Category Archives: Game

Chinese Red Date String Game- Children’s Folklore

Age: 54

Text:


Informant: “It’s something you say while doing a string trick. You use a piece of string and form a shape that looks like a date. The string represents the fruit, and through different movements it changes shape and eventually disappears while you say the rhyme out loud, ‘大枣大枣，越吃越小，吃了剩核，一拍没了。(Dà zǎo dà zǎo, yuè chī yuè xiǎo, chī le shèng hé, yī pāi méi le.)’. It’s meant to be a little like a magic trick. The phrase translated in English is something like, ‘Big date, big date, the more you eat it the smaller it gets, then you clap and nothing is left.'”

Interviewer: “When did you first learn it?”
Informant: “My mom taught me when I was very young. There weren’t that many things to do for fun back then, so we did a lot of hands-on activities like this, and all you need is a piece of string, it’s pretty easy to do.”

Interviewer: “Did you teach it to anyone else?”
Informant: “Yes, I taught it to my kids.”

Context:

The informant learned this string game from their mother during childhood while growing up in China in the 1980s. They explained that there were not many forms of entertainment available to children at the time, so simple hands-on activities like string tricks were a common way to play. Because the game only required a piece of string, it was easy for families to share and teach to children. The informant later passed the game on to their own children, continuing on the tradition.

Analysis:

This example can be interpreted as a form of children’s folklore, specifically a children’s game that combines a rhyme with a small physical activity. The game also demonstrates the folkloric concepts of multiplicity and variation. Similar string games appear in many cultures using the same simple materials but different shapes and rhymes. For example, it is similar to the string game cat’s cradle I learned as a kid, which also involves manipulating a loop of string to create patterns. Because the movements are difficult to understand without seeing them performed, games like these are usually learned directly from another person rather than through written instructions, which helps preserve their oral and performative nature.

Cheese Touch

Text

“When I was in like elementary school a lot of us would mess around with a game called the cheese touch like if you said cheese touch when you were tagging someone then they would have it. And the only way to prevent it would be to have your fingers crossed. And once you have it you have to give it to someone else or you’re stuck with it. So, I remember we would always have our fingers crossed because anytime was fair game. I remember getting frustrated because kids would lie and say their fingers were crossed when they got tagged. Me and my friends would team up in secret and promise we wouldn’t tag each other if we got the cheese touch. In my senior year of high school, we played senior assassin which gave me flashbacks to the cheesetouch because of the safe rules and the lies that would be created after someone got out. I was completely into both games because they brought out the inner kid in me and my competitive nature.”

Context

I first saw this game when I watched the Diart of a Wimpy Kid movie. I remember being at my friend’s house in his living room watching with my childhood friend group of 4 guys. When we saw the cheese touch scene with thought it was funny but also disgusting because the cheese was rotten. Other kids at our elementary watched the movie too and one of them copied the movie. Since we were immature kids who just wanted to have fun, the mention of the cheese touch got everyone riled up and the game began.

Analysis

The cheese touch game shows the diversity of forms that folklore can come in. It is a variation of another folk belief known as the “cooties” because they both involve infecting others with a negative thing. While it originated in a movie, kids around the US adapted the game into their own and transformed a silly game into a national form of folklore. Folklore is highly prominent in the younger generations because with social media and televesion, kids are prone to copy what they say without questioning its validity. Similar to Alan Dundes’s idea, folklore functions socially within groups that share similiarity giving mutual trust in this scenario. The secret alliances he formed with his friends show the strength of culture through folklore. Regardless of the rules of the game, their tight knit folk group shaped by friendship and a collective interest to not get the cheese touch led to them bending the rules and creating shared identity.

Inky Binky Bonky

The Story:

“When I was younger, I had this tradition that I did with all of my friends. It started with my cousin, she taught it to me. But one of my favorite games growing up was tag and the way that we determined who would become or who would be the first to be it was Inky Binky Bonky. What we would do is we would come together and we would put our feet in a circle, and then we would chant the song while pointing onto each other’s toes. “

 “Inky Binky Bonky, 

daddy had a donkey, 

donkey died, 

daddy cried, 

what color was the donkey’s butt?”

