A Complete Guide to Hall Culture at HKU — a Century of High Table Dinners, Exec Culture and the Seniority System

On a Monday evening in 1916, candlelight flickered across the dining room of St. John's College, the University of Hong Kong's first hall of residence, as staff and students sat down to dinner together. That was the beginning of the High Table tradition at HKU. More than a century later, the same ritual continues — but hall life has long since grown beyond it: "going on the exec" (上庄) sees committee members devote themselves body and soul to an orientation camp, the seniority system ("仙制") expects first-years to call on more than eighty seniors within ten days, and two hazing incidents in 2017 and an indecent assault case at a 2023 orientation camp have reminded the outside world of another side to hall "tradition". This article focuses on the culture, structures and daily life of HKU's halls — for the history, buildings and notable alumni of individual halls, see the Halls module (10-colleges); we will not repeat those institutional profiles here, only explain what it is actually like to live in a hall.

For HKU students, a hall is in some ways a more intimate badge of identity than a faculty. "I'm from St. John's", "I'm from University Hall" — this kind of self-introduction is commonplace across campus, and behind it lies an entire social network that cuts across years and disciplines, bound together by residential unit. Understanding how this network works — and how, in certain years, it has spun out of control — is essential to understanding student life at HKU.

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# 1. What is the Hall system, and why does HKU have "halls" rather than "colleges"?

HKU's residential system is built around the hall of residence as its core unit, rather than the college system found at CUHK. According to English Wikipedia^※, HKU now has more than ten halls, their founding dates spanning a century from the University's earliest days. Each hall comprises:

• a Warden and a team of tutors, responsible for whole-person education and day-to-day management;
• a Hall Students' Association, run by an "executive committee" (庄) elected by residents, and counted among the six major categories of societies affiliated with the HKU Students' Union;
• a range of hall-specific cultural traditions and activities, including High Table dinners, inter-hall competitions and orientation camps.

Halls are not merely places to sleep. Their guiding ideas are "hall spirit", a sense of belonging, and "self-determination and cooperation". As English Wikipedia's account of University Hall^※ puts it, hall culture prizes brotherhood/sisterhood among hall members and a spirit of give-and-take. This is the underlying logic for the subcultures discussed later in this article — the seniority system, "going on the exec" and the rest: a hall is first and foremost a small community into which new students must quickly assimilate, not just a bed.

Alongside the traditional halls, HKU has since 2012 operated Residential Colleges as a complement to the hall system. According to English Wikipedia^※, the four colleges founded in 2012 — Shun Hing College, Chi Sun College, Lap-Chee College and New College — together provide roughly 1,800 places, of which around 67% go to non-local students. The colleges retain traditions such as the High Table dinner (see the New College website^※), but their organisational form is closer to a modern student hostel, and the older hall subcultures such as the seniority system are comparatively muted. For the buildings, founding dates and notable alumni of each hall and college, see the Halls module.

This dual-track arrangement of "old halls vs new colleges" is in a sense the product of the residential system's response to changing times. The traditional halls have long histories, deeply rooted subcultures and extensive alumni networks, but their seniority culture has occasionally courted controversy. The residential colleges, by contrast, were designed from the outset with flatter management structures and a higher proportion of mixed local/non-local living, seeking to accommodate the needs of a newer generation of residents through a "lighter" organisational form. The coexistence of the two models means that "hall life" at HKU today spans a spectrum of experiences — for first-years entering in the same year, the choice between a traditional hall and a residential college can lead to radically different lives.

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# 2. The High Table dinner: from St John's Monday nights to a University-wide ritual

# 2.1 Origins: St. John's College in 1916

The High Table dinner is the most emblematic ritual tradition of HKU's halls, inherited directly from the collegiate system of Oxford and Cambridge. According to HKU CEDARS' official page^※, the dinner aims to "facilitate intellectual exchange among participants", bringing staff, guests and residents together at the same table in a blend of academic sociability and ceremonial form. The name comes from the British collegiate tradition: the most important diners sit at a raised table at the top of the hall.

The tradition's starting point at HKU can be dated precisely to 1916^※: St. John's College, the University's first hall, began holding a weekly High Table dinner, and the other halls subsequently followed suit. According to English Wikipedia's account of University Hall^※, discipline was strict in the early halls — residents had to wear gowns to dinner — and University Hall held its High Table dinner on Monday evenings in its early years, echoing St John's.

