Page 259 - updated on July

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

of letters from her bag and waved them in front of

me.

“I’ll read a few to you.” She chose one, opened

the envelope, took out the letter and said, “This is a

letter from a Stinking Old Ninth. Listen to this

paragraph!”

She stopped for a moment, took a look at me and

then began to read the letter.

“‘You do speak a lot of dirty languages. But you

are a member of the working class. Dirty languages

are the languages of the working class. They show

the workers’ true quality. You are selfless, you are

broad-minded, you are the most honest and you are

the most loyal to Chairman Mao and the Communist

Party. The dirty language you speak sounds harsh but

actually it sounds beautiful, as it can express all those

good qualities you workers have. I’m different. I’m a

university graduate. That’s to say I’m an intellectual.

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