Orientation Camps in Full — O-Camp, "Group Parents," and HKU's Recurring Orientation Controversies

On the evening of 20 August 2023, at a campsite in Tai Tong, Yuen Long, an orientation camp organised by the HKU Nursing Students' Union was in its second day. Three days later, an anonymous Instagram post brought this orientation camp to the headlines — a "group dad" was alleged to have indecently touched a first-year student, some attendees reportedly used cannabis, and used condoms were found on a toilet floor. This was not HKU's first orientation-camp controversy, but this case — from the initial allegations, through police involvement, to a 2024 court verdict — left one of the most complete public timelines in recent years. This article sets out the organisational tiers of HKU's O-Camp system, how the "group parent" pairing system works, a full account of this case, and the university's more recent regulatory measures. The "Sin System" seniority culture within halls and Hall-O orientation are covered separately in Hall and College Life in Full; the two articles do not overlap.

Part of why orientation-camp controversies recur year after year lies in several structural features common to these events: participants are first-year students newly out of secondary school with little university social experience; organisers are senior students with an advantage in information and connections; venues are often off-campus resorts, outside the routine oversight of university staff; and activity design has long relied on a template of games built around "testing boundaries for fun." Understanding these structural factors — rather than simply condemning or romanticising "orientation tradition" itself — helps clarify why such controversies keep recurring and which points the new regulatory measures are aimed at. It is also why this article presents the case as a timeline alongside multiple accounts, rather than a single narrative.

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# 1. What Is O-Camp? The Tier System of Orientation Camps in Hong Kong

According to the English Wikipedia entry "Orientation camps in Hong Kong"^※, the earliest recorded orientation camps in Hong Kong date to the 1970s, first held by HKU, with other institutions following. The stated purpose is for incoming students to spend several days with peers, make friends, and get to know university life and culture while building a sense of belonging to the institution; each small group is typically led by two to four senior students (year two or above) who take part voluntarily, occasionally joined by alumni.

HKU and universities across Hong Kong generally use a shared set of terms for orientation camps, organised by the level of the hosting body:

"Big O," organised by the Students' Union, is usually the first university-wide collective activity new students encounter. "Small O," organised by departmental student societies, is smaller in scale and focuses more on bonding within a department. "Hall O," specific to HKU, is organised by individual halls, typically runs seven to ten days, and is the first set of collective activities and social network new students entering halls encounter — it is also the setting in which this article's later discussion of the "group parent" system and "Sin System" seniority culture is most concentrated. The 2023 Nursing orientation-camp indecent-assault case discussed below, strictly speaking, sits at the "Small O" tier (organised by a departmental student body), but because it involved a "group parent" seniority culture similar to Hall O's, public discussion has often grouped it together with hall-orientation controversies.

For incoming students, these three tiers are not mutually exclusive: the same student often attends "Big O," "Small O," and "Hall O" in succession around the start of the term, spanning several weeks. This is a common feature of orientation season at HKU and across Hong Kong universities generally — "orientation season" is in practice an overlay of multiple events of different nature, scale, and organiser, and new students go through dense, rapid shifts between social settings in a short period. This is both an opportunity to build a social network quickly and, as discussed later in this article, part of the backdrop against which the controversies below have tended to arise, in this high-pressure, densely packed social environment. For some new students, weeks of continuous high-intensity socialising is itself a significant psychological load — "orientation fatigue" is an informal phrase often heard on campus each orientation season.

According to English Wikipedia^※, orientation-camp culture, originating with HKU in the 1970s, gradually spread to tertiary institutions across Hong Kong and developed a number of locally distinctive elements — from icebreaker games and outdoor "large-scale games" (orienteering-style team activities) to late-night chat sessions and end-of-camp group photos — forming a relatively fixed activity template. Specific games and terms for "group parents" may vary between institutions and departments, but the core "seniors leading juniors" structure and emphasis on collective activity are broadly similar.

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# 2. What Are "Group Parents"? How Does the Pairing System Work?

"Group dad" and "group mum" (collectively "group parents") are role designations used generally across O-Camps at Hong Kong universities: each large group is led overall by a senior student "group leader," under whom sit several smaller groups, each led jointly by at least one male senior ("group dad") and one female senior ("group mum"); new students are referred to as "group sons" and "group daughters." The pairing system is meant to build a bridge of friendship between new and senior students, helping new students adjust to campus life, make friends, and learn the university's culture. Many students see serving as a group parent as a way to give back to the university and pass on their own orientation experience; the relationship between group parents and their "group children" often continues throughout university and sometimes beyond graduation.

