Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Childhood Games

Once, I was sitting down watching Brendan playing with some older kids (well, he was trying to mix in with the older boys but I don't think they even know he exists. Brendan always prefer older children) when I heard laughters and screams from another group of children, playing catching. This brought me back to my childhood memories.

The game of catch or Police & Thief as what my cousins and I called it (in mandarin) used to be one of our main games whenever we were at my grandparent's house. My grandparents used to stay in a huge wooden kampung house in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by ample space and lots of trees. My cousins and I had a fun time running around the whole house playing that. This used to be one crazy game coz the 'police' will try to catch all the 'thieves' to be brought back to the jailhouse, which is drawn as a circle on the sand. The 'thieves' can only be released when they are tagged by another thief.

One of my all-time favourite is Belon-Acah (also known as galah panjang) which I used to play with my cousins on weekends and in school on weekdays. Everyday before school starts, my schoolmates and I will divide outselves into two groups to play this game. As a school sprint runner, I always managed to sprint my way through the square boxes. We'll play till we're all sweaty and when the school bell rings, everyone will line-up to enter our own respective classes with sweaty and flushed faces and wet uniforms.

For a not so hyper-game, we will choose to play guli (marbles), kite or the chicken feather game. On rainy weekends, we opted for Batu Seremban or bottle caps.

We normally play guli by digging holes in the sand (my grandparent's house are full of sandy area) with the intention of hitting our gulis with other gulis and subsequently into a hole.

For the kite and chicken feather game, we'll find old newspaper, kayu lidis, strings, chicken feathers, rubber pieces (to stuck the chicken feathers) and make our own kites and chicken feather item. It's kind of a surprise that our kites can sometimes fly up so high in the sky. The chicken feather game (don't know what it's really called) requires us to use the side of our feet to hit the item straight up in the air as many times as possible and not letting it drop down to the ground. The person who can do it the most times win the game.

Batu Seremban and the bottle caps are my favourites as well. I normally play these games with my female cousins. We will hand-sew pieces clothes and fill it with some red seeds (it comes from one type of tree) collected at my grandparent's house. Alternatively, we filled it with sand. This is one game which I'll definitely play with my gal when she's bigger. {Ivy, we should keep this game going.. :)}

Come CNY, we always keep those undented bottle caps to play. Each game requires 5 caps to play.

Some other games we played are congkak, rubber band throwing (using rubberband to "top" on another rubberband to gain more rubber bands), "bao-fu" (spiders which we catch from pandan leaves), one-legged catch, hide-and-seek and other stuffs like climbing rambutan and playing house on the mango tree. There's also another game which I can't remember the name where we draw boxes on the sand, and we throw a stone to one of the boxes and we jump on one leg into each individual boxes.

Speaking of rubber bands, I love the game of Zero Thousand (or Zero Point) where we'll use rubber bands and tie them up into a long rubber rope. We are to cross and jump over the rubber band rope which is held by two persons. The initial stage of the game starts from the ground and then the rope will be raised to the ankle, knee, buttocks, waist, chest, shoulder, ear and finally the head.

Most of these games are divided into teams and the selection of team members are via lat-talilat, tali-tamplong! (palms up or palms down), or one-two-zom! (stone/fist "kills" bird, bird "kills" paper/palms open, paper "kills" stone).

Those were the days.........

14 comments:

Lazymama said...

I have played all the games you have mentioned except the chicken feather game. I have thought of blogging about the childhood game too sometimes ago but I can't write.

p/s: How about the balls game?... rolling the ball into sand's hole, then all the kids run, then someone pick up the ball to shoot the slowest runner? Hehe, did you climb tree or not? Tree climbing was one of our activities too! I was a wild kampung girl!

Babysmooches said...

Never tried the ball game lah, Jefferene. Fuh! Climbing trees was one of our monkey activities.

So sad to see some city kids not knowing about these games at all, isn't it?

mom2ashley said...

oh ya ya....!!! i used to play "zero point" alot when i was a kid..is that what it is called? I can't even remember what it was called....all i know is that in the initial stage when the string rope is on the floor, we all gotta cross it and say "zero point"..right??? and then when it gets higher and higher..those wearing skirt will all "chao gong" unless you wear shorts underneath! hahahah...I used to cartwheel over the rope as well...! now..I dont even DARE to cartwheel!

Tracy said...

Wheeee, down memory lane.

Sharon, I played one, where all of us gathered around to form a circle (sitting down). One of us would go round with a hanky. The person would walk round the circle (behind the ones sitting down and everyone would be watching her) and suddenly she would stop and placed the hanky behind one of us and there was when everyone would be wondering where she placed and would be putting our hands at the back of us to reach for the hanky. If the 'victim' reached the hanky, she would stand up and chased the one who just placed the hanky until the first person sat down and it would be the 'victim's turn to go round.

What about Five stones (maybe it's Batu Seremban), AEIOU and oso 'kelok' (tops).

Babysmooches said...

Ya, Dinah. That's the game. You have to say "zero thousand" (for standing position) or "Zero point" (for kneeling position) when you cross the rope when it's on the ground level.

Tracy, we played that hanky game too. I think it's called the monkey game or something like that.

Oh yes! I remember AEIOU. You have to Freeze when the front person finish saying "U" right? hehehe. Don't what is "kelok" though.

Anonymous said...

I played those too, I am the queen of five stones. Our school don't allowed us to play. We curi curi play. Bottle caps too, but I am not very good at it.

jazzmint said...

hehe yah..i miss those days, batu seremban was my fav :)..So u can teach brandon and eryn later play pepsi cola?

jazzmint said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Babysmooches said...

ya... definitely not letting my kids miss out on all those kampung games. It's one of the best memories one can have of childhood.

LHS said...

I know some games, some don't know, maybe culture for East M'sia and West M'sia are different.

Annie said...

Eh, you guys got play that one that use chalk (or stone) to draw boxes on the floor, then throw rubber band (or something) and jump-jump-jump and pick up the rubber band one ar?

I planned to play this with my girl after I give birth...heheheh! but have to draw smaller box lar.

LHS said...

Annie,
Is it hopscotch?

Babysmooches said...

oh yes, Annie! We played that too, but not using rubber band to throw. We use small stones. The boxes are like in the shape of a box aeroplane right?

Babysmooches said...

From : http://babysmooches.blogspot.com/2007/10/5-posts-link-to-keywords.html

....Link FIVE can be ANYTHING YOU LIKE: "Childhood Games"...

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