Of one childhood game and another

Following my previous post on paper, rock, SCISSORS!!!, it got me thinking about what other childhood games I played, especially coming from a Co-Ed school in a small town. I could literally list a couple, and wonder if most kids would still play these games in this day and age. In this technological age, most of these games would most probably be lost with the onset of playstation, etc. and parents' growing paranoia about the child's safety and well being. What? You never climbed trees? :P

1) Ohhhh PEK!
This can be a game of elimination or to find teams, where each kid would indicate with his or her palm down or palm upwards. In elimination, the one who is unique (i.e. sole upward palm or downward palm) in the group would be out. Sometimes gleefully out as the process can be used as the "shortest straw" method for undesirable task. For team selection, those who have upward palms would be in one team, and downward palms in another. All through the process of saying "Ohhh PEK". "Ohhh" is said whilst the palm is struck to the chest repeated, and "PEK" is said when showing the "hand". Recently learnt that in West Malaysia, this is also known as "Lat talilat tali tampom". But slight difference in that the palms are like interchanged upwards and downwards in front of everyone (almost like a wavy effect) while saying that phrase, and with "pom!", the selection is then made.

2) Lo Seng
I remember this used to be my favourite game whilst in Primary 1 and 2 (about age 7 and 8). We used the lines of the outdoor badminton court to play guard. This is a team game, where a captain is selected, who can travel up and down the badminton court lines, with other team mates only on the horizontal lines. The rival team will try to outmanoeuvre the guarding team without being touched, running within the court from one end to the other. Of course, when one is about 7 or 8, the court is quite big, and extending the arms out wide doesn't even cover much of the court to guard!

And yeah, I sweat like mad for this almost every recess, and had to stand outside the classroom to "cool down" before the teachers allowed me to re-enter the class. Of course, I wasn't the only one, and my gang members were all in the same boat! 2 years!!! Imagine that! :P

3) 5 stones
I have seen this game played with artificial stones. That is, triangular bags that have been filled with sago seeds or similar. However, in my childhood days, we used REAL stones. Of course, we picked the smaller ones so as not to hurt the handstoo much! To hear the genuine "ping" of the stones as they hit each other after being caught in the hand following a difficult combination was definitely a joy to anticipate.

I think this is traditionally a female game, but at that age, there is no gender discrimination. It's a game of throwing and catching the stones in the air with various combinations. Got to the point that there were genuine rivalries between the boys and girls as to see who were best with hand and eye coordination. This game was played I think between primary 4, 5 and 6 (but could be earlier).

4) Marbles
Now this was almost a competitive game, but my friends and I generally took it as a friendly match. We would place our marbles (literally, not figuratively) in a circle, and try to hit them with another marble in our hand to get them out of the circle. If the marble lands out, then it is the hitter's for the keeping. Another variation is to place the marble quite a distance away. Whoever was accurate enough to hit the marble would get to keep it.

5) Police and Thief

In primary school, this was one of the best games to let off those extra energy. Running and screaming whilst being chased. Once you (as the thief) are caught by being touched anypart of the body by the "police", you had to squat. Other thieves can rescue you by touching you and then you are free to run helter skelter screaming your lungs out being rechased. Think this game is also known as "catcher".

6) Others
There are just too many other games to list. But another is similar to this picture, called hopscotch. However, as a young kid, we used chalk to draw the lines on the floor, and used tied rubber bands as the marker to be thrown and hop on one leg on the various numbers. Can even "own" a specific numbered box once a person completes the whole series of numbers hopping on one leg.

What more can I say? Hide and Seek is also a perennial favourite, and really, I think at one point or other in each child's life, this game would have been played. Of course, there are other games like congkak, legos, paper aeroplanes, rounders, skareboarding, roller-skates, catching "lei hu" or small fishes at the "longkang"! (translated = drain), etc...

Oh! almost forgot to mention another game. Sort of like skipping rope but the rope is made of rubber bands interlocking to form a long chain. One has to "skip" across different heights. Not easy that, especially at that age, girls were generally taller than the boys. Again, gender rivalry was instilled (it is a Co-Ed school after all). I seriously wonder why we have been mentally conditioned as such, or is that a natural order of segregation between boys and girls to see who was better at what?

Still, I guess all these games allowed us to "exercise" to release those extra bursts of energy (which can seem unlimited at that age - imagine the screams as one would run around), and learn hand and eye coordination as a useful child development skill for the future, at least that is what I would like to think!

So, what sort of games did you play when you were growing up? Would an all girls' school involved such games also? But given the recent news on student bullying (girls intimidating other girls) it clearly shows the various levels of discipline (or lack of it) between the schools. Generally also, more apparent when comparison is made between East Malaysia (gentler folks) and West Malaysia (rougher folks). The degradation of social friendliness standards and the need to dominate is more apparent in the city as compared to a kampung or country life. Well, how about an all boys school? Besides the usual football (or soccer as the Americans would call it), I guess there would be a lot of fisticuffs to while away the time. No? :)