Brother Khôi Character Analysis

Fourteen-year-old Brother Khôi is Hà’s third-oldest brother. He’s an animal lover and her most sensitive, “agreeable” brother. He’s raised fighting fish in the past, and in the novel’s present in Vietnam, he’s trying desperately to get his allotted eggs from his hen to hatch rather than eating them. When an egg finally hatches, Brother Khôi and Hà make a pact to stay in Saigon and protect his chick and Hà’s papaya tree, though Mother ultimately convinces Brother Khôi to join the family in fleeing the country. However, Brother Khôi tries to bring his chick with him, and it dies around the time the family boards the ship. It takes two weeks for anyone to investigate the rotting smell coming from his jacket and discover the chick’s body, and Brother Khôi is distraught to lose his chick. Hà helps him feel better by performing a burial ceremony and tossing the chick into the sea in her doll’s arms, but after this, Brother Khôi seldom speaks. However, in Alabama, Brother Khôi demonstrates his love for and support of Hà by letting her ride along on his bike to and from school so she can better avoid bullies. He’s also the one to come up with the plan to protect Hà from Pink Boy’s cousin, who is going to beat up Hà. At the end of the novel, Brother Khôi insists to Mother that he wants to be a veterinarian—something Mother doesn’t fully support, as she’d rather he study to be a “real doctor.”