Tag Archives: playground games

Rock Paper Scissors – Hiroshima

--Informant Info--
Nationality: American
Age: 19 and 15
Occupation: Students
Residence: Boston, MA and Salt Lake City, UT
Date of Performance/Collection: April 22, 2020
Primary Language: English
Other Language(s):

  • Context: The informants are two teenage boys, one 15 (B) and one 19 (A), who took upon the task of explaining rock paper scissors. At first they explained the simple game used to decide the winner in a tie or make a decision between two options, but as the time went on, they explained variations of the game. By adding the words gun, bazooka, nuke, Hiroshima, or God the game is continued on beyond the three options of playing rock, paper, or scissors to ensure an immediate victory.
  • Text:

B: “I say Rock, Paper, Scissors like a… a… a sane person…”

A: “I do as well.”

B: “And you have to go ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shoot!'”

A: “This is an audio… they can’t see your hands dude.”

B: “Ohhh…. so you have a closed fist and you hit in on your hand… and you go ‘Rock’ and you lift it up and hit it again and you go ‘Paper’… lift it up… ‘Scissors’… lift it up… ‘Shoot!’… and on ‘Shoot’ you show, well, a hand motion you want. And I always go with gun because gun can kill anybody.”

Me: “What’s gun? You can do Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shoot! and do a gun?”

B: “No, it’s just uh…”

A: “No. That’s like a joke people do… but the real game…”

B: “There’s more.”

Me: “Tell me about all of them.”

B: “So there’s like Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shoot! Bazooka. Or Rock, Paper, Scissors, Nuke. Or Rock, Paper, Scissors, Hiroshima.

A: “Oh God. Don’t say that.”

Me: “So what do all of the different ones do?”

B: “It’s a thing!”

Me: “It is a thing. So what do all the different ones do?”

A: “They just all try and one-up each other.”

Me: “Okay. So what do they mean? What’s rock?”

B: “Hiroshima blows up the person.”

Me: “What about Rock, Paper, and Scissors?”

B: “Rock is a Rock and Rock beats Scissors because they can break the Scissors. Scissors beats Paper because ‘cus they can cut the [Paper]. And somehow Paper beats Rock ‘cus it can cover [the Rock].”

Me: “And what’s a Gun kill?”

B: “Anything. Bazooka kills a Gun. Nuke kills Bazooka. Hiroshima kills a Nuke.”

Me: “Why don’t you say those when you’re…”

A: “Because one of those is very… uh…”

B: “Overpowered?”

A: “Well no, not overpowered. I was going to say not politically correct.”

B: “Sorry!”

Me: “So it stops at Hiroshima?”

B: “No you can go to like GOD.”

A: “It stops at…”

B: “GOD!”

Me: “God kills Hiroshima?”

A: “God kills everything, unless you pick something that kills God. It can go on forever which is why I just like doing Rock, Paper, Scissors.”

Me: “When do you play this?”

B: “Say if you were playing like a tag, like um… a game in P.E. and the P.E. teachers had you like you play Rock, Paper, Scissors so you can advance. You would always go Rock, Paper, Scissors, Hiroshima…”

A: “If there’s a tie.”

Me: “If there’s a tie?”

A: “If there’s a tie in a competition they do Rock, Paper, Scissors a lot…. Anyway… but what we were talking about before [B] went off on that tangent was…”

B: “That wasn’t a tangent.”

A: “…was the different versions of how to say Rock, Paper, Scissors which is… the two I have heard is Rock, Paper, Scissors and then people in Australia and then some other Asian countries say Paper, Scissors, Rock. And that’s the norm over there… I don’t know why…”

B: “Ive heard some people say Scissors, Paper, Boulder.”

Me: “Boulder?”

A: “What the fuck are you talking about bro?”

B: “Yeah! I know this kid… he goes Scissors, Paper, Boulder.”

Me: “Where is he from?

B: “Utah.”

A: “He probably made it up.”

B: “Or the weird kids who don’t even play Rock, Paper, Scissors. They go ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors, I beat you’ and then they run away. Those are the worst kids.”

Me: “So how old are you when you play Rock, Paper, Scissors?”

B: “Any age.”

Me: “Every age plays Rock, Paper, Scissors? Like if you’re in a business deal are you playing Rock, Paper, Scissors?”

B: “Most likely not.”

Me: “When do you stop? What kinds of decisions do you use Rock, Paper, Scissors for?

