Very detailed accounts of how one felt the emotion, the expectations and the disappointments (or pain) when those aren't met. The reality sometimes can't be met with how our mind (or fantasy) would have wanted it. That was exactly how the japanese prof. Yu Mi San experienced in the novel. The way the author wrote from the different perspectives of the main characters in the novel was quite remarkable. The kind and sympathetic nature of teacher Ko Thet Lwin -- from the way he helped raise Maung Maung and unexpectedly got attached to him as if he were his own brother. Having gone through tough childhood memories, Maung Maung held the one-sided views (accusations) against the japanese, and even from the start, he hated Yu Mi San so much. I couldn't begin to imagine how she must have felt (that would be definite torture for her indeed). Then, the unrelenting characters and the curiosity of Yu Mi San were very impressive, not to mention her love for art and the culture. Indeed, this is not just a novel about the love story between two siblings. This is also a novel that explores the cultures, the personalities and the bitterness of the wars. To conclude, this goes to become one of my favourite (fiction) novels I have ever read.
Edit. Here is a story summary for a quick reference (copied from goodreads): A touching story of two siblings, set in the later half of the 1960's, begins with the Japanese lady, Yumisan's visit to Burma (Myanmar) to meet her younger half-brother. Her father was a former Japanese soldier stationed in Burma and married to the Burmese woman during World War II. When the Japanese troops withdrew from Burma, he had to leave his Burmese wife and ten-months old son. Despite the difficulties, Yumisan finally met her brother, Maung Maung, but she learned that he was ashamed to admit his father is a Japanese and hatred for his father who abandoned his mother and him.