# Read the first page of Three Tigers, One Mountain by Michael Booth Read the opening of Three Tigers, One Mountain by Michael Booth free, no signup. A journey through China, Korea, and Japan explores rival histories and modern tensions. - Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/three-tigers-one-mountain-michael-booth - Genre: Travel history - Year: 2020 - ISBN: 9781473545823 - Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9781473545823&s=read-page - Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9781473545823 - Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9781473545823 ## The opening @@CHAP@@ PROLOGUE The two tiny dots of blue icing, each barely a millimetre in diameter – they were the problem. They were a component of a rather appetising-looking mango mousse entitled Spring of the People, which, it had been announced, was to be served at a dinner in honour of the leaders of South and North Korea. The dots were virtually invisible, but the Japanese spotted them and they were not happy. ‘It is extremely regrettable and not acceptable,’ said a Japanese foreign ministry spokesperson when news of the dots leaked ahead of the historic meeting in April 2018. ‘We have asked that the dessert not be served.’ The Japanese made a formal complaint and lobbied hard for the mousse to be struck from the menu, but to no avail. Indeed, on the day of the dinner, Moon Jae-in, the president of the Republic of Korea, and Kim Jong-un, leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, applauded with especial enthusiasm as their pudding was served. The reason for the Japanese indignation was that the dots were part of a chocolate map of the Korean peninsula and represented a group of disputed islands, really not much more than a few lumps of rock, located 177 miles off the east coast of South Korea. In Korea the rocks are known as the Dokdo Islands, in Japan as Takeshima, and in the English-speaking world as the Liancourt Rocks. Ownership of the islands is hotly disputed between Japan and South Korea. Korea’s claim goes back to the twelfth-century Samguk sagi, the chronicles of their Three Kingdoms era. The Japanese say that the islands have been used by their fishermen for hundreds of years and point out that South Korea’s claim was turned down by the Americans at the 1951 San Francisco Peace Conference. Though the leaders of the two Koreas were technically at war at the time of their official dinner, and though one of them was a despot threatening the security of east Asia and responsible for the deaths of thousands of his own people, on one topic they could agree wholeheartedly. The Japanese could go whistle. To the Koreans, North and South, those two dots of icing sugar represented defiance of their former oppressor; to the Japanese they were a needless provocation; to the Chinese, doubtless monitoring events closely, they were a heartening sign of the ongoing hostility between their two neighbours, as a strong Japan–Korea alliance would be highly threatening to Beijing. I watched all this unfold on the TV news in my hotel room in Taiwan at the very end of my journey around this troubled neighbourhood. With all I had seen and learned of the region’s history by that stage, I had a fair idea of what the dessert meant. In those two little icing dots I saw tens of millions of innocent people dead; I saw the destruction of cities and the fall of empires; I saw oppression, occupation, exploitation and, above all, a festering animosity which at any moment could explode into a devastating regional war with consequences for the world. So why can’t the nations of east Asia get on? How deep, really, is the enmity between Japan, Korea and China, and what keeps it alive today? Whose interests are served by sabotaging the peace between these three Asian tigers? These are some of the questions which had prompted my journey through a part of the world that has fascinated me throughout my adult life. The Chinese, Koreans and Japanese, along with a fourth tiger, Taiwan, would appear from a distance to have everything to gain from harmonious relations: economic prosperity, cultural and technological exchange, progress and peace in all its forms, and yet they seem constantly to be on the brink of serious conflict. Many believe that if there is to be a World War III, it will most likely begin here, perhaps following some convulsion within North Korea or a confrontation or accident in the Taiwan Strait, which has long held the dubious status of the world’s number one military flashpoint. It could just as easily kick off with someone doing something silly on Dokdo. ## Books with a similar feel - [No Baggage by Clara Bensen](https://uncovered.ink/read/no-baggage-clara-bensen.md) - [The Best American Travel Writing 2012 by Jason Wilson & William T. Vollmann](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-best-american-travel-writing-2012-jason-wilson-and-william-t-vollmann.md) - [Fresh Air Fiend by Paul Theroux](https://uncovered.ink/read/fresh-air-fiend-paul-theroux.md) - [The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-anthropocene-reviewed-john-green.md) - [Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel](https://uncovered.ink/read/prozac-nation-elizabeth-wurtzel.md) - [To Jerusalem and Back by Saul Bellow](https://uncovered.ink/read/to-jerusalem-and-back-saul-bellow.md) --- Source: Uncovered (https://uncovered.ink). A short sample shown for reading and discovery. Rights holders can request removal at https://uncovered.ink/takedown.