The group-parent system is closely linked to the "cabinet" (上莊, soeng6 zong1) culture described elsewhere on this site in the article on hall life: most group parents are senior students who have previously served on a cabinet for that department or hall, or at least actively participated in orientation preparation; serving as a group parent is itself often regarded as preparation before joining a cabinet, or as part of a cabinet member's duties. The intent behind this design is to draw on senior students' experience and connections to help new students integrate more quickly; but when the power gap between group parents and new students is misused, or when activities lack adult supervision, the same mechanism can also become fertile ground for the kind of controversy discussed in Part 3 below.

From an incoming student's perspective, group parents are often the first "non-peer" figures with whom trust is built after enrolment — compared with professors or counsellors, who are formal authority figures, group parents present themselves informally, as "seniors," and new students' compliance with their instructions often carries a stronger emotional and peer-pressure component rather than purely institutional authority. This is what distinguishes the group-parent relationship from an ordinary teacher–student one — it more closely resembles an informal, "quasi-family" power structure, in which warmth and risk are often embedded together: in most cases this relationship brings a sense of belonging and practical advice (on course selection, societies, daily life, passed down from experience), but when a group parent's individual conduct is problematic, or when an activity's design itself crosses a line, new students — lacking comparable social experience and standing — often find it difficult to clearly refuse or seek help in the moment.

The term "group parents" itself is worth noting — using a kinship term like "parents" to describe a mentor or senior-student relationship is fairly common across Chinese-speaking university cultures (similar terms appear in the senior-junior mentoring systems of mainland and Taiwanese universities), carrying an implicit expectation of "caring for new students as family would." But the intimacy this framing creates can also blur the underlying seniority gap and asymmetry between group parents and new students, making it harder for new students, when something feels uncomfortable, to clearly identify it as a "power relationship" requiring caution, rather than purely "family-like care" — this is also why this article treats the group-parent system as its own section rather than folding it simply into a narrative of "senior-junior mutual help."

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# 3. The 2023 HKU Nursing Orientation-Camp Indecent-Assault Case: A Full Timeline

All details in this section are compiled from contemporaneous reporting by multiple Hong Kong outlets, with sources cited item by item. Living individuals involved are referred to throughout by surname or role only, to protect the privacy of individuals who have not received a final court conviction on the full facts.

# 3.1 The Camp and the Initial Allegations (20–22 August, 28–29 August 2023)

According to a Sing Tao Headline report of 29 August 2023^※, a three-day orientation camp organised by the HKU Nursing Students' Union was held from 20 to 22 August 2023 at a campsite in Tai Tong, Yuen Long. On 28 August, a user identifying as an incoming HKU Nursing student posted anonymously via the Instagram account "軒軒萬事屋," alleging that on the first night of the camp, a "group dad" had "touched her hands and body, hands going up and down" (「摸手摸腳,上下其手」), leaving her feeling "very uncomfortable." The post also stated that during a water activity, group leaders did not allow new students to change into dark clothing and required them to wear camp T-shirts, which became semi-transparent when wet.

According to a follow-up Hong Kong 01 report of 29 August 2023^※, the allegations subsequently expanded into what was described as "eight offences," including: non-HKU individuals allegedly being permitted to take part in camp activities; senior organisers reportedly smoking and vaping during a disco night; students with respiratory sensitivities reportedly being pressed to drink alcohol, with one reportedly suffering convulsions; someone reportedly seen smoking a rolled substance described as resembling "green herbs," with an unusual smell; used condoms reportedly found on a toilet floor; a sexually suggestive competitive game reportedly imposed on new students who appeared uncomfortable; organisers reportedly using foul language and claiming new students had shown them disrespect; and some students reportedly forced head-first into plastic buckets and struck by others.

# 3.2 University Response and Police Involvement (28–30 August 2023)

According to a report by The Standard on 28 August 2023^※, HKU said it was "looking into the matter" and stated that the Nursing school had been in contact with the student body that organised the camp. The Nursing Students' Union said it was "actively reviewing" the arrangements, pledged to "handle the matter impartially," and welcomed complaints backed by evidence. According to a Hong Kong 01 report of 30 August 2023^※, the New Territories North Regional Crime Unit received a report and followed up on allegations of cannabis use and indecent assault. A 20-year-old male student was subsequently arrested and faced two counts of indecent assault; he was released on bail.

