一封寄到教育局的检举信搅乱了中三学生谢政杰（黄河 饰）的平凡生活。在信中，检举人揭发了谢政杰的班导詹朝威（温升豪 饰）擅自挪用音乐课用来考试。很快，詹朝威便发现，寄出这封检举信的是班上一位名叫沈伟（张书豪 饰）的男孩，抵不住詹朝威的愤怒和排挤，沈伟最终转班了。
这一事件让谢政杰的心中充满了对于班导的不满，他拒绝再上詹朝威的补习班，之后又因为在课堂上偷看色情漫画而遭到了班导的粗暴待遇。詹朝威请来了谢政杰的母亲，在言辞之中对其尽极侮辱，按耐不住心中的怒火，谢政杰和詹朝威之间发生了肢体冲突，与此同时，在冲突与波折之中，谢政杰开始真正思考起了自己生命的意义。

阿左（张怀云 饰）自认是全台北最穷的国中生，为了改变这个现况，他把脑筋动到了学校储藏室中没有人管理的废弃物上，“如果把这些东西变卖给回收…”阿左盘算著，但是，他没有盘算到半路会遇到小天。
小天（魏汉鼎 饰）也自认是全台北最穷的国中生，也为了改变这个现况，他也把脑筋动到了学校储藏室中没有人管理的废弃 物上，“如果把这些东西变卖给回收…”小天也盘算著，但是，他也没有盘算到半路遇到阿左，阿左也对废弃物有兴趣。
阿左和小天互不相让，于是，一场废弃物争夺战在平静的校园展开，而这场尔虞我诈，两败俱伤的争夺战终将让他们开始反省为何社会存在著贫穷，让他们开始面对即将到来成人世界……

A group of aimless Taipei residents deal with their personal problems in this Taiwanese drama that does feature brief flashes of black humor. Much of the story centers upon lonely Mrs. Chen who has trouble coping with her philandering husband, and nearly senile mother-in-law. Her daughter frequently sulks and has a desperate crush on one of her teachers. Mrs. Chen's only friend is her co-worker Liu, who has fallen for a new office boy, Chou. Mrs. Chen also finds him attractive. Unfortunately for either woman, Chou is gay and plagued with problems of his own.

Three stories are told, respectively set in Tokyo, Taipei, and Shanghai. The first two stories are about a Japanese person and a Taiwanese person. The last one is set in Shanghai with a story about a Japanese man and a Chinese woman. Some of the characters can speak Japanese and some of them Mandarin. Each story encompasses an experience of a foreigner, either from Japan ,Taiwan or China, with a native of the opposite country.

2002 Taiwan film by Yee Chin-yen