The narrator
The unnamed grandson of the dynamic Commander Yu. The story is told from this retrospective point of view.
Commander Yu
A brutal man with a good side, balanced but volatile because of his extreme nature.
Grandma, the wine maker
The matriarch of the family who inherited her business through the murder of her husband by her lover.
Uncle Arhat
The speaker's uncle who met a violent death at the hands of the Japanese army. The book features numerous attempts to make sense of the gory death by interpreting the facts differently in each iteration.
