School officials should look to Asia and adopt the age-old practice of having youngsters clean their own classrooms.

Living within a block of two large public schools in San Francisco’s Richmond District, I am in perpetual fear of returning home from work to find my house defaced by graffiti artists.

The nicely painted homes of some of my neighbors have been the targets of these youngsters.

"It’s just unbelievable what students can get away with in this country," said a Japanese neighbor, whose husband is a chef in a popular Japantown restaurant. "I don’t think my friends in Japan would believe this if I told them."

"America is too permissive," said an immigrant from South Korea who owns a grocery store on Geary Boulevard. "I really worry about America’s future when I see the way American students behave."

As for my Chinese American neighbor, whose garage door faces a bus stop, I’ve watched him spend a good deal of his spare time painting over graffiti. "Things are going from bad to worse," he complained the other day, as he was going over a stubborn line of red graffiti with a paint brush. "Why don’t they punish these kids?"

There are laws, of course, but obviously they aren’t being enforced in the way most of my Asian neighbors would like. The so-called experts in this country have suggested solving anti-social behavior with doses of self-esteem, or by launching advertising campaigns, or by getting gang members to tell their peers graffiti is not "cool."

I have a better suggestion. What if school officials looked to Asia and adopted the age-old practice of having youngsters from an early age clean their own classrooms?

Graffiti is not a problem in Japan and Korea, where from grade one on, pupils, no matter how privileged they are, are expected to help in the daily ritual of cleaning their classrooms. Each class is divided into teams and youngsters take turns. When the day’s classes are over, members of the team on duty put on their dust masks and go to work.

This is serious business and classes compete against each other. Praise is heaped on students who excel and their names are recognized during school assemblies.

Among my earliest memories of school is cleaning up classrooms. On the day of my duty, I took a couple of special cleaning rags, which my mother had made for me. One was quite attractive, quilted like a small pot holder. I used it to clean the classroom’s wood floor. Since students remove their shoes in Japan and Korea and wear slippers inside, it was our job to keep the floor clean. We washed the quilted rag, wrung it tight and, with both hands firmly planted on the quilt, pushed the rag across the wooden floor, back and forth, then washed the rag until the water ran clear.

Another rag, this one made from my father’s shirt, was for cleaning windows. Those were the days before chemical window cleaners, but with water and a clean rag, my classmates and I always made our windows sparkle. We were praised by our teacher, school principal and of course, parents.

In junior high, our duties included cleaning the bathrooms as well. Some of my classmates, who were waited-on hand and foot by servants at home, didn’t care for the toilet duty but since everybody had to do it, we accepted it as we did exams.

School children learned the importance of cleaning along with reading and arithmetic.

In the springtime, we planted flowers. Even during the summer vacation, we visited school to check on them. We had a strong sense of pride in our school.

Technological advancements have changed much in Japan and Korea. But even now, this tradition of cleaning still lives. For a good reason, I think.

Kang was an assistant Metro editor for The Examiner who attended American, Japanese and Korean schools in Asia.