The story of the silk industry and the young girls who worked as silk spinners in the early 1900s in Japan. The silk mills were located in Okaya which lies just beyond the Nomugi Pass. The women and girls worked in a hot, humid atmosphere without rest, and endured those conditions and sexual harassment to earn money for their poor families. Across the ocean, it was the great depression in America.
Teenage cousins Masao and Tamiko fall in love when she comes to his riverside brewery house to take care of his sickly mother. Family objections ensue as Tamiko is older than Masao, and the two cannot marry in peace.
It's a story of the life of a man who advocated the necessity of sex education to children, which was unusual at the time, solely opposed to the amendment of the Peace Preservation Law, and was assassinated by a rightist prior to his opposition speech.
Ginko, a poor cobbler's daughter, becomes a geisha to support her family. She passes from one geisha house to the next, trying to find love and hope in the process. No matter how hard she tries, she just can't escape her sad fate.
작은 섬의 학교에서 교편을 잡고 있는 다카코는 여름 방학을 이용하여 히로시마를 방문한다. 원폭 당시 유치원 교사로 일했던 다카코가 과거 자신이 가르쳤던 아이들의 소식을 듣기 위해 다시 히로시마를 찾은 것이다. 그렇게 아이들을 찾던 다카코는 길거리에서 우연히 예전 자신의 집에서 일했었던 이와키치 아저씨를 만난다.