B: “Like if you’re playing like a team sport, in like P.E. you can play it… if you… if you’re trying to decide who… uh… who won… but like it’s a very close call, you can play it… um… if you’re trying to decide who to kick off your team you can play it… oh yeah… just like very simple decisions. Like I’m pretty sure when America signed that agreement with Japan so we would stop fighting each other they played Rock, Paper, Scissors. Maybe that’s why we say Hiroshima.”

  • Analysis: I played rock paper scissors as child in school when decision making, and even use the game to this day when making insignificant decisions. That said, I had only ever known of the first three options of displaying either a rock, scissors, or paper. No one has ever played a gun, bazooka, nuke, “Hiroshima” or GOD against me. Each of these tries to one up the next. For example, hiroshima kills nuke, nuke kills bazooka, bazooka kills paper, paper covers rock, rock smashes scissors, and scissors cut paper. I believe kids added in the extra terms for a few reasons. One to try and “out-kill” their opponent. Another to create an in-group and out-group of kids who know the alternate rules and kids who don’t. And lastly as a form of dark humor, poking fun at tragic historical events and utilizing their knowledge of the events in a game used mostly for mundane decisions. I would account for the variation in order of Rock, Paper, Scissors to regional differences in the way the game is taught.

Cinderella Jumping Rope Rhyme

--Informant Info--
Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Date of Performance/Collection: 04/27/15
Primary Language: English
Other Language(s): french

The informant is 20-years old and finishing her sophomore year at USC. She is a Business and Music Industry Major, is involved in several on-campus organizations such as Concerts Committees. When she’s not doing her school work or work for clubs, she enjoys running, taking hikes, and going to concerts. She grew up in Washington with her mom, dad, and two younger sisters.

 

Informant: “I guess something I learned from other people would be jump roping rhymes. I was super into jump roping with my friends when I was in elementary school. Even into middle school we would play Double Dutch. It’s just an easy thing to play—jump-roping. Like all we needed to have with us was the rope.”

 

Interviewer: “Do you have a favorite rhyme you want to share?”

 

Informant: “I wouldn’t say I have a favorite…But one I think is really weird. Haha. Probably the most bizarre rhyme that circulated around is one about Cinderella. We would sing:

‘Cinderella dressed in yellow

Went downstairs to kiss her fellow

On the way her girdle busted,

How many people were disgusted?’

And then you’d count off 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. Until whoever was jumping rope tripped. And then the song would start all over again.

 

Thoughts: It’s funny that my informant learned this Cinderella rhyme for jumping rope in Washington because I learned the same one in the suburb of Chicago where I grew up. I remember seeing some kids recite it while jump roping, but where I heard it the most was in the figure skating community. I figure skated for ten years and when we had shows, all of the younger kids would convene in a sort of backstage/holding area when we weren’t on the ice. We used to play all sorts of games to pass the time and one game was a one where everyone sat in a circle with their hands touching and we would go around the circle as we sang this song slapping the person’s hand next to us, and when we got to 10, the person whose hand was slapped got out. This seems like a good example of how folklore travels, or of polygenesis, and how it attains different uses and practices as it is spread.

“This is Buggy”

--Informant Info--
Nationality: Pakistani-American
Age: 11
Occupation: Student
Residence: Torrance, CA
Date of Performance/Collection: 3/24/2014
Primary Language: English
Other Language(s): Urdu

Context: The informant is an 11-year-old resident of Southern California, of Indo-Pakistani descent. She lives with two older siblings, parents, and grandparents and attends a public middle school in the South Bay area. She has close friends of many different religious and ethnic backgrounds, and the following narrative sequence is one she learned from one of these friends while she was still in elementary school.

Transcript of video:

“This is Buggy!

Buggy says hi!

Buggy can fly!

Yay for Buggy!

Oops, Buggy died.”

Analysis: The informant says she learned it only a couple years ago and remembered it because she “thought it was cool” and “kind of funny”. The informant relates that she enjoys many types of art, including drawing and painting, and often is in charge of making signs for events among her friend group, like yard sales and party invitations. So the personal appeal to a young artist or craftsperson is obvious.

I think the general appeal here is similar: the fact that with a few simple drawings and letters, an entire story can be told with little effort. The idea that there are just enough fingers on a person’s hand to write “T-H-I-S” on the knuckles, and then fold different fingers to show different words, must be appealing to kids who are just starting to appreciate the difficulties of both language and tactile crafts such as beading, painting, or cursive handwriting. The simple story is also humorous and a common enough occurrence: trying to save a little bug only to find that you unfortunately don’t know your own strength; or simply the humor of seeing something that causes many small children, especially girls, some anxiety–“creepy crawlies”–being put out in such a messy and unceremonious manner helps them cope with those anxieties indirectly while not being called out as a “scaredy cat” or a “sissy”.