# 2.2 How do the halls differ?

The High Table dinner is no one-size-fits-all template; frequency, ritual and detail vary from hall to hall:

According to St. John's official dining page^※, the college holds its dinner in the dining hall at 7:30 pm every Monday; staff and students alike attend in green gowns by candlelight, with "joyful laughter" as the background music. After dinner comes "HT Talks", lectures by alumni, academics and other invited speakers whose identities are not publicised and whose sessions are off the record, to encourage open dialogue. According to a first-hand account published by the Fund for Education Abroad^※, the dinner is held about three times per semester, with the final sitting of the year bidding farewell to graduating residents; the evening opens with a speech by the Warden reviewing the year's achievements, followed by the formal meal. Many residents confess it is their first formal dinner experience in life — one that teaches etiquette and deepens the bonds between residents and staff alike.

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# 3. Inter-hall competitions and the War Cry: hall belonging, performed in public

Inter-hall competitions are another pillar of hall culture, spanning sports and the arts — and they are where "hall spirit" is most visibly on display. Unlike Team HKU, which represents the whole University, inter-hall contests are fought against "the hall next door"; the wins and losses tug at emotions forged from daily proximity, not inter-university glory.

According to the official website of HKU's Centre for Sports and Exercise (CSE)^※, competitive sport on campus is organised primarily through two frameworks: "inter-hall" and "inter-faculty". At hall level, the picture is concrete: Starr Hall's website records that its athletics team competes every year in the Inter-hall Athletics Meet, and that in one recent year the men's and women's teams each took bronze^※; the same site's "inter-hall" section preserves the schedules and results of the Inter-hall Aquatics Meet, inter-hall badminton, inter-hall drama and inter-hall cheerleading competitions^※ — halls contest gold, silver and bronze in each event, and a single point can send the whole hall into cheers or sighs. In terms of storied history, according to English Wikipedia^※, the University Hall hockey team won the inter-hall title multiple times, helping the hall take the Malayan Cup in 1966 and 1968 — part of University Hall's early reputation as a "cradle of student leaders", matching its record of producing Students' Union presidents: sporting success was, in the hall system's early decades, an important route to prestige. Cultural inter-hall competitions include Drama, Choir, Debate and Bridge, giving residents without athletic gifts a chance to win honours for their hall and ensuring hall culture is not dominated by sports stars alone.

Beyond the competitions themselves, the most iconic tradition is the "War Cry" and its cheerleading counterpart. According to English Wikipedia^※, hall members turn out at inter-hall matches to cheer on their hallmates; when the hall wins a championship, members perform the War Cry — a tradition that lives on to this day as the signature expression of hall belonging and "hall spirit". Each War Cry combines the hall's own slogans, rhythms and movements; first-years must learn theirs during the Hall-O orientation camp, making it one of the first skills taught under the seniority system and the first ritual in which a new student appears in public as a hall member. HKU also maintains a tradition of inter-hall cheerleading/cheering competitions, for which some halls rehearse for weeks; the calibre of the cheerleading choreography becomes a point of rivalry in its own right. For the University-wide representative sports system (Team HKU) and the "Two Greats" sporting rivalry against CUHK, see the Sports and competitions article (23).

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# 4. "Going on the exec": a year of hall politics and emotional investment

"Going on the exec" (上庄) — Cantonese for joining the executive committee of a student organisation — is a core concept in Hong Kong's student culture. At hall level, every hall has a Hall Students' Association, and each academic year all residents elect an "executive committee" (庄) to manage hall welfare, plan activities and represent the hall externally.

# 4.1 Why is it called "the most important experience of your university years"?

According to an HK01 analysis of exec culture^※, going on the exec "burns money, burns time and burns GPA" — it demands substantial funds, time and energy. Yet the "wholehearted, no-return-expected passion and drive" of the term, and the memory of facing difficulties together with one's fellow committee members, are for many people "the piece of youth they miss most as adults".

# 4.2 How does the election work?

Hall Students' Union elections generally proceed by one of two routes:

• Interview-based: outgoing committee members assess those who wish to join. This gentler route is common in halls where competition is lighter or where a smooth handover is preferred.
• Open election ("招庄"): would-be candidates form their own campaign teams and, during a "promotional period" ranging from a few days to a fortnight, compete for residents' support through posters, social media, door-to-door canvassing across floors and rooms, and presentations of their platforms. The campaign typically includes a "Con Day" (Confrontation Day): all campaign teams dress formally and publicly present their annual plans and budgets, then cross-examine each other. This cross-examination is a public test of a team's strength and cohesion, and it is the main occasion on which the whole hall gets a sense of the candidates' style. The new executive team is ultimately decided by a vote of all residents.

