Rarely had that problem with my students. They were able to cope quite well with my straightforward honesty.
You had a better experience than I did then, and I'm just going to leave it at that. Admittedly, you're not the only China expat of whom that can be said. I seemed to find the worst there was to find.
Well, I have to narrow down what I wrote before. I should have said 'regular students'.
I've had some peculiar courses for - hmm - 'special' students (rich brats who failed the gaokao, but wanted to study in the USA, anyway). Particularly the male students in these classes were problematic.
Yeah, the rich brats you just mentioned sound more like the ones I taught. I spent my first three Beijing years at a school called Chaoyang Aidi, which was basically governed by "the parents are paying good money for an A and it's your job to deliver it, dammit."