Yuerong is an downtrodden orphan girl. She is taken in by Erhe, a rickshaw driver, whose neighbors, recognizing her intelligence and singing talent, recommend her for opera lessons. However, the manager Liu soon begins to take advantage of her.

In old Shanghai, two sisters, a prostitute and a singer, try to escape from the local scoundrels with the help of a trumpet player and a newspaper seller.

A hostess in Shanghai invites her secondary schoolmates to a reunion. They each reminisce about their lives, with some having difficulties in marriage or career. Some led destructive lives, while others contributed to the country.

Twin girls separated at birth are reunited when the one raised in poverty becomes a servant in the household of her sister, now the pampered wife of a warlord general.

Four students in Shanghai have recently finished university. All are unemployed. Xu contemplates suicide but his friend Zhao talks him out of it. Zhao lives in a shabby room with just a flimsy wall of planks separating him from the room behind. Miss Yang, in town to take a factory job, moves in behind. Her nails into the wall knock Zhao's photos down. The unseen neighbours start playing tit for tat... Zhao gets a job as proofreader at a newspaper. He sees that pretty girl on the tram to work every day. He doesn't know her, but it's Miss Yang... Zhao is assigned to cover labour conditions for the paper. He is sent to a factory, the one where Miss Yang works...