Neither route is inherently superior. The interview route reduces internal competition and friction, making for a smoother handover in halls short on manpower. Open elections can generate far more enthusiastic participation, but platforms and personal feuds can also split a hall into factions, sowing the seeds of later "collapsed execs" (流庄 — a failed campaign or disbanded team) and internal disputes. Such controversies are a common issue in student-governance circles; see Student power (module 20).

For many residents, whether to go on the exec is one of the first major decisions to make after arriving in Year 1. Joining means shouldering enormous administrative and financial responsibilities for the coming year — High Table dinners, orientation camps and inter-hall competitions all require drafting budgets and reporting to the Warden and the General Assembly of the Hall Students' Association — but it also means privileged access to the Warden, staff and the alumni network. Staying off the exec leaves more time and energy for studies or other societies, yet may mean "missing out" on the heart of hall life. This opportunity-cost calculus is among the most common topics of discussion among residents each year, once orientation season ends and recruitment begins.

# 4.3 "Closing the exec": the emotional end of a one-year term

"Closing the exec" (埋庄, also written 埋莊) marks the ritual moment when exec business formally ends and the committee's term is complete, usually accompanied by a dinner, retrospectives and farewells. For committee members, it brings the curtain down on a year (or a semester) of shared work, and is often an intensely emotional moment. The bonds between exec members are sometimes likened to those of "comrades-in-arms": jointly staging High Table dinners, inter-hall competitions and orientation camps under prolonged high-pressure collaboration tends to forge ties far deeper than those between ordinary classmates. Yet some voices note that this highly cohesive small-circle culture can at times turn exclusionary towards outsiders, or place excessive pressure on insiders — a point that becomes more concrete in the seniority system discussed in the next section.

The hall exec culture is of a piece with exec culture in the Students' Union and faculty societies; hall student associations have also sent representatives to the HKU Students' Union. For an overall account of the Union system and "exec culture" University-wide, see Student power (module 20).

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# 5. The seniority system ("仙制") and Hall-O: how seniority culture shapes a first-year's first semester

The "seniority system" (仙制, "sen" being the Cantonese transliteration of "senior") is an internal seniority culture distinctive to, or particularly pronounced in, several HKU halls — one of the main things that sets HKU's halls apart from those of other Hong Kong universities.

Under the system, informal hierarchies are established by year of study: senior residents (colloquially the "big seniors" 大仙, or "old ghosts" 老鬼) hold sway over hall activities, orientation and daily life, while first-years ("FMs", i.e. freshmen) are expected to follow their guidance during Hall-O, the hall orientation camp. According to an analysis of HKU hall subculture by Inmediahk^※, the more seniority-heavy halls operate a "senior name" system: freshmen must memorise the names of seniors of every grade and, during the orientation period, complete a long list of "paying respects to seniors" (拜仙) tasks — in some cases more than 80 visits before the requirement is deemed fulfilled.

According to an HK01 analysis by a former resident (2017)^※, the Hall-O camp typically lasts 8–10 days, and its high-pressure atmosphere is deliberately designed to challenge the confidence and independence of newcomers. A centrepiece is the "Mass Orientation (MO)" — a large-scale interrogation session running eight to ten hours or longer, in which first-years face sharp criticism and philosophical grilling from their seniors. Some residents say such arrangements cause psychological strain, and a few choose to abandon their hall places as a result. Not all halls enforce the seniority system with equal rigour; according to interviewed residents, its severity varies from hall to hall and has evolved over time with each hall's traditions and era. Halls of more recent foundation, and the residential colleges, lack the historical baggage of the seniority system and tend to run looser, more purely social orientations.

Supporters argue that the high-pressure MO and the "paying respects" ritual force first-years to learn, in a short period, how to handle stress and meet a large number of seniors — a "dress rehearsal" for the workplace and society at large. Critics counter that this kind of hierarchy-by-coercion, justified "in the name of tradition", slides easily into de facto hazing — especially when individual seniors exercise poor judgement, and first-years are left with no effective avenue of complaint, since most orientation activities take place in informal settings without adult supervision and the University is rarely in a position to intervene in real time. This tension is the shared backdrop to the incidents discussed in Section 7. The distinctions between Hall-O and the University-wide and faculty-level orientation camps (O-Camp), the "group parent" (组爸妈) system, and recent controversies are covered in the dedicated article The complete guide to orientation camps.

