Author's uncle, despite excellent scores in the 1950s gaokao, was still assigned to an agricultural university in the northwest because of his landlord class status

The author's uncle scored excellently on exams at Shanghai No. 5 Middle School in the 1950s, but because his father was a fugitive landlord he could not attend university and was assigned to an agricultural university in the northwest; that school was located in a famine-stricken area where people starved to death. After he returned to Shanghai, his household registration had already been transferred out so he could not re-register there, and he ultimately returned to his hometown in Zhejiang to farm and live out his days.