Last night a group of students were doing the “rub nong” across our house. It started at 11 pm and lasted way past midnight before they all boarded tour buses to continue the tradition elsewhere. The first year students sat in rows and were told to continously clap and chant in unison. From time to time, their seniors bark an order, ” SPLIT UP !! REGROUP !! ” and that sends the freshies scurrying all over the cramped parking lot. Once they are back in rows, they continue their handclappings and chantings, undeterred even when buckets of water were thrown on them.
This is hors-d’oeuvre as to what is in store for them when they arrive to their destination. Most probably, a group of seniors have already been there and have prepared the campsite. Ditches have been dugged. Tents have been raised. Slime, mud, and baby powder awaiting. All these are ingrediants to the perfect “rub nong” festival.
After the young fledgings have gone through all the bases and are all sucessfully pasted in mud and sticky sako, they are send off to clean up. Then comes the candle-lit ceremony where the seniors makes a speech, touching or not, it is up to the freshies to quietly decide. White strings are tied onto the freshmans wrist as a symbol that they are now bonded and are like brothers and sisters.
This is a rite of passage that students of higher education have to go through. Those for it, said all the hardship and stress will create unity , friendships, and pride. Students who pass through this will have the ability to overcome obstacles in life. Those against it will said it is the most asinine and humilitating experience they are made to go through. Actually, according to a professor turned fugitive, he describes this rite as ” a systematic mental cruelty ” which is inflicted onto first year students ” so that they conform to the senority heirachy and learn to be loyal to their institutions”.
Each year there are news of initiation rites going bad. There are pranks that crossed moral lines and make parents gasped in disbelief. Sadistic pranks that ended up with serious injuries and deaths. Yet , this is reoccuring news… It happens EVERY YEAR. Does that trouble you ?
There are so many ways to create unity , friendship , and pride in your institution. Why waste all the energy digging up ditches for people to fall in ? Why not organise an event that is constructive to the community ? Clean up the beaches, paint orphanages/ elderly homes, build libraries for underfunded schools, plant trees, etc… I don’t understand. When the shit hits the fan, it’s always the senior kids who end up in the police station. The adults from their institution, the people we place our kids’ future onto their hands , are usually not in the picture.
