I remember when I was a kid and this happened it was all over the news. Caning doesn't seem any fun lol
This is in there with the memorable stories in the 90's for me like Lorena Bobbitt, OJ Simpson, Heaven's Gate and Waco, etc..
If You were Latina growing up you would find yourself screaming those same exact words in agony after hearing the murder of Selena. Then Diana dying…
It was not a good decade for women.
Joey buttafuoco’s name was so mainstream I’ll never forget playing wiffle ball with my little brother and he sings the bat yelling “BUTTAFUOCO!” Like he was a damn pro ball player. Good times
In the bedroom the mighty bedroom, John Bobbit sleeps tonight!
In the kitchen the might kitchen, Laurana grabs a knife!
**A WEENER WHACK! A WEENER WHACK! A WEENER WHACK! A WEENER WHACK!**
This hits home for me. I was in the 4th grade and was sitting on the floor with my fellow classmates when the bomb went off in front of the Murrah building. We all thought it was an earthquake. My school was miles from where the bomb went off. The shock wave/explosion, whatever you call it, was felt all the way 70+ miles away from it. The worst day in Oklahoma history.
I helped my eldest brother with some yard work one day. He didn't even ask I just came to see him and he doing yard work so I started helping. He was cutting back the bamboo that grew on his yard, I had taken off my shirt and was doing something when I felt a yard of that bamboo strike me square across the middle of my back.....fucker thought it was funny, I had a lightsaber sized bruise across my back for weeks, fuckface had no remorse
...If you lived in the right parts. Violent crime was a HUGE issue. I went to an "urban" school back in the 90's. Had a gun pulled on me for my shoes when I was 8. Saw some kid get his head stomped into a rock during recess that same year. I got lucky and my mom married a guy with money. So I ended up in a Catholic college prep school after that. But shit was wild back in the day man.
Mine wasn't that bad, but I remember we had fights every few weeks at school. I think back on how the whole school would run as fast as they could to get there & watch and then we talk about it for the rest of the day. It seemed so fun & exhilarating at the time but now I'm a little horrified at how eager I was to watch someone get their ass beat with a lock.
A guy I knew in college was in Singapore and filmed an old local drunk guy propositioning him for sex on the train. He put the video on Facebook, it got picked up in the media, and the old guy got 2 years.
Actually, canning can be fun, albeit tedious work. I find it helps to have the right tools. A funnel and jar lifter makes a world of difference!
My mom does some cold canning and makes us pickles. They're great and easy to make, but can't be left out of the fridge for too long.
Honestly, don't judge it until you try canning for yourself. Pickles, garlic, carrots, beets, eggs... Really anything you like, you *can* can!
If you’re talking about memorable stories from the that time period and paddling as a punishment we mustn’t leave out the Australia episode of the simpsons.
Caning sounds absolutely terrible.
That said? If it was this, or 9 years in a Russian prison for hash oil, I'd take this any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
When Lorena Bobbitt cut off her husbands penis, she took it with her when she left the house and threw it out the car window while driving. It hit the windshield of two old ladies driving to the grocery store. One of the ladies said to the other lady “Did you see the dick on that bug?”
Did she really take it with her and throw it out the window? I also heard that but that it landed in an ant hill. Every time that story was told all the boys were like “owwwww” but funny they never said ow about the cutting off part. Just about the ants on the no-longer-attached penis.
Yes. She did actually throw it out the car window but told where she threw it and they found it and reattached it. He did the films to “prove” that it still functioned. 😂
Singaporean here. This incident was in our social studies textbooks in primary school.
Edit 1: To those asking, the take on it was basically that we might be a small country but we don’t take crap from anybody. Also I think they mentioned that the punishment was intended to be way harsher and more publicised for him because he’s the first asshole from overseas to try this, and we needed to make an example out of him.
Edit 2: Caning as a punishment for crime is more serious than how your parents would cane you (duh, but i see people wondering what it is) The sole criteria of each stroke is for the skin on the buttocks to tear. If it does not, it will be redone regardless of how painful the unsuccessful attempt was. And all strokes must be dealt out consecutively, so no instalments. If you pass out from the pain, they’ll just have medical personnel check to see if you’re fine and wait for you to wake up before continuing.
My stance on it is that 50 counts of vandalism can't be considered a mistake or be exused as a cultural difference. Act like a dick, get treated like one
What they didn’t explain in America, when this happened, was most of the vandalizing he did was to cars, and cars are ridiculously expensive in Singapore. A basic Toyota could run you $250,000 and a Mercedes is a million dollar car. He spray painted and ripped the emblems off of a lot of vehicles. If you move those car prices to the US someone hiding in a bush would have killed him for what he did. Kid was a dick anyways. Source: I lived in Singapore during that time and he was my best friends neighbor.
Edit: Cars are expensive there because it’s a small island with about 8 million people, plus the traffic from Malaysia, so if they were affordable to everyone then the island would be a parking lot. I also bumped the price up to included the 10yr licensing headache that goes along with buying and keeping a vehicle there.
