>> i have written three other books. the one before this was all in my head about an 18 year migraine. and i have blogged on "the new york times.com" about a year ago. and a lot of that is about women in chronic pain and how it has seen in all of our ahead and research showing it as neurological. and then i wrote to feminist books when i was 24 called feminist but how. that was known as like the first post-boomer of feminist books. and in one that is related to that called her way, about young women's sexual anecdotes about having more sadness and education in society that has affected their personal lives. >> we've been talking with author paula kamen about her book, "finding iris chang."

>> so, "china underground." in this book, i started doing the research for in the summer of 2006. i traveled to china and spent four months there living with a series of kind of colorful and interesting people. spending anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks living with each of them and trying to experience their lives in the, you know, the fullest manner possible that i could. you know, i started out with about 30 different people. and some of them kind of, you know, fell by the wayside for whatever reason. and any in there are are 16 kind of situations that i present in the book, and i'm going to read a couple of them, passages from a couple of them.

so this one, is called the slacker and it's about this guy who doesn't really do much of anything. we will see. you live in this kind of really beautiful town in western china. and he hangs out. loves to hang out. he has impressive hair. most of the time he keeps it hidden under a knit cap which he only takes off when it is time to comb it, washing soap, or go to sleep. when he takes the cap off, his hair cascades like a waterfall, straight down to his. it is jet black, signy, soft and smooth. he uses a special wooden comb that is supposed to offer health benefits to the hair and scalp. in a few hours, with a good few good looking women called his

main. he is perched in a little note in the second story of a cafeteria, a café where he is part owner. his joint is not really a cafeteria. is a ramshackle with a very comfortable to little story restaurant. in an old house. binoculars are pressed to his eyes and he is staring out the window looking down at the street, checking out the women walking along peeples road in the small town which is nestled in the amounts. there are a lot of good looking ladies in this town, and he staked out the prime chick watching spot. girls who are coming back from swimming in the lake, or buying food at the little market down the street, all stroll up this way back to the center of town right past this window. he has a contented smile on his face like a cat who has just eaten its last bite of canary.

he is singing a popular chinese love song to himself in a barely audible sweet falsetto. from time to time, he adjust the focus wheel on the binoculars or takes a break to smoke a red river cigarette. it's a lazy day, the mountain air is crisp and the sun feels warm against my skin. his patience is remarkable. on more than location i have seen him sit in this little nook for hours combing the crowd. he looks through his binoculars at migrant workers in warm clothing, at elderly locals dressed in a blue conditional clothing and that middle school students skipping down the street in blue and white uniforms. these are all extraneous presence is in his field of vision. he is quick to pronounce when pretty girls walk by. following them up people's road through his magnified gays. he favors wearing his leave isotype that they look like they were spray-painted on his skin.

to complement the genes, he was equally tight t-shirt that he silkscreened himself. the shirt he is wearing today claims in loud capital letters war is over if you have it in the red green and yellow colors. he is wearing black converse all-stars which fell off the truck on the way back from the factory, and so cost only 45 yen instead of the retail price of 300. around his neck hangs a massive necklace made of stones, old coins, shells, and other little trinkets people have given him, reminders of friends he had had an friends he has loved. he is also very tall and slim for a chinese man. unlike many chinese, who eat with relish every species in the animal kingdom, the more exotic the better. he adheres to a strict vegetarian diet. he credits his style is he to his health regimen. no meat, lots of vegetables and a significant daily dose of

grain alcohol. accused of effectiveness tieless close and the way he carries himself, combined to form a kind of radio active sheen of coolness, a mystical aura of kind of difference of individuality that earns him the admiration of both men and women. but there is to trouble in paradise. time is running out for him. you wouldn't know it by looking at him, his manner could be the dictionary definition of relaxed. but underneath the appealing posey is feeling some serious pressure. february 2007 marks the start of the year of the pig. his parents are getting older. hell, he is getting older and it is finally time to find a wife and have a child. according to the chinese zodiac, people born in the year that made are lucky lucky, smart and clever. it is an auspicious sign. it is a good year to sow his seed. he is a serious playboy. he has more girlfriends than

anyone else he knows, but he needs to find his soulmate, the one he could spend the rest of his life with, the one who won't nag them to change his ways. the one who loves as much as he loves him. he knows it may take a lifetime to find his soulmate but he is confident. one thing is absolutely certain of that this chick has to be perfect. he has already been married and divorced once. he chose the wrong girl, made a mistake and is wary of repeating it. he lights a cigarette and throws his brow. maybe today will be the day, he says, and then nods to himself and says it again, like a buddha mantra or something out of a self-help book. he is 36 years old and looks 10 years younger. and so that is one section of one chapter. i'm going to read another one. now, this one is about the chinese mafia and their exploits.

