ABSTRACT
On March 3, 1994, Singapore sentenced American student Michael Fay to four months in jail, a small monetary fine, and six strokes of the cane after Fay pled guilty for vandalism (Shenon 1994). The American reaction was revealing. Hardly anyone complained that Fay would be locked away and deprived of freedom for months on end, but many Americans regarded Singapore’s practice of caning offenders as alien, barbaric, and backward.