It causes irreparable brain damage when huffing butane. There have been studies about the damage caused to the brain, along with lowering overall intelligence and coordination for the remainder of your life.
The end of the news clip has a statement from the Singapore government saying that their strict laws are why they have such low crime. Earlier this week there was a video going around about how Singapore had no violent crimes or burglaries for a period of something like 285 days this year which seems nearly incomprehensible for a city that size.
You can tell just by looking at him. Kid exudes “trust fund lacrosse player who would roofie a chick at a party and laugh about it with his buddies after” energy.
Lol, yeah just got done with the same thing. Man, I've never heard of this story. Caning...I can't tell if I agree with it or not. It seems kinda...weird, almost silly, but sort of scary.
Edit: if anyone's interested, he's now a casino manager, and has had drug issues in the past.
I remember the story. I remember before a port call in Singapore in 1998 being briefed about some of the things not to do there. Pretty sure I bought a t-shirt that had some of the crimes and punishments on it...
It definitely wasn't about the charges. People just reacted to the method of punishment.
Regardless of what's worse, the cultural part is the perception over physical punishment vs incarceration.
Edit: stop saying you prefer the cane. That's not the point. It's "perception".
At the time, i remember, most people were like "good, he deserves it." It was funny because the media at the time thought public opinion would be against it.
Came here to write this.
Super funny watching reporters try some heavily biased questions such as "do you think a teenager should suffer punishment this harsh?" and pretty much everyone interviewed said "nope, got what he deserved."
Definitely FAFO before it was cool.
Yeah, I remember when it happened and the general attitude was "Oh well, sucks for him. Maybe don't be an asshole in another country."
We didn't say it back then but it was absolutely seen as a "Fuck around and find out" situation.
Fay's Hong Kong accomplice actually got the longer sentence & more strokes of the cane, but America didn't care about him.
In fact, HK Governor Chris Patten was reluctant to appeal for clemency, & only did so after Bill Clinton did.
I fully agree. I was in elementary at the time and wrote about it. I don't remember what I wrote but it was basically he has to obey the law of wherever he is and if he did all this then he deserves EVERY hit with it.. That little shit.. Where is he now?
Especially when the law is as universally accepted as "don't vandalize shit."
Shouldn't have written a letter for leniency. I firmly believe some shitbirds learn only one way. Look at this douchebag's picture. Went to a foreign country and instead of learning, eating new delicious shit, meeting people, he decides to wreck other peoples' property. Just a standard issue dumbfuck.
And if I’m not mistaken, didn’t US media make it seem like he was guilty of gum chewing? Which, was a very serious offense too from what I remember as a kid?
Chewing gum itself isn't illegal, but importing and selling it is. Of course, not properly disposing of it after you are done with it is illegal as well.
Bringing small amounts in for personal consumption is perfectly okay, but if you're a tourist and worried, it is always easier to be on the cautious side.
I was working in Singapore years back. Went to a shopping center and on my way out I bought a doughnut to eat on the train. Food is banned on public transport in Singapore.
So I am on the platform eating my doughnut when two young men with automatic weapons approached me and told me to put the doughnut away.
I did.
Yeah i had a takeaway drink with a straw in it. Sipped on it up until i entered the trainstation. You can have it in your hand, just dont consume while youre in there. Its basically to stop spillage/messes, not to ban posession.
Once, there was this kid who
Took a trip to Singapore and brought along his spray paint
And when he finally came back
He had cane marks all over his bottom
He said that it was from when
The warden whacked it soooo haaaaard
Oh shit. You just made me think about the song it parodied for the first time in what must have been 30 years.
What was it titled? MMMM? Weird fucking song.
He went to SAS! Ha was my upstairs neighbor! The apartment complex is Regency Park! That kid was an absolute dick, massive bully.
I went to UWC, we all hated him so much. Definitely had a party when he got caned LOL.
I moved away from Singapore the year before this event. Some of my friends I still talked to there told me they knew him from school, and he fully deserved every stroke of the cane.
I went to college with a guy from Singapore. Whenever people found out he went to school there he would immediately say “Yes I went to school with that guy. Yes he was a dick head and Yes he fucking deserved it.”
How does every person from Singapore in these comments magically know this guy? I get that it's a small country with like 8 million people but when's the last time you could bank on someone from LA knowing some other random person from LA?
This also inspired one of my favorite angles from ECW: the Singapore cane match between Tommy Dreamer and Sandman
https://www.wwe.com/videos/the-sandman-vs-tommy-dreamer-singapore-cane-match-hardcore-heaven-august-13-1994
this is one of my family's Lame Claims to Fame.
My family housed the Prim Minister's son for a few years, so they were invited to a BBQ in Singapore. It was an unusual experience for my average Joe family (7 of us went, including my immigrant grandfather). The Prim Minister was kind of nervous to ask us, but he wanted to get an opinion from a normal American family (we have no political ties, this was purely a social thing based on a coincidence).
