The 2013 Orientation Camp Controversy: the "Caterpillar" Game and Questions of Propriety at HKUST O-Camps

HKUST O-Camps have long been organised independently by student societies, with voluntary participation (see The Complete Record of Orientation Camps, "Shangzhuang" and Hall Disputes^※). One cost of this decentralised model is that university-wide oversight and systematic external media coverage are naturally sparse — in most years, the specific content of HKUST orientation camps does not enter public view. September 2013 was an exception: over two consecutive days, The Sun published reports based on on-site observation describing body-contact games at several HKUST orientation camps, making it one of the few cases with a clear news source that can be specifically attributed to HKUST orientation camps. This article sets out the course of events based on the original reports and their later citation in a Hong Kong orientation-camp Wikipedia entry, notes the credibility level, and does not render a verdict.

Around 2013, Hong Kong society was in a period of concentrated scrutiny of tertiary orientation-camp culture. According to the Hong Kong orientation-camp Wikipedia entry, this wave of public attention was not directed at HKUST alone: as early as 2002, a "Dem Beat" chant used between Shaw College and New Asia College at CUHK was criticised for language demeaning to women and wording described as discriminatory toward people with disabilities; in 2004, PolyU's orientation camp was reported to have required freshmen to "kiss" strangers, and some participants later said they felt uncomfortable about it. The 2013 HKUST report sits within this broader context of social scrutiny — it is both a specific slice of HKUST's own orientation culture and one institution's specific instance of a propriety dispute that has long recurred across Hong Kong's tertiary orientation camps generally.

# 21 September 2013: the first report, "no lewd trick left untried"

According to The Sun's report of 21 September 2013^※, the paper's reporter observed activities at at least three HKUST orientation camps that year and alleged the presence of several game segments the report characterised as "indecent," including:

• "Wet-body water fight": male and female freshmen forming a "human pyramid" during a water-fight game, which the report said left participants "inadvertently touching sensitive body parts in the heat of the moment";
• A human-stacking contest: male and female students forming "sandwich"-style body stacks, a speed- or height-competition game;
• A game segment involving sanitary products;
• Playful novelty games such as "barefoot banana games."

The report also made two further allegations: first, that some participants were suspected of drinking alcohol during the activities, and the report expressed doubt as to whether all participants were 18 or older; second, that a female student was reportedly placed in a rubbish bin and doused with water. According to the report, an unnamed student union officer denied the "placed in a rubbish bin" allegation and declined to respond further to the rest of the report.

Judging from the report's tone, The Sun's account carries a clearly critical stance — the headline itself, translatable as "no lewd trick left untried," is a value judgment rather than a neutral description, a form of wording common in Hong Kong tabloid reporting, typically aimed at attracting clicks through a sensational headline rather than academic objectivity. In relaying this report's content, readers should bear in mind: whether the specific conduct described in the report (the water fight, the stacking games, and so on) constitutes "impropriety" depends substantially on the evaluator's own values — supporters may view such activities as team-building games common at orientation camps intended to help freshmen bond, while critics may read the same conduct as an infringement on students' bodily autonomy or as reflecting outdated attitudes toward gender. This article does not make that value judgment on behalf of either side; it records only, as reported, the specific conduct described and the responses given.

# 22 September 2013: follow-up report on the "Caterpillar" game

The following day, The Sun published a follow-up report^※ focused on a game called "Caterpillar": male and female freshmen were required to clasp the waist of the classmate in front of or behind them with their legs, forming a line that moved forward like a crawling caterpillar. Because this type of game — requiring participants to entwine bodies in physical formation — inherently requires close bodily contact between the sexes, the report treated it as a further example of orientation-camp games it considered to have gone too far.

These two days of Sun reporting were later cited in the English Wikipedia entry "Orientation camps in Hong Kong," as part of a broader record of controversy cases at Hong Kong tertiary orientation camps over the years. The same entry also records a game called "Jumbo" at an HKUST orientation camp that year — requiring female students to lie on top of male students' bodies — listed alongside "Caterpillar" as another specific activity.

# Nature of the incident: a dispute over cultural propriety, not a criminal allegation

It should be made clear that the 2013 reporting concerned a dispute over cultural and management-level matters — the propriety of games, the boundaries of bodily contact, and doubts about underage drinking. The reports contain no specific allegation of sexual assault, indecent assault, or any other criminal offence, and there is no public record of any police investigation or judicial proceeding. This is fundamentally different in nature and severity from the criminal sexual-assault cases at orientation camps at institutions including the University of Hong Kong and the Education University of Hong Kong in 2023 (see the comparison in the section below), and this article accordingly does not conflate the two.

# Legislative Council attention in 2023: the subsequent policy context

Although HKUST was not among the institutions listed in connection with the 2023 orientation-camp criminal cases, that wave of public attention still had institution-wide effects across Hong Kong's tertiary sector, including HKUST. According to a South China Morning Post report, multiple Legislative Council members publicly called in 2023 for universities to strengthen oversight of orientation camps, with some members using the phrase "licensed sexual harassment" to criticise a culture of tacit tolerance said to have long existed at tertiary orientation camps. The Education Bureau and several universities subsequently issued statements or introduced response measures: Lingnan University established an "Anti-Bullying and Sexual Harassment Ambassador" system to oversee affiliated societies' orientation activities; CUHK arranged two student representatives as "ambassadors" for each orientation camp, serving as the first point of contact for freshmen encountering sexual harassment or emotional distress; the Education University set up a task force to review relevant guidelines and required mandatory training for student organisations and participants; and HKU required student organisations running orientation camps to sign a pledge.

