"Love your children. Be patient with them. Sexuality is but a small part of who they are," says Tom Neill.

The largely Chinese audience listens with rapt attention to the man standing on the podium.

The Canadian father, 58, who teaches at Jilin University in Northeast China's Jilin province, admits he was taken aback when his son came out to him, in 2003, in China, yet happy that he was honest with him.