Discipline: An Essay by Maya Ng

In this moving essay, Maya Ng reflects on the differences in disciplining children between New Zealand and her home country of Malaysia.

Essay by Maya Ng

During the first Margin meeting, where everyone took part and placed their ideas, a member of us raised her hand and said two words that sent me back to five years ago. 

“Cultural Shock” 

As an immigrant, I’ve had a handful of experiences. Ranging from wearing shoes indoors, to people walking barefoot in public. I still can’t wrap my head around that culture, it continues to make no sense. While everyone in that room chittered and chattered away, I still felt like I was alone. 

Think back to when you were in primary. What was one of your greatest fears in school? Sure, cooties were a big thing then, but for me it was - well, school. Back in early 2017, after the Chinese New Year holidays in Malaysia, I had forgotten to bring my maths worksheet. It was left on the dining table where I rushed to complete it that morning. The consequences were fatal. The teacher wasn’t just not happy, she was absolutely furious. It was to the point where she screamed, threw my desk and bag out of the class. The chair struck my thigh in the middle of her tantrum. She roared at me, hand gripping the slender rattan, I knew what would be coming. 5 slashes on the back of the hand, 45 on the palm. A total of 50 slashes altogether. This was “discipline”. Not those where it's one or two or ten - this was the real deal, and there was no way out of that. 

Caning was a common use of “discipline” back in Malaysia, that was how I was brought up. While I disagree that adult figures should cane children, it was what I knew. Didn’t bring your homework? Caned. Late to class? Caned. Humming to yourself but you’re bad at singing? Caned. 

I learnt many things about caning over the five primary school years. A harder rattan doesn’t hurt as much as a flexible one, make sure that the stick hits below your fingers - or you can’t write for the rest of the weekFlexible rattans with rubber bands tied at the tip were basically your doom. Instead of talking about the recent Power Rangers episode, or who got their parents to deliver their lunch during break time, it was which teacher caned the hardest.  My childhood consisted of canning to the point it wasn’t the cane I feared, but who held it. 

Arriving in New Zealand schools was basically stepping into Wonderland. Clean streets, rare sights of drains, actual trees, less motorcycles, and shepherd pie. But, something was off in the school. Something I didn’t understand or believe. There were  no “discipline” methods: no canes or rulers to be “disciplined” by. There were no conversations on who caned hardest, but rather the recent video of DanTDM on YouTube. Nobody watched Power Rangers here. I expected our principal to walk around the school with a cane in his hand, but that didn’t happen either. The only day that I had seen a cane was on the day we learnt about the Victorian School Era, about writing on slates, using charcoal pencils, and being caned. A lot of my classmates seem to have found it amusing, I remember one of the girls whispered into my ear.

“I really want to be caned just to know how it feels like.” 

It must have struck a chord in me, because I was fairly upset about her comment. To them it probably still remained an unsolved mystery. 

During this time of writing, as I’m nearing the end of my school years and preparing for university, I wondered how I pulled through in the end. How common high school mishaps like not being invited to parties, break ups, falling out of friendships, attempting to send the “photos”, had little to no effect on me. I realised that caning gifted my stoic nature, a habit of suppressing my opinion and emotions. It built an instinct that the consequence of failing would result in my hand caned.

I’m quite open to discuss my experience being caned, in a certain way it’s nostalgic, but it brings back bittersweet memories. With the lack of coverage on this issue, I sometimes feel like my experience was nothing but a daydream, a horrible nightmare, or in between.