what's the policy with profanity? for you guys. for it, okay. i think we took most of it, you know, the f. words out. it happened very quickly. leo was not feeling terribly well at everything in the room had begun to spend around to become suddenly elastic. the walls, the soft leather couch he was sitting on, the naked younger on his left, the naked young girl on his right, his friend, the naked young girl on his left. the naked young girl on chen massa dish of the powder on the last table in front of him. the six of them, leo, chen, and the four girls worked at the club and went out to customers by the hour or the night. had been in this room for 48 hours drinking hennessy, taking pills and snorting ketamine.

leo was strung out and he needed another hit. leo muttered something to chen who didn't respond. jan's eyes were opened and his left hand was firmly planted on the breast of one of the naked girls. leo repeated himself louder, and it shook chant out of his stupor. what did you say? jan. leo handed chant a rolled up 100 yen note and chen used it to wipe out. who handed it off to the naked girls by his side. after the four girls did a line chan and leo did the rest. leo closed his eyes and enjoyed the rush. it felt like he was floating in a warm bath. he smiled as the girls ran their fingers over his torso. he wasn't sure whether he was alive or dead. this was heaven. leo thought he had just had a profound revelation. he had figured it out.

this was paradise. he wanted to tell someone. he wanted to tell his best friend, chen. leo tried to stand up and stumbled and immediately sank back down onto the couch. what had he wanted to tell chinh? what had seemed so important? he couldn't remember and now he felt like his mind had become detached from his body. what was his name and who were these girls? he placed his right hand over his heart but he couldn't feel a heartbeat. he tried again. nothing. he did feel something else though. something hard. leo pulled a handgun out of his pocket and stared at it with wonder. he started to giggle and couldn't stop. this was amazing. he had a gun in his hand. he needed to tell chen. chen, check this out. the words came out in a slurred burst of northeastern dialect. i have a gun. on the opposite couch chen

remained motionless, his eyes closed, his tongue hanging out of his mouth. brotherton won, we'll barked. check this out. he didn't remember what he was asking chen to checkout until he looked out and saw the gun in his hands. leo was getting agitated. he wanted chen to check out the gun but chen was laying there like a moron. leo coughed a hammer but chen didn't respond. fox this leo said and pulled the trigger. double put a neat hole in chen's designer pants and lodged into his left leg just below the knee. the girls were to up to even scream. chen looked down at the pool of blood forming at his feet. leo, you acyl, chen said what the fark did you deal? so i'm going to interject. do you want to hear a bit more? >> so this chapter is about the

character who centers on, this mafia kind of dish the word mafia is not necessarily accurate because i think people have this picture of the chinese mafia as being some kind of, you know, some secret organization with many kind of ancient rituals and stuff like that but it really, these days it's kind of not like that. it is more like kind of like gangs of hoods. i have enough money to pay for 50 dudes who, i will give the money and pay for their housing, for there, you know, expenses, kind of living expenses. and then they just do whatever i say, you know, kind of intimidation, etc. etc. a guy who this chapter is written about is the guy who is the boss of those two guys. just one guy who shot the other guy. he was pissed off. he had been on his way to meet me for a beer that night in the new bar at the shangri-la hotel when he got the phone call from a very laid back chen who handed

the phone to a karaoke bar manager. they had gotten too stoned and. somehow one of them had smuggled a gun into the backroom of a karaoke parlor and shot another one. he maneuvered his spotless white lexus suv through the traffic and arrived at the karaoke bar. he locked the car and bolted up the stairs where he was greeted by an apologetic, seriously nervous manager in a black suit. longfield off a water bills and handed them to the manager who moved out of his weight immediately. he made his way through the lobby of the karaoke bar to the staircase in the back that led up to the stairs to the private rooms. this particular parlor, a massive one that any standards, very incised from tiny to opulent and are rated for 100 to 500 yen per hour. the karaoke machine is included in the group rental fee, but

