BOOK REVIEW Boiling over in bubble Beijing China High: My Fast Times in the 010 by ZZ
Reviewed by David Wilson
This bizarre and swaggering tale stretches credulity. If the prison stint at
its heart were less modest, China High: My Fast Times in the 010 might
well be suspected of being a literary hoax. After all, of all things, the bad
boy protagonist, ZZ, is an attorney who graduated from Boston College Law
School.
Aborting a potentially long and lucrative legal career, ZZ goes on a long,
strange trip with a touch of Hunter S Thompson about it, buoyed by his bubbly
nature. "Sometimes I surprise even myself with my optimism," he writes, dazzled
by the techno music and
Ecstasy tabs of bubble Beijing - in particular his stomping ground: hip and
happening Sanlitun.
His budding innovative business, a food delivery service, is beginning to take
off. Meantime, he wiles away the days puffing "Zigarettes" (opium-laced pot
cigarettes) in cafes and spends the nights at the snappiest clubs in town,
rubbing shoulders with TV stars.
Now and then he contributes to a reality TV program. Consistently, despite his
penchant for strange cigarettes, he keeps fit and has little trouble charming
women. Better yet, his career prospects are great, thanks to the
culture-bridging mix of Chinese roots and fluent English that stems from his
upbringing.
During his childhood, ZZ's family shunted him out of communist China to receive
an American education, which despite or because of his natural academic
brilliance, initially posed some challenges. Keen to be cool and fit in, he
looked around, but the secret eluded him.
"The jocks were dumb," he writes. "The Goths were scary. The artists stank of
cigarettes. And the preppy ones were just, well, too rich."
Getting into drugs helps ZZ progress from nerd to member of the cool set. But
he keeps his wits about him and earns the law degree that paves the way for his
success in red-hot pre-downturn China.
Playing on his Western entrepreneurial flair and inside cultural knowledge, ZZ
seems free to do as he chooses. His command of English pretty much affords him
diplomatic immunity, which he needs.
Among other misdemeanours recounted in his story, which is refreshingly free
from mystique-of-the-orient schlock, he scoots around on illegal motorbikes and
consumes dubious joints in public. One day, just as he is starting to seem
invincible, while smoking a "Ziggy", his nemesis arrives with the corny but
arresting command: "Stop right where you are."
Deftly evoking his old superficial, arrogant mindset, ZZ scorns the security
guards who have come to arrest him, deeming them "malnourished kids in bluish
green uniforms". ZZ mentally dismisses the two adults in the middle as the daft Alice
in Wonderland twins Tweedledee and Tweedledum, which is not clever.
To his astonishment, the jumped-up genius kid with the hot start-up and huge
ego must duly learn the meaning of hubris (the pride that comes before the
fall). Like a common criminal, he winds up in prison. ZZ enters a spiral and
hits rock-bottom when he realises that, as a prison newcomer, he is the lowest
of the low and must kowtow to his petty thief inmates, some of whom are uncouth
to the nth degree.
Cue descriptions of bullying, misery and cabbage-munching tedium before, after
an agonising wait, his connections come to the rescue.
Chastened, but still a gung-ho opportunist, he capitalizes on the fiasco by
writing the book. Its front cover displays him posed on a motorbike, smoking
something dubious, with designer sunglasses dangling from his leather
glove-clad hand.
ZZ can seem like a bit of a show-off. But he is smart enough to repent and
disparage his youthful arrogance - overall, the book has the feel of a
confession not a brag.
He is also smart enough to convey the character of the oddballs he meets with
formidable, almost hallucinogenic style. Just look at this cameo of one
character, Old Chu.
Old Chu is actually not that ancient: "mid-forties, healthy gait, a full head
of salt 'n' pepper razed into a short, bristly buzz. As usual, he is playing
dou di zhu, meaning 'fight the land baron', a local card game with a
revolutionary name and rules that have nothing to do with poker. And judging
from the force with which he just slammed his cards onto the coffee table, this
Mandarin-collared, kung-fu-shoe-dragging high school dropout just might make
enough today from gambling to replace his rusting Chinese-made Jeep Cherokee
with yet another Mercedes."
Thanks to ZZ's keen observation the wily and wild Old Chu truly "comes off the
page".
Likewise, the author's nuanced appraisal of the degree to which the US is freer
than China makes engaging reading. Ditto his boldly frank probe into his own
lust for excitement.
"Given our compartmentalized world of logic, my Zigarette really gives me the
elevation I need to 'think outside the box'," he writes. Then, drawing on the
wisdom of experience, he backtracks and says he must learn to think outside the
box built of bars and concrete without narcotic help.
Although illuminating, his reflective fortnight spell in the slammer drags -
the author seems intent on logging every last fart and gasp of anguish. The
period may hold the reader much less than early accounts of the anti-hero's
dalliances with the likes of "Sunshine Sunshine" and a dirty, slinky blonde who
pumps him with drugs. Indeed, the glitzy build-up foreshadowing ZZ's downfall
is the most engrossing part of China High, which wraps on an upbeat note.
Apparently married and mellow now, ZZ can see stars in the Beijing sky without
the prop of a Zigarette, he declares. It might just be time for the
Chinese-American virtuoso to quit the day job - working as an attorney again.
That said, this extraordinary story, which reads like a cross between Fear and
Loathing in Las Vegas and a medieval morality tale, will be a hard act
for the hotshot to follow. Especially if he ventures into fiction, which sells
less well than true-life work and can be a backwater.
Either way, only a fool would try to emulate his lifestyle. People as
well-connected, clever and lucky as ZZ are rare.
As he admits, he only narrowly escaped vanishing in the depths of the Middle
Kingdom's prison system, which he paints as vile, but an effective deterrent.
Recidivism in his case looks unlikely.
China High My Fast Times in the 010: A Beijing Memoir written by ZZ, St
Martin's Press, 2009 (hardback), ISBN: 978-0-312-53108-9. Price: US$25, 368
pages.
David Wilson is an Anglo-Australian recovering print journalist with a
special interest in Asia. His work has previously appeared everywhere from the
Malaysia Star to the Times Literary Supplement and International Herald
Tribune.
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Now and then he contributes to a reality TV program. Consistently, despite his
penchant for strange cigarettes, he keeps fit and has little trouble charming
women. Better yet, his career prospects are great, thanks to the
culture-bridging mix of Chinese roots and fluent English that stems from his
upbringing.
