Nowhere to Call Home: A Tibetan in Beijing

Widowed at 28, Tibetan farmer Zanta defies her tyrannical father-in-law and refuses to marry his only surviving son, who is in prison for armed robbery. When Zanta's in-laws won't let her seven-year-old go to school, she flees to Beijing to become a street vendor. Destitute, and embattled by ethnic discrimination she inveigles a foreign customer into helping pay her boy's school fees. When the three travel back to Zanta's village for the New Year holiday, Zanta's father-in-law takes her son hostage. The unwitting American journalist faces a tough decision: does she intervene in the violent family dispute, or watch in silence as Zanta and Yang Qing face abuses typically borne by Tibetan widows and their children.