The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng

Teoh Yun Ling, a retired Chinese judge narrates the novel as she looks back over her life in Malaya before, during and after WWII. The historical events of those years, the Japanese invasion, the brutal jungle prison camps, and the post-war Chinese communist insurgency in Malaya are the backdrop, but the main focus of the novel is on the culture and philosophy of  the Japanese garden. 

Yun Ling's sister loved Japanese gardens but died in a prison camp. Despite her own traumatic time as a prisoner and her hatred of the Japanese, Yun Ling seeks out the elusive Aritomo, one-time gardner to the Emperor of Japan to design a garden in her sister's memory. He had moved to Malaya and was creating a garden in the Cameron Highlands called Yugiri - The Garden of Evening Mists. He refuses the commision but agrees to teach her so she can create a garden herself. She becomes his apprentice and begins to learn the artistic and mystical processes inherant in making a Japanese garden. Over time the suspicion and reserve between master and apprentice break down and their relationship changes.

Across the valley from  Aritomo's garden is a tea planation where Yun Ling stays. The lives of the tea planters interweave the story and there are flash backs to Yun Lings childhod and the Japanese occupation. She wants to find the site of the jungle camp where she and her sister were imprisoned so that she can lay her sister's memory to rest but there is a mystery surrounding it. No one knows where it is. Adding to the tension of the novel are Chinese communist fighters hiding in the mountains who raid villages and plantations for supplies, killing occupants and informers.

For Arimoto the spiritual is the ground of his existence. Each day involves ritual, tea drinking, archery, meditation. Yun Ling, full of anger and remorse begins to absorb his teaching and understand how the garden emerges from the soul of the designer. She participates in the rituals and her eyes open to the mystical world. Her final act of renuncation is to allow Arimoto to create a special tattoo, a horinomo, on her back.