When I went to college in 1978, I was put up in a room of four bunk beds. There were seven of us, leaving only one bed for storage. It was a miracle that we were more or less amicable and nothing too bad happened during four years of cohabitation.

I visited a college dorm in recent years, and I was amazed at the uptick in living standard. A similar, or slightly larger room now houses only four, with the upper deck used as a bed and the lower one as a desk plus storage. Each room comes with its own toilet so they don't need to rush down the hallway to answer nature's call.

There is an exaggerated scene in the new hit movie So Young depicting such a walk through the thick of youthful pandemonium. The same movie also presents both a male dorm room, with its utter lack of hygiene, and a female dorm room, with its own tableaux and quirks. One girl steadfastly warns anyone who comes near her bed not to sit on it lest it turns dirty that way.

In my day, you would choose the upper deck if you want your bed relatively inaccessible by others. But an occupant of a lower bed was basically providing a public bench - at least when you're not sleeping in it.

You cannot be too fastidious when you can hear each other's sleep talk and snore.

The loss of privacy is the price you pay for lowering the rent. However, in my experience, privacy is actually not the biggest concern for most Chinese students. I remember one of my roomies would bring his girlfriend, who would stay in his bed for hours - shielded from the rest of us by an opaque mosquito net. We all went about our things, seemingly oblivious to what might or might not be happening inside the net.

About the only real necessity for obtaining one's own space, as I have observed, is dating. Other than that, a dormitory is more a place of fun than one of fight. Living with several people of varying personalities and behavioral patterns is a learning experience that prepares you for your entrance into the society at large. It is an exercise in dealing with the real world.

Clashes arise mainly out of personalities and habits. Some are not considerate while others are over-sensitive.

Rich-poor divide may play a role as the flaunting of wealth may hurt the feelings of those who have to borrow to pay their tuitions. But most of the collisions cannot be explained away with the class-struggle theory. It takes an unhappy turn of events to make a tragedy.

The latest case involves a pair of roommates in a Nanjing college. One of them forgot his key and knocked on the door, and the other was playing a computer game and did not jump to open it. They got into a scuffle, resulting in a fatal stabbing.

Most of the incidents started as something so trivial that you would shake your head and have difficulty believing they happened at all. Most likely, it's not about a girl that triggered the deadly infighting, contrary to the formula of coming-of-age stories.

I believe some people are indeed inflicted with some kind of personality disorder and the environment of group living simply aggravates it. If one is prone to negative disposition, there may be nothing you can do to change it. Even a simple smile could be interpreted as a sneer. If push comes to shove, it's better to notify the school authority and let professionals deal with it.

For those who cannot stand their roommates, no matter which side is in the right, it's important to take a step back and see the whole picture. One has to develop a healthy dose of tolerance to survive in the outside world. Live and let live is probably the best recipe.

Meanwhile, we should probably refrain from jumping to sociological conclusions based on what seems like a string of such tragedies.

While the cutting down of a life in its bloom is always reason for sorrow, given the annual turnover of seven or eight million college students, a certain percentage of bad things may be inevitable.

One may cool down hot spots that follow a logical trajectory, but there is no way every abrupt flare-up of enmity can be anticipated or resolved.

Schools should make counseling readily available. Other than that, common sense is probably the best panacea, which sometimes can cruelly evolve into a placebo.

Contact the writer at raymondzhou@chinadaily.com.cn.