“The Chinese Orchid Bud. An Incredible Story” is a kind of an outline of the era from 1980 onwards, when the beginning of artistic painting started, as influenced by the philosophies of life, the art and the literature of the East and Eastern traditions. This is when fine art students Lidija, the main character, and her best boy friend, Ognjen, started discovering new dimensions of expressions in painting, new painting techniques and new forms of the conscious and lifestyles. It was the time when avant-garde blossomed, along with experimenting in all types of arts and philosophies of life. Lidija and Ognjen’s personal development and evolving are set in those college times of uncovering one’s own views; hippie movement and the avant-garde were the concoction defining the life paths of the main characters. The generation of 1980s painters grew up in times allowing freedom for all kinds of artistic expressions. Lidija and Ognjen, having broken up with their love partners, found employment in the secondary school for fine arts, which was the ultimate failure for both artists as independent creators, which they both had always dreamt of. Today, in their 50s, forgotten and pushed away to the cultural margins of Zagreb, they have come to terms with never reaching again what they had in their youth. Yet, they remained true to their artistic freedom ever since they were students. Lidija kept painting, whereas Ognjen settled down as a book and magazine designer, which he found comforting after his works being misunderstood and rejected ever since his studies. The treadmill sustained until Lidija started having the same dream all over again; two people kept coming to her dreams – Zhuang and Enrike, the two Chinese characters who showed her various scenes of living from all over the world. The dream was fraught with images and the following morning Lidija would put down these images on her canvas. She decided to look for an explanation in various new-age lines of readings, went through the whole new-age subculture shebang, until she finally found an answer in Chinese wisdom books. These dreams were the incentive to both Lidija and Ognjen to finally realise their dreams they had in their youths.