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Reader question: Please explain “soul-searching” in this headline: Soul-searching in China as bystanders ignore woman being attacked in hotel (TheGuardian.com, April 8, 2016). My comments: The soul is considered as the spiritual part of a person, as separate from his or her physical body. The soul is considered to be the seat of one’s feelings and emotions, especially moral judgments. You may consider the soul to be the deepest deep that makes us who we are as human beings. Deepest deep? That sounds deep, but where is it exactly? That’s the thing – for you to figure out, individually. That’s what soul-searching is for. Sometimes we consider our head as the organ for reasoning and our heart as being responsible for emotions. The soul, on the other hand, is deeper than both and is responsible, ultimately, for our actions and reactions, or as in our example the lacks thereof. But first, like I said, we have to locate where our soul is. And that’s what soul searching is for, I guess – for us to think hard about who we are, what we stand for etc. In our example, after security video footage of a woman being attacked in a hotel is aired, people everywhere were outraged that such a terrible thing could happen in a public place and, more outrageously, that the first passersby would leave the scene without intervening. | 
