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.