grandpa never married and devoted his life for these two orphans.
The son was so shocked and felt so ashamed of himself and how he treated grandpa that he knelt down before grandpa. Grandpa went to comfort him and told him that he doesn't blame him and never expected anything in return.
Fast forward 14 years. The girl graduated with a college diploma, the first in this village. Grandpa couldn't be prouder and he constantly holds the diploma to admire it. His daughter-in-law also sewed him a matching set of cotton shirt and pants. And for him, life just doesn't get better than this. As for the girl, she returned to the village as a teacher to give back all the land has given her.