This is surely a first-ever. A real-life caning at a Singapore school assembly, secretly filmed on a videophone by a student in the audience (I have no idea how he managed to do that undetected):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx12AdIt3Sc

It's only one stroke, but still, ouch.

Nice. Though if he only got one stroke it's pretty mild compared to what we used to get at school in England back in the 60s. And what was the deal with the cloth that he dropped afterwards?

Yes, although quite a solid-looking thwhack. My grammar school headmaster never gave less than 3, but if he'd ever been restricted to 1 stroke I don't think he would have been ashamed of this one, from a purely technical point of view.

If you download it and view it frame by frame, you can see that the lad is holding his arse even as he turns to walk away from the chair, and is still holding it when he is summoned back to pick up the thing he's dropped on the floor; which suggests the punishment had some impact.

The deal with the .. actually I think it's a file or a magazine: most Singapore schools seem to do this. It's odd - I haven't come across it anywhere else in a school CP context, but the idea is to slot something into the boy's trouser waistband at the rear to protect his lower spine if the cane stroke should go too high.

See e.g. the same kind of thing in this play-acting version from St Gabriels (one of several boys-only Catholic schools celebrated for canings in SG) -- not the real thing, of course, but illustrative of the technique:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvJc_zfDLXw

And in this one from Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary, again boys acting out caning, you can see that the boy has a book in his pants just above his butt:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=sJf_XDls9QQ

Personally, I'd have thought all this was unnecessary as long as the culprit is bending over far enough. In the real-life example, he arguably isn't (hands on chair seat; for a boy this big, it ought to be elbows on seat.)

No such precautions are illustrated in this play-acting version from Clementi Town Secondary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDD299XFMEk

Good example of how the bending-over ought to be done (in my humble opinion), elbows on a low table, feet somewhat apart, arse up a bit and out a bit, in this fictional version from "I Not Stupid Too", this year's Singaporean movie hit - filmed at Presbyterian High, where in real life they quite frequently do do public canings in this very hall:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9S3CEgNl74

Quote: "Good example of how the bending-over ought to be done (in my humble opinion), elbows on a low table, feet somewhat apart, arse up a bit and out a bit . . . " Unquote

Alaric, any chance of a jpg pic for those who can not access Youtube? Thanks in anticipation and for your interesting contributions.

KK -- I think I have the means to make a still image from the movie clip, but I don't know how to post it here without a photobucket account, which at the moment I don't have.

But when you say you don't have access to Youtube, I suppose you mean your internet connection is too slow to watch streaming video. Try this: First clear your browser cache. Then make as if to view the Youtube streaming clip but just leave it running, however slowly and jerkily, while you do something else. As long as it reaches the end eventually, the clip then will be in your browser cache in flash video (FLV) format. Copy it out of the cache to your desktop. Rename it with the file extention .flv if it doesn't already have that. You can then either convert it to a mainstream format (I think some video editing programs will probably do this) or view it in an FLV viewer, various versions of which are easily to be found free on the internet.

Alternatively, and less geekily, you can download clips from Youtube to your hard disk with a simple, free, standalone program called VDownloader from
http://comunidad.uem.es/epuertas/post/2006/06/01/como-descargar-videos-youtube-google-video-y-grinvi
It needs no installation. Unzip the two .exe files to your desktop or a folder. Open VDownloader.exe. Paste in the URL of the Youtube page and select AVI when it asks you which format. It will download the clip to your desktop (or wherever you specify) and convert it from FLV to AVI and then you can watch it as often as you like in Windows Media Player or similar program.

The most interesting aspect of this clip is the fact that it is of a boy, who looks to be about 14 or 15, and the "audience" in the school hall is both boys and girls. Obviously it is a mixed secondary school. There are several camera shots on the faces of girls in the audience during the caning, who look about the same age as the boy being caned - this makes the scene somewhat sexually charged.

I agree, and this shot is very emotional. Who is the girl on the left? She is fascinated by what she is seeing but occasionally diverts her eyes and is in deep thought. Perhaps she is the boy's girlfriend? Perhaps she has been caught smoking behind the bike shed again and has to report to the headmaster after school? Perhaps she is wondering what fate awaits her? Perhaps her skirt will be lifted when she bends over and her knickers pulled down...........

Thanks for posting those links.

I see mostly fear and loathing on those faces. It's curious that Jethro sees something so completely different.

Girls don't get caned in S'pore.