Page 3 - updated on July

Yu Jihui: “A Stinking Old Ninth – A Tale of the Coal Capital”

Chapter 1

The First Debut

----chu chu mao lu----

During the Cultural Revolution, there were

"Nine Black Categories". They were: Landlords, rich

farmers, anti-revolutionaries, bad influences, right-

wingers, traitors, spies, capitalist roaders and (ninth)

intellectuals. The first eight were class enemies. The

last one, intellectuals, were identified as the ‘stinking

old ninth’, who was only one step away from the

class enemies. A university graduate, no doubt, was

an intellectual. So, I was a Stinking Old Ninth.

In July 1962, I completed Gao kao, the national

university entrance examination. In August, I

received an admission notice from a teacher’s

university in Shenyang, the largest city in the

Northeast. I was given a place in the foreign

1