Divorced and approaching forty, Jeff Mott decides to leave his ex-wife and young daughter behind in Canada and travel to China. He starts teaching in a small town north of Beijing, where he meets a young woman, Wang Bian Fu, and falls in love; however, as they get to know each other, Bian Fu's family life and emotions seem increasingly more complex and disturbing. Their relationship becomes dominated by the walls and back alleys of Beijing, where they find humiliations, surprising differences, and barriers. Against the odds, they become engaged.

Jeff discovers that there are many ways of being the foreigner, the outsider, in China, not all of them savoury. As he teaches his students English, his students teach him that there is much more to being Chinese than language. And classroom spies are all too happy to report inappropriate discourse or behaviour. One must never forget, there are manners and rules.

One day Jeff learns the truth about his Chinese fiancée, a truth which has been concealed behind Bian Fu's considerable deception. His heart divided, Jeff must make a choice, and flies back to Canada, promising to return. Bian Fu promises to solve the barriers to their marriage "in a Chinese way." Separated, the lovers continue to plan, through their heated and awkward long-distance telephone calls, and through the Chinese characters, the ancient poems and proverbs, mangled in Jeff's fumbling words. As they head towards marriage, Jeff wonders, is it Bian Fu that he loves? or China? Or is it that he has imagined both of them as he wishes, not as they are?

Noyes has perfectly captured the foreigner's experience in Asia. Poignant, ironic and searchingly funny, It is Just That Your House is So Far Away delivers a Beijing love story and a vision of 1990s China on the edge of globalism.