It is part of many Asian cultures to not seek to change things, but accept them and find the best way to work around them within your current environment. Many also believe in a right to stay silent rather than a right of free speech. This is how we often catch out the wumaos here, they are quick to criticise those who dare to speak out against bad treatment, thus proving themselves to be not quite western.

However, 'Mei Banfa' is just either a lazy option or the convenient thing to say at first to buy you some time for further action.

There's plenty of material about this out there about what I just mentioned and the general tendency to avoid conflict, but I've not got time to dig the quotes out of books etc, if you can get hold of anything about 'Uncertainty avoidance' and anything related to the work of Geert Hofstede, that would be a good start.

Regardless of what I just mentioned, I have no expectations or hopes for a Santa revolution any time soon. I'd just think of it in the western sense of 'Older teachers being boring c**ts, trying to scare the shit out of you.'

It has happened everywhere since the beginning of time. In my day, it was lectures in the assembly hall that were not so much about 'the threat of kitsch western festivals' but about how a toke of spliff would lead to rapid heroin addiction and how ecstasy would kill you instantly. Needless to say, many of us for the best part ignored them and we're still here today.

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