Want to be Z before A, rather than behind XY

High in the northern mountains of Hsinchu, Taiwan.
Beipu, a Hakka village.

A village unchanged for hundreds of years.
And within it, a child was born to change the world.

Holding a red lantern, Ah-ma stood in the rain.
In her arms, a newborn child.

Ah-ma : Lin Chun (林春)...

Ah-ma : Spring comes from the forest.

Tiny fingers folded over her wrinkles.
Ah-ma : That is your name.
And that was enough.

林春 (Lin Chun)
The Spring of the Woods.
Like the forest spring where all life awakens,
bloom lavishly.

Ah-ma left that meaning upon the paper.

Lin Chun : Ah-ma~! Look at me~!

Lin Chun : Ah-ma, like this?
Ah-ma : Yes. Give it even strength, and the aroma spreads evenly.
Lin Chun : This is right, isn't it? The scent got so much stronger this way!
Ah-ma : Hoho, you have gifted hands.

Lin Chun loved to learn.
Grinding tea, sorting tea leaves, tilling the soil.
Her fingertips learned it in no time.
Villager 1 : That child was born with such gifted hands.
Villager 2 : Where did she even learn to dance like that?
Villager 3 : She's a blessing to the village, a true blessing.

The village loved Lin Chun.
When she was what the village wanted her to be.
Lin Chun : Why do I keep having to wear only this?
Ah-ma : Every girl in our village wears it.
Lin Chun : Why does that have to be the reason?

It wasn't that Lin Chun hated the clothes themselves.
She hated being told "That's just how it is" with no explanation.
Lin Chun : ...Look at this.
Lin Chun : Other villages are selling tea on the internet.

It wasn't that she envied what she saw on her smartphone.
Lin Chun : We could do this with our Lei Cha, too.
Lin Chun : Suribachi grinding workshops, tea field tours, social media marketing...
※ Lei Bo (擂缽): A grooved ceramic bowl used in Hakka Lei Cha to grind tea leaves and nuts.
Lin Chun : It would definitely work.
What she craved was the way they did it.

Lin Chun : Look at this! Another Hakka village tripled their profits last year with an experience tour! We could also—
Village Elder : Enough.
Lin Chun : Why? Just tell me where I went wrong, and I'll—
Village Elder : Why touch what is already working perfectly fine?
Village Elder : Do you think this village will be swayed by your gimmick?
Lin Chun : It's not a gimmick.
Lin Chun : I just... I just wanted our village to do better.......

Lin Chun : Why do the grown-ups hate changing so much?

Childhood Friend : ...What if it changes for the worse?
Lin Chun : I'm trying to change it for the better.
Childhood Friend : I think it's plenty good enough as it is.

Even though they grew up in the same village,
what they looked at was different.

The villagers.
Her childhood friend.
It wasn't that she didn't understand their hearts and thoughts.

It was just that the very thing I loved with all my heart—
to someone else, was merely 'ground tea leaf grain #1'.
The reality that even being remembered as that required such bitter optimism...
it kept gnawing away at my chest.

Lin Chun : I don't get it. Why are they so against it?
Lin Chun : Or is it just because it's me?

Lin Chun : Anywhere else.
Lin Chun : It definitely would have been different.

Lin Chun : I won't just talk about it.
Lin Chun : I'll show them myself.

Lin Chun : That I wasn't wrong.
She wasn't running away.
At least, that was what she thought back then.

And so, Lin Chun said it to no one.
The word 'goodbye'.

The day Lin Chun left,
Ah-ma pretended not to notice.
The room where the light stayed on all night.
The warmth upon the bed that wouldn't be warmed for quite some time.

Ah-ma : Lin Chun (林春).
Ah-ma : When spring comes to you, please show me your spring, too.
Ah-ma : Ah-ma is sorry, my child.

Lin Chun : I'm here.
Lin Chun : I'm finally here—!

Now it's a new beginning.
That thought didn't even last a month.

Lin Chun : Rent. Next month's rent.
To sustain Lin Chun's childish choice,

Customer : One cup of boba milk tea here!
Lin Chun : Yes! Right away~
she had to run nearly three shifts a day,

Customer : Set number one, make the Coke large.
Lin Chun : Set number one, Coke Large. That comes to 180 NTD in total.
and had to take whatever job paid the most.

