The Sandwich Man (1983 film)

The Sandwich Man is the first installment of this film. The story focuses on a young man, Kun Shu, who was married and had a baby son, who was under one-year old. His hard-working wife was pregnant again and they had to decide whether they could afford to keep the second child. Fortunately, Kun Shu got a job as a "sandwich man" to advertise for the film to be screened in cinema.  It is a demanding job for he has to wear cumbersome clown costumes and paint a clown face every day and walk around the town under the scorching sun and endure the laughter of passers-by and even pranks.  Kun Shu has no complaints since the job enabled them to at least welcome the second child.  One day Kun Shu discovered the irony of the job and his life: his son only recognizes him when he is in his working costume, that is, the sandwich man.[3]

The second installment of the film, Vicki's Hat, portrays the story of two salesmen trying to sell imported Japanese pressure cookers to the villagers of Bu-dai in Jia-yi, a fishing village in central Taiwan. Wang Wuxiong took the shitty job because he needed to leave home while his colleague Lin Zai-fa was hoping to earn more bonus money for his pregnant wife. Wang had a good impression of Vicki, an elementary school girl who passed by the house they rented and always had her school hat on. Lin even joked about Wang's ten-year plan to wait for Vicki to be old enough to marry her. The sale had not been going well. Lin decided to use the pressure cooker to cook pork knuckles for demonstration. While Vicki volunteered to help, he was so curious about her always wearing her hat that he suddenly took it off her head and discovered the bald spot on her scalp she tried to hide. Vicki was shocked and shamefully ran away. In the meantime, Lin suffered a deep cut on his throat when the pressure cooker exploded during the demonstration. Seeing his wounded colleague fighting for his life in the hospital and knowing that his pregnant wife just sent a letter asking him to take a break to come home because she is worried about having a miscarriage, Wang cannot resist his anger and frustration but to tear the poster of the pressure cooker on the wall into pieces and throw them on the sea.[3]

Riding his bike to go to work early in the morning in Taipei City, Jiang Afa, a laborer who has five children including one dumb girl, was hit by a car driven by Colonel Gray, an officer of the U.S. Marine Corps stationed in Taiwan. As a result, he broke his legs and was admitted to the U.S. Naval Hospital in Tianmu, Taipei City for medical treatment. The accident, which should have been a huge impact on the poor family, turned out to be an unexpected blessing because Afa was fortunate enough to be hit by an American. When the wife and the five children were waiting in the lobby of the hospital, they were impressed by the clean and white environment they had never been in.  Not only did the colonel take full responsibility and promised to cover all the medical expenses but also gave him 50 thousand NT dollars and offered to take the dumb girl to the US for better education.  Afa's foreman who came to visit him was so envious he even asked him whether he deliberately caused the accident.  When the family tasted the very expensive apples for the first time in their life they felt a sense of heavenly happiness.