Notably, while this episode continued to attract online attention, a related matter also emerged: according to an i-CABLE report^※, three men were arrested on suspicion of "doxxing" (publishing another person's private information online) the female complainant in the indecent-assault case. Police described those involved as having "played online judge," calling the conduct "outrageous." This episode also illustrates a common secondary risk in campus sexual-harassment controversies in the internet era: protecting a complainant's identity is often harder to secure than offline accountability, and even while a case remains before the courts, online public discussion can already inflict additional secondary harm on those involved.

# 3.3 Court Proceedings and Verdict (May 2024)

According to a Ming Pao report of 1 May 2024^※, at the committal stage before Fanling Magistrates' Courts, the prosecution's case was found, at that stage, to have a case to answer. According to a Sing Tao Headline report of 6 May 2024^※, Magistrate Leung Nga-yan of Fanling Magistrates' Courts, on 6 May 2024, found the defendant not guilty on both charges — indecent assault and common assault:

• Indecent assault: The eyewitness had identified the defendant only by hair colour, build, height, pink clothing, and "back view," never having clearly seen the defendant's face. The magistrate noted that at least three male group members present had similar hair colour and build at the time, and that identification by back view alone "could not safely confirm the defendant was the person involved." A case to answer had been found at the committal stage, but the defendant was ultimately acquitted for insufficient identification evidence.
• Common assault: The magistrate accepted that the defendant had touched the complainant's arm, but found that the complainant had, after being told about an indecent topic the defendant had raised, "voluntarily extended her arm" for him to demonstrate; the court held this did not establish common assault.

This verdict is a reminder that a not-guilty finding addresses a specific legal-technical question — whether the prosecution evidence met the standard for conviction (in this case, insufficient identification evidence) — and is not equivalent to a ruling on whether the camp's overall arrangements or organisational culture were appropriate. This is precisely why this article presents multiple accounts side by side without rendering its own verdict.

From "a case to answer" at the committal stage to acquittal on both charges at the final hearing, the case ran for roughly nine months (August 2023 to May 2024), involving police investigation, prosecution, and multiple hearings — one of the few recent Hong Kong university orientation-camp controversies to run the full course of criminal proceedings and leave a published, reasoned judgment. The magistrate's reasoning on the standard for identification evidence — that "indirect features alone, such as back view, hair colour, and build, without confirmation of facial features, cannot safely support a conviction" — has since been frequently cited in public discussion of similar cases when the evidential limits of eyewitness identification come up.

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# 4. Wider Reaction: Not Just an HKU Matter

According to an HKFP report of 4 October 2023^※, in late August to early September 2023, orientation-camp controversies were reported at several institutions around the same time, including HKU and the Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK), prompting institutions to strengthen oversight. According to an RFA Cantonese report of 6 September 2023^※, around the same period EdUHK faced an allegation involving rape and covert filming, and a video showing sexually suggestive conduct at a Lingnan University orientation activity also circulated; police made arrests in connection with these matters in early September.

Ricky Chu, then Chairperson of the Equal Opportunities Commission, said at the time that the apparent lack of gender awareness shown by students in these incidents was a matter of concern, and that first-year students experiencing serious misconduct at their first orientation camp could suffer psychological trauma. Linda Chong, Executive Director of RainLily, an organisation supporting survivors of sexual violence, pointed to a deeper structural issue: sex education in Hong Kong has long lagged behind preventive-education standards seen overseas and lacks substantive gender-equality education; she said institutions rarely teach students to respect others' physical boundaries or the importance of bodily autonomy, and that peer pressure during these activities often leads participants to take part in uncomfortable activities without clear consent. Experts accordingly called for schools to hold regular gender-awareness talks and introduce more comprehensive gender-equality education, so students understand personal boundaries and where to seek help.

A shared conclusion from this cross-institutional discussion was that orientation-camp controversies are typically not isolated incidents at a single school or department, but are linked to two structural factors: generally weak sex education at the secondary and tertiary level in Hong Kong, and the long-standing reliance of university orientation activities on student self-organisation with insufficient oversight. This is part of why, after 2023, several institutions independently placed their reform focus on "institutional prevention" (mandatory training, registration and approval) rather than solely on "punishing individual cases" — disciplining individual students after the fact does little, on its own, to change the broader environment that gives rise to such controversies, a point that also connects to this article's discussion, in Part 6, of the line between tradition and abuse of power.

