The scene opens on a street in Hangzhou, China, where a man named Mr. Yangguang and his daughter, Miss Guizhou, are waiting for Mr. Mann to arrive. The man, who is a member of the upper social class, has come to meet his daughter's "auntie" . The woman is a rich relative of the man's, and the man wants to marry her, but he is afraid that his daughter will marry someone from the lower social class. He tells the man that he will never allow the man to marry his daughter because she is not a good match for the upper class man. He also tells him that his ex-wife, the woman who helped him to start his own business, died mysteriously, and that the man will never be able to marry the woman whom he helped to start the business, because the woman will never marry the man who helped her to start her own business