How often do you drink alcohol? How much alcohol do you drink? The positive impact of alcohol is that people meet and become better friends. But there are serious problems in Korea. Adolescents as well as adults drink and encounter alcohol everywhere. There are a lot of people drinking alcohol day and night. This shows how wrong one part of Korea’s drinking culture is.
I’m talking about the University drinking culture. The university has a worse drinking culture than any place. 99.1 percent of university students claim to drink alcohol at least once. Universities have a welcoming party for freshmen with an initiation ceremony. Students expect to have a first meeting with a senior and hear about school life at the welcoming party. But the reality is different. Freshmen don’t refuse alcohol from seniors, and drink until they are unconscious. So they fare badly from the very beginning of university life.

All students, like freshmen, can become unconscious on the bottle. The University Festival reveals this well. Once the festival starts, there is more alcohol than students gathering. Students enter the bar and talk with friends. But, it doesn’t end here. When the game starts after talking, they drink alcohol even if they don’t want it. In this way, students drink large amounts of alcohol without their realizing it, until they are beyond their capacity. The pressure of such games as “Bomb shot” or “bottoms up” is serious, according to 57 percent of students in one survey. In other words, drinking alcohol through games makes moderation almost impossible.
I saw many people at my university festival. Among them, the drunk stuck out especially. There were people fighting with friends, walking around staggering and screaming, regardless of gender. Do you know that? A new bill will take effect next year. It contains a ban on the sale of alcohol and drinking on the university campus. I think that the nation demanded this bill because students died by drinking alcohol a few years ago. Even now there are many incidents involving drinking alcohol. Some schools have begun “give up drinking” campaigns. And groups of students who refuse to drink are growing. The drinking culture should change in every school throughout the country. I wish that the university drinking culture would become sounder.

Im Guk-jin  -

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