China High: My Fast Times in the 010, a Beijing Memoir

ZZ is the perfect guide to the new Beijing: he's got insider cred but an outsider's eye for the uniquely bizarre aspects of Chinese life. ZZ's parents got him out of Red China, but with an American education under his belt, Beijing is now his capitalist playground. ZZ starts his own company by day and by night lives large in Sanlitun's clubs, bars and dim sum emporia. He has a gift for using guan xi (a network of favors) to carve out a coveted spot in the nighttime world of clubs and cafes frequented by the new young professional class. But in this freshly morphing world, it's not clear who can be trusted no matter how much guan xi you spread around--and ZZ's glam urban life comes to a crashing halt when he's picked up by the police for his 007-worthy "Zigarette." Suddenly there's an entirely new and gritty pecking order--and ZZ better find a way--FAST--out of a Chinese prison

A swaggering true tale of a young man rediscovering himself in today's China, ZZ's voice is hip and fresh, and the on-the-ground looks he gives into the world's next superpower is more than just a rice cake of sex, drugs and Rock 'n Roll.

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.