Page 155 - updated on July

Yu Jihui: “A Stinking Old Ninth – A Tale of the Coal Capital” (updated on July 2020)

at the gate of our school and bloodied his nose. He

had sworn revenge.

Squint was originally a coal worker. But he

hated being a worker. He had to dig the coal in the

open coal mine or the coal pit for eight hours a day.

The open coal mine or the was about as large as five

square kilometers and was named as the Five

Kilometer’s Coal Sea. The work was dirty, heavy

and tiring. So he filed an application with the

authority. He asked his leader to send him to the

middle school to work as a teacher on his own

initiative. The school was badly in need of teachers.

So his application was quickly approved. He had no

specialties. He couldn’t teach anything. He knew

nothing about Chinese, mathematics, music… He

was sent to a short-term training class to be trained

for three months. And so he became a teacher. When

the school headmaster asked him what he could teach,

152