A blond, white male academic who is the head of the Department of Oriental Studies at Occidental College. He is a serious man who lacks a sense of humor. He’s between the ages of seventy and eighty years old and enjoys engaging the narrator in long discussions about Vietnamese culture and language. His office is decorated with books and tchotchkes accumulated over a lifetime of exploring the Orient. He has “an elaborate Oriental rug” on his office wall and a Chinese wife, between one-half and two-thirds his age, named Ling Ling, whom he met in Taiwan. They have a son together who is much older than he is in the family photo on the professor’s desk.