Claire, a Quebecoise art dealer, arrives in China to adopt a little girl. There she visits Pierre, her ex-husband, who after fifteen years in China has been absorbed into a life of bicycles, tea, and calligraphy. Claire and Pierre's lover, the young Chinese artist Xiao Ling, become fast friends. Through this classic love triangle, The Blue Dragon looks at aging, cultural confusion, fertility, and creativity, and confronts some of modern China's most intriguing paradoxes.