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# 6. Daily life in a hall: from canteen to study rooms

Away from the high drama of High Table, exec politics and the seniority system, most of hall life is unremarkable. Residents pay hall fees by semester and move into single or double rooms, sharing bathrooms, common rooms, laundries and study rooms. Most halls have their own canteen or tuck shop, some run as resident cooperatives, doubling as social hubs — a late-night shared hotpot (劈砌, "打边炉") or supper often marks the beginning of lasting hall friendships. Halls generally operate access control and visitor registration, managed jointly by the Warden and the Hall Students' Association; some maintain "quiet hours" during exam periods to balance residents' rest and revision needs.

The physical spaces of a hall also carry many informal traditions: corridors plastered with War Cry posters from past years and election campaign posters, walls in common rooms hung with championship pennants and team photos, rooftops and common spaces serving as the fixed venues for late-night heart-to-hearts and exec meetings. For many residents, the true memory-bearers of hall life are not the ceremonial High Table dinners but these small, dense details of living together — which is why "hall spirit" has survived a century rather than being sustained by institutions alone. For practical particulars such as individual room types, hall fees and allocation mechanisms, refer to the current year's publications by HKU CEDARS Residential Halls and each hall's official website; this database does not reproduce them year by year.

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# 7. Where tradition ends and controversy begins: three documented hall incidents

Hall culture at HKU spans a clear spectrum. Rituals such as the High Table dinner, inter-hall competitions and the War Cry are long sanctioned by the University and cherished by residents as sources of belonging. At the other end sit the extreme forms of the seniority system, the marathon psychological pressure of the MO, and the actual bullying and law-breaking exposed by the following cases — these are the objects of external criticism. This section recounts only incidents documented in authoritative media or official public records, setting aside unverified anecdotal accounts.

# 6.1 2017: hot candle wax and a leaked video

Between March and April 2017, HKU was hit by two hall hazing incidents that drew wide public attention.

According to a Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) report of 5 April 2017^※, a 19-second video circulated online appearing to show a resident pinned down on a bed by two people while a third struck the victim's head with their genitals; the footage was attributed to Simon K.Y. Lee Hall. The hall's student association later claimed the conduct "does not raise concern of bullying" and called it an isolated case, but suspended the housing of those involved; police received a report and launched an investigation.

According to a follow-up HKFP report of 8 April 2017^※, the other incident took place at St. John's College: around 20 residents entered the room of a student running for the Students' Union without permission, and poured hot candle wax on the candidate's genitals. The act was reportedly carried out "in the name of tradition" as a "test" of the candidate. St John's handed down the severest punishments: three students were expelled from the hall, 19 had their residential status suspended, and one received a written warning. The Master, Wong Kwok-chun (黄国俊), stated publicly: 「无论以何种借口或任何形式的欺凌，在圣约翰均无立足之地」 ("Ragging, under whatever pretext or in any manner, has no place in St. John's".)

The HKU Students' Union subsequently held an emergency general meeting, passing a motion condemning the bullying and pledging a comprehensive review of all student activities and practices. The Union President publicly described both incidents as "unacceptable" and as not representative of HKU hall culture. The motion's definition of bullying read: "any act of intentionally subjecting another person, by virtue of the perpetrator's position of power, to any form of cruelty, insult, humiliation, hardship or oppression" — a definition that itself laid the groundwork for later regulatory frameworks.

It is worth noting that both incidents were committed in the name of "tradition": Simon K.Y. Lee Hall's initial response was that the conduct "does not raise concern of bullying" and was "an isolated case", while at St John's the perpetrators described the candle wax as a "test" of the candidate. This "packaging as tradition" is precisely the darkest end of the seniority spectrum described in Section 5: when a seniority culture slips free of Warden and University oversight and its participants grant it legitimacy as "the way it has always been done", harmful conduct comes to be seen internally as "custom" rather than "violence" — until an external perspective (media, police, social platforms) intervenes and reclassifies it. St John's subsequently revised its disciplinary code and stepped up publicity around protections for new students in response to public pressure.

# 6.2 2022: drunk harassment of mainland Chinese students

According to HK01 and Ming Pao reports of September 2022^※, several HKU residents, drunk late at night, banged on the doors of rooms occupied by mainland Chinese students, shouting remarks such as "Hong Kong welcomes you". The Mainland Undergraduate Association of HKU condemned the behaviour as "campus bullying", and the University expelled those involved from their halls after an investigation. Although the incident took place within halls and was not directly tied to seniority-based orientation practices, it was nonetheless folded into public discussion of "hall subculture spiralling out of control" — a reminder that a hall, as a densely packed shared-living space, can generate not only the seniority culture of orientation season but also everyday group pressure, drinking culture and identity-based friction that may escalate into disputes requiring University intervention.

