Tree-ear, an orphan abandoned after the death of his parents, a kid with street smarts, and the apprentice of Min, a respected Korean potter. Tree-ear was sheltered and cared for by Crane-man his friend and surrogate father until he died a sorrow death. That is when Ajima and Min took him in as their own giving him the name Hyung-pil. At the start of the story Tree-ear does not have as much wisdom and smarts compared to himself at the closing of the story. At the opening of A Single Shard Tree-ear is seen as an ordinary homeless child with not much food and material to live off of shown by this sentence “Tree-ear looks for food in the trash every day.” The reader can see that Tree-ear has common sense and is not a completely ignorant child.
