Even with prior experience in China, it was hard to gauge the political climate at Sichuan University. Thus far, students had never reacted to a sensitive subject in the way that I remembered from Fuling, when the classroom fell silent and all the heads dropped. But this didn’t mean that the Sichuan University students weren’t offended by some of the things I said. Over time, I realized that they were better at hiding their reactions, which, in some ways, could be more dangerous for a teacher.
——Other Rivers