February 15th, Jungrang riverside, Seoul:

About 10 school kids were observed stripping themselves to celebrate graduating middle-school, prompting a nation-wide police investigation of personal blogs and internet communities with similar accounts of middle-school kids stripping.

At that day, when the police came and warned them of possible punishment they could get, those kids reportedly burst into laughter and said, ``It was a gimmick that our seniors enjoyed too.''

One netizen with the ID ‘Tangent’ was very surprised at seeing some virtually naked school girls running in front of a department store in the No-won station area.


He (or she) said that ”their uniforms were ripped and torn, and they were only wearing panties while covering their breasts with their hands,” and added that “Of course, I’ve seen graduating students throwing flour and eggs at each other before, but never anything like this.”

Also on the internet are pictures of school girls only wearing underwear and covered in flour, and some of boys completely removing their underwear and throwing it away. Netizens are saying that “times have definitely changed,” but criticized the students, saying that behavior like that is “over the limit.”

Although only a minority of students do things like this, this behavior has the potential to become a new trend. Unfortunately it is difficult to prevent, as students do it after official graduation ceremonies, when they are unsupervised.

According to a spokesperson for the Seoul Education Office, “These nude post-graduation antics are becoming very popular recently, and because they can’t be done at school then they must all be occurring in public,” and so “it is much healthier if we encourage students to give their books and uniforms to their juniors rather than ripping them up, perhaps by offering scholarships to those who set good examples.”

The government has issued an order that every secondary school in the capital should come up with measures to deal with such levity. Following the order, the schools sent out notices to each student and their families to refrain from such behavior at the ceremonies, but to no avail.

Throughout the ceremony season, starting last week, news of students pelting each other with flour, eggs and other items were reported. Some students went over the top, on occasion to the extent of breaking the law.

How did the flour pelting begin in the first place? It is said that throwing the white flour on mostly black or dark navy color school uniforms was a sign of resistance to Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945). Then, all students were forced to wear uniforms identical to that of Japanese students, which were modeled on military uniforms. Making a mess of the uniform was a mark of resistance and expression of strong antipathy toward the colonial regime.

``Since the students have bright futures, it will not be easy to prosecute them for their misbehaviors,'' a police official said. However, he and other people shared the view that tightening behavior regulations is necessary.




credit-asianoffbeat