I think before going into the film it's important for viewers to know sort of the historical context surrounding the rise and fall of the Chinese birth tourism industry in Los Angeles.

This phenomenon is sort of situated at the zenith of US-China relations.

It was the high point.

It was before Trump and the trade wars, it was before COVID hit.

That one child policy was still in effect.

So that influenced a lot of people wanting to come.

Hong Kong had just shut its doors to pregnant Chinese tourists who are doing the same thing.

It was the confluence of these sort of events that really catapulted this idea of having an American baby into the Chinese public consciousness.

Part of the story is the impossibility of fully understanding such a deep and complex ecosystem and all the different stakeholders.

I mean, there's not one way of running a maternity hotel.

There's not one way of doing this.

For audiences to sort of undergo this process of coming into confrontation with their own internal biases.

Being okay with the questions that arise.

To get into the human stories of the dreams, anxieties of a group of people from mainland China, the middle class that has never before been represented to Western audiences at this level of intimacy before.

I think it tells us a lot about Chinese society, but it also tells us a lot about our own society.