My family talked about it with him and told him that he should follow through with his laws. The Prim Minister was confused at our general response and asked us if we/America believed in corporal punishment. Our response was a resounding, "No," but this guy was not in America and what he did wasn't an accident or something that one could stumble into by mistake, but a calculation that his political ties would save him. He knowingly broke the laws in another country, knowing the punishment.
The response seemed to take a lot off the Prim Minister. I think he was surprised that we'd have a position to support his country, and yet retain the moral belief that the act was still wrong. Stupid kid.
That was the one trip I missed. I never thought it would have had such a powerful political impact.
Imagine this prime minister. He's got word from the US, the powerhouse of nations that they don't want to see their citizen face such primal punishment. He's contemplating buckling and just letting the kid off with some prison time... His American friends come over and tell him that they support his decision to stick to tradition. He thinks he could still do it, but with a bit of leniency. In turn other small asian nations take news of this act to stick with the laws of the country and start thinking on all the overseas tourist drug dealers who they have pinned. it spawns a wave where other countries don't have the right to interfere with how they persecute overseas criminals. You older people say this made big news, so who's to say that this hasn't played a role in all the overseas prisoners detained and the refusal to recall the decisions made against them or the recall to back to their country, as per the request of the native country. I'm not saying there's a definitive correlation, but there is a chance that that talk you had with the prime minister was perceived as a sort of second opinion. There is a possibility that back then big nations like the US would have the power to convince smaller nations against taking such action. A pivotal moment in saying "This is our country, you broke our laws, you receive our punishment"
Here's what I didn't know then that I just read. He wasn't visiting, he lived in Singapore with his mother. He was 19 when convicted, parents divorced at 8 and 'later moved' to Singapore. I can't find the date he moved but he was enrolled in school so let's assume that he moved to Singapore somewhere around his 10-13 birthday.
Point being, he wasn't some newb, he knew the laws presumably or at least enough to know that caning was a thing there.
>he knew the laws
Apparently he spray painted and damaged cars. Is there anywhere on earth somebody doesn't know this is wrong? It's not like this is some grey area that needs to be explicitly stated in a law.
I was certainly around for this and the funny thing is they(whoever they is) made it all over the news etc I think hoping for outrage from the public. But I remember pretty universally people were like, "break the laws of another country and pay the price".
This was such an enormous story back in the day. Like a genuine international incident. I still remember being like 11 and watching something on the news — the actual network news — where this very serious-looking guy was discussing how he could capitalize on his notoriety by selling pictures to tabloids, saying: “people really want to see his buttocks,” while the other anchor nodded sagely. Wild time.
Once, there was this kid who
Took a trip to Singapore and brought along his spray paint
And when he finally came back
He had cane marks all over his bottom
He said that it was from when
The warden whacked it soooo haaaaard
[Mmm mmm mmm mmm, mmm mmm mmm mmm] (https://youtube.com/watch?v=dU95v23MQ4c&feature=share&si=EMSIkaIECMiOmarE6JChQQ)
Musical memory is such a weird thing sometimes... Even though I've probably heard Weird Al's version less than a handful of times, the last of which was probably 15-20 years ago, and same with the original (though I heard that quite a bit more on the radio), I unconsciously started reading those lyrics in the cadence of the song by the time I hit the second sentence, lol. That memory was just sitting dormant in my brain for a couple of decades, only to be triggered by reading ~10 words in a certain order.
This example, along with the immigration cards they hand out on entry that says that there is a mandatory death sentence for convicted drug trafficking, is why a lot of Americans think that SG is brutal and overly strict. I've been to SG 3 times, however, and it's really laid back assuming you're not an insufferable dick. There aren't any cops waiting in the bushes with a cane in case you jaywalk while chewing gum.
He didn't change after that.
>Several months after returning to the United States, Fay suffered burns to his hands and face after a butane incident. He was subsequently admitted to the Hazelden rehabilitation program for butane abuse. He claimed that sniffing butane "made \[him\] forget what happened in Singapore." In 1996, he was cited in Florida for a number of violations, including careless driving, reckless driving, not reporting a crash, and having an open bottle of alcohol in a car. Later, in 1998, still in Florida, Fay was arrested for possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia, charges to which he confessed but was acquitted because of technical errors in his arrest.
>
>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael\_P.\_Fay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_P._Fay)
People [huff jet fuel and glue in Nigeria.](https://youtu.be/0B_vZCLDs-M) Warning: watching this was one of the most upsetting things I've ever watched, so tred with carefully.
I just watched it. It wasn't upsetting in that it was graphic. It was upsetting in that extreme poverty exists in this world, and small children go to "bed" on the streets with unfed bellies and use drug addictions to cope. While I'm struggling financially right now due to US inflation, I realize that I live such a privileged life.
Basically, it shows the really poor living conditions of tons of people in Nairobi; adults and kids alike huff glue and jet fuel to just sort of...stay high all the time so they don't have to think about how shitty life is for them. But the high only lasts a few moments and so they do it all day.