According to an SCMP Young Post report^※, orientation-camp controversies at several institutions also reportedly included organisers insisting that male students enter female students' rooms for games, and requiring female students to "let the men into the room" on the grounds that they had "already been seen wet" during a water activity. Another game, referred to by the name "Hawking," was criticised as discriminatory toward people with disabilities because it deliberately mimicked symptoms of the physicist's motor neurone disease. Sexual harassment, bullying, and discrimination against people with disabilities were common themes named in criticism during this round of orientation-camp controversies.

One common pattern across this set of cases is worth noting: most of the games or segments at issue were, it appears, not originally designed with malicious intent, but were meant to build shared memories and talking points through games with "greater latitude" — for instance using physical contact, deliberately unflattering appearances, or imitating others to raise the stakes of a game. But when such designs lack adequate respect for participants' informed consent, and are compounded by peer pressure and power imbalances, games originally meant to create "shared memories" can easily turn into experiences that leave some participants feeling violated or coerced. The 2023 round of cross-institutional orientation-camp controversies was, to some extent, an occasion for Hong Kong society to collectively re-examine this traditional logic of orientation-game design.

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# 5. New Regulatory Measures: The 2025/26 Orientation Regulations

According to the HKU CEDARS/LEAF Orientation Regulations^※, the current regulatory framework for orientation camps includes:

According to reported measures taken by EdUHK (per the HKFP report above), that institution set up a dedicated committee to review orientation-camp operations and requires all organisers to undergo mandatory training covering "safety, diversity and equal opportunity, sexual harassment, and ethical conduct"; CityU introduced mandatory online anti-sexual-harassment training. It appears that, following the 2023 round of controversies, several Hong Kong universities converged on a similar approach: shifting from primarily case-by-case handling after the fact toward a preventive framework centred on mandatory training, declaration and approval, and reporting channels.

At HKU, the relationship between this set of regulations and hall-level "Sin System" and "Hall O" culture is covered in more detail in Part 8 of Hall and College Life in Full; the two articles together give a fuller picture of how HKU's orientation-camp oversight has moved from case-by-case discipline toward institution-building.

The design logic of this framework appears, to some extent, aimed at specific gaps exposed during the 2023 controversies: mandatory training directly responds to criticism of organisers' insufficient gender awareness; the reporting channel responds to the problem of complainants having "nowhere to turn" at the time; and bringing orientation activities into an official registration and approval system is an attempt to restrict, at the source, unsupervised orientation activities from accessing campus facilities and official recognition — in other words, a camp that has not been registered and approved cannot legitimately use HKU venues or advertise under the name of an HKU student body, which raises the institutional cost of running an unregistered ("wild") orientation camp, and gives the university a clearer accountable party and paper trail when pursuing responsibility after the fact.

Whether the new regulations resolve the underlying problem, however, still depends on how well they are implemented — many aspects of orientation camps, especially those held at off-campus resort venues, still rely fundamentally on student-organisation self-discipline and participants' judgment in the moment; the university's declaration and training requirements function more as a "preventive framework" and cannot realistically provide real-time monitoring of every specific game or remark made on the spot. This is also why, after 2023, public discussion gradually shifted from "case-by-case accountability" toward whether the framework addresses the underlying power relationship — the built-in seniority gap between group parents and new students is unlikely to disappear simply because of an online training certificate; a real test will only come from how these rules are actually implemented over the orientation seasons ahead.

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# 6. Making Sense of the "Group Parents" Controversy: Where Tradition Ends and Abuse Begins

Returning to the group-parent system itself: in the great majority of cases, the relationship between group parents and their "group children" stays at the level of friendship and passed-on experience, and does not turn into a controversy — which is part of why this article does not treat group-parent culture as a whole as tainted. What tends to generate controversy is, more specifically, the combination of a power gap with an absence of supervision: as senior students, group parents naturally hold an information advantage and a degree of informal authority over new students; orientation camps are often held at off-campus resort venues, outside the routine oversight of resident tutors and staff; and elements such as alcohol, enclosed spaces, and late-night activities can further amplify the risk that this imbalance is misused.

