South China Morning Blues is filled with these tales of the postmodern East: depraved, rapidly changing, and never boring.

Just what kinds of characters find themselves in 21st-century China? There's Marco, a crooked businessman with a penchant for call girls; Danny, a culture-shocked young traveler; Sheila, a local club girl caught up in family politics; Amber, a drug-fueled aspiring model; Terry, an alcoholic journalist; and Ting Ting, a lovable artist with a chip on her shoulder.

Their lives intertwine in unexpected ways, as they delve deeper into their surroundings and in the process learn more about themselves.

China may be leading the world into the future, but its inhabitants are going to have to make sense of the present if that future is ever going to arrive.