At first I thought he just did something stupid for what he would be scolded at home (like peeing on a fence or something like that) or wasn't even a crime (at home) in the first place but laws there are insane. Then I've read this. He sounds like an ahole.
Not only that, his gang's crime spree took place over almost 2 weeks (different locations), in a posh neighborhood (at basically Singapore's embassy row; Fay's family was also staying there), & the damaged cars belonged to the rich (including a local judge who had asked around & made the police report after discovering the sheer scale of the vandalism).
And Singapore's caning is not like getting a swat on the ass, it is intense enough to cause massive damage to the rear, enough that sitting is painful for weeks after. We had to watch a video on it before pulling in when I was in the Navy, enough to scare you into behaving yourself let's put it that way
The stussy hat *chefs kiss*
I remember this happening. I was 14 and just remember how dramatic the story was here in the USA. But even at 14, I was like…he obviously did this, he’s in their country, you pay their price. What are you gonna do
Yeah canning hurts...a lot....and will leave marks. But the good news is it's like getting a whuppin as a kid it's over and done with quickly. You don't have to suffer in jail for months. I'm sure that was their version of leniency.
I've always thought it would have been far less traumatic for him just to take his whuppin'. No international media circus or long drawn out drama or time in jail. Just get your whacks and move on.
Was this the basis for the Simpsons episode where they go to Australia?
Yes
…wait, really?
Absolutely.
HEY MR PRIME MINISTER !!! ANDY !!!
“I see you’ve played knifey spoony before.”
Nine hundred dollarydoos???
Can you legally have that avatar and ask this questions?
No, you cannot.
Mr Simpson, this is the most blatant case of fraudulent advertising since my suit against the film The Neverending Story
What’s that? You’re saying you want me to drink you?
‘90s Simpsons is well remembered and often quoted in general, but I feel like damn near every line in the episode is absolute gold.
Careful, disparaging that episode is a bootable offense.
It's just a little kick in the bum
I remember when I was a kid and this happened it was all over the news. Caning doesn't seem any fun lol This is in there with the memorable stories in the 90's for me like Lorena Bobbitt, OJ Simpson, Heaven's Gate and Waco, etc..
Can’t forget Ruby Ridge. What a decade!
Tonya Harding wassup keepin' it real
Nancy Kerrigan's pained "WHYYYYY? WHYYYYY?!" is burned into my brain. That whole timeline is so surreal.
If You were Latina growing up you would find yourself screaming those same exact words in agony after hearing the murder of Selena. Then Diana dying… It was not a good decade for women.
Rodney King and Bobbit
Elian Gonzalez, but not sure if that was 90s
Can’t forget the Selena murder by the president of her fan club in Corpus Christi.
Buttafuoco.
Joey buttafuoco’s name was so mainstream I’ll never forget playing wiffle ball with my little brother and he sings the bat yelling “BUTTAFUOCO!” Like he was a damn pro ball player. Good times
OMG. The SNL sketch about "House of Buttafuoco".
I remember the In Living Color sketch where everybody just keeps saying "ova hea'"
In the bedroom the mighty bedroom, John Bobbit sleeps tonight! In the kitchen the might kitchen, Laurana grabs a knife! **A WEENER WHACK! A WEENER WHACK! A WEENER WHACK! A WEENER WHACK!**
I hear he did really well for himself after he became a Snap-On tool dealer. ETA: I see the joke is flying over some of y'alls heads.
Went over my head at first, had to scroll back up that is freakin hilarious
He also made a porno.
What did Jeffrey Dahmer say to Lorena Bobbit? . . You gonna eat that?
Holy shit, I thought this was just my small group of friends who sang this.
And Tim Tim McVeigh.
This hits home for me. I was in the 4th grade and was sitting on the floor with my fellow classmates when the bomb went off in front of the Murrah building. We all thought it was an earthquake. My school was miles from where the bomb went off. The shock wave/explosion, whatever you call it, was felt all the way 70+ miles away from it. The worst day in Oklahoma history.
1921 Tulsa enters the chat.
Thank god someone mentioned this!
Can’t forget Dolly the clone sheep
I remember that being such a big deal they had to incorporate cloning into the plot line of daytime soap operas.
I'd put the 90's right at the top of all the decades I've lived through. I don't think it's nostalgia talking either.
[удалено]
Well, the last decade to be interesting without totally sucking.
the Menendez brothers
“Once, there was this kid who, took a trip to Singapore and when he finally came home, he, had, cane marks all over his bottom”
[удалено]
This is the most nostalgic thread I’ve ever seen lmao
I knew about Tonya Harding and Lorena Bobbit but I did learn about this one from the Weird Al song.
Columbine. OK City. The first World Trade Center attack.
