Lack of information

In July 2019, Dong Wenyu, a graduate law student at Shanghai Maritime University, spent three weeks as a volunteer teacher in a village in Lanzhou, Gansu province, providing sex education for primary students.

Despite being the only male teacher in the volunteer group, Dong said he didn't feel embarrassed teaching the subject. Instead, he put more emphasis on biology-related tuition when teaching students in grades three and four (ages 8 and 9).

"During chats with students after class, I found that their regular teachers hadn't taught them any relevant sex knowledge," the 24-yearold said.

"For example, first and second grade students, who were ages 6 and 7, rarely understood what we were talking about in class but paid a lot of attention to the games we played.

"So, we only taught students in grades one and two about where we come from. Students in grades three and four could understand the ideas of where we come from and bodily structures but they had difficulty comprehending adolescence. The boys in the fifth or sixth grades tittered sneakily in class, laughing delightedly when I taught them the biological difference between men and women."

Dong sensed that while the students had no official channels to help them understand sexuality, they had their own ways of learning about it, and they laughed out loud at some of the facts. He also noticed that most of the students were confused by the concept of gender equality.