The story begins in the coastal village of Ch’ulp’o in Korea during the 12th century. The village is widely known for its delicate celadon pottery. Aside from the town’s prosperous potters, it is also inhabited by an old man named Crane-man and a 12-year-old orphan named Tree-ear: “Tree-ear was so called after the mushroom that grew in wrinkled half-circles on dead or fallen tree trunks, emerging from the rotten wood without benefit of parent seed. A good name for an orphan, Crane-man said” (21).

Crane-man was given his nickname because of his twisted foot and calf that require him to stand on one leg like a crane. The two companions live under a bridge and survive by foraging in the woods and rummaging through the garbage heaps of the town’s residents for scraps of food.

One day, Tree-ear finds himself following a farmer with a leaky rice bag. He debates whether to call out to the man and tell him about the hole in the bag or to scoop up the rice for himself. Tree-ear alerts the farmer, who lets him keep the fallen rice, but the boy later questions whether his hesitation in telling the farmer was an act of stealing, which Crane-man has warned him about: “Stealing and begging, Crane-man said, made a man no better than a dog.