School canings in Thailand, page 3

Clip 1 of 8

Duration: 30 seconds

Date found: February 2008

This is an amalgam of six very brief clips, all seemingly filmed on the same occasion. Each student coming to the front of the class receives one token stroke of what might be a ruler on the palm of the hand. This is clearly "going through the motions" rather than proper punishment, and it is not clear what purpose it serves. One might take the view that the whole currency of corporal punishment is devalued when it becomes as routine, trivial and seemingly pointless as this.

HERE IS THE CLIP:

Clip 2 of 8

Duration: 3 minutes

Date found: March 2010

In this clip we see mild posterial canings of secondary students as they stand at the front of the class. The culprits here are a mixture of several girls and many boys. The atmosphere is raucously jocular: beware of hysterically screaming girls on the soundtrack.

HERE IS THE CLIP:

Clip 3 of 8

Duration: 1½ minutes

Date found: March 2010

Eight boys and two girls line up for three strokes of the cane each on the backside at the front of the class from their lady teacher. The cane looks to be a real one, but the strokes are not very hard, and the atmosphere is light-hearted.

HERE IS THE CLIP:

Clip 4 of 8

Duration: 1 minute

Date found: February 2011

Half a dozen boys and one girl each receive four swift, mild whacks across the bottom in a highly jocular classroom atmosphere. The teacher administering the punishment is reading from a list as he goes along, suggesting that these canings might be for poor test results rather than poor behaviour.

HERE IS THE CLIP:

Clip 5 of 8

Duration: 40 seconds

Date found: April 2010

These brief scenes show uniformed secondary boys and girls who have arrived at school late in the morning. (Ignore the continuous chitchat on the soundtrack.) They stand in line for a stroke of the cane each across the buttocks, as a token punishment for their unpunctuality. For some reason the first boy seen gets two strokes. The implement does not look like a proper rattan, and the strokes are mere surface taps, with no follow-through. The teacher administering this rather feeble "discipline" is dressed in a boy-scout uniform. Once again, we seem here to be "going through the motions". The position adopted is the familiar Thai one of standing up straight with arms folded out of the way in front of the body. The students are evidently not taking the matter seriously.

HERE IS THE CLIP:

Clip 6 of 8

Duration: 5 minutes

Date found: August 2013

All the scenes in this long, discontinuous film are taken on the sports court of a secondary school in rural north-east Thailand, where at morning assembly each day there is a 10-minute mass caning period for offences such as latecoming, hair too long (boys), or dress code violations. Some boys have their haircut checked and if it is found acceptable they are dismissed without punishment. Different teachers are seen administering the discipline on different days. Students of both sexes and all shapes and sizes, in various uniforms, receive either one or occasionally two strokes with a long thin cane. In some instances they just stand there; in others they have to bend over; in yet others, the student is required to kneel on the ground. It is not clear why these distinctions are made. But in all cases the punishment is delivered to the seat.

  Many students clutch their buttocks immediately afterwards, but the punishment is plainly seen as relatively trivial or "token", and the atmosphere is routine and matter-of-fact, bordering on light-hearted. The sheer numbers involved every day would suggest that the penalty needs to be made more severe (harder strokes and more of them) to have a properly deterrent effect.

  Acknowledgements to "The Exposed Traveler" (who disapproves of CP) for putting this material into the public domain.

HERE IS THE CLIP:

Clip 7 of 8

Duration: 3 minutes

Date found: June 2013

Mass caning of boys and girls by an ambidextrous lady teacher on a balcony outside a classroom, filmed at first from within the classroom with views of the listening class, and later from more close up on the balcony. Lots of light strokes, typically c.10 each, seemingly fairly ineffectual. The atmosphere is matter-of-fact and neutral.

HERE IS THE CLIP:

Clip 8 of 8

Duration: 4 minutes

Date found: August 2012

This caning of one girl and six boys was filmed unusually close up. Each student receives three sharp strokes, the girl over her uniform pleated skirt and the boys over their uniform short trousers. A true whippy rattan is used. The stance adopted is the usual Thai one of standing up straight with arms folded. There is much clutching of buttocks and some dancing around in pain, the latter in some cases possibly exaggerated for comic effect.

  Despite the light-hearted atmosphere, these are clearly real punishments, not "going through the motions" as we have seen in some other Thai school video clips.

HERE IS THE CLIP:

See also these further collections of school CP video clips from Thailand:

-- Jocular schoolboy canings

-- Schoolboy canings of a more solemn nature

-- Schoolgirl canings