cover image China High: A Memoir

China High: A Memoir

ZZ, . . St. Martin's, $24.95 (368pp) ISBN 978-0-312-53108-9

Born and raised partly in Shanghai, the pseudonymous ZZ was brought to America by his parents while still a teenager, leaving him with a foot in two cultures. Since the tidal wave of trade and business flowing from modern China to America created a need for any professionals whose language skills bridged the cultures, ZZ's background and law degree assured him a job in the land of his parents. Once there, however, he quickly became more enamored with living the Beijing high life than carving out a real career for himself. Partying, overindulging and shopping became more important than holding down a job. Most of ZZ's fast-paced narrative is loaded with nonstop clubbing and serial monogamy, seen in the haze of his semiforeigner's arrogance (“Of course, there is nothing in the books that says English speakers are above the law. We just are”) and his habit of smoking “Zigarettes,” opium-laced joints. It's the latter that lands ZZ in trouble. Arrested for possessing drugs, he's tossed into a ludicrously packed prison cell, after which his sense of entitlement leaches away, while friends frantically bribe officials for his early release. Although ZZ's memoir can be self-pitying, for an admittedly self-centered gym rat yuppie jerk he is a cogent guide to modern China—albeit like the morning after a bar crawl, blurry and half-remembered, but streaked with neon excitement. (Mar.)