# 6.3 2023: the nursing orientation camp indecent assault case (outside the halls, but part of residential-life controversy)

The indecent assault case at the August 2023 orientation camp of the HKU Nursing Society — which took place not within the hall system but at a faculty-level camp held in a resort in Yuen Long — is frequently discussed alongside hall hazing incidents because it involved a "group parent" seniority culture similar to the halls' seniority system. For the full timeline, court rulings and the University's response, see the dedicated article The complete guide to orientation camps.

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# 8. The University's regulatory framework: from individual punishment to institutional reform

In response to years of controversy, HKU has gradually built an institutional supervisory architecture. According to the CEDARS/LEAF orientation regulations^※, the current rules include:

The Hall Orientation Guidelines are issued as a separate document, requiring organisers to attend dedicated briefings and meet the requirements before they may begin preparing their camp. For the annual details of this mechanism, its effectiveness, and comparisons with other institutions, see The complete guide to orientation camps.

From the case-by-case punishments of 2017 to the mandatory training and declaration systems that took shape through the 2020s, the University's approach to regulating hall subculture has shifted markedly: early on it relied mainly on retrospective discipline by Wardens and the Students' Union (such as the expulsions at St John's); in recent years it has moved towards ex-ante institutional prevention — mandatory training covering all camp organisers, declaration systems giving the University advance knowledge of each hall's orientation plans, and reporting channels lowering the threshold for victims to seek help. This shift is in part a response to a long-standing external criticism: that the problems of hall subculture lie not in a few bad apples but in the structural spaces left unsupervised.

The core distinction between traditional ritual and problematic practice is this: traditional rituals have an explicit ceremonial framework and University involvement (the Warden presides over High Table), whereas problematic practices tend to occur in informal settings, are justified as "tradition" or "a test", and take place without adult supervision. It is precisely this "packaging of legitimacy" that makes external intervention difficult and imposes a silence on victims — the cycle that the reforms of recent years have sought to break.

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# Cross-references

• Halls module (10-colleges) — establishment, founding dates, buildings and notable alumni of each hall/residential college
• The complete guide to orientation camps — O-Camp / Hall-O hierarchy, the "group parent" system, and orientation controversies over the years
• Sports and competitions (module 23) — the University-wide representative teams system beyond inter-hall competitions
• Student power (module 20) — the place of Hall Students' Associations within the Students' Union system

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# FAQ

Q: Does HKU use a "college system" or a "hall system"? What's the difference? A: HKU uses the hall system, not the college system found at CUHK. Each hall has a Warden and a team of tutors responsible for whole-person education, while an executive committee (庄) elected by residents handles day-to-day operations; hall student associations count among the six major categories of HKU Students' Union societies. Since 2012 the University has added residential colleges as a complement, with flatter organisational structures; the four colleges together provide about 1,800 places, roughly 67% of them for non-local students.

Q: How are hall student association executives elected? Is there an interview? A: Generally by one of two routes. The first is interview-based: outgoing committee members assess those interested in joining — a gentler process common in halls that prefer a smooth handover. The second is open election: campaign teams canvass for support during the promotion period, and the campaign usually includes a "Con Day" on which all teams, formally dressed, publicly present their annual plans and budgets and cross-examine one another; the new exec is ultimately decided by a vote of all residents.

Q: What is the "seniority system" (仙制)? Is it equally strict in every hall? A: The seniority system is an internal seniority culture distinctive to several HKU halls: senior residents ("big seniors") dominate orientation and daily life, and first-years must complete a long list of "paying respects to seniors" tasks during the Hall-O camp (usually 8–10 days); some halls run "Mass Orientation (MO)" interrogation sessions lasting 8 to 10 hours or longer. It is not equally strict everywhere — according to interviewed residents, severity varies by hall, and the newer halls and residential colleges, lacking the historical baggage, run looser orientations closer to pure social events.

Q: What documented incidents of bullying or misconduct have occurred in HKU halls in recent years? A: Three incidents have clear media or official records: in March–April 2017, a video-exposed sexual bullying incident at Simon K.Y. Lee Hall and a hot candle wax hazing incident at St. John's College (after which St John's expelled three students); in September 2022, several residents drunk and harassing mainland Chinese students at night, resulting in their expulsion; and the August 2023 indecent assault case at the nursing orientation camp, which though not within the hall system is often discussed alongside hall controversies because of its similar "group parent" seniority culture — see The complete guide to orientation camps.

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