{"id":5227,"date":"2020-12-22T21:29:18","date_gmt":"2020-12-23T05:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/?p=5227"},"modified":"2021-02-15T05:45:56","modified_gmt":"2021-02-15T13:45:56","slug":"times-literary-supplement-michael-booth-three-tigers-one-mountain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/?p=5227","title":{"rendered":"Times Literary Supplement: Michael Booth, &#8220;Three Tigers, One Mountain&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Michael-Booth-Three-Tigers-One-Mountain-UK.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5228\" width=\"375\" height=\"575\"\/><\/center><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Were does Europe end and Asia begin? \u201cIf someone can pose as an expert on the country in question without knowledge of the relevant language, it\u2019s part of Asia\u201d, the American North Korea analyst Brian Reynolds Myers once quipped. Michael Booth doesn\u2019t pose as an authority on the Koreas, or on the other countries in&nbsp;<em>Three Tigers, One Mountain: A journey through the bitter history and current conflicts of China, Korea, and Japan<\/em>, but his linguistic strategy is that of many an Asia \u201cexpert\u201d: \u201cThey don\u2019t speak any English so I attempt a mime\u201d, he writes of an interaction with South Koreans at a historical site, \u201cbut that only serves to confuse matters further\u201d.<\/p><p>A Briton resident in Denmark, Booth presents himself as an enthusiastically interested if occasionally befuddled outsider, a safe choice given the sensitivity of his subject. \u201cThe Chinese, Koreans and Japanese, along with a fourth tiger, Taiwan, would appear from a distance to have everything to gain from harmonious relations\u201d, he writes, \u201cand yet they seem constantly to be on the brink of a potentially serious conflict. Many believe that if there is to be a World War III, it will most likely begin here\u201d. The author sets off on a journey from Japan to South Korea to China, then to Hong Kong and Taiwan and back to Japan, asking one question: \u201cWhy can\u2019t the nations of east Asia get on?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Read the whole thing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.the-tls.co.uk\/articles\/three-tigers-one-mountain-michael-booth-review-colin-marshall\/\">at the Times Literary Supplement<\/a>. See also <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.lareviewofbooks.org\/the-korea-blog\/british-denmark-expat-takes-measure-korea-michael-booths-three-tigers-one-mountain\/\">my previous essay on the book at the Los Angeles Review of Books Korea Blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Were does Europe end and Asia begin? \u201cIf someone can pose as an expert on the country in question without knowledge of the relevant language, it\u2019s part of Asia\u201d, the American North Korea analyst Brian Reynolds Myers once quipped. Michael Booth doesn\u2019t pose as an authority on the Koreas, or on the other countries in&nbsp;Three [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,27,5,102,92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-japan","category-korea","category-taiwan","category-times-literary-supplement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5227"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5359,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5227\/revisions\/5359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}