We have a lot of silly traditions in the Hash House Harriers and all of them are designed to make people laugh and very few of them are actually rules for the sake of punishing anyone in any sort of real capacity. In the many years I have been involved with the Hash there has only been one instance of reprimand that I was aware of and rather than face his real punishment the guy just decided to never come back - and I won't get into details about what happened but honestly, this was best for everyone involved. There is a line that can be drawn between being silly and being an asshole, and he crossed that line, habitually.
The rest of the time our punishments are meant to be fun and amusing and it is a big part of why we all get together in the first place.
One of the most common punishments is to make people sit on the big blocks of ice while they are berated by others in the group. Many times the people in question are not even guilty of the "crimes" they are accused but that is not the point: The point is to get everyone involved in the process and to make the rest of the group as familiar with them as possible.
For example: There was one guy that turned up to the bus on our way to the run with what appeared to be glitter all over his body. Later I put him on the ice and asked him "did the ladyboy stay in your room until JUST BEFORE the run today?" It turns out that he had visited a temple (or so he says) just hours before coming on the run and the "glitter" was actually remnants of the gold flakes that visitors are encouraged to stick to the Buddha statues.
Us being the silly group that we are were not going to accept this answer and kind of picked on him a lot about this. He took it is stride and we all had a laugh, which is the point.
Now getting new shoes on the other hand can be a very different story.
We don't have any problem with people having new gear. Obviously running shoes get worn out and it becomes necessary to get new ones every now and then. However, someone is going to notice that your kicks are super clean and this is always an opportunity to put someone on the ice. When you get put on the ice for having new shoes, you are expected to drink a beer out of said shoe.
There are other hashes that would actually force you to drink said beer out of the actual shoe including with all of your disgusting foot sweat but we aren't that hardcore here and allow the person to drink out of a cup that is in said shoe. The only time I recall where we made someone drink directly out of the shoe was when he got back to the run and then changed into some flip-flops hoping that no one would notice. Well we noticed, we noticed on the bus ride to the event and because he tried to skirt the system we stepped it up a notch and made him drink the beer out of his shoe.
We are not cruel though and if anyone was super opposed to this we would never force anyone to do anything. It is all meant to be in good fun and for the most part everyone gets a lot of laughs at our events as well as events around the world.
Currently all operations are suspended in Chiang Mai due to Covid but as soon as we are allowed to get back to business we will be doing so. Full details are available on our website here
Smile... This is ridiculous, drinking out of your shoes?
Thanks @oscarpower55 for being engaged in the ASEAN Hive Community. !ENGAGE 5
ENGAGEtoday.haha, we do a LOT of ridiculous things in the Hash House Harriers. It's not just drinking out of your shoe, you have to drink out of them after you have spent the last hour gathering a bunch of foot sweat in said shoes.
We let people put a cup in it here in Chiang Mai, but other more hardcore organizations require it to be drunk directly out of the shoe.
The angle of that pic makes the cup almost invisible, and the first time I scanned this post I thought perhaps the guy was actually drinking shoe and beer juice. If I joined, I'd have the brightest and whitest NewBalance shoes in town.
Well the new shoes required drinking doesn't apply to first timers. We don't want to scare potential members off on their first day. That happens much later :)
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