Suchi acts as the other protagonist in Homeseeking. She is a sweet, strong woman who cares deeply about Haiwen and her family. The novel focuses on the entire arc of her life from childhood to old age. Suchi’s character development is largely shaped by the choices she is forced to make to survive in a misogynistic society and her feelings about those choices.

As a child, Suchi is curious, stubborn, and unafraid to stand up for herself. She explores her neighborhood on her own and does not share the other girls’ interests in makeup and clothes. In an early scene, she fends off boys who are bullying Haiwen with a sharp word. She prefers to spend her time reading in her father’s bookshop. Suchi is encouraged by the somewhat feminist messaging she receives from her father, Apa, who, in keeping with his leftist politics, encourages her to set her sights high and to not see herself as any less intelligent than the boys. (Apa’s feminist messaging is somewhat undermined by his assertion that female singers are little better than sex workers.) In contrast, Suchi’s mother explicitly instills in Suchi the importance of purity culture in the wider misogynist society in which they live. When Suchi is very young, her mother beats her for spending time alone with Haiwen; she tells Suchi, “What do [the communists] know of being a woman? […] Who will teach you how to live in this world if not for me, daughters?” (61)

As Suchi gets older, the dangers of “this world” for women become more pronounced, and Suchi learns to act submissive to protect herself and others from them. For instance, when Suchi has a misogynistic teacher, she quickly learns to do mediocre work to not attract his attention. Later, when Suchi charms a Japanese soldier at a checkpoint, she “fe[els] her features rearrange into something soft, innocent, and girlish” to convince the man to let her pass (107). In Hong Kong, Suchi is forced to rely on this skill for her livelihood while working at the club and to avoid violence from her abusive husband.

Suchi is a dynamic character who changes throughout the text. Suchi’s most significant transformation comes when, with the encouragement of her son and sister, she leaves her husband and reclaims some of that childhood curiosity and strength. After this, she resolves not to think about the past because she feels great shame about her decisions, telling her son that she felt her parents would be disappointed to see “what little [she]’d done with my life” (473). It is only when she reconnects with Haiwen that she can think about the past again with grace and kindness toward herself. Chen symbolizes the incorporation of her past and present selves at the end of the novel through Suchi’s decision to return with Haiwen and Samson to Shanghai to see her mother.

Sulan is Suchi’s older sister. She acts as a secondary protagonist in the narrative and is a catalyst for many of Suchi’s decisions. Sulan’s character is largely defined by her lesbian identity and her multiple sclerosis. Sulan is a talented seamstress from a young age, and she uses this skill to become a successful fashion designer in New York. From a young age, Sulan has been outgoing, thrifty, and fashionable. She makes her own clothes “paired with tasteful jewelry she cobble[s] together from trinkets others ha[ve] thrown away” (169). She also has an early awareness of being a lesbian. Chen first foreshadows this when Suchi notes that Sulan prefers to spend time with her female friend Yizhen after school instead of with herself and Haiwen. Later, Sulan hints more strongly at her sexuality when she tells Suchi, “I’m just different from you. You have someone you can be with. I don’t” (171). In their society, as in many parts of the world then and now, it was not safe for Sulan to openly live as a lesbian, and she was forced to hide this part of her identity. When she moves to the United States, she has a long-term relationship with Momo Yamamoto (same-sex marriage did not become legal in the United States until 2015). This relationship makes Suchi “uncomfortable” initially, not just because it is a same-sex relationship but also because Momo is Japanese American. Eventually, she grows to understand Sulan’s relationship over time.

In her early twenties, Sulan is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The cost of her care is part of what leads Suchi to marry the abusive Saikeung, who can pay for her treatment. Sulan apologizes for the position that her illness put her sister in, but she finds some redemption in helping Suchi escape from her marriage and supporting her for several years in the United States. Sulan encourages Suchi to “find that fighting spirit again” (393). Sulan dies at a young age from her progressive illness.