Page 216 - updated on July

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

for me to find a girl to marry, the more eagerly I

wanted to get married. I was nearly thirty years old. I

was impatient. If I couldn’t get married, maybe I

would be a big bachelor all my life.

I was living a dull and boring life under the new

circumstances. I needed a harbour of my own to hide

from the outside world. I was very upset, very

depressed and felt anguished to work as a teacher in

the middle school.

The teacher of a middle school was the worst job

in China. No one wanted to be a teacher of a middle

school. The students of middle school were honored

as Red Guards. They were expected to be a group of

small tigers. These Red Guards inspired by Mao

Zedong thought would oppose all old things. Old

things like feudalism, capitalism and revisionism.

They would rise to rebel against teachers and against

teachers’ dignity. They refused to study and said,

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