Interviewer：Ken, Sam, Wing C

Writing：Tracy

Interviewee : Girl of Heep Yunn School

The cheongsam, one-piecec Chinese dress, is the longest history of school uniform in Hong Kong, and it is still the school uniform of some colleges with long history, such as Saint Paul’s Co-educational College, Ying Wah Girls’ School, St. Stephen’s Girls’ College, True Light Middle School and Heep Yunn School. Not only they are all Christian schools, but also they are labeled as ‘band one’ colleges. What is the relationship between the school image and the longest history of school uniform? Cultazine had an interview with the Girl of Heep Yunn School, and try to get some ideas on it.

Cultazine： Do you like your school uniform?

Heep Hunn’s girl： Well…so so.

Cultazine： Cheongsam is my school uniform also.

Heep Hunn’s girl： Oh, really! Where did you studied?

Cultazine： True Light Middle School. Big step on walking is prohibited when I dressed in cheongsam. I have to beware of my step while walking, to prevent the tearing of opening(裙叉)on the edge . We are always forced to pay attention on it by school surveying.

Heep Hunn’s girl： Yeah！We ‘all’ always tear this part by big stepping. If we can’t fix it at school, we re-connect it by pins temporary. And if we see school prefect, we will cover this part by keeping our hands beside it.

Cultazine： Can you be recognized as Heep Yunn’s girl by dressing uniform？

Heep Hunn’s girl： Sometimes. But sometimes people think that we are girls of St. Paul Co-educational College. (She is a bit proud of it .)

Cultazine： What do people think about your school uniform？

Heep Hunn’s girl： Someone thinks that it is hard to dress well, too tight and constrain our body’s movement.

Cultazine： Why (college) students have to wear school uniform？

Heep Hunn’s girl： It is a way that colleges giving students pressure. Whenever and wherever we dress our uniform, we have to conduct ourselves. We can’t play anywhere. It is because we don’t know when and who will take pictures of our behaviors in the street, and send to school by e-mail. We are worry that pictures would be shown to in the public. I really don’t like that. Sometimes, I feel so trouble about taking on my cheongsam. The day having swimming lesson, we are forced taking under-slip in order to keep clean and neat dressing on uniform. Moreover, taking shower after swimming is prohibited….To me, it is not much pressure of taking on my uniform, but the elder sisters (F.6 and F.7) in school who have romance after school. Actually, they can change their school uniforms before meeting their boy friends.

Cultazine： Then, do you think students should dress on school uniform？

Heep Hunn’s girl： Yes we should, or anything could be happened.

Sam reponse  ： That means, we are surveyed and conducted what we should do by dressing uniform, but ‘not’ by ‘ourselves’? However, human-being can realize and behave ourselves through our common sense, rules and moral.

Heep Hunn’s girl： Well, I’d never think about it.(She is still a little girl, Sam)

Obviously, interviewee thinks that ‘all students’ should wear school uniform. But what if it is an individual choice, Will she, as one of the students prefer wearing school uniform? We ask her 10mins. after the above questions.

Cultazine： Students in the USA do not take any school uniform to school. What do u think about it?

Heep Hunn’s girl： Cool! Then, I can wear any cloth as I like. But for school uniform, we have to iron it till no wrinkle, or, we will be punished. We can not do anything as we like with our uniform.

Cultazine： What occasion, people want to distinguish whose student you are？

Heep Hunn’s girl： School competition. People want to know who is the winner, and give a good impression to his/her school. Vice versa….Also, people want to recognize we are student when we want to have some special offer to student only.

Cultazine： If you were a student studying in the school of ‘band 3’, will you mind being recognized?

Heep Hunn’s girl： If I was ‘smart’, it doesn’t matter, If I was not ‘smart’, I think it also doesn’t matter, too.…. If they are not smart, I don’t think they care their studies and whose student they are.

In Hong Kong, almost every college represent  their difference by specific school uniform and also the academic records. It became an invisible education institution to classify the ‘class’ of student, and the class of social status. The effect of classification is deeply internalized to our ‘self’ through our daily lives, and became our ‘common sense’. Some people like to ‘know’ one’s personal value by the name of graduated university, the faculty or department, and the name of teacher, rather than ‘understand’ someone by what you ‘see’ and what you ‘think’. Did we start the social division or social exclusion unconsciously through a piece of uniform on our bodies, the ‘dressed bodies’?