In his memoir Self-Account at Forty (四十自述), the scholar Hu Shi wrote that his mother never scolded him with a single word or struck him once in front of others. When he did wrong, she only looked at him, and her stern look was enough to frighten him. For a small fault, she waited until the next morning, when he woke, to teach him.
For a serious fault, she waited until night, when all was quiet, and closed the door. She first reproached him and then punished him. He had to kneel, or she pinched him. However heavy the punishment, he was never allowed to cry aloud. “She did not teach her son in order to vent her anger for others to hear.”