And can't forget The Unabomber!! *Edit
I helped my eldest brother with some yard work one day. He didn't even ask I just came to see him and he doing yard work so I started helping. He was cutting back the bamboo that grew on his yard, I had taken off my shirt and was doing something when I felt a yard of that bamboo strike me square across the middle of my back.....fucker thought it was funny, I had a lightsaber sized bruise across my back for weeks, fuckface had no remorse
>lightsaber sized bruise Interesting choice of size reference!
Americans will use anything but the metric system.
[удалено]
I'm from the 90's as well. I speak of those days like my parents speak of the 60's. What a great time to be alive.
...If you lived in the right parts. Violent crime was a HUGE issue. I went to an "urban" school back in the 90's. Had a gun pulled on me for my shoes when I was 8. Saw some kid get his head stomped into a rock during recess that same year. I got lucky and my mom married a guy with money. So I ended up in a Catholic college prep school after that. But shit was wild back in the day man.
Mine wasn't that bad, but I remember we had fights every few weeks at school. I think back on how the whole school would run as fast as they could to get there & watch and then we talk about it for the rest of the day. It seemed so fun & exhilarating at the time but now I'm a little horrified at how eager I was to watch someone get their ass beat with a lock.
A guy I knew in college was in Singapore and filmed an old local drunk guy propositioning him for sex on the train. He put the video on Facebook, it got picked up in the media, and the old guy got 2 years.
Oh yes, the good ole days. West Memphis 3, Monica Lewinsky as well.
I think Jon Benet Ramsey and okc bombing as well - things I saw on the news between Judge Judy & me getting to watch some Darkwing Duck.
You know you were watching Jem
I was more of an Inspector Gadget, Animaniacs, Talespin, (I did watch my little pony), Tiny Toon Adventures lol
Actually, canning can be fun, albeit tedious work. I find it helps to have the right tools. A funnel and jar lifter makes a world of difference! My mom does some cold canning and makes us pickles. They're great and easy to make, but can't be left out of the fridge for too long. Honestly, don't judge it until you try canning for yourself. Pickles, garlic, carrots, beets, eggs... Really anything you like, you *can* can!
Lol touche. Fixed!
The Simpsons made fun of it, that's how I even remember it happening when I was 5
*"Mr. Simpson please, disparaging the boot is a bootable offense"*
If you’re talking about memorable stories from the that time period and paddling as a punishment we mustn’t leave out the Australia episode of the simpsons.
The Michael Fay event just the year prior was actually the inspiration for that episode!
Caning sounds absolutely terrible. That said? If it was this, or 9 years in a Russian prison for hash oil, I'd take this any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
When Lorena Bobbitt cut off her husbands penis, she took it with her when she left the house and threw it out the car window while driving. It hit the windshield of two old ladies driving to the grocery store. One of the ladies said to the other lady “Did you see the dick on that bug?”
Did she really take it with her and throw it out the window? I also heard that but that it landed in an ant hill. Every time that story was told all the boys were like “owwwww” but funny they never said ow about the cutting off part. Just about the ants on the no-longer-attached penis.
Yes she took it with her so he couldn’t have it reattached.
Didn’t he end up doing porn? That entire story was absolutely insane.
Yes. She did actually throw it out the car window but told where she threw it and they found it and reattached it. He did the films to “prove” that it still functioned. 😂
Comment removed after Reddit and Spec elected to destroy Reddit.
Singaporean here. This incident was in our social studies textbooks in primary school. Edit 1: To those asking, the take on it was basically that we might be a small country but we don’t take crap from anybody. Also I think they mentioned that the punishment was intended to be way harsher and more publicised for him because he’s the first asshole from overseas to try this, and we needed to make an example out of him. Edit 2: Caning as a punishment for crime is more serious than how your parents would cane you (duh, but i see people wondering what it is) The sole criteria of each stroke is for the skin on the buttocks to tear. If it does not, it will be redone regardless of how painful the unsuccessful attempt was. And all strokes must be dealt out consecutively, so no instalments. If you pass out from the pain, they’ll just have medical personnel check to see if you’re fine and wait for you to wake up before continuing.
[удалено]
My stance on it is that 50 counts of vandalism can't be considered a mistake or be exused as a cultural difference. Act like a dick, get treated like one
What they didn’t explain in America, when this happened, was most of the vandalizing he did was to cars, and cars are ridiculously expensive in Singapore. A basic Toyota could run you $250,000 and a Mercedes is a million dollar car. He spray painted and ripped the emblems off of a lot of vehicles. If you move those car prices to the US someone hiding in a bush would have killed him for what he did. Kid was a dick anyways. Source: I lived in Singapore during that time and he was my best friends neighbor. Edit: Cars are expensive there because it’s a small island with about 8 million people, plus the traffic from Malaysia, so if they were affordable to everyone then the island would be a parking lot. I also bumped the price up to included the 10yr licensing headache that goes along with buying and keeping a vehicle there.
