The Garden of Evening Mists

`The Garden of Evening Mists (2012) is a historical novel by Malaysian author Tan Twan Eng. A former intellectual property lawyer, Eng received international acclaim for his first novel, The Gift of Rain (2007), which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. The Garden of Evening Mists, his second novel, was shortlisted for the same prize. The narrative follows Teoh Yun Ling, a Malaysian woman who, while confronting a degenerative neurological condition that is erasing her memory, recounts her apprenticeship to a mysterious Japanese gardener in the 1950s. Set in the aftermath of the Japanese occupation and during the Malayan Emergency, the novel explores The Negotiation Between Memory and Forgetting, Art as a Response to Chaos and Violence, and The Ambiguity of Justice and Reconciliation.

The novel is deeply rooted in the history of mid-20th-century Malaya and is heavily influenced by Japanese aesthetic principles, particularly the art of garden design. The narrative uses these historical and cultural contexts to examine the lasting personal and national traumas of war. A film adaptation of the novel was released in 2019.

This guide refers to the 2012 Hachette Books paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide contain descriptions of graphic violence, sexual violence, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and illness or death, including death by suicide.

Plot Summary

Retired Supreme Court Judge Teoh Yun Ling returns to Yugiri, a Japanese garden in the Cameron Highlands of Malaya, after decades away. Having taken early retirement due to a diagnosis of primary progressive aphasia, a degenerative condition that will erase her memory and ability to use language, she intends to restore the neglected garden and write down her life story before it is lost to her. Her return coincides with a pre-arranged meeting with Professor Yoshikawa Tatsuji, a Japanese historian interested in the works of Yugiri’s creator, Nakamura Aritomo. Yun Ling reconnects with her old friend and former lover, Frederik Pretorius, who now runs the neighboring Majuba Tea Estate.

The narrative flashes back to 1951, during the Malayan Emergency. A young Yun Ling, recently dismissed from her post as a prosecutor for the War Crimes Tribunal, travels to Majuba to commission Aritomo, the exiled former gardener of the Emperor of Japan, to design a garden in memory of her sister, Yun Hong, who died in a Japanese forced labor camp. Aritomo, an laconic and reclusive figure, refuses the commission. The political atmosphere is tense, heightened by the recent assassination of the British High Commissioner by members of the communist Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA).

Aritomo makes Yun Ling a counter-offer, he will take her on as his apprentice and teach her the principles of Japanese garden design so she can build the memorial herself. She accepts, beginning a physically and emotionally arduous apprenticeship. She learns the art of setting stones, the gardening principle of shakkei (borrowed scenery), and the discipline of kyudo (archery). During this period, she also begins a brief sexual relationship with Frederik.

The story delves deeper into Yun Ling’s past, revealing the source of her trauma. During the Japanese invasion of Malaya in World War II, she and Yun Hong were captured by the Kempeitai and sent to a secret labor camp in the jungle. There, Yun Hong was forced to become a “comfort woman” (jugan ianfu) for the Japanese officers. Yun Ling was caught trying to steal food and had the last two fingers of her left hand chopped off as punishment. She later became an interpreter for a mysterious Japanese civilian, Tominaga Noburu, who was overseeing a secret project involving a mine at the camp.

As the war ended, Tominaga arranged for Yun Ling’s escape, revealing that the other prisoners, including Yun Hong, would not be freed. Yun Ling was the sole survivor, as the camp and mine were destroyed by explosives immediately after her departure, erasing all evidence of their existence. After the war, she worked for the War Crimes Tribunal, desperately searching for records of the camp to locate her sister’s remains, but found nothing. This unresolved grief and survivor’s guilt fuel her desire to create the garden.

Back in the 1950s, Yun Ling’s apprenticeship continues, and her relationship with Aritomo deepens into an intimate one. The communist insurgency intensifies, and MNLA insurgents attack Majuba, kidnapping Frederik’s uncle, Magnus Pretorius, under the belief that he knows the location of hidden Japanese war treasure. Magnus is later found murdered.

As the start of the monsoon season halts work in the garden, Aritomo proposes to create his final masterpiece, a full-back tattoo, or horimono, on Yun Ling. He tells her he will embed his life’s knowledge of gardening and the principles of the ancient text Sakuteiki onto her skin. The process is painful and lasts for months, but it becomes a profound, intimate bond between them. The horimono incorporates images from the garden and cryptic symbols.

After completing both the garden and the tattoo, Aritomo goes for one of his regular walks into the mountains and vanishes without a trace. Search parties find nothing. Devastated and feeling abandoned, Yun Ling leaves Yugiri and keeps the horimono a secret for the next four decades.

The narrative returns to the present day. As Yun Ling oversees the restoration of Yugiri, Tatsuji arrives. He reveals his research into “Golden Lily,” a secret imperial Japanese operation to loot and hide treasures across Southeast Asia during the war. He theorizes that Aritomo and Tominaga were involved, and that Yun Ling’s camp was a Golden Lily site.

Yun Ling shows the horimono to Tatsuji and Frederik. Tatsuji realizes the tattoo is a map, its design corresponding to the layout of Yugiri and likely pointing to a hidden Golden Lily treasure site, which would also be Yun Hong’s final resting place. However, Yun Ling chooses not to pursue the map’s clues, deciding to let the past remain undisturbed. She makes arrangements for the horimono to be destroyed after her death to protect its secrets. She finds peace in her decision and resolves to restore Yugiri and open it to the public as a memorial to both her sister and Aritomo. The novel closes with Yun Ling accepting the progression of her illness and the impermanence of memory, finding solace in the present moment and the enduring beauty of the garden.