Clapping game rhyme/song

--Informant Info--
Nationality: Pakistani-American
Age: 11
Occupation: Student
Residence: Torrance, CA
Date of Performance/Collection: 3/24/2014
Primary Language: English
Other Language(s):

Context: The informant is a Pakistani-American 11-year-old girl and a 6th grader at a public school in Torrance, CA.  The following clapping rhyme is a two-person game she learned in first grade.

Content:

“I went to a Chinese restaurant

To buy a loaf of bread, bread, bread

She asked me what my name was

And this is what i said, said, said

My name is

L-I-L-I, Pickle-eye pickle-eye

pom-pom beauty, sleeping beauty

Then she told me to freeze freeze freeze

And whoever moves, loses.”

The word “freeze” may be said either once or three times, and at that moment the players must both freeze. The informant also showed me the two kinds of clapping sequence that are used for the two parts of the game, one for the first four lines, and the other for lines 6-8.

Analysis: At first glance, the rhyme seems like complete nonsense; but upon further examination, the rhyme could conceal casual racism. “Li” could be an East Asian name. Rhyming it with “pickle-eye” (which itself could be referring to culturally unfamiliar food which is automatically dismissed as unnatural or revolting–for instance recall the urban legend where neighborhood cats/dogs were disappearing after immigrants from [insert Asian country here] moved in), which is essentially a nonsense word, could be meant to show disrespect towards all people with similarly “Asian” names. Then referring to oneself as a “pom-pom beauty” (perhaps referring to a cheerleader’s pom-poms) and “sleeping beauty” (the classic western fairy tale) as a contrast to the “Li” lady is like proclaiming, I am an all-American girl, like a cheerleader or Sleeping Beauty, and you are not.

Clapping game rhyme/song

--Informant Info--
Nationality: Pakistani-American
Age: 11
Occupation: Student
Residence: Torrance, CA
Date of Performance/Collection: 3/24/2014
Primary Language: English
Other Language(s): Urdu

Context: The informant is an 11 year old girl of Pakistani descent. She is a 6th grader at a public school in Torrance, CA.  Her social groups include friends of many different religious and ethnic backgrounds. The following clapping rhyme is a two-person game she learned in first grade.

Content:

“Lemonade,

iced tea

Coca-cola,

Pepsi

Lemonade, iced tea, Coca-cola, Pepsi,

turn around, touch the ground, kick your boyfriend out of town, freeze”

Another version from the same informant begins with the same line:

“Lemonade,

crunchy ice

Beat it once,

beat it twice,

Lemonade, crunchy ice, beat it once, beat it twice,

turn around, touch the ground, kick your boyfriend out of town, freeze”

In the last line of both versions, the players may perform the actions sung: they turn in a circle, drop to a crouch to touch the ground, and may even stand up and make a kicking motion. At the word “freeze,” both players must stop moving, and the first to move loses.

Analysis: I learned a version of this game, similar to the second version recorded, from cousins who went to the same school district as the informant. Instead of the words “beat it,” however, the words “pour it” were used, and the last line was completely omitted. The rhyme ended with the players crying “Statue!” and the first person to move, lost. Somehow, however, a player was allowed to tickle the other person to get them to move, even though tickling would seemingly count as moving. 

The incorporation of Coca-cola and Pepsi, both globally-recognizable drink names, into the rhyme is evidence of how popular the drink is worldwide and how it has been incorporated into “American” or “Southern California” culture, that children are mentioning it in their songs along with the ever-popular summer drink of lemonade.

The last line “Turn around, touch the ground” seems to be echoing some long-dead magic ritual, especially when followed by a mention of the singer’s boyfriend (keeping in mind that 11 years old, the majority of children likely have nothing close to a romantic partner yet). Also, the pouring of the drink–once, then twice–would seem to recall the adult practice of pouring drinks for oneself and one’s partner after a long day or at a party. This shows this age-group’s (perhaps unconscious) desire to  mimic the adult relationships they see with their own peers.

Call of Duty

--Informant Info--
Nationality: African American
Age: 6
Occupation: student
Residence: Rialto, California
Date of Performance/Collection:
Primary Language:
Other Language(s):

Amari Broadnax was born in Fontana, CA in 2006.  He has lived in Rialto, CA all of his life.  He is a six year old first grader at Lena M. Preston Elementary School.   Amari practices Tae Kwon Do at the Tiger Lee Karate Schools in Rialto.  He is the eldest of two boys to his mother, Keesha Cuthbert, who is a full time student at the University of Southern California and Assistant Branch Manager at JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A.

