Polly’s neighbor in the Chinese village in which she grows up. Shortly after she leaves school for good in the eighth grade, Polly starts meeting Haifeng on a daily basis. In a secluded area by a river, they kiss for the first time, beginning a secretive relationship that ends abruptly when Polly moves to Fuzhou to work in the factories. Not long after she leaves, though, Haifeng also goes to the city to work, so they meet in a motel and have sex for the first time. Polly gets pregnant after this, but she doesn’t tell Haifeng because she knows he’ll want to marry her and settle down in their village—a future she does not want for herself. Keeping her pregnancy a secret, then, she travels to the United States.