Left behind in China by her father who has gone to the New World to find work, Choon-yi has made her living by selling her paintings in the market. When her father writes one day and asks her to join him, she joyously embarks for the new land. But on her arrival she discovers that her father has died.
The sight of the railway and giant train engines on whose behalf her father died fills Choon-yi with an urge to paint them. Her work disappoints her until a magic presence beckons her to board the train and go on a fantastical journey. The ghosts of her father and all the others who died on the railway appear to her on the train, and through them she achieves and understanding of what they have experienced. She is then able to paint magnificently and, perhaps even more important, to lay their ghosts to rest at last.
Ghostly, magical and yet redeeming, this tale is superbly illustrated by Harvey Chan.