Lin Chun : Excuse me, just a moment please—
Yet for a country mouse with no ties to make a living in the city, she had to scrape her flesh and grind her bones.

Even so, she never went back to the village
and held on to her life in the city.
Because the city put a price tag even on the invisible,
and low as that price was, it never called it a "gimmick."

The money handed to her as her worth
felt just like freshly harvested tea leaves.

Unlike the real thing that severed me from my roots,
merely counting these lovely leaves brought an elation
that I had achieved something,

a relief that I was fighting fiercely to survive.

It gave a satisfaction that my escape wasn't wrong.
The 16-square-meter 'city' room bought with money
brought a sense of achievement that even the village elders never possessed.
And...
the fact that practically,
nothing had changed.
Growing to resemble the very things I despised so much,
an understanding and kinship toward what I never wished to know,
and a 'grown-up' hostility toward anything that reminded me of these 'gimmicks'—the only things truly mine in this callous city.

Only after securing money, that virtue of adulthood, did Lin Chun finally become a villager city person.

??? : Excuse me...

??? : Are you perhaps of Hakka origin?
Lin Chun : ?
??? : You speak Hakka, don't you?
??? : Making traditional tea as well?
Lin Chun : ...Yes.
Boss : Ever thought about working as a tour guide?

Lin Chun : ...You mean wearing traditional clothes and introducing traditional tea.
Boss : Exactly. Tourists love that stuff.

Lin Chun : This wasn't the way I wanted it to happen...

Lin Chun : Welcome!
Lin Chun : This is Ningxia Night Market!

Lin Chun : The stall on the right is a famous spot for Lu Rou Fan—even if the line is long, you simply must try it~
Tourist : Wow, really?
Lin Chun : I guarantee it!

It wasn't the form she had imagined,
yet the more she explained, the more she fell in love with it.

At first, it was merely a job.
Lin Chun : Jiufen on a rainy day is truly beautiful!
Lin Chun : This umbrella is a traditional Meinong oil-paper umbrella.

Lin Chun : I learned how to make them from Ah-ma when I was little, too.
Lin Chun : ...Honestly, I quite loved it.

Lin Chun : We call this grinding process 'Lei'. Grinding tea leaves, peanuts, and sesame seeds together—

Lin Chun : Truth be told, I've been doing this ever since I was a little girl.
The "gimmick", no... Her heart, her mind—Lin Chun remembered.

Lin Chun : It's almost identical to the tour itinerary I pitched to the village elders back then.
Lin Chun : It's something universal. Not some cheap gimmick.
Lin Chun : I... I wasn't wrong after all.

Boss : Just sign right here. It's simple.
Lin Chun : ...Why is the penalty fee so high?
Boss : It's a standard contract. It's like this everywhere.

Boss : We let anyone work as a guide even without a license,
Boss : and even cover insurance so you don't take the fall if you mess up.
Boss : The penalty is high?

Boss : Since our company takes on so much burden like this,
Boss : don't you dare quit halfway through... In the end, that number is a test.

Boss : Don't look at the size of the number. That number is the bare minimum of patriotism.
Boss : Can Lin Chun's love for her country and hometown really not even overcome that much?

Boss : You're a smart girl, Lin Chun, so you know exactly what I mean just by looking, right?

Boss : Did you check tomorrow's schedule? 21:58
Boss : Added more schedules for next week too. 22:01
Boss : Why aren't you answering 22:05
Boss : Call me right now 22:06

Lin Chun : I worked so hard....
Lin Chun : Why is there nothing left....

My hands were growing to resemble Ah-ma's.
I never wanted to resemble them for a reason like this.

Lin Chun : Ah-ma.
Lin Chun : Is this really right... me doing this here?

Under the screen's pale glow.
Lin Chun was drawing up plans once again.

Not giving up—that was the one thing she had faith in.

Today, another guest arrives. A new guest.

Lin Chun : Welcome!
Lin Chun : I'm May, your tour guide for this trip.

Lin Chun : Today, I'll take you to the most beautiful places in Taiwan.
Lin Chun : Looking forward to our time together!

The child with spring in her name.
She still doesn't know where her own spring lies.
Yet she will not give up.
That much, is certain.

Rather than trailing behind X and Y, I want to be the Z that stands before A!