First, Turnoi, thank very, very much for your astute observations. Thank you for offering to share with us what you know. I have long been a reader on this board, albeit "in silencio" and I appreciate your insight and your comments.

As for Mr. Cushman, it is indeed exceptionally strange but the colleague, a lady, with whom I work, who was also employed in that school at about the same time that you claim to have been there, has no recollection of you, nor of your son, at all. She very politely challenges your claim (a) that you were there at all and (b) that you left of your own accord if indeed you were there. The teacher roster of that year, which she has in her possession, lists neither a Thomas Cushman nor a "K" person. All of that nonetheless is of little consequence for the overall issues at hand except it does touch directly upon the issue of PROBITY.

As for the "K" person, my colleague maintains that if he were there AT ALL in 2003, and she strongly believes that the "K" person was not there at all that year, and if one reads the "K" person's postings on another site, one can see that the "K" persons claims to have been at the school six years "now", i.e., 2010, then 2010 - 6 = 2004 at the earliest, then the "K" would have only been a debutante teacher that year and not the senior teacher as Mr. Cushman writes. I refer to all and any to those postings on another site. Therefore, obviously, someone is straying from the truth here considerably.

In any case, according to my colleague, Mr. Cushman could have hardly known the "K" person as a senior teacher in 2003, because at that point in time, the "K" person would have only been a newbie in the school, as until that point, according to my colleague, the "K" person had been teaching in another school in Hangzhou, and all things considered, as the "K" person is mere mortal, like all of us, it is difficult for a mere mortal to be in two places at the same moment in time.

In any case, as Turnoi so correctly points out, we are dealing with the reputation of the school and not of one of its very lessor managers. I personally have never had any direct dealings with the school nor with this "K" person at all and I can only regret and deplore that its ill fame has been so groused about.

Now, as Churchill would have said, "Mr. Cushman, exactly who are you"?

Paul Weiss