Young Chinese women visiting the country have taken to dressing up in Thai school uniforms, and the Ministry of Education is not happy.

Being a non-student and wearing a school uniform is okay as long as it does not have the initials of a real school on it. But if someone wearing a real uniform with a real school name on it does something bad, they could be in trouble.

Tourists — and probably most Thai people — might not be aware of it, but there is a Student Uniform Act in Thailand. Break it and you can be fined.

If tourists wear uniforms with school initials and misbehave, the management of the school concerned has the right to file a legal complaint, the Office of the Basic Education Commission said on Wednesday.

One lawyer said on his Facebook page that people who were not students but wore uniforms with school initials could be fined up to 1,000 baht.

The uniform craze among Chinese people took off when the Thai teen movie First Love, also known as A Little Thing Called Love, became popular in China.

Famous Chinese actress and singer Ju Jingyi wore a Thai student uniform during her stay in the country last month and shared her pictures online, fuelling the trend.