A single mother, Shu-Fen moves with her two daughters—innocent 5-year-old I-Jing and surly, university-aged I-Ann—to Taipei to start a noodle stand at a
night market, while I-Ann works at a betel nut stand as a
betel nut beauty to earn money. After discovering that her estranged husband (who abandoned the family a decade earlier) is terminally ill, Shu-Fen puts herself further into debt to pay for his medical bills and funeral, which disgusts I-Ann and drives a further wedge between mother and daughter as Shu-Fen becomes unable to pay rent for the noodle stand. Meanwhile, reuniting with her grandparents Wen-Xong Chen and Xue-Mei Wu, the left-handed I-Jing is informed by her old-fashioned grandfather that the left hand is "the devil's hand" and that she is forbidden from using it in his home. Misinterpreting the superstition, I-Jing believes that she is not responsible for any bad behavior done using her left hand, and begins to shoplift from the other market stands. When I-Ann is invited to a party at a motel with an old local classmate, it is revealed that she had been a straight-A student and the most popular girl on campus, but had to drop out of high school for reasons I-Ann claims were financial. After others at the party mock her with crude sexual advances, she storms out. I-Ann is also in a sexual relationship with her boss, A-Ming, whose wife eventually discovers the relationship and confronts I-Ann at work. I-Ann reveals she is pregnant with A-Ming's baby and quits. I-Jing, while playing with the pet meerkat willed to the family by Shu-Fen's deceased husband, throws a ball with her left hand, leading to the meerkat falling off the apartment balcony and dying. Distressed and guilty, I-Jing blames "the devil's hand." Later, Shu-Fen visits her mother's home to beg for money, but Xue-Mei refuses. Xue-Mei is secretly involved in a black-market illegal-immigration operation, and I-Jing, oblivious to the crimes but aware that the passports are valuable, steals them from Xue-Mei's home as the women argue, inadvertently saving Xue-Mei from a later raid by immigration agents. When I-Jing attempts to pawn the passports, the shop owner contacts the family home, and I-Ann collects her and learns of I-Jing's belief in her "devil hand" and shoplifting. I-Ann convinces I-Jing that the superstition is false, assures that the meerkat's death was an accident, and takes I-Jing to return the stolen items and atone. As thanks for I-Jing's actions involving the passports, Xue-Mei gifts Shu-Fen the money to pay for the noodle stand. The family attends a birthday banquet for Xue-Mei's sixtieth birthday. A-Ming, who has been attempting to contact I-Ann without success, arrives with his wife after deducing her location, and his wife loudly reveals I-Ann's affair and pregnancy in front of the scandalized extended family, insisting that they will pay for the baby if it is a male. I-Ann retorts that she aborted the child, leading to a fight with Shu-Fen, who is ashamed of I-Ann's behavior and failure to take responsibility. The couple is thrown out, but I-Ann drinks heavily, and eventually reveals their family secret: I-Jing is her own daughter, not Shu-Fen's, and Shu-Fen had covered up the truth in order to give her daughter a better chance at marital prospects. Xue-Mei is outraged, but the moment is cathartic for Shu-Fen and I-Ann. The film ends with I-Ann choosing to work at the noodle stand with her family, and she and I-Jing beginning a foundation of their relationship as mother and daughter. ==Cast==