In the 2023 case, from the requirement to wear camp T-shirts that became transparent when wet, to the allegation that a group dad indecently touched a new student, to reports that organisers used foul language toward new students, what emerges is precisely this kind of power relationship accumulating across specific parts of the programme. The university's more recent regulatory measures are, in essence, an attempt to redraw a clearer, more enforceable line between "icebreaking and bonding" and "seniority culture."

It is worth stressing that the court's ultimate finding of not guilty does not mean the rest of the allegations from the camp — such as the suspected cannabis use, the used condoms, or the foul language — have been shown to be fabricated or disproven. These allegations belong to different categories: some were subject to criminal investigation (such as drug-related reports), while others remained at the level of online allegations without further independent verification. This article marks sources and the nature of each claim according to its own evidentiary weight, and does not treat "an acquittal on one charge" as equivalent to "a full clearing of the entire episode," nor does it dismiss other details — cross-referenced across multiple media outlets — simply because one specific element remains disputed. This item-by-item breakdown, presenting multiple accounts side by side, is the core method this site uses for covering contested subjects.

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# See Also

• Hall and College Life in Full — the "Sin System" seniority culture and Hall-O orientation, and the 2017/2022 hall controversies
• Team HKU in Full — HKU's representative sports team system (not directly related to orientation camps; included for module navigation)
• Student Power (Module 20) — governance of the Students' Union and departmental societies

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# FAQ

Q: How many tiers does HKU's orientation camp (O-Camp) system have, and who organises each one? A: HKU and universities across Hong Kong generally use a shared set of terms organised by hosting level: the university-wide "Big O," organised by the Students' Union, open to all incoming students and largest in scale; the departmental "Small O," organised by departmental societies, smaller in scale and focused more on bonding within a department; and the hall-based "Hall O," organised by individual halls' residents' associations, typically running seven to ten days and the first set of collective activities incoming hall residents encounter. The same student often attends all three tiers in succession around the start of term, spanning several weeks.

Q: What happened in the 2023 HKU Nursing orientation-camp indecent-assault case? A: A three-day orientation camp organised by the HKU Nursing Students' Union was held from 20 to 22 August 2023 at a campsite in Tai Tong, Yuen Long. On 28 August, a user identifying as an incoming HKU Nursing student posted anonymously alleging that a "group dad" had "touched her hands and body" on the first night of the camp; the allegations subsequently expanded into what was described as "eight offences," including alleged cannabis use, used condoms found on-site, and reports of students being pressed to drink alcohol. The New Territories North Regional Crime Unit followed up on the report, and a 20-year-old male student was arrested, facing two counts of indecent assault.

Q: Was there a verdict in the indecent-assault case? What was the outcome? A: Yes. Magistrate Leung Nga-yan of Fanling Magistrates' Courts found the defendant not guilty on both charges — indecent assault and common assault — on 6 May 2024. The indecent-assault charge failed because the eyewitness identification relied only on hair colour, build, and "back view," which could not safely support a conviction; the common-assault charge failed because the complainant was found to have "voluntarily extended her arm" for a demonstration. The case ran about nine months and is one of the few recent cases to run the full course of criminal proceedings with a published, reasoned judgment. It should be stressed: the court ruled on whether the evidence met the standard for conviction, which is not the same as a ruling on whether the camp's overall arrangements were appropriate.

Q: Besides the group dad involved, who else was implicated in this episode? A: While the episode continued to attract attention, three men were separately arrested on suspicion of "doxxing" the female complainant in the indecent-assault case online; police described those involved as having "played online judge." This illustrates a common secondary risk in campus sexual-harassment controversies in the internet era: even while a case remains before the courts, online public discussion can already inflict additional secondary harm on the complainant.

Q: What new orientation-camp oversight measures has HKU introduced since this incident? A: According to HKU's CEDARS/LEAF orientation regulations, the current framework requires all orientation-activity organisers to complete an online "Anti-Sexual Harassment on Campus" module, plus at least two further modules from areas including financial management, support for students with special educational needs, and health-and-safety conduct; an "Anti-Sexual Harassment Interactive Workshop" is also required; hall/college residents' associations must submit a "Hall Orientation Declaration Statement"; activities must be approved via the HKU SOConnect platform before being listed as officially recognised; and an "Orientation Incident Reporting Channel" is available for real-time reports. The relationship between these regulations and hall-level "Sin System" and "Hall O" culture is covered in Part 8 of Hall and College Life in Full.

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