In Eastern Tibet, young widow Zanta struggles with her autocratic father-in-law, who doesn’t want her son to go to school. She escapes to Beijing with her son where she joins other Tibetans eking out a living as street vendors selling faux Tibetan jewelry. Unable to make ends meet, and embattled by ethnic discrimination, she tries to give her son to a foreign journalist. Together they find a school. But when the three return to the village for the all-important New Year’s celebration, the boy's future is again at risk. Shot in the slums of Beijing and a remote village near the epicenter of Tibetan self-immolations, this gripping story of a woman determined to beat the odds puts a human face on the political strife that fractures China and Tibet. Along the way it challenges common western stereotypes about Tibetans, and reveals a dark side of village life, where, as the saying goes, 'women aren't worth a penny.'