“and then you land on somebody and then they give a color. If they’re like pink, you go P-I-N-K pink and then you’re out. That person’s out. And then you keep going until you have one person.

I taught the rhyme onto other people. My cousin did it because when I was younger the only rhymes I think were mutually accepted and known or widely known were like bubble gum bubble gum in a dish and Eenie Meenie Minie Moe, but Inky Binky Bonky, I had never heard of it. My cousin taught it to me and then I taught it to all of my friends.  The last age I played it, I would say maybe when I was like 11 or 12. I learned it, I want to say either kindergarten or first grade.  A twist I added was if it landed on me, I would count how many feet it would take for me to be it. Say a color that was longer, I knew that if I said pink, it would land on me, so I’m saying orange or I’m saying something else so that it’s somebody else. But yeah, I would just  use the color in my mind to navigate what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go.”

Reflection:

This interview and the informant reminded me of childlore and the multiplicity of folklore and how it can transcend regions but still have the original intent. The counting rhyme functions as a folk narrative in a shorter form, a verbal performance that assigns social roles and the weight they carry via rhythm, chance and choice. This also touches making do with whichever mediums are at hand and still perpetuating the original intent of the folk media. This version of a counting game, as well as some of the tactics used when determining social roles as implied by the rhyme are especially interesting. Although there is no direct author of this rhyme, it still exists and has several variations in different locations and regions. Further, it shows the creative control the informant and players of the game have when choosing the color when playing the game. It goes to show that while several versions of a game may exist, the original intent remains and the initiation players take to achieve the desired outcome. 

Arctic Fox

The Story:

“When I was in third grade, I moved to a different part of the city and changed schools. The first book we read in class was The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Our teacher used an origami activity to tie into the book and taught us how to make origami foxes. In the class, we used orange origami paper, but since that class I have made the origami foxes out of whatever resources I had around- like i did in class on Thursday!”

Reflection:

Reflection:

The informant’s story was a good example of folk art when mixed with personal memory and communal creativity. The emphasis on the folk art being created with “whatever resources I had around” is an example of making do with whatever is at hand. This draws back to the importance of folk art, since it essentially is the presentation of messages or historical context via a multitude of mediums. Furthermore, the folk art and its prevalence in the informant’s life shows how the folk art, despite the material used to make it, will always carry the historical and contextual significance when being recreated and taught onto other individuals. The story exemplifies the folkloresque of the integration type. The origami fox activity is an attempt at a connection between book and another tangible media form, yet seems folkloric as it allows the opportunity for the children to form shared connected ideals and emotions of the origami.

Doljanchi

Text:


“So when I was one, I had this huge birthday party, and they laid out certain things — like a stethoscope, or money, or rice that symbolizes success. And then the baby has to pick one of them, and that’ll determine their path in life. A stethoscope would mean a doctor or something like that. I think I chose the rice. That’s from my Korean side.”

Context:


Doljanchi (also Dol) is the traditional Korean first-birthday celebration, and, officially, the Doljabi ceremony plays a vital role as an object-choosing ritual. Objects placed before the child vary by family and period but generally include objects that symbolize prosperity, health, scholarship, longevity, and professional achievements. The informant, who is half-Korean, inherited this practice from her father’s side and recalled it with pride, linking it to what she saw as a broader Korean cultural ethos of persistence and upward mobility.

Analysis:


Doljabi is one of the most recognizable folk rites in Korean culture, a fortune-telling performance at one of the earliest celebrations of a child’s life. Its endurance, even among second-generation Korean Americans, speaks to its profound cultural resonance. But most importantly, it’s not truly believed that the child’s choice is literally determining their future. The ceremony is more of an aspirational blend of parental hope and communal adornment. The informant’s observation is especially rich in that she ties the Doljabi to an understanding of Korean national identity, where the practice is not simply a matter of family heritage but an expression of a people’s relationship to ambition, hard labor, and prophetic evolving throughout life itself. And this shift from family tradition to ethnic pride is exactly how folk traditions maintain meaning in diasporic contexts: they become bearers of a larger tale about who a people are and where they have come from.