Son , the child of a black American officer, and his Vietnamese mother are trying to leave Vietnam. But without American documents, they are forced to stay. On coming home from school one day, Son is picked up by the Bô-doï (Vietnamese soldiers) who arrest the children roaming the streets of Saigon. Orphans, shoeshine boys or delinquents, they are the "dust-specks of life" of a decomposing world. Packed into 2 trucks, eighty children are ferried to the "rehabilitation camps". There, they are forced to work on clearance and have to submit to the order and ethics of the revoluion. All escape attempts end in the "tiger cage" before the departure for "Fanta Hill", whose terrible secret Son will come to understand. With Bob and little Haï, he decides to risk an escape attempt and build a raft to sail down the river to the Mekong and from there to Saigon, the sea and perhaps even... the USA.