江陵県
After finishing his graduate studies in 1960, Qiu was assigned to be a teaching assistant in the Department of Chinese of Peking University (PKU). From 1964 to 1966, Qiu, like many other intellectuals, was sent to the countryside to be "reeducated by peasants" as part of Chairman Mao Zedong's Socialist Education Movement. He was sent to Jiangling County, Hubei and Yanqing County, Beijing. During the subsequent Cultural Revolution, he worked as a labourer at a farm in Jiangxi province from 1969 to 1971.