Early Life
In Zhang's early life, he and his seven siblings endured many hardships because his father served as a county head for the Kuomintang. In the sixth grade, with the encouragement of one of his school teachers, he applied for the PLA School of Fine Arts, but was rejected after a background check on his father's political status, even though he passed the exams. Before 1972, he also applied to China's Central Academy of Drama and other schools, but his application was still rejected after a political check, despite passing the entrance requirements. During the Cultural Revolution, Zhang was sent to work in the countryside as part of the Down to the Countryside Movement, where he worked in a coal mining town in Shanxi for six years. In 1974, Zhang became a teacher in a coal mining town in Shanxi and taught history, Chinese and biology. He also led a literature and art performing troupe that consisted of coal workers and assumed the roles of director, screenwriter and composer.
Read more about this topic: Zhang Jizhong
Famous quotes related to early life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)