Hang is a young Vietnamese woman living in Russia as an “exported worker” in the 1980s when she receives a telegram from her Uncle Chinh. Chinh informs her that he is sick and asks her to come visit him in Moscow. Hang is hesitant to do so, as they do not have a close relationship and she has just recovered from illness herself, but she feels a duty to her mother, Que, to support Que’s only brother.
Much of Paradise of the Blind is told in flashbacks as Hang is on the train to Moscow. First, Hang recounts when Que told her about her father, Ton, for the first time. Ton was a schoolteacher and Que (whose parents died when she was 19) worked as a street vendor to keep her parents’ house. They fell in love and married early into their courtship. But when Uncle Chinh returned from the war that liberated Vietnam from France, he informed Que that Ton (whose family were farmers) was part of the landowning class, and that they must be punished for being exploiters. Uncle Chinh was a member of the Communist Party and began to institute land reform. Ton fled the village, while his sister (Tam) and mother (Nhieu) were publicly denounced. Nhieu fell ill and died as a result, and Tam’s land was taken from her and redistributed. Que, meanwhile, tried to find Ton but was unable to. Soon after, Uncle Chinh left the village to join the Land Reform Section, and the Rectification of Errors began. In this campaign, the Communist Party recognized that land reform had simply caused chaos and discontent, and the Party reclassified farmers as middle peasantry and reversed much of its land redistribution. The villagers were angry with Chinh due to his involvement in land reform, and because of their hostility towards him and Que, Que sold her parents’ home and moved to Hanoi.
Ten years later, Hang is born, and she and her mother have a deeply affectionate relationship as Hang grows up in Hanoi. One day, when Hang is nine years old, Uncle Chinh arrives in the city after not having seen Que for ten years. He tells her that as a merchant, Que is now part of the exploiting class, and he suggests she get a job as a factory worker. Que protests, saying that she needs to make enough money to support her daughter. Uncle Chinh then asks Que to give him his share of the money from the sale of their parents’ house. Que tells him she will go to collect the money from their old village and bring it back to him.
When Que and Hang travel to Que’s old village, Hang continues to press Que for more information about her father. Que tells her that Ton had gone to another village, had remarried, and had two sons. But when he heard about the Rectification of Errors, he returned to Que’s village and they had consummated their love once more, which is how Hang had been conceived. When Hang and Que arrive in Que’s old village, they meet Hang’s Aunt Tam for the first time. Tam is thrilled to meet Hang and gives them a feast’s worth of food. Aunt Tam also provides some information about what happened after the Rectification of Errors. Aunt Tam worked tirelessly to restore her home to its former glory and made it a goal to become rich to honor her ancestors. She criticizes Uncle Chinh for leading the land reform and also informs Que of what happened to Ton after she got pregnant. He had returned to his other wife and asked for permission to stay in the village while Que was pregnant. When his wife refused, he committed suicide in shame. Aunt Tam says that this would never have happened if Uncle Chinh hadn’t persecuted Ton.
Que and Hang stay for a week in the village, and when they leave to go back to Hanoi, Aunt Tam gives Hang food, gold earrings, and two rings to take back with her. Hang is stunned, thinking the gifts are too extravagant for a nine-year-old. When they return to the city, Que gives Uncle Chinh the money that he requested. Tet falls soon after, and Aunt Tam visits Hanoi to give Hang huge amounts of food for the New Year’s celebration, which she says is an “offering to Ton’s memory.” She also gives Hang a huge wad of bills to spend as she wants.
Spring and summer pass, and Que repairs a wall in their kitchen. Hang suggests they sell the earrings Aunt Tam gave her to repair their leaky roof, but Que refuses, saying that she’ll be able to pay for the repairs by Tet that year. Hang notes that since she met Aunt Tam, Que had become more distant. One day soon after, Que hears that Uncle Chinh is sick. When they track him down at his house, they discover that he isn’t that sick, and they meet his wife (whom they call Aunt Chinh) and his sons, Tuan and Tu. Both Uncle Chinh and Aunt Chinh are quite cold to Que, and she and Hang leave quickly. But Que notices that they don’t have much to eat, and she sends Hang back to their house the next day with large amounts of food. Hang is frustrated that Que wants to do so much for Uncle Chinh’s family while they care very little about her. When Tet arrives that year, Que buys enough food for a huge banquet and gives it to Uncle Chinh and his family but makes no effort to repair their roof.
