Lunch time in Japanese medical schools is interesting.Our university is in a highly-developed area, a very urban area, so most of the students go out and buy their lunch. We have an extensive selection to choose from... many kinds of food, meaning a wide range in prices too. Students with relatively more cash don't hesitate to and tend to hop into relatively high-class restaurants, while the ordinary (like me) are always trying to find the cheapest food around. Sometimes is fine, but sticking with with those affluent people for lunch everyday would easily put me into bankruptcy in a matter of days.
So what happens is, rich students tend to hang around with rich students, and ordinary students tend to hang around with those of its kind. And they become good friends... not that it is causing any problems (so far), but I just thought it's an interesting phenomenon... :-)
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We also have the same problem in Thailand, but the only school where this happens REALLY often is at Mahidol University International College and the rich schools of its kind (Assumption). Most kids there are loaded with money, which caused a problem for a friend of mine who was there on a sponsorship plus some scholarships. She told me that rich kids can't even have regular meals so they have to drive 1 hour back to Bangkok from the campus to have lunch in Siam Square and then drive 1 hr back to the campus. The least they can settle for is a lunch at Fuji restaurant, which is a luxury for the other 98% of the Thai population. My friend, you guessed it, ended up being the only one (or one of the few) poor souls from MUIC to actually eat at a cafeteria.
The same problem does not persist at elite public universities, where students generally work harder but most people there are less affluent, such as my school, Kasetsart University, Chulalongkorn University (long regarded as the "Harvard of Thailand"), and the Thai section of Mahidol University. In this case, the rich kids blended in with the poor. I have a friend from an affluent family who eat with me by the street side during weekdays, yet threw an awesome farewell get-together before she went off to Australia for her Master's degree. In this case, the gap of poverty (so to speak ToT) narrowed down.
So I guess the socioeconomic environment has something to do with the lifestyle.
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