Me:                        Amari, what games do you play at recess?

Informant:          (looks at me nervously, fidgets with clothes) Why? Did Mrs. Dietz call you?

M:                          What?  Why would she call me?

I:                             … I don’t know …

M:                          Okay, Amari, I don’t know what is going on.  I just want to know what you play at recess.

I:                             Am I going to get in trouble?

M:                          What? No. Why would you get in trouble? Amari, I promise you won’t get in trouble.

I:                             (hesitates) Mom, we are not supposed to play it though.  It’s called Call of Duty. Like the video game. You know?

M:                          Yes, I know.  Continue …

I:                             Okay, so, Mom, the boys umm are the zombies and umm we like try to get the girls.  So the girls umm run away from us so that they don’t umm become like us …like the zombies.  … and then, we  like turn the girls into umm the zombies and then the last human wins! (smiles) Mom, what’s wrong?

M:                          I don’t get it.  So, if you touch the girl she becomes a zombie?   How are there and humans left to win?

I:                             Mom, when I umm touch the girl I turn into a human and she is a zombie.  Do you get it now?

M:                          I think so … It sounds like Freeze Tag.

I:                             What’s that?

M:                          Nothing. Nevermind.

I:                             Mom …

M:                          Amari?

I:                             I’m not in trouble, right.  Cause that’s what you said …

M:                          No, you are not in trouble.

___

This sounds like a variation of Freeze Tag, that I used to play as a kid.  Basically, you transfer the “freezing” from one person to another until there is one person that remains unfrozen.  The thing that I remember about this game is that the more people that were playing, the longer the game lasted.  So, with a playground full of elementary school kids, it seems the perfect game for recess because it would never end.

Inny, Minny, Miny, Moe

--Informant Info--
Nationality: American
Age: 44
Occupation: Director of non-profit organization
Residence: Manhattan Beach, CA
Date of Performance/Collection:
Primary Language: English
Other Language(s):

Dione Surdez Oliver was born in Santa Ana, California in 1969.  She moved to Crooks, South Dakota when she was four years old.  She grew up on her family’s small dairy farm.  At the age of eighteen she moved back to Southern California.  She worked in the music industry for some time as well as a legal assistant for a number of years.  In 2003 Dione decided to pursue her educational endeavors and began studying at Santa Monica Community College.  She transferred to the University of Southern California in the fall of 2006 and was granted the Norman Topping Student Aid Fund Scholarship.  In 2009 Dione graduated with her Bachelor of Arts degree in Creative writing and a minor in Cultural Anthropology.  She graduated with honors and received the Order of Troy.  She currently resides in Manhattan Beach, California and where she is the director of CrossFit Zen and is working on entering the Masters of Professional Writing program at USC.

Inny, Minny, Miny, Moe

Catch a nigger by his toe

If he hollers, let him go

Inny, Minny, Miny, Moe

___

This is an oicotype of a very common childhood game.  Usually, it says “Catch a tiger by his toe.”  Dione informed me that this is the original version of the song.  Apparently, it was changed because of how derogatory it is towards African Americans.  As a native Californian, it would make sense that I have never heard this, as California is a little more tolerant state and a lot more diversified than most.  However, I bet that if I travelled to the South or the Midwest I would hear it more commonly.

Shoemaker

--Informant Info--
Nationality: African American
Age: 11
Occupation: student
Residence: Rialto, California
Date of Performance/Collection:
Primary Language: English
Other Language(s):

Jayden Hamilton was born in San Bernardino, California in 2002.  He is a fifth grader at Preston Elementary School in Rialto, CA.  He currently runs track for the school.

Me:                        When you are playing games at recess, like tag, how do you know who is “it” first?

Informant:          We play Shoemaker.

M:                          What is that?

I:                             Everybody puts their feet in and we go around the circle singing the songs.  Whoever shoe we are on at the song takes their foot out.  The last foot in the circle is it.

M:                          Oh, okay.  I remember this when I was a kid.  Which one is your favorite song?

I:                             ummmm … Johnny.

M:                          How does it go?

I:                             Johnny ate a boogar and it taste like sugar.  Put it in a pot and it tastes like snot. (grins widely)

M:                          That sounds like something that any little boy would like. (smile)