Beijing Coma #2

As the book continues, so does Dai Wei's story of his life. He talks about how oppresive the government was, and even recollects on how he was arrested one time. He says that he was arrested for copying a book, which apparantly was illegal at the time, for his girlfriend, which was also illegal to have. The officers take him to the station to interrogate him, and as they are doing so, they start to beat him. They force him to talk about everyone who was involved, and they also force him to write out every illegal thing he had done in his life, which he does out of fear. I find it strange that he has such a harsh punishment, for such a petty crime.

The story then jumps to when Dai Wei is off to college in Gangzhou, and his father has since been deceased. The father's dying wish was for Dai Wei to read his diaries, so he does, and they are filled with democratic and revolutionary thoughts. At school, Dai Wei is studying to become a doctor. One day, the body of an executed criminal is brought in, and the class disects it. The teacher asks him a question about what a certain part of the brain is, and he responds, "The archicortex is basically the hippocampus, down here... It's the older, more primitive part of the brain and is connected with memories and emotions.. If this part of the brain is damaged, the patient falls into a vegetative state" (67). I find it very ironic that he is talking about the part of the brain thathe presumably was injured in, leaving him recollecting his memories from the vegetative state he is know in. I believe this is a very pivital line to the story because it links it all together.