Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

Thank you to the publisher for my eARC copy of this book. Unfortunately I didn’t love this book and therefore didn’t finish, I just didn’t connect with this one. Not for me, sorry.

For a non fiction book, this was surprisingly easy to read. Excellent style of writing. It felt more like a work of fiction in it's easy to read style. Contained a lot of very interesting information about the relationship between China, South Korea and Japan, much of which I did not know. Coming from the UK, I had no idea of the enmity between South Korea/ns and Japan/ese. Very interesting book, essential if you have an interest in any of the 3 countries and their culture.

I lived in Hong Kong for five years, with my move recent enough to miss the feel of the place at the most random of moments. I carry the feeling of its rough beauty (the concrete jungle of the posters is the lesser of its charms)of it in my memories. The author notices something similar on his visit and the way he expressed himself resonated with me. However, his arrival and focus on HK are at the tail end of the book, so I will talk about the rest of it first.
Over the course of my stay, I did gather bits and pieces of the history of the area, but I hoped that this book would broaden my horizons about it.

The author travels from Japan to Korea, then onwards to China and ends his trip in Taiwan. He details the events of each country in order, although he makes a connection that has him jumping to another country in the narrative but comes back in time before our attention gets too diverted. We go back in time when the regimes were more openly brutal than they are now. It is a complicated tangle, centuries in the making. For anyone even remotely interested, this makes a good starting point. There is a lot of ground covered here with the author even humorously hypothesizing the root cause for all the destabilization and revising his assessment based on new information provided to him in realtime, including the role of the west.


COVID and the year 2020 makes some of the discussion feel behind the times because of all the changes that have occurred in the countries since the book was written. The slightly off timing does not take away from the basic information about the history.

⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

Hello, thank you for the ARC and apologies for taking so long to review - I've had an eventful few months with Covid and new babies! My review below:

I’ve taken a short reading break recently – on top of the relentless day-after-day piling on of terrible news, I have a very small baby and returned to work, so reading for pleasure without instantly nodding off has been challenging.
Whether it’s the lockdown or the lack of sleep, my brain has been drifting abroad and back in time a lot, to happy days of footloose travelling, particularly around China and East Asia. You know the sort of thing – 36 hours on a triple bunk sleeper train across the northern plains, desperately trying to refuse generous hospitality. If I had all the time and all the freedom in the world I would be right back there, perhaps finally achieving my little ambition of visiting every Chinese province.
Three Tigers, One Mountain looked like just the ticket. It is part travelogue, part history, part politics, focusing on the relationships between the three (and a half) East Asian nations, written by a journalist and interested amateur (in the most complimentary, old-fashioned way) enthusiast for East Asia and Japan in particular. Now, I vowed to stay as far as possible away from politics and contentious issues here, and I’ve probably already sailed too close to the wind by implying that there might be a ‘half country’ in East Asia (you know, that mountainous island just off Fujian), so I’ll stay away from some of the arguments here for propriety’s sake.
The first notable aspect of Three Tigers is how little Michael Booth inserts himself into the story. He writes engagingly from his first person perspective, and is open about his assumptions and hypotheses, but this is not one of those travelogues reliant on a journey of (self-)discovery for its thrust and structure. I could tell you almost nothing about Booth from the text alone – this is no Riding the Iron Rooster or Red Dust. It’s more akin to some of my favourite travel writing like Simon Winder’s Germania, in which visiting particular locations sparks associations, thoughts and insights into the country at large. There is also relatively little travelling; it feels more like a research trip, in which Booth travels mostly overland, meeting notable academics and personalities, and visiting appropriate museums. What little ‘colour’ Booth gives us is largely confined to petrol stations. Indeed, at one point he even refers self-deprecatingly to ‘proper travel writers’.
Booth is also something of an open book when it comes to ideas. He expounds a theory at the outset (that all the ills of East Asia can be placed at Commodore Perry’s feet) and ends proposing another (that the Opium Wars are the root cause), but is not remotely wedded to either, and is refreshingly unbothered that his observations are ‘hardly original’. He speaks with academics and experts offering views on all sides of the argument, draws on his observations and avoids firm conclusions. He is equivocal on almost everything, even questioning his own rationale for not visiting North Korea (‘the moral aspect was…probably an excuse if I’m honest’).
It’s refreshing, but can be frustrating. Booth visits Qufu, Confucius’s birthplace, having ‘formed a theory that Confucius’ ideas had brought a uniquely toxic edge’ to the twentieth century in East Asia. He proceeds to offer in some detail all the many points of view for and against the abiding influence of Confucius. He quotes Michael Turton that ‘the word Confucian is just tossed around by journalists, but no one ever unpacks it to see what it means’, but Booth falls victim to this himself – he presents others’ views and arguments, but doesn’t grapple with the text of ideas or Confucius.
As Booth structures the book around his own journey, we progress through Japan, Korea, then China and Japan addressing issues as they are raised by Booth’s interactions with the places and the people he interviews. By the very nature of the book, almost every topic is rooted in Japan’s imperialistic adventures. In Japan this takes us from Kurihama to Fukuoka, exploring the Japanese far-right, Japan’s relationship with its war crimes, the Zainichi Koreans in Japan. In Korea, Booth covers Korean views of Japan, including comfort women, but also recent domestic history, the power of the chaebol conglomerates and pop culture, from Psy to the ubiquity of coffee shops and plastic surgery. Booth is fascinated by the differences between Korea and Japan, from the small observations (more metal chopsticks, more public farting) to the philosophical (‘the Japanese are better at accepting what fate brings… Koreans brooks endlessly’).
For me, the China section was the most disappointing. Perhaps this is down to a greater familiarity with the country, but Booth appeared to visit fewer places and explore fewer ideas. Aside from the big cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong) and Qufu, Booth’s only other stops on the itinerary are to witness Chinese views of Japanese war crimes in Harbin and Nanjing. He is pleasantly surprised by the Chinese approach to these, and is particularly taken by Wu Xianbing, who runs a private museum to the Nanjing Massacre. Nevertheless, it felt like Booth was skating over many of the complexities of modern China. For instance, there are only passing references to Chinese online culture, which would have been an enlightening place to explore.
Booth also seems to run out of puff in his writing somewhat. Much of the writing is in essay form and not reliant on travel observations, but in the early part of the book I found myself laughing at some of his wonderfully evocative descriptions (‘I feel like one of those Congolese dandies at an accounting convention’…’highly instaggramable sika deer, which saunter like pampered concubines’…’everything looks like a Streatham fried chicken joint’). By the time he arrives in China his observations are much more tired, such as noticing Chinese queue-jumping and that convenience stores are stocked with instant noodles.
Booth was an entertaining and informative travel companion, and I found the Japanese section particularly fascinating. I feel like I’ve had an engaging and enjoyable long catch-up with a friend who has returned from a business trip over several bottles of wine, rather than been transported to the area or consulted with an academic expert. If only I were allowed to go out to a restaurant and have a bottle of wine with a friend.

This is a thoroughly engaging and thought-provoking book, as Michael Booth travels around East Asia exploring the often uneasy relationship between the powerful 'tiger economies' of Japan, Korea (North and South) and China, by way of also passing through Taiwan before returning to his starting point.

Part travelogue (full of comic little asides and comments from our intrepid author), part history and part social commentary, there is plenty in here to interest anyone who has little or no knowledge of the history of this area, but also plenty to keep anyone who does have some knowledge entertained. Booth wears his research well, never over-burdening the book with copious footnotes nor making it read like a fusty textbook. In his travels he encounters academics, historians, museum curators and locals, all of whom have their opinion and who continually confound the author just when he thinks he has grasped the 'truth'.

Knowledgeable and entertaining, this is perfect for what it sets out to achieve, and some of the facts will surprise you and have you scuttling off to research more. And Booth is an amiable companion, whether battling with metal chopsticks, laser surgery or visiting a park filled with giant penis statues, which makes this a rewarding and impressive read. For anyone interested in this part of the world I wholeheartedly recommend this wonderful little book.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this title.)