South Korea - Three clips of schoolboy punishment

In present-day South Korea it seems to be common for punishment to be delivered in front of the class or in the corridor. With the spread of mobile telephones that also function as video cameras, this has led to several CP scenes filmed by other students becoming available. These three clips show secondary boys being disciplined by teachers.

CLIP 1 OF 3

Do not blink or you will miss this clip: it lasts just 4 seconds.

Two secondary boys are being disciplined in a school corridor, assuming the classic South Korean punishment position: hands on the floor, bottom sticking up. We see a teacher giving the first one two fairly vigorous strokes across the seat of his trousers (implement unclear, but I think it sounds more like a rigid thick stick or a paddle than a proper flexible rattan cane). That boy immediately gets up and goes on his way while the other one receives one stroke before the clip ends - presumably the first of two or more strokes.

If we look again at the clip, right at the beginning we can see another boy who has clearly just been caned before the filming started, rubbing his buttocks as he walks away.

This is just a brief glimpse of what seems to be a fairly routine school punishment in Korea.

HERE IS THE CLIP:

CLIP 2 OF 3

In this 25-second scene, a boy stands facing the blackboard to be punished across the seat of his trousers. The implement being used by the teacher appears to be some sort of ruler, possibly being applied sideways on, though it is hard to be sure. By Korean standards this is a mild punishment, made less effective, I should have thought, by the fact that the student has not been asked to bend but is standing upright, in addition to which his trousers are fairly loose and the teacher makes little attempt to counteract this.

Ten strokes are given altogether. After the fourth one the boy jumps away, as though in too much pain to continue, but I suspect he is "putting this on". The atmosphere in the room is not very solemn, perhaps even mildly light-hearted, which tends to suggest that this is not a very serious occasion.

HERE IS THE CLIP:

CLIP 3 OF 3

This 2-minute clip shows a much more severe caning, in which four senior secondary boys, aged perhaps 16 or 17, take it in turns to receive about 20 hard strokes over the clothed posterior while bending over a desk, head down, in a formal disciplinary ceremony. The atmosphere in the room is quiet and entirely serious.

Allegedly the reason for this punishment is that the students refused to do their homework. Of course, there may be more to it than that.

(UPDATE: It has been suggested that this may be a "hagwon" (after-hours crammer for extra tuition) rather than an ordinary secondary school, and that corporal punishment at such an institution probably has implicit or explicit parental consent.)

We are calling it a "caning" for the sake of convenience but, as usual in Korea, the implement is not at all like a British (or Singaporean) punishment cane, i.e. a flexible rattan, but a thick rigid stick. In this particular instance the teacher is wielding it with both hands, something one would never do with a proper cane. In fact in some ways this could be more comparable with an American paddle, which sometimes is applied two-handed.

The noise made on impact suggests that the stick may be of relatively lightweight wood; I think a heavier stick would probably make a duller thud. If not, this punishment would surely cause a lot of bruising, though still not nearly as much pain in total, or for as long, as if it were a proper rattan, 20 strokes with which would be completely off the graph in a school setting.

(UPDATE: Some observers suggest the implement may actually be a hollow aluminium tube. This would probably be less painful than it looks.)

(For comparison, note that the absolute maximum at even the toughest English school or reformatory was 12 strokes of the swishy rattan cane, and at the vast majority of schools the maximum was six, as it is now in Singapore; even that can cause superficial bleeding.)

At least one of these boys looks to have padding down his trousers, and it is surprising that the teacher doesn't seem to notice or bother about this. He appears to be in both a hurry and a bad temper, neither of which is the ideal condition in which to carry out this task.

The first boy finds the pain hard to bear after a dozen or so strokes and stands up, holding his backside and protesting that his punishment should end there, but the teacher gives him very short shrift, and he submits to the rest of it with an air of agonised resignation.

The other three youths, having seen what to expect, undergo their canings stoically, but they are clearly hurting afterwards, padding or not. The second boy clutches his buttocks as he moves away from the desk.

HERE IS THE CLIP:

See also: Video clips: Korea: Schoolgirls