A year passes, and Que once again buys large amounts of food for Uncle Chinh for their Tet feast. A few days before Tet, Aunt Tam also arrives with her own feast for Hang. Hang is disgusted, knowing that Que had been counting on Aunt Tam to give them food so that Que could spend her savings on Uncle Chinh.
In the present, on the train to Moscow, Hang thinks about the landscape of her homeland and how different it is from the Russian countryside. She had always loved looking at the duckweed flowers but had also come to realize as she grew up how they masked the poverty and destitution of the ponds and cities that surrounded the flowers.
Hang then returns to her reveries, flashing back to her acceptance to the Institute for the Social Sciences. Aunt Tam decides to host a massive banquet for Aunt Tam’s entire village in Hang’s honor. When Hang leaves to go to the village, her mother is disdainful of the fact that she does not have the means to throw Hang a banquet. Hang protests, saying she and her mother have always lived simply and happily together. Hang thinks about how all she wants is her mother’s love, while her mother wants the approval of Uncle Chinh and his family. Hang goes to Aunt Tam’s for the banquet, which is very lavish. At the banquet, Hang plays the part of the “successful niece” while Aunt Tam entertains her guests. Aunt Tam also criticizes the village vice president, Mr. Duong, as she entertains her guests with stories about various government leaders.
Back on the train, Hang recalls a year prior, when Uncle Chinh demanded for her to come to Moscow the first time. She had brought him a suitcase of goods, which he then traded on the black market. She was frustrated that he hadn’t told her about news of her mother and had only been interested in the contents of her suitcase. On the train to Moscow in the present, Hang befriends an older man, whom she calls her traveling companion. He defends her when two drunk men on the train try to harass her.
After the banquet at Aunt Tam’s, Hang returns to her home and starts college. She and Que have a period where they are happier together until the next year, when Uncle Chinh is diagnosed with diabetes. Que starts to save money for him by cutting spending on their own food. Hang loses a substantial amount of weight, to the point where she suggests selling a ring that Aunt Tam gave her so that they can eat. In response, Que screams at her to shut up. The next day, Aunt Tam visits them, and learning of the situation, she gives Hang food and asks for the earrings and rings back. When Que lies, saying that she gave the rings to friends to invest in a business, Aunt Tam tells Que that she refuses to let Que use her money to feed Uncle Chinh. After that, things start to degenerate between Que and Hang, until one day, when Hang confronts Que about lying to Aunt Tam, Que kicks her out of the house.
Hang then stays in a dormitory at her high school and continues to attend college. Aunt Tam gives her more money and food than she could need, but Hang misses her mother. One day, however, Hang learns from a neighbor that her mother was hit by a car and had to have her leg amputated. Hang reveals that this is why she had to move to Russia; she had to work there in order to support her mother.
In the present, Hang arrives in Moscow. She finds that Uncle Chinh is no longer in the hospital but is cooking and housekeeping for Vietnamese graduate students. The students mock him, and one whom Hang calls “the Bohemian” criticizes him for espousing strict Communist Party ideals while also breaking those ideals by trading on the black market. The next morning, the Bohemian (whom Hang realizes attended university with her) tells Hang that Uncle Chinh called her there to get money from her, and to get her help selling his goods on the black market because she speaks fluent Russian. The Bohemian gives Hang money to cover Uncle Chinh’s shipping expenses, which Hang gives Uncle Chinh before leaving abruptly.
When Hang returns to the dormitory where she lives with other exported workers, she immediately receives another telegram informing her that Aunt Tam is dying. Hang returns to Hanoi and stops briefly at her mother’s home, but Hang is frustrated once more when Que seems more concerned about Uncle Chinh than about her. Hang then goes to Aunt Tam’s house and finds that Aunt Tam is very frail. Aunt Tam gives her the key to a trunk that holds all of the jewelry she had been saving as well as a map to where she has buried Hang’s inheritance. Aunt Tam tells Hang to keep up their family’s home. When Aunt Tam dies, Hang arranges the three memorial ceremonies for her but decides not to live in the house. She thinks that she cannot waste her life keeping up “the legacy of past crimes,” and she dreams of returning to a university auditorium and traveling to a “distant port where a plane could land and take off.”
