Mother is another important and main character in the book. Essentially, her role is as mother of the boy who is the narrator/author provides his survival and growth. She carries the one-year-old baby boy in her arms when she is left alone on the train because the Thought Police detective and Military Police force her husband and father of the child off the train to be interrogated at another location. Mother is the daughter of Christian missionaries who agreed to employ her husband as a science teacher at their missionary school in Manchuria. She will teach music there in a kindergarten. Mother and her parents are instrumental in the family's emigration from Korea to Manchuria.