In The New York Times, Jim Yardley reports:
It is the sort of horrific case that in many countries would be a national scandal but in China has disappeared into the muffled silence of state censorship. That silence matches the silence at the heart of the case: the fact that students considered a teacher so powerful that they did not dare speak out.
Indeed, even as the conventions of Chinese society are being shaken by the tumult of modernization, the Confucian reverence of teachers remains strong, particularly in isolated areas like this farming village in Gansu Province in western China. Parents grant teachers carte blanche, some even condoning beatings, while students are trained to honor and obey teachers, never challenge them.