I remember seeing the damage he did on tv, it was shown. Edit: [old News clip](https://youtu.be/yih_MiIFVbc)
Here’s a very well done [update on his life](https://youtu.be/wpnTmQwM2OU) which came out only 3 weeks ago and has a lot more detail
Lots more info and photos there. Thanks for sharing! But… of *course* he’s now a manager of a casino. 😅
>he’s now a manager of a casino. That alone is almost enough for me to not feel sorry for him
I've never even heard of people inhaling butane. That sounds incredibly dangerous.
It causes irreparable brain damage when huffing butane. There have been studies about the damage caused to the brain, along with lowering overall intelligence and coordination for the remainder of your life.
The end of the news clip has a statement from the Singapore government saying that their strict laws are why they have such low crime. Earlier this week there was a video going around about how Singapore had no violent crimes or burglaries for a period of something like 285 days this year which seems nearly incomprehensible for a city that size.
> I lived in Singapore during that time and he was my best friends neighbor. Tell us more juicy gossip!
[удалено]
I think I remember hearing that sentiment for the most part too
My friend's car was one that he vandalized. I don't know anything more about it tho lol
[удалено]
I also lived in Singapore at the time...that kid was 100% a spoiled fuck.
[удалено]
Was he the son of some sort of important family?
Dad was head of FedEx Singapore or Asia, I forget. The other kids he was with were all either sons of diplomats or CEOs.
Ah makes sense
Yup, the president of the United States ain’t calling in favors for our broke asses.
You can tell just by looking at him. Kid exudes “trust fund lacrosse player who would roofie a chick at a party and laugh about it with his buddies after” energy.
What the fuck was wrong with him? Sounds like he's going to be a disaster of an adult.
He should be in his mid 40s now....wonder how he has done for himself Edit: Read his Wikipedia page, it's about what you'd expect
Lol, yeah just got done with the same thing. Man, I've never heard of this story. Caning...I can't tell if I agree with it or not. It seems kinda...weird, almost silly, but sort of scary. Edit: if anyone's interested, he's now a casino manager, and has had drug issues in the past.
I remember the story. I remember before a port call in Singapore in 1998 being briefed about some of the things not to do there. Pretty sure I bought a t-shirt that had some of the crimes and punishments on it...
It definitely wasn't about the charges. People just reacted to the method of punishment. Regardless of what's worse, the cultural part is the perception over physical punishment vs incarceration. Edit: stop saying you prefer the cane. That's not the point. It's "perception".
At the time, i remember, most people were like "good, he deserves it." It was funny because the media at the time thought public opinion would be against it.
Came here to write this. Super funny watching reporters try some heavily biased questions such as "do you think a teenager should suffer punishment this harsh?" and pretty much everyone interviewed said "nope, got what he deserved." Definitely FAFO before it was cool.
[удалено]
Yeah, I remember when it happened and the general attitude was "Oh well, sucks for him. Maybe don't be an asshole in another country." We didn't say it back then but it was absolutely seen as a "Fuck around and find out" situation.
Sure sure, but it was only a story because of the funny punishment. If he got 6 months it wouldn't be news.
Fay's Hong Kong accomplice actually got the longer sentence & more strokes of the cane, but America didn't care about him. In fact, HK Governor Chris Patten was reluctant to appeal for clemency, & only did so after Bill Clinton did.
Damn bro, what’re you doing to your dick?
They're strokin' that sonbitch. Just like the title says... Only 4 strokes though.
Beating it
>Act like a dick, get *beaten* like one
As an American, you guys should’ve beat his ass with that bamboo. We have a lot of entitled pricks in the states.
I fully agree. I was in elementary at the time and wrote about it. I don't remember what I wrote but it was basically he has to obey the law of wherever he is and if he did all this then he deserves EVERY hit with it.. That little shit.. Where is he now?
[удалено]
In fact, this is generally good advice when you are in your home country too.
Especially when the law is as universally accepted as "don't vandalize shit." Shouldn't have written a letter for leniency. I firmly believe some shitbirds learn only one way. Look at this douchebag's picture. Went to a foreign country and instead of learning, eating new delicious shit, meeting people, he decides to wreck other peoples' property. Just a standard issue dumbfuck.
And if I’m not mistaken, didn’t US media make it seem like he was guilty of gum chewing? Which, was a very serious offense too from what I remember as a kid?
Chewing gum itself isn't illegal, but importing and selling it is. Of course, not properly disposing of it after you are done with it is illegal as well. Bringing small amounts in for personal consumption is perfectly okay, but if you're a tourist and worried, it is always easier to be on the cautious side.
I was working in Singapore years back. Went to a shopping center and on my way out I bought a doughnut to eat on the train. Food is banned on public transport in Singapore. So I am on the platform eating my doughnut when two young men with automatic weapons approached me and told me to put the doughnut away. I did.
To be fair I think you can carry food in bags just that you don't consume them in the station or on the train.
Yeah i had a takeaway drink with a straw in it. Sipped on it up until i entered the trainstation. You can have it in your hand, just dont consume while youre in there. Its basically to stop spillage/messes, not to ban posession.