booze, girls and drugs are extra. he had wrapped his jacket around his leg in an attempt to fashion a tourniquet but he was still too dost thou to do it effectively. leo was sitting on the couch, his eyes glassy, stuck on the razor's edge that separates fantasy from reality. the girls had taken off as soon as they saw the blood. he couldn't take his eyes off the blood. the bloody jacket, chen's bloody hands, the pool of blood on the floor. it made him feel ill and he knew he would have a hell of a time cleaning up the new leather interior of his lexus. this was not a good situation. but little brothers were little brothers and you have to help them out, even when they [bleep] up. which chen almost certain had. he helped chen to his feet and they limped three-legged out of the room with leo trailing behind. he walked in off the back door and into the backseat of the lexus, cringing when he saw the first bloodstains on the

cream-colored upholstered. he closed the door and left the two morons still drugged up in the backseat. he had to get them someplace where they could fix that this would. certainly not a hospital. in china even possession of a firearm means a death sentence and they couldn't risk getting the authorities involved. there was a doctor across town in the old city who wouldn't ask any question in exchange for a few thousand yen. before he took them to the doctor, he ran back upstairs. he slipped the gun in his jacket pocket. he was about to leave but then he noticed that a few ounces of cabinet had been left behind on the table. he shook the file back into its plastic bag, stuffed into his pants pocket and closed the door. so that's a little more. if you want to find out what happens at the end, there's a good way to do that. it's called, you know, buying the book and reading it. and so do you want to do a little q. and a? anyone from here running the

show? i think there are some microphones. i'm not sure how dish i guess you have to come and ask it at this, i think. right? >> i think you got to use the microphone because this is for the tv station. >> how did you go about finding your subjects? >> there was a couple of different ways. a couple of them, like the guy -- at first i read about tonight he has been a friend of mine for a long time. and there are maybe two people in the book i have known for years. the rest of the people were dish some were friends of friends. for example, that monica guy, i used to run a business in china. it was in the nightclub business there and i had this business partner who was kind of my best friend in the world and were

kind of hanging out. i was like hey, man, do you know any mafia guys by chance. he said that guy we've been having dinner with every day for the past two weeks, he is a mafia guy. and i was like, no. and i said you think he would mind if i talk to him and he said no, i think he would be cool with it. and that's how that went. and more of them, some of them i found on the internet. like for example the first chapter is about a photojournalist who kind of specializes in taking pictures of disasters, kind of car accidents, mining accidents, those kind of things. i saw his photos on the internet and i was blown away by them. so he has a blog. so i kind of log onto his blog and sent him an e-mail. and then i kind of think he didn't believe me but we went kind of through this process and we met that way. and then a couple of people were people i just ran into, and a new kind of at the time that i would have to write about them because they were two interesting. originally, there were more people but for whatever reason,

you know, either i was denied access to some people and then sometimes the connection wasn't really there to write a whole thing about them. cool. >> why did you change your last name? >> why did i change my last name? i use this name that i have now, first, because i play in a rock group called the octagon, for you c-span viewers you can check us out at webmac octagon.com. and this other guy in the interview we decided we wanted to have names, then into a rock band, whatever. and so this guy i was playing with at the time, he said i want to be johny gibraltar. and i said that's a great. i thought that was a great name. i said okay. we were kind of like both singing so we both wanted to have a complimentary five so i

was like you know, i will pick one, and then kind of hit on zachary mexico appeare. and then when i was writing this, choosing what name to use, you know, i don't know what the chinese government's opinion of me is. i mean, i'm sure if they really wanted to they could find out my lasting pretty easily on the internet, but at the same time, i'm kind of, you know, i think it's one later of padding in the middle. because, you know, i wouldn't get in trouble. i would just not be able to get a visa to china for a while, which will be for me could be catastrophic. so i want to avoid that happening also. and also it's a catchy name, kind of, isn't it? anymore?

