There are moments when foreign teachers are 'at sea' during their time in China, lost in the unique cultural response to powerful tragic events.

During my tenure at one university in China, one male student hung himself immediately prior to the beginning of a semester upon learning that his girl friend had taken a new lover during the summer break. The same year a student on an e-bike was crushed by a public bus on the street running through the campus. The following year a young woman was raped in her dorm room by a local man who had trespassed on the campus during a holiday week. That same year a popular young Chinese teacher of English plunged to her death from the terrace of a hotel room downtown.

In the wake of each event, the university rushed to squash any information about the tragedy, contacting parents with offers of remuneration, forbidding teachers to discuss the event among themselves or with students, leaking misinformation, all in an obtuse attempt to protect the university's reputation and market status.

I made it a point to discuss each of these events with my students during class time, listening to their fear and anger, careful not to project my own. The Dean and FAO director criticized my behavior but were busy with their own administrative coverup. Perhaps, Foxy, you might consider providing your students a similar forum.

As a U.S. citizen, I am too familiar with violence in schools. For all their academic shortcomings, Chinese schools are significantly safer than those in the U.S.

Responses to tragedies, while powerful, are less important than prevention.