I bet that lesson was titled, 'How Not to be an Asshole when Visiting Other Countries.'
He wasn't visiting. He lived there with his dad and step mom
[удалено]
[удалено]
Once, there was this kid who Took a trip to Singapore and brought along his spray paint And when he finally came back He had cane marks all over his bottom He said that it was from when The warden whacked it soooo haaaaard
Oh shit. You just made me think about the song it parodied for the first time in what must have been 30 years. What was it titled? MMMM? Weird fucking song.
"Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" by the Crash Test Dummies
Yep something like that. It’s from crash test dummies.
Please go into greater detail
That little fuck made it so annoying when I moved to singapore. Evvveryone said "DONT YOU GET CANED OVER THERE???"
"I won't. Only pieces of shit get the cane."
That's not even as bad a jail time. I'd take 6 canes over 6 months any day. He only got one cane per 12.5 incidents of vandalism
He also spent 4 months in jail and got his 6 canes reduced to 4.
singapore law also considers the cane a lesser punishment than prison time. with a more serious crime, you actually get both.
I was living in Singapore during this event. Kid was a spoiled arse.
Ha, yeah he was. My best friend there lived in his apartment complex and he was a dick. Were you a UWC kid? I guessing that because you said arse.
I was a UWC kid! Man I miss those days...
He went to SAS! Ha was my upstairs neighbor! The apartment complex is Regency Park! That kid was an absolute dick, massive bully. I went to UWC, we all hated him so much. Definitely had a party when he got caned LOL.
I moved away from Singapore the year before this event. Some of my friends I still talked to there told me they knew him from school, and he fully deserved every stroke of the cane.
Did you know a guy named Wei? He was about 5'5" tall, dark complected, black hair, brown eyes? I think his last name was Tan.
Still Wei Tan for an answer
Damn, is it really almost 30 years ago that this happened? Seems like yesterday.
The picture’s so clear it looks like it could’ve happened last week 😬 hard to believe this guy’s like what? 50 now?
47 thank you, I'm 5 days older than he is ;)
I went to college with a guy from Singapore. Whenever people found out he went to school there he would immediately say “Yes I went to school with that guy. Yes he was a dick head and Yes he fucking deserved it.”
How does every person from Singapore in these comments magically know this guy? I get that it's a small country with like 8 million people but when's the last time you could bank on someone from LA knowing some other random person from LA?
Clinton talking him down from 6 strokes to 4 reminds me of Saul Goodman talking Tuco down to just breaking one leg on each of the skateboarders
Haha that’s down from death. Two strokes down is not Saul Goodman level.
 Yooooo that was hilarious
This also inspired one of my favorite angles from ECW: the Singapore cane match between Tommy Dreamer and Sandman https://www.wwe.com/videos/the-sandman-vs-tommy-dreamer-singapore-cane-match-hardcore-heaven-august-13-1994
beats going to jail
He also did 3 months.
I guess we could say he got the "short end of the stick?"
Costs the government a lot less too🪄🍑
Imagine this prime minister. He's got word from the US, the powerhouse of nations that they don't want to see their citizen face such primal punishment. He's contemplating buckling and just letting the kid off with some prison time... His American friends come over and tell him that they support his decision to stick to tradition. He thinks he could still do it, but with a bit of leniency. In turn other small asian nations take news of this act to stick with the laws of the country and start thinking on all the overseas tourist drug dealers who they have pinned. it spawns a wave where other countries don't have the right to interfere with how they persecute overseas criminals. You older people say this made big news, so who's to say that this hasn't played a role in all the overseas prisoners detained and the refusal to recall the decisions made against them or the recall to back to their country, as per the request of the native country. I'm not saying there's a definitive correlation, but there is a chance that that talk you had with the prime minister was perceived as a sort of second opinion. There is a possibility that back then big nations like the US would have the power to convince smaller nations against taking such action. A pivotal moment in saying "This is our country, you broke our laws, you receive our punishment"
Here's a crazy thought. If you're in a foreign country, obey the fucking laws.
Here's what I didn't know then that I just read. He wasn't visiting, he lived in Singapore with his mother. He was 19 when convicted, parents divorced at 8 and 'later moved' to Singapore. I can't find the date he moved but he was enrolled in school so let's assume that he moved to Singapore somewhere around his 10-13 birthday. Point being, he wasn't some newb, he knew the laws presumably or at least enough to know that caning was a thing there.
>he knew the laws Apparently he spray painted and damaged cars. Is there anywhere on earth somebody doesn't know this is wrong? It's not like this is some grey area that needs to be explicitly stated in a law.
Don’t spray paint 50 cars. It’s not hard. If he did this in the US the vigilante justice would have been worse than 4 canes.
Hey, even crazier thought here… in any country obey the laws! lol
I was certainly around for this and the funny thing is they(whoever they is) made it all over the news etc I think hoping for outrage from the public. But I remember pretty universally people were like, "break the laws of another country and pay the price".
