China High

ZZ is the perfect guide to the new go-getting Capitalist playground of Beijing: as a Chinese national educated in the United States, he’s got insider’s cred but an outsider’s eye for the strange mores and daily annoyances of Chinese life. And ZZ lives large. In Sanlitun’s clubs, bars and dim sum emporia, the world is ZZ’s rice cake: women, drugs, business opportunities are all his for the taking. That can make a guy cocky – if not a little lax. ZZ’s glam urban life as proprietor of Beijing’s (believe it or not) first food delivery service, Foodiez, comes to a crashing halt when he’s picked up by the police for smoking an opium-laced ‘Zigarette’. Suddenly there’s an entirely new pecking order, and ZZ better find a way – fast – out of a Chinese prison. ZZ goes from managing a growing but unreliable workforce of bicycling ‘spit-‘n’-squatters’ to navigating the shoals of guan xi (a network of favours), acknowledging the importance of ‘face’, and negotiating for an extra mantou (soft white bun) at dinner. A swaggering true tale of a young man rediscovering himself in today’s Beijing, “China High” introduces a fresh, hip voice, and an on-the-ground look at the world’s next superpower.

Author Biography

ZZ is a Chinese national who spent half of his life in the United States. He returned to China as an attorney with one of the top international law firms in the world, and currently divides his time between Beijing and Shanghai.