In 1985, three ambitious college students meet in Beijing. Meng Xiaojun (Deng Chao), Wang Yang (Tong Dawei), and Cheng Dongqing (Huang Xiaoming) come from different backgrounds, but they all pin their fortunes on getting student visas for the United States.

Only Xiaojun is successful. However, lacking perfect English, he is forced to support his study at Columbia University with debasing part-time jobs. Meanwhile, Yang and Dongqing keep working in Beijing, determined to develop the idea the trio hatched together: a new system for teaching English to the tens of millions of Chinese eager for the advantages fluency brings.