Writing Da-zi-bao
- It turns out that one of the ways you can get rid of the four olds is to criticize your teachers.
- Don't like an assignment you're given in class? Just say that teacher is picking on you and expecting respect like in the olden days.
- Pretty quickly, students are writing nasty notes about teachers all over school. They call them da-zi-bao, but it's essentially just the burn book from Mean Girls.
- Thing is, Ji-li and An Yi can't think of anything to write. They don't know any crimes their teachers have committed.
- At the same time, they're worried what will happen if they don't write a da-zi-boa—people won't think they are revolutionaries.
- Du Hai makes fun of Ji-li for not having anything to say.
- Ji-li thinks through each of her teacher's carefully and eventually she decides to copy a story she saw in the newspaper. She doesn't think any of her teachers are against Mao.
- A couple days later, the students head to people's houses to taunt them with a da-zi-bao. On the list? Ji-li's Aunt Xi-wen.
- Ji-li doesn't want to go, but she knows she'll be accused of favoritism if she doesn't, so she heads off to her aunt's house and keeps her head down.
- Everyone mocks Aunt Xi-wen outside her door. Why? She wears make-up and thinks she's better than everyone else. Um, okay.
- Things get worse a couple days later when someone writes a da-zi-bao about Ji-li. In it, she's accused of being too friendly with a male teacher—it must be the reason she gets straight A's all the time. Wink, wink.
- Ji-li knows it's not true—she gets good grades because she works her butt off—but that doesn't make it sting any less.
- An Yi tries to comfort Ji-li, but it doesn't do much good. People have been writing mean stuff about her mom in da-zi-boas, but none of it's true. She's a schoolteacher and just wants to help kids learn.
- Ji-li is really confused. Why would people be against for her the sake of the revolution? She's a revolutionary. It doesn't make sense.