Whereas students elsewhere would revolt at the thought of uniforms, in Thailand they’re ready to fight over them. Even high school students looking to dress up with an optimistic, future look in their yearbook photos better make be careful which institution’s gowns they choose.
Or three universities with strict rules of which occasion is okay to put on academic gowns.
Photos of Mathayom 3 students from Montri Suksa school wearing the red robes of top tech universities have been heavily criticized on Pantip since yesterday.
In the photos, the students wear the formal academic gowns of King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Thonburi, and King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology North Bangkok.
Turns out those universities are quite strict about who gets to wear their gowns. And according to some netizens, putting on a graduation uniform before graduation is not only inappropriate – it’s bad voodoo.
“When I was studying at KMUTL, the upperclassmen always warned others that putting on an academic gown for fun before your graduate is a jinx,” Pantip user Kaws wrote. “If you’re not a graduate, don’t ever put it on.”
Even more convincing is the rhetorical force of superstition:
“Some people did it, and something came up and they didn’t graduate,” Kaws added. “That’s why we never thought of our academic gown as a regular outfit. We worked hard to graduate, hoping we could proudly wear the gown one day.”
So the uniform conflict spreads from the international issue of Chiang Mai vs. Chinese to a domestic one.
Meanwhile, Montri Suksa’s principal took to Google Plus that same day to publicly apologize for the incident.
“We apologize if the act has offended anyone. We did not intend this to happen, and we will not let the students wear the gowns again,” Principal Thareeya Laemthong said.
They just thought they were random red uni gowns their students would look great wearing.
“The school bought the gowns from a store which told us the gowns were custom-made, but their customers did not pick them up,” she explained. “We saw the gowns are in our school’s color, so we bought them without knowing they are the academic gowns of the three universities.”
Photos: Pantip
