counting

yixian guo

On the last day before the holiday at a boarding kindergarten in China, six-year-old Xu Yuan quietly waits for her mother, who may not arrive on time to pick her up. Silent and lonely, she secretly collects the spoons left after every meal, using them as a way to measure time—marking the hours and days she is apart from her mother.

The kindergarten enforces a near-military regimen: unified wake-up times, lining up, meals, and naps. The children are trained to be orderly, quiet, and obedient. Xu Yuan tries to fit in but remains on the fringes of the group—excluded from friendship games and misunderstood within the rigid rules. Inside her mind, a recurring dream haunts her—a massive, unreachable black door and the slowly receding figure of her mother walking away without looking back.

Whenever her emotions threaten to break and tears well up, Xu Yuan silently counts down “5, 4, 3, 2, 1,” forcing herself to hold back her tears and stay strong.

It is only after a minor conflict and the approach of a mischievous boy named Gang that she finds a quiet resonance. Through the ritual of counting spoons, the two children share their secret pains and gradually build a fragile but genuine friendship. Yet another misunderstanding isolates her once more, and the fragile order of childhood begins to crumble, exposing emotional fractures.

At the school gate in the evening, Xu Yuan can no longer hold back her tears and sobs aloud. Just as she reaches the brink of despair, her mother returns, kneels down, and gently embraces her: “5, 4, 3, 2, 1... no more crying