A student's scarlet letter

A student at at a Japanese high school dozed off in class last week. As punishment, his teacher made him write an apology letter…. in his own blood. Later, the teacher confessed to the principal. It gets even stranger. According to the principal, quoted in this Reuters article, the other faculty in the room didn't notice when the boy was handed a box cutter. Apparently, they didn't see him cut his own finger open and start writing either. Even more suspicious is that the teacher will be back at work in a few days and neither the boy nor his parents has asked for a transfer into a different class. Link
UPDATE: BB reader Roy Berman says that he found an article about this in Japanese and translated it here. The comparison is interesting!