This article found no publicly reported record, within its scope of research, of specific measures HKUST took as part of this cross-institutional policy response. This may be related to HKUST orientation camps' long-standing tradition of being "organised independently by student societies with a low level of university involvement" (see "The Complete Record of Orientation Camps, 'Shangzhuang' and Hall Disputes"): because HKUST orientation camps lack the kind of unified "Big O" structure coordinated by the university or student union found at CUHK or Lingnan, it is inherently more difficult to implement a uniform mechanism such as "anti-harassment ambassadors" across dozens of scattered departmental- and hall-level orientation camps. As far as could be found, no dedicated statement or new rules from HKUST specifically addressing this territory-wide 2023 discussion on orientation-camp oversight have been located.

# Student union response and aftermath: a limited record

Based on currently available material, the student union in 2013 only denied the specific allegation of "placing [a student] in a rubbish bin," with no further formal response or statement found regarding the rest of the reported game content (Caterpillar, the water fight, human stacking, and so on). Within the scope of material found, there is no public statement from the university regarding this reporting, nor any follow-up reporting on whether that year's orientation camps were subsequently subject to university-side meetings, review, or regulation as a result.

This article records, as faithfully as available material allows, the content of The Sun's two original reports and their subsequent citation in the Wikipedia entry. Credibility level: single source (both reports come from the same outlet, The Sun; no other independent news organisation is known to have cross-reported or verified the account during the same period; the description of the games' names and specifics is also found only in that outlet's reporter's on-site account).

# Comparison with the multi-institution criminal cases at 2023 orientation camps: HKUST not reported involved

In the summer of 2023, orientation camps at several Hong Kong universities were consecutively reported to involve criminal allegations of sexual assault: according to reporting by CUHK's University Line and multiple other outlets, a female freshman at an HKU orientation camp alleged indecent assault by a senior male student, and a 20-year-old man was arrested; at an Education University orientation camp, a 28-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of rape, indecent assault, or voyeurism against at least four female students, and was reported to have attended orientation camps at six different universities that same summer; at Lingnan University, a video circulated showing a game segment questioned for its propriety.

According to Hong Kong Free Press's October 2023 report^※ and concurrent reporting by multiple other outlets, this wave of 2023 orientation-camp criminal-case reporting did not name the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology among the institutions involved. HKU, the Education University, and Lingnan subsequently introduced measures respectively including "anti-bullying and sexual harassment ambassadors," mandatory training, and activity approval processes; no public record was found of HKUST being asked to, or voluntarily choosing to, publish comparable dedicated measures in response to this wave of attention.

Based on currently available material, this article states this "no record found" outcome as it stands — namely, that HKUST was not named in this widely reported wave of 2023 orientation-camp criminal cases — as itself a meaningful factual record, rather than treating it as an unverifiable gap: rather than forcibly attaching other institutions' controversies to HKUST for the sake of assembling a "case," it is more accurate to present the comparative picture as it is — "there is indeed one propriety dispute from 2013 with a traceable source; HKUST was not reported involved in the more serious wave of criminal cases in 2023."

This comparison also raises a question worth considering: there are at least three possible, non-mutually-exclusive explanations for why HKUST's orientation camps went "unnamed" in the 2023 wave. First, HKUST's organisation and oversight of orientation camps may genuinely have improved over the intervening decade, with no controversy comparable to 2013 recurring. Second, the highly decentralised model of HKUST orientation camps — organised separately by dozens of departmental societies and hall associations (see "The Complete Record of Orientation Camps, 'Shangzhuang' and Hall Disputes") — may itself reduce the density of systematic media tracking, meaning that even if similar issues existed, they may not necessarily have entered public view. Third, it may simply be a matter of probability — the exposure of the HKU, Education University, and Lingnan cases named in the 2023 wave depended substantially on victims choosing to report to police or on media investigation, rather than on any systematic census mechanism, and the absence of a publicised case at HKUST during the same period cannot rule out an element of chance. Based on currently available material, this article cannot adjudicate between these three explanations, and states only, as a matter of record, that this "no record found" outcome may have multiple possible causes.

# Placing the case in context: how to understand this episode

• Nature of the 2013 reporting: a critical report based on on-site media observation, focused on the propriety of games and management shortcomings, involving no criminal allegation; the student union denied only one specific allegation, with the rest of the content receiving no further response or independent verification;
• The comparison a decade later: in the more serious wave of criminal cases at orientation camps across several Hong Kong universities in 2023, HKUST was not named as involved — this is itself a fact confirmable from public reporting, not a gap in the record;
• This article's approach: it does not omit the 2013 incident merely because it is dated and single-sourced, nor does it embellish or speculate beyond the available detail — it presents, as faithfully as possible, the specific content of the two original reports, notes the credibility limits of a single source, and records the 2023 "no record of involvement" finding as an equally significant fact alongside it.