China Underground- Everyone’s Wasted!
China's Tawdry Underbelly
No country in the world conjures up the image of 'the masses' quite like China. News stories about China invariably contain stock footage of thousands of black-haired men and women walking on crowded city streets, as if the population were a billion-strong army marching lockstep under the direction of the Chinese Communist Party.
Foreigner conversation overheard in China reinforces this monolithic stereotype. People are fond of referring to the Chinese when making sweeping characterizations. These include gems like 'The Chinese don't listen' and 'The Chinese don't build things right'. Some of these characterizations are positive, but for the most part the Chinese exist as a large, homogeneous bloc in the eyes of most outsiders.
Zachary Mexico's book, China Underground, attempts to undermine these stereotypes by portraying fifteen-odd Chinese individuals whose lives defy convention in one way or another. These individuals include the muckraking journalist, the Uighur guitar god, the slacker in Dali, the precocious young prostitute, and several others- each in one way or another exemplifying the complexities of modern Chinese life.
These vignettes, when considered together, paint an interesting picture of the Chinese underbelly. One of Mexico's strengths is his ability to elicit candid assessments from his subjects, several of whom are initially reluctant to meet with a foreign writer.
Mexico's writing style won't win any awards, but his prose reads smoothly, if the speed in which I finished the book is any indication. He could have used a better editor, though. Mexico's assertion that the China-Vietnam skirmish in 1979 resulted from the Sino-Soviet split- an event that occurred 19 years earlier- goes against much of the scholarship I've read on the subject.
In addition, Mexico explains who the Uighur people are- several dozen pages after devoting an entire chapter to a Uighur guitarist living in Shanghai. These chapters were clearly written separately and then welded together at the end. I would have appreciated a more seamless transition between them.
China Underground also seems to focus on the type of Chinese people Western people like to imagine comprise the whole country. A clear example of this phenomenon is the overachieving student at Qinghua University. The student, whom Mexico describes as a meek girl, speaks at length over how much superior American tertiary education is to its Chinese counterpart
His other subjects likewise seem designed to elicit great sympathy from a Western audience. There's the journalist who agitates against state control of the media, the gay man stymied by China's conservative sexual mores, the restless minority angered by the government's treatment of his people.
I've no doubt that these people exist; however, they seem to reinforce rather than challenge Western stereotypes about China, as if to say that the only 'underground' that exists in the country is pro-Western, anti Party.
If anything, there are a number of so-called 'underground' people who would also have made interesting subject matter in Mexico's book. How about the large numbers of fenqing, the ultra-nationalistic young Chinese who dominate political chat rooms? Their place in Chinese culture may not warm the hearts of idealistic Western observers, but they represent a fairly significant chunk of the population. There are other figures, too, including the increasingly vocal left in China that has sounded calls for a return to a more socialistic value system.
Instead, Mexico prefers to focus on the more tawdry side of Chinese life; a great deal of his subjects seem to be carousing, drug-addicted bohemians. These tales are entertaining enough but ultimately say little more than that the Chinese like to party, too. No one who has set foot in this country for longer than a few months would find these examples the slightest bit noteworthy.
Ultimately, though, China Underground succeeds in entertainment, the sine qua non of successful literature. Readers should keep in mind that his description of underground life in China reflect the author's biases far more than an accurate representation of the actual situation.
July 13th, 2009 - 13:15
Yes, the book is probably written more for an audience outside of China who don’t know that much about China.
In China Underground, Zachary chose to cover what he knew and who he met…I don’t think you can fault him for this. When I read a book I look at what it is, not what it is not because an author needs to focus subjects for continuity and issues of length.
He chose a bunch of oddball individuals who are outsiders, marginalized members of society who don’t fit into the “masses” of China.
Yes, perhaps Western audiences prefer to hear more about the outsider than the masses and like to hear stories about the individual who goes against society…Meh, so what?
July 14th, 2009 - 08:40
Rebekah,
Of course I can fault Zachary for his choice of subjects; what would criticism be if the critic had to concede that point? I just think the range of people who would properly be considered ‘underground’ in China is far greater than Zachary implies, and had he included some of their stories the book would have been a lot more interesting. Who said anything about the masses?
July 14th, 2009 - 12:28
Some of the writing is kind of overheated and rudimentary but it sorta represents an experience lots of young people have in China, I think. So, I’m surprised it didn’t get more burn in the Western-kids-in-China blogosphere.
July 15th, 2009 - 09:09
I’ve been meaning to write a review myself. He actually addresses this “bias” in his intro. His point is to write about the wacky people he’s met along the way. I know the guy, and he speaks great Chinese and is really good at making all sorts of friends in China.
Though there are plenty of media specials on the so-called “underground scene” in China (I especially liked the CNN special on the Beijing music scene), most books about China are kind of overarching, attempting to present a complete portrait of the country. I like the fact that Zach doesn’t try to do this, choosing instead to focus on individual stories.
July 16th, 2009 - 07:21
Fair enough, but the ‘wacky’ characters, who were ostensibly outsiders, began to resemble each other in tedious detail by the end of the book. Everyone seemed to be a chain-smoking, bohemian, frustrated, layabout artist, and from my own experience in China those people are interesting only to a point.
Clearly he didn’t try to do an overarching portrait of contemporary Chinese society; I just think his definition of ‘underground’ was a little more limited than I would have preferred.