Sookan
A ten year old girl living in Pyongyang in 1945. With her family is subjected to a difficult life of poverty in the Japanese occupation, they try to survive together without losing hope. Her family includes a broader community of minor characters who help Sookan to wrestle with parts of their life that are painful and hard, like the deaths of family members.
Narita
A painfully cruel police captain who afflicts the family constantly. He regularly inspects them and punishes them for nothing. They are innocent, but Narita still cuts down their tree, a symbol of the family patriarch who dies afterward. He is an active part of a political movement to keep the people of Pyongyang under the thumb of Japanese power.
Narita's wife.
This brainwashed woman brainwashes children to believe Japanese propaganda. But, Sookan has the necessary family support to help her through those difficult lessons with a sense for the truth. Narita's wife is Sookan's teacher in school, and she is also the husband of Narita himself, so Sookan's behavior in school is literally connected to her family's real safety.
Aunt Tiger
Aunt Tiger sends Kisa on little missions, not for serious political reasons, typically, but for personal reasons, to help her family stay connected in difficult times. They survive in whatever ways they can, and although Aunt Tiger is sensitive to the tide of fate, so to speak, she is unable to prevent her inevitable downfall. She dies as a martyr for her family at the hands of Russians.
Kisa
Kisa is just trying to survive the unbelievable tides of Korean history. Already unstable and afflicted, the Korean people are made to be subject to Japanese rule that they impose by fear and violence. The police constantly harass them and impose a very real fear of death. In the end, Kisa is one of many who tries desperately to survive, but in the end, although Kisa and Aunt Tiger are only trying to help, they are killed when the Japanese reign ends and when Russian forces invade.
