Page 6 - updated on July

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

forward to the day when I could graduate. I was

eager to get a job and make money to support my

family. In the spring of 1966, on the eve of my

graduation, I was very happy and was full of hope for

my future. But to my dismay, in May 1966, Mao

Zedong launched the Great Cultural Revolution. It

broke in like the mountain torrents rushing down

with a terrifying force. With the advent of the

movement, schools were thrown into great confusion

and classes were suspended. I was not able to

graduate from school on schedule and had to stay for

two more years due to the revolution (before the

Great Culture Revolution, all the universities in

China were boarding schools). So, altogether, I had

been in the university for six years - four years to

study and two years during the Cultural Revolution.

By the first half of 1968, the Revolution

Committee (new school leadership) had been set up.

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