A middle school in Jinjiang, East China's Fujian Province, has apparently banned its students from wearing imported shoes to stop them from competing with each other over who has the fanciest footwear.
A statement allegedly issued by the Zijiang Middle School went viral on February 24, which said that students have recently begun to compare their shoes with each other on campus. In order to be the coolest kid on the playground, some of the students have asked their parents to purchase them expensive imported shoes, the viral statement said.
In order to curb these comparisons and promote frugality, the school says that students in some grades are now forbidden from wearing imported shoes on campus.
A teacher at the school surnamed Ye confirmed with news site thepaper.cn that the announcement is genuine and only applies to one of the school's grades.
Ye explained that the school has previously banned students from using cellphones and made them wear uniforms. In the absence of any other sartorial or technological distinction, the students then focused on their shoes. "Some students have even told their parents that they will quit school if they aren't given good shoes to wear," said Ye.
However, the statement triggered heated debate online, with Net users saying that the statement implies that all Chinese shoes China are cheap.
Netizens named several made-in-China shoes that cost thousands of yuan a pair, saying that the students could just buy these shoes and avoid any lesson in frugality.
