Ji-Li
Twelve years old at the start of the book, Ji-Li is both narrator and protagonist, and despite geography, to all intents and purposes is like any pre-teen in any country growing up during the 1960s. She has friends, she bickers with her siblings, she likes school and she has big dreams. Her entire life changes overnight, for the worse, once the Cultural Revolution begins to take over.
Ji-Li is now seen as the sum of the actions of her ancestors; she is an evil presence because her grandfather, who is no longer living, was wealthy, and so her possessions are taken away. She will not have the opportunity to try out for the Liberation Dance Troupe because her father rescinded his membership of the Communist Party. Before Mao, Ji-Li believed that the only limitations on what she could achieve were the ones she placed on herself, but after the revolution she quickly realizes that outside forces will be limiting her achievements and that her life is not her own to direct and live anymore.
While Ji-Li loves her family very much, and tends to side with them, even a loyal girl like her is being brainwashed by the Revolution; she begins to wonder why they have not been honest with her about their past decisions and actions. However, as things progress, she realizes that her family have been honest with her, and that the instigators of the revolution are the ones who are distorting the truth and putting a different and evil spin on it.
Ji-Li is a very nice and straightforward girl who will not get other people in trouble just to save her own skin. This proves problematical when she will not make up lies about her teachers' political views, and again when she refuses to betray her father by lying about him. Despite this, she believes that Chairman Mao's views on everything were correct, because she simply never learned anything else. When a child only hears one opinion, they do not have any other information that will enable them to make one of their own. This is why Ji-Li seems somewhat paradoxical as a character; it's hard to understand why she did not try to rebel against a regime that ruined her family's lives, but the regime was her reality, and she simply had no knowledge of anything else.
Ji-Li's Father (Xi-Ring Jiang)
Xi-Ring is an honorable man, which is why he found it almost impossible to exist within Chairman Mao's China, which was anything but honorable. He is a proud man, a family man and the kind of man who does what he knows to be right even when what he knows to be wrong would bring him an easier and much safer life. Specifically he will not make false confessions to the Red Guard; he knows he has done nothing wrong and he is not going to say that he has done something wrong when he hasn't.
Xi-Ring is an entertainer, and the one to play the fool at family parties. He dotes on his children and is always very involved in their lives, clearly preferring their company to almost anyone else's. Ji-Li's loyalty to him speaks highly of his character and the way in which he has shown her to live an honorable life, by example.
Ji-Li's Mother (Ying-Chen Jiang)
Ying-Chen is a sickly, often unwell woman who suffers from Meniere's Syndrome. Her health is also affected a great deal by her emotions, and her stresses often show up in her body as physical ailments. She wears her heart on her sleeve in a very un-Chinese way; she is anything but stoic, although she is just as tough and as resolute as her husband to whom she stays loyal throughout his imprisonment. Her primary goal is to get through each day and to focus on the eventual reunification of her family. She has always encouraged her children to dream and has been the prime motivator in their lives.
An-Yi
An-Yi and Ji-Li have been best friends for a very long time; she suffers enormously under the Revolution because her mother is a school teacher and anyone who is seen to be educating Chinese youth is singled out for persecution by the Red Guard. From the moment that Mao seizes power, An-Yi is afraid, because her family fear that her mother will be killed. The fact that her friend's family are treated so obviously wrongly and without justice is fundamental to Ji-Li's shift in opinion about Mao and the Cultural Revolution; seeing people punished when they are good people who have done nothing wrong highlights the fact that the regime is wrong. An-Yi is forced to grow up almost overnight, and her childhood effectively ends the moment the revolution begins.
Song Po-Po
Despite the fact that the Jiang family view her more as part of the family than as a housekeeper, they are forced to let Song Po-Po go because having any kind of household help is outlawed by Mao and his new government. This presents an ethical dilemma to Ji-Li because it's obvious that Song Po-Po is one of those people who derive enormous pleasure from cleaning and organizing, and that she also values the Jiangs and the time she is with them, so much so that she still goes back to their house to make dinner, because she misses doing so.
