Beautiful Duckling

Hsiao-yueh and her widowed father receive a flock of genetically-improved ducks from the state agricultural council to participate in a breeding experiment. As long as they comply with record-keeping regulations and raise the ducks successfully, the council will give them the entire flock at the end of the experiment.

Though Hsiao-yueh and her father are scoffed at by their neighbors, who don’t understand how science and bothersome record-keeping can “improve” a process that’s been done the same way for hundreds of years, the two are proud to be part of this modernization effort. Everything proceeds swimmingly until Hsiao-yueh and her father enter their ducks in the local agricultural fair. Not only do the jealous neighbor and his doofus son stir up trouble, but Chao Fu and his wife, actors in a local gezaixi troupe, see the beautiful young Hsiao-Yueh and hatch a plan to convince or blackmail her to join up with their drama troupe.