Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, child abuse, illness, antigay bias, and gender discrimination.

Haiwen acts as a protagonist in Homeseeking, and the novel covers most of his life from childhood to old age. Haiwen comes from a wealthy family of factory owners who support the nationalists. Haiwen is largely defined by how he handles loss, particularly the loss of his two childhood dreams: being a classical violinist and marrying Suchi. He vacillates between his desire to remember and reconnect with these past dreams and his desire to forget them and live in the moment.

As a child, Haiwen is primarily focused on his love for the violin and his love for Suchi. He lives in his own little world. Suchi teases him that he is “constantly listening to the music in [his] head” (23). His one tie to the world outside his violin is Suchi, who he loves because of her persistence, kindness, and sense of humor. Despite the violent upheavals going on around him, he remains fairly disconnected from geopolitics, although he does express some nationalist leanings. He tells Suchi that “whoever is supposed to” will win the Chinese Civil War (162).