Living in Mao’s Era

Morning, June 30, 1967, I was awakened up by noises in our dormitory. “Get up and gather at the front door of the dormitory! Our college has been surrounded by our opponents!” The team leader shouted. Quickly we ran to the front door. “The Regiment leaders ordered that we are to defend the east gate,” the team leader said, “Now, go to prepare yourselves for the battle, we must drive them away!” During the preparation somebody made a creative use of our textbooks, which were all paperback of the letter size and the thicknesses were from a half inch to one inch. Two textbooks were put in front and back of our torso to protect hearts, and two on each side to protect our kidneys. The books were fixed in place by the leather belt to form an armor, then covered by a jacket. This invention was quickly adopted by all of us. Holding the spears and with textbook-made armors, we went to the battle field.