what do you suppose they should what used to think the reaction in china is to the book. there is a big reaction to it. what do you suppose what you anticipate the chinese people will think of a book about their culture by an american? >> okay. well, the book isn't available in chinese. obviously, i mean, if you spend time, and the mainland it would not be allowed to be published in chinese. and if it were, if it somehow slipped through the cracks, i kind of really wouldn't want it to happen in some ways because, a., it would make kind of, you know, as we're just talking about getting on the radar, that would kind of happen more. and then also, you, there is real strong national sentiment in china today. especially among young people and stuff, when i was in china,

i was in china about a month. doing the book tour. i just got back a couple of weeks ago. and you know, the reaction is pretty much very positive and everyone except there is some weird, income getting these weird kind of nationalist issues like one character in the book who is a wigger, who is an ethnic group, they live in northwest china. they don't look chinese. date the kind of more turkish, middle eastern kind of people. and you know, there's a question of whether they want any part of china or not. so this guy basically when i was spending time with him, he was kind of talking smack about chinese people all the time like chinese people are so dirty, they don't know how to dress. and so of course i put it in the book. and then i was teaching this class where i got invited to speak at this kind of nyu and shanghai lecture so i was there

giving a talk. there was a student who raised their hand and said so you think chinese people are dirty? and i said no. you know, i don't think that. that is what the character i am writing about things. but it gets a little dicey, kind of, this thing with criticism. i mean, obviously i'm not overly critical, you know, the chinese government. and i love the hell out of the country and that's why i spend, you, years and then half of my life there now. so i'm not trying to kind of talk, put chinatown. but that kind of thing happens here people think that somehow, you know. >> can you speak briefly about how you first became acquainted with chinese culture? i am assuming you speak mandarin given all the quotations and such. and just have you introduced to

it. >> yeah, i do. i speak mandarin. i went to boarding school, and they had chinese class and i decided to take it. and then i went to china for the first time when i was 16. as an exchange student. and i really liked it. i would back a couple of years later and did part of my university degree there in beijing. and i really like the country, the people. china is just so, it is changing so fast and has been for the past 10 or 15 years. it is kind of, it is really disorienting and kind of addicting because no one really knows what's going on. there's the kind of consensus that everything is fluid, and i think it's just really kind of an amazing feeling. and then after i finished university, i moved to china and lived there for several years, kind of meeting, no, i kind of had this business partner who was very well-connected in a

certain kind of circles. and then kind of got me access to a lot of really interesting creative people, businesspeople, people who are making things happen. and so than i., and then i moved back to the states for two years and then i came back to do this kind of little bit after. thanks. >> so you have been involved with chinese culture now for almost 15 years. what was the catalyst for writing the book when you did? and did increase media attention to the united states pay with china have anything to do with it? >> the second part, i think, no. i mean, it wasn't like a friend of a friend of mine -- or a friend of mine sent me an e-mail today and she said-simian e-mail today, so the friend's friend

sent the friend an e-mail that said whoever has been to china before, i think i'm going to go to china and write a book about because that seems like what i should do right now. the friend was asking me like what do i say to her. but no, it wasn't like china was hot for the olympic for coming or anything like that. i would just read what i wrote because it's better than off the top of the cost of this kind of tough. actually that's too long. basically, when i came back to new york i didn't have a job at that time for a little bit. and i was reading kind of all the china related stuff i could get my hands on. and i thought that most of it was pretty boring, and also very possibly made up. and being a foreign correspondent for the newspaper has an assistant, chinese

assistant who goes out and find people, talks to them, brings back quotes for the correspondent and a correspondent takes the quote and then fits the quote into their point of view that they have already. i'm not saying everyone does that, but a lot of kind of writing like china is like a. and nice to use there. i was hanging out with these crazy people all the time, and i thought that no one had really written about that kind of person, you know, kind of extended, you know, writing about the kind of lies of this kind of person. so i figured i should probably do it. and it was lucky because i just happen to have, you know, dinner with people and they are like, you know, hey, we can pay you some money and get the book published and stuff. anymore questions? or is that all she wrote? that's my phone. terrible. i am the worst.

okay. thank you guys for coming. i would be happy to -- if you are a little nervous asking questions, you know, in the big stage, i would be happy to answer any questions you have or sign some books, or whatever. okay. and thanks for coming, spent wasting an hour, or spending an hour of your life. [applause] >> zachary mexico is a member of the band octagon and the electronic duo gates of heaven. he studied chinese at columbia university and the universituniversity in beijing. to find out more about the author, visit the octagon of rock.com and gates of heaven.net. 3 of the criteria

you mentioned about people interested in the book. i was interd