In recent years, China has drawn an immense amount of media attention because of its rapid economic growth, Communist government, and widespread pollution. Yet not a lot of attention has been focused on its subcultures. At the Half King Bar & Restaurant (505 West 23rd St.) on Monday night, a Columbia alumnus delivered powerful, delectable anecdotes about these underground cultures selected from his new book, China Underground.
The Half King offers a Monday night reading series, and hosts approximately 50 literary events a year. While a Chelsea bar may be an unlikely venue for a international crime novel debut, Half King is known for quirky or edgy selections—the series has featured everything from journalists’ presentations of war in poetry form to short-story readings about bears in Moscow.
Zachary “Mexico,” CC ’02, did not disclose his real last name at the reading. While “Mexico” is an interesting pen name, his secrecy may have something to do with the fact that he has written about mafia (or “black society,” as the Chinese term suggests) members’ recent escapades in China.
Mexico went to China as soon as he had enough credits to graduate, and transitioned easily into its society, which he had previously experienced during a year abroad in high school, every summer during college, and a year abroad at Columbia. “My life in China had been colorful, unpredictable, and spontaneous; comparatively, New York seemed humdrum, boring, played out,” he wrote in China Underground.
China Underground, a Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” 2009 selection, includes 16 pieces. “Thirteen are about people, three are about places that represent something interesting about the subcultures,” Mexico explained at the reading. Mexico’s craft lies in injecting rich presentations of out-of-the-ordinary experiences and personalities into relevant information about China’s politics, culture, economy, and geography. Mexico does not write from the objective perspective of an outsider—he provides an inside look, a vivid description, a taste of China’s back-room life.
Taking the audience into a karaoke club room full of drugged mafia members, Mexico paints a portrait of the black market—something that may contrast with today’s widespread economic literature on China. As listeners followed Mexico into the room of the “Uighur Jimi Hendrix,” he explained the plight of the ethnic minority inhabiting Xinjiang: “Due in part to Xinjiang’s separation from the prosperous Chinese East Coast—its GDP is a fraction of that found in wealthy eastern provinces—and in part to the aforementioned economic imperialism perpetuated by the Han Chinese of the CCP, the Uighurs have been largely left behind in the recent Chinese economic boom.” Mexico also described the tension of the marginalized group: “All they want is what they view their country as back.”
An English and Comparative Literature major, he took Chinese all four years at Columbia and completed the Undergraduate Writing Program. “Columbia has a great East Asian Library and program, which definitely are a great resource and provide good inspiration,” he said. In an interview after the reading, Mexico enthusiastically described the inspiring faculty members who taught him. “I want to throw a shout out to my Chinese professors at Columbia—Wang Hailong, Phyllis Zhang, and Ms. Meng—for excusing me when I came to class late and did not do my homework.”
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