Stories my Students have told me.

• I asked the question about whether it was bad to get advice from your enemies.  The idea being that maybe your friends won't tell you the truth because they didn't want to hurt your feelings.  I instead had a student tell me that at his company he would get advice from rival companies by phoning them and pretending to be customer.
• Tiao Zi is a deep fried bread like snack food that you get in Wuxi.  I asked the students to tell what slang words they had for policemen in Wuxi (like the word "cop").  They told me that the police in Wuxi are called Tiao Zi because all they seem to be doing is eating the stuff.  I of course told them of the noted affinity that policemen have in Canada for Donut Shops.
• Another student told me that the police have been called tiger stripes because their uniforms had the stripes and color patterns of a tiger.  In Beijing, the police are cynically referred to as robbers in uniform.
• When a student was in primary school, a public show of criminals came to their school.  "This man was a thief and he got twenty years" was the basic pattern of this show.  I have heard tales from other Expats of convicted criminals being made to apologize in public for their wrong-doings.