A student came up to me at the end of class. She wanted to apologise for missing last week’s lesson. That’s okay, not the end of the world, I probably said. She went on to explain. She had been back to her hometown, Qingchuan, in the mountains north west of Chengdu. Her home had been destroyed by the earthquake. Her mother and father had been killed. Her only other relative is her sister who's seriously injured and in hospital. This student has exams in two weeks which she’s determined to pass because it’s what her father wanted.