The painted lady butterfly travels 9,000 miles over several generations. Each generation flies to the next place without knowing the starting or end point of their route. The Hakka people, whose name translates as “guest family”, share this fate of constant movement – their identity is not tied to a specific territory but to their ancestors. The director, Hakka herself, follows her family’s migration history from their roots in northern China to Canada and India. As she traces their footsteps, she encounters Hakka from all over the world who tell their own stories of departure, adaptation, and the preservation of a unique culture.
Archive material, personal reflections, and interviews with members of the global diaspora combine to create the polyphonic portrait of a community whose language, customs, and collective memory are threatened by extinction. The film asks how identity is formed when one’s home keeps shifting – and how roots can be put down at ever new places without losing sight of one’s origin.