This segment is devoted entirely to the grandmother. She is brought home from the hospital and nurses give Min-Min some instructions about keeping her comfortable. A male nurse also suggests talking to her, saying that she can hear them, so it’s helpful to her progress. But right before he leaves, he comments that he is not optimistic and they should prepare for the worst.

The camera stops in an empty hallway for several seconds as that line sinks in. Ting-Ting then gently goes up to her grandmother and grasps her left hand. She closes the blinds in the room, perhaps to make things comfortable, but perhaps also to make her a little more difficult to see. It is painful to watch loved ones in their final hours in such a helpless state.

We see briefly a scene of the street — Mrs. Jiang from next door is having a very loud argument with a man and pushes him forcefully at some point. This is another sign of the tempestuous relationships that this woman has, keeping up with her various boyfriends in the movie is extremely challenging.

Back inside the Jian’s apartment, the theater of talking and pretending has commenced. We see that an extremely pregnant Xiao-Yan looking through some CDs, maybe looking for something to play. We then see Yang-Yang at the kitchen table doing homework while Ting-Ting plays the George Gershwin song “Summertime” on the piano.

The camera jumps to the porch, where A-hi and NJ are having a talk. A-hi apologizes for not yet giving him the money to pay back the personal loan he took. NJ tries to brush it off, but A-hi tells him to remind him if he forgets again. He seems eager to talk about his newfound wealth, but NJ changes the subject to what’s going on at work.

A-hi is, unsurprisingly, a terrible listener and jumps to catastrophic conclusions about the company going out of business or owing large sums “to Japan” instead of letting NJ talk about something clearly bothering him. In the end, no big loss for NJ — I doubt A-hi would have anything intelligent to say about his current predicament.

Now Yang-Yang is on Min-Min’s lap in a chair next to the grandmother. She wants him to have a discussion, saying that it’s his turn. Yang-Yang is reluctant to talk and says Ting-Ting hasn’t spoken yet either, but his mother says she played the piano, so that counts.

Yang-Yang brings up his philosophy of perspectivism, in a way, saying that grandma won’t be able to see anything that he talks about, so what’s the point? This makes Min-Min upset and she’s growing increasingly frustrated at him and tries to guilt him into talking. A-hi walks into the room at this point and intervenes, saying he’ll take the next turn to talk.

It’s a good point to insert something that Edward Yang says in his audio commentary to the film — that A-hi is basically a good guy at heart, no matter how ridiculous he seems at times. And his monologue with his mother is a good example of these different sides of his personality.

First, he now takes the opportunity to brag that he was denied in his conversation with NJ. He says that he’s rich now and she no longer has to worry about him being in debt to everyone, people will come to him for loans now.

This is, apparently, something very common in Taiwanese culture — Taiwanese people loan large sums of money to one another. In fact, when Edward Yang was financing his second film “Taipei Story,” his cowriter, producer and lead actor Hou Hsiao-Hsien mortgaged his house to finance the film. Hou, also a director, would go on to make some of the most acclaimed films of the Taiwanese New Wave, including “A City of Sadness,” which most critics consider the strongest contender to “Yi Yi” for the title of greatest Taiwanese film.

Anyway, back to A-hi, after getting his bragging out of the way, he tells his mother that his partner Xiao-Yan is a nice girl, she shouldn’t worry about her. He reaches out to her as he says this, and then can’t think of anything more to say, despite his earlier boast that he’s good at talking.

Late at night, after everyone has left or gone to sleep, Ting-Ting quietly works her way to her grandmother’s room and carefully shuts the door. She, very gingerly, asks if she forgot to bring down the garbage that day, saying she forgot. She’s clearly lying about this, she knows that she left the bag on the porch, but she can’t bring herself to admit it.

She also can’t quite apologize for doing it, but instead tells her grandmother than if she forgives her, she’ll wake up. Then she adds, she hopes she wakes up soon, because she can’t sleep without her forgiveness.

The next scene will jump right to Ting-Ting in a classroom, dozing off in a lecture, so she’s not lying about this.