Ji Lin is the feminist hero of The Night Tiger. Her very first conflict in the novel—resolving her mother’s mahjongg debts—exists because of the patriarchal system she lives in. Her mother cannot tell her husband, the breadwinner, about her debts, because he has a violent temper. Ji Lin therefore must take a job as a dance hall dancer to help her mother. Although this position does not require her to have sex with male patrons, the patriarchal social mores are so strict that Ji Lin knows she will still be seen as a prostitute. This is a harsh and unjust reality of the patriarchal system.

Ji Lin’s tough, resourceful intelligence allows her to navigate the life-threatening liabilities of simply being a Chinese woman in colonial Malaya. Using her resilience and cunning manipulation of patriarchy’s norms for her own ends, she eventually finds strategic avenues for her agency and secures a bright future for herself. She also even has the strength and shrewdness to maintain her virginity and assert her independence with Shin—holding off on sleeping with him and postponing their marriage according to her own timing and evaluation.