Beijing Coma #7

I have decided that Beijing Coma is worthy of as many awards that it can get. When I first went into this book, I believed it would be just another ordianry tale of a person not living in my country, who was under a tyrranical government, and would somehow help in overthrowing the government. Although I was sort of right with that prediction, I was mostly wrong near the end. I find it very incredible how the story was told, with the story of Dai Wei's life told all the way from his early childhood and all his experiences, up to the fatefull day he was shot and entered his coma.

I believe the most emotionally stirring section of the book comes at the end where Wei is describing the situation he is in. He is in the middle of a protest, and every street he tries to turn down, he is greeted by a "green wall of soldiers". In a very strange moment, he sees his old flame A-Mei standing in the middle of the street. He ran to greet her, but she was shot in front of him. He says, "Did the bullet hit her? As the question came to my mind, my head exploded. My skeleton was shaken by a bolt of pain. I'd been struck too. I was going to die. Hot, sticky blood poured down my face. My hand reached out to touch my head, but I couldn't find it..." (584). I find it very interesting how the author decided to portray his travel into a coma as him knowing everything that was happening, yet he was still incapacitated.

Overall, I highly recommend this book to anyone who is in need of a nice long interesting book filled with many facts about a little known culture.

Beijing Coma #6

While continuing to read the book Beijing Coma by Ma Jian, I have began to connect the story with many events in the past. First of all, the Chinese government in this novel is acting under a communist policy, which I have recently learned more about in my European History class. Jian writes about how the government collectivizes most of the production from the various industries in the cities, which is simmilar to the different Five Year Plans of Stalin's Soviet Union. Stalin also collectivized the Soviet Union's production, in order to force more urbanization upon the country.

It is also very interesting to see the numerous times and ways that protest is involved with this story. It seems that every other event has to do something with protesting or getting ready to protest, and this has been going on since the beginning of the story, and I assume it won't stop, and Dai Wei will probably die protesting. I think a quote that shows the politically radical student's ideology the best is when a student named Lin Lu says, "We're not cowards" (315). This shows the pride the students show for their efforts. Also, the students are heavily involved in many life-threatening causes such as hunger strikes, and they even threaten to stop drinking fluids, and even light themselves on fire.

Beijing Coma #5

As I continue to read the book Beijing Coma, I start to realize the similarities between it's story, and the book Night by Elie Wiesel. During the many political revolutions that eventually lead the rise of Mao as the leader of China, there were atrocities similar to those that happened during the holocaust. Many times, Dai Wei talks about the peasent revolts that were brutally squashed by tyrraneous government, which reminds me of how the Nazis were in Germany.

When Dai Wei and a group of his school mates agree to protest at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, they are met with many police as a resistance. They proceed with the protest, and they were attacked, and shut down. When they are in the police station, Dai Wei asks an officer if he believes they will go to prison, and he responds, "I don't know. But they won't let those civilians off. They're the chickens, you are the monkeys. The authorities will kill the chickens to frighten the monkeys" (100). This is a very powerful line because it shows how the police was more harsh towards civilians, then people who go to university, and are higher up in the social status