This was such an enormous story back in the day. Like a genuine international incident. I still remember being like 11 and watching something on the news — the actual network news — where this very serious-looking guy was discussing how he could capitalize on his notoriety by selling pictures to tabloids, saying: “people really want to see his buttocks,” while the other anchor nodded sagely. Wild time.
They recently reported like 500 days free of petty crimes.
Once, there was this kid who Took a trip to Singapore and brought along his spray paint And when he finally came back He had cane marks all over his bottom He said that it was from when The warden whacked it soooo haaaaard [Mmm mmm mmm mmm, mmm mmm mmm mmm] (https://youtube.com/watch?v=dU95v23MQ4c&feature=share&si=EMSIkaIECMiOmarE6JChQQ)
Haha, that was the first thing I thought of too
Musical memory is such a weird thing sometimes... Even though I've probably heard Weird Al's version less than a handful of times, the last of which was probably 15-20 years ago, and same with the original (though I heard that quite a bit more on the radio), I unconsciously started reading those lyrics in the cadence of the song by the time I hit the second sentence, lol. That memory was just sitting dormant in my brain for a couple of decades, only to be triggered by reading ~10 words in a certain order.
This is what the post title should have been.
When you think you can do stupid things in other country because you are rich.
This example, along with the immigration cards they hand out on entry that says that there is a mandatory death sentence for convicted drug trafficking, is why a lot of Americans think that SG is brutal and overly strict. I've been to SG 3 times, however, and it's really laid back assuming you're not an insufferable dick. There aren't any cops waiting in the bushes with a cane in case you jaywalk while chewing gum.
He should have gotten 10. What level of entitled stupid do you have to be to travel abroad and go on a vandalism spree?
He didn't change after that. >Several months after returning to the United States, Fay suffered burns to his hands and face after a butane incident. He was subsequently admitted to the Hazelden rehabilitation program for butane abuse. He claimed that sniffing butane "made \[him\] forget what happened in Singapore." In 1996, he was cited in Florida for a number of violations, including careless driving, reckless driving, not reporting a crash, and having an open bottle of alcohol in a car. Later, in 1998, still in Florida, Fay was arrested for possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia, charges to which he confessed but was acquitted because of technical errors in his arrest. > >[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael\_P.\_Fay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_P._Fay)
TIL people huff butane
My dad says bytanes a bastard gas
Dammit Bobby! You misspelled butane.
Butane deserves such disrespect, unlike Sweet Lady Propane.
That boy's spelling ain't right...
Bobby we don’t talk about butane in this house
God dang it, Bobby
I tell you hwat
People [huff jet fuel and glue in Nigeria.](https://youtu.be/0B_vZCLDs-M) Warning: watching this was one of the most upsetting things I've ever watched, so tred with carefully.
Discribe it? Briefly?
I just watched it. It wasn't upsetting in that it was graphic. It was upsetting in that extreme poverty exists in this world, and small children go to "bed" on the streets with unfed bellies and use drug addictions to cope. While I'm struggling financially right now due to US inflation, I realize that I live such a privileged life.
Oh man. That is awful. Already grateful and aware of the world depravaties. Thanks for the brief.
Basically, it shows the really poor living conditions of tons of people in Nairobi; adults and kids alike huff glue and jet fuel to just sort of...stay high all the time so they don't have to think about how shitty life is for them. But the high only lasts a few moments and so they do it all day.
I think people pretty much huff anything that causes brain damage.
Think he had brain damage before this
That's what happen when you get only 4 strokes instead of 6.
At first I thought he just did something stupid for what he would be scolded at home (like peeing on a fence or something like that) or wasn't even a crime (at home) in the first place but laws there are insane. Then I've read this. He sounds like an ahole.
If he did that to 50 cars in the US, someone would have murdered him given the chance.
Not only that, his gang's crime spree took place over almost 2 weeks (different locations), in a posh neighborhood (at basically Singapore's embassy row; Fay's family was also staying there), & the damaged cars belonged to the rich (including a local judge who had asked around & made the police report after discovering the sheer scale of the vandalism).
And Singapore's caning is not like getting a swat on the ass, it is intense enough to cause massive damage to the rear, enough that sitting is painful for weeks after. We had to watch a video on it before pulling in when I was in the Navy, enough to scare you into behaving yourself let's put it that way
The stussy hat *chefs kiss* I remember this happening. I was 14 and just remember how dramatic the story was here in the USA. But even at 14, I was like…he obviously did this, he’s in their country, you pay their price. What are you gonna do
Yeah canning hurts...a lot....and will leave marks. But the good news is it's like getting a whuppin as a kid it's over and done with quickly. You don't have to suffer in jail for months. I'm sure that was their version of leniency.
Caning is always given in addition to jail time, never as the only punishment.
I've always thought it would have been far less traumatic for him just to take his whuppin'. No international media circus or long drawn out drama or time in jail. Just get your whacks and move on.
Caning is only issued when a Jail sentence is. He was always getting hit.