Eight video clips of schoolgirl punishment in South Korea.
Clip 1 of 8 - Classroom caning for three girls
Date: 2009
Duration: 3 minutes
In this clip (whose soundtrack is badly distorted), secondary-school pupils are being punished for, it is said, low test scores. Each of three girls comes forward to be disciplined at the blackboard by the male teacher, who keeps consulting his results sheet. The cane is applied to the seat of the skirt. The first student makes a tremendous fuss, jumping about, yelling and clutching her behind after each stroke, of which she gets about six in all. She is probably "playing to the gallery", as the caning does not appear to be all that hard. The second student makes rather less fuss over her eight strokes, but there is still much rubbing of buttocks. The third girl is exemplary, marching up to the blackboard and taking eight brisk strokes calmly and without demur.
HERE IS THE CLIP:
Clip 2 of 8 - Classroom paddling for four girls
Date: c.2009
Duration: 30 seconds
Here we see four schoolgirls who have evidently been called out to the front of the class to be paddled. Each in turn stands facing the blackboard and receives five swats from their female teacher on the seat of the uniform skirt.
HERE IS THE CLIP:
Clip 3 of 8 - Mass schoolyard caning
Date: 2009
Duration: 30 seconds
This film, of poor technical quality, shows more than a dozen female secondary students in a schoolyard, viewed from an upstairs window. They are presenting themselves in the classic Korean "push-up" position to receive a caning across the seat of their uniform skirts, supposedly for violating the school's hair regulations. A male teacher gives them one or two quick strokes each. This looks like a routine punishment, and the strokes appear to be mild. Nevertheless, some of the girls clutch their buttocks as they stand up after being disciplined.
HERE IS THE CLIP:
Clip 4 of 8 - Classroom caning
Date: 2007
Duration: 20 seconds
In a Korean high school, a female student is summoned to the front of the class to be caned for being rude and lying. She is reluctant to come forward and appears to be challenging the teacher, perhaps denying guilt, but he insists. She comes to the desk and is given five strokes of the cane on the seat of her skirt. She remains standing up for this, rather than being made to adopt the push-up posture which was more usual in Korean school caning. There is nothing jocular about this episode, although the strokes are not especially hard. The girl holds her bottom at the end of the punishment.
In this improved version of the clip, the aspect ratio has been fixed so that the student and teacher now appear the correct shape during the caning.
HERE IS THE CLIP:
Clip 5 of 8 - A more light-hearted classroom caning
Date: 2007
Duration: 30 seconds
In a class of younger students, two girls are lightly caned, apparently as they pack up to leave at the end of the lesson. Each comes up to stand facing the blackboard, and the schoolmistress administers five rapid taps with the cane on their school uniform skirts.
This is clearly not a serious punishment. I think the girls' yelling in reaction to it, and holding their bottoms afterwards, is meant as a joke. Certainly there is laughter, including from the teacher at one point.
HERE IS THE CLIP:
Clip 6 of 8 - Mass whacking outside school - TV news clip
Date: 23 May 2006
Duration: 1½ minutes
This is a news item from Korean TV. A short sequence within the item shows a large number of schoolgirls being punished outside their school.
The girls are lined up in a row and have been made to adopt a "push-up" position while a male teacher goes along the line, whacking each student on her bottom several times with a stick. According to one source, 40 high-school girls were thus punished altogether, for not taking part in Teacher's Day.
We know from other pictures and videos that this "push-up" posture was the norm in Korean schools, both as a punishment in its own right (holding the uncomfortable position for a length of time) and as a stance for the receipt of posterial chastisement.
The implement being used is much too thick and heavy and rigid to be described as a cane in the British sense. It also appears not to be in conformity with the Education Ministry's then rules for CP as set forth in this June 2002 news item. I would describe what we see here as almost "clubbing" rather than caning.
The stick appears to be wielded with some force and without very much care; in Western cultural terms this treatment might be seen as verging on the brutal. Nor would it be regarded as acceptable -- and especially not for girls -- in some other Asian countries, such as Malaysia or Singapore, where the moderate, properly regulated, formal, non-violent caning of schoolboys is routine and officially supported.
However, the evidence is that in Korean culture this sort of thing was, at the time, fairly normal and regarded by many as a reasonable or even necessary way of dealing with misbehaving youngsters of both sexes.
In fact it may be that in Korean terms this is fairly mild stuff, because there are also reports (and there is at least one unpleasant video clip on YouTube) of students being violently punched and thumped on the spur of the moment by angry teachers -- which of course is not corporal punishment at all, but mere indefensible brutality.
Clip 7 of 8 - Complaint of excessive caning at boarding school - TV news clip
Date: March 2006
Duration: 1 minute 15 seconds
This news item from SBS TV reports on severe caning in a girls' boarding school in Busan, with a group of teenagers partly lifting up their skirts to show the results. The punishment appears by Western standards to have been way over the top. There are background scenes of the school including the dormitory, and a brief shot of a student's bruised buttocks receiving medical treatment. The reporter claims that some of the girls were bleeding. The punishment also included being made to run across the playground 50 times. Other more generalised mistreatment was also alleged at this school. As the clip ends, the TV reporter is briefly seen in a contretemps with an official of the school. The picture quality is poor.
HERE IS THE CLIP:
Clip 8 of 8 - Light-hearted caning for lateness
Date: 2008
Duration: 15 seconds
In this clip, a female student gets mildly caned in the corridor for being late to school. The atmosphere is jocular.
About this website
This is a news item from Korean TV. A short sequence within the item shows a large number of schoolgirls being punished outside their school.
The stick appears to be wielded with some force and without very much care; in Western cultural terms this treatment might be seen as verging on the brutal. Nor would it be regarded as acceptable -- and especially not for girls -- in some other Asian countries, such as Malaysia or Singapore, where the moderate, properly regulated, formal, non-violent caning of schoolboys is routine and officially supported.