Category Archives: Game

Game: Electric Shock

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 21
Occupation: student
Residence: around usc
Performance Date: 2/16/2023
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

L is a junior at University of Southern California studying Communications. He is an international student from China who is telling us about a game he played as a child from his hometown in China, Anhui Province in the city Hefei. His first language was Chinese, so throughout the interview, he would sometimes slip into Chinese and struggle placing the exact words in English.

Text:
L: “It’s just another version of hide and seek in the place where I live. Like every hide and seek game. The one whose finding the others is gonna have to stay in place and counts for 30 seconds but that specific place is, in this game, a big pillar. He places his hand on the big pillar and counts for 30 seconds before he goes off and finds the others. I think that’s it.”
Why is it called Electric Shock?
L: “When we find another one, we say “Electric Shock” and he can’t move. He could move before, like if he tried to dodge he can move but he can’t be seen. But if he is seen, then ‘Electric Shock’ and he can’t move. He’s frozen in place.”
How do you win the game, to just not get found?
L: “Yeah, and by finding them all. And there is a time limit. Like for ten minutes. Like, you can’t be looking forever. So, ten minutes. If you can’t find everyone, then yeah.”

Context:
“For some reason, we don’t call Hide and Seek Hide and Seek. We call it Electric Shock in Chinese, like that’s just a traditional version native to the place, it’s name is called Electric Shock…very childish, like before sixth grade. I really have no idea how we came up [with it]. It’s something that we come up with, like our community. Like, there’s like 20-30 kids who live around our community. We come to same place every two days to play them. We play it so often. I have no idea why, but I guess it was very fun.”
This was a game specific to the community of the informant, a game shared among all the children of that area in the city they grew up in. The informant specified that they played this frequently during their early childhood, but stopped before sixth grade. They used it as a way to have fun with other children, and viewed as something childish: enjoyable as a kid to play, but socially unfitting for an adult.

Interpretation:
In every culture and nation, there seems to be a childhood game or two with which any child can play. There are commonalities between Electric Shock and American hide and seek and freeze tag. But to call Electric Shock a fusion of hide and seek and freeze tag would be ignorant of the Chinese community that created the environment that fostered this specific game. The time limit, the hand on the pillar, even the title, Electric Shock; these distinct variations compared to other examples of hide and seek or freeze tag make it unique. Even though it seems to be only played in one city of one province of one country in the world, Electric Shock has become a piece of children’s lore, its own folk game. However, its specificity to one region in the world does not take away from its purpose, synonymous to all other universal children’s lore. These small, folk games children invent give them a chance to let loose society’s expectations and have fun. There’s freedom that comes with playing the same game with dozens of other people your age, laughing and playing together. No matter the game style, title, or variation, the special nostalgia, fond fun and freedom that’s associated with childhood are hardly taken away. That makes childhood lore unifying under whatever variation, but simultaneously unique to each child’s upbringing.

Children’s Folk Game: Bloody Murder

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: 02/22/23
Primary Language: English

Context: The informant recalls playing the game in his early childhood in the open fields of the west. The game would have to be played in a very rural area, with few to zero houses around. Two teams would form in order to play the game, one would have a “base” while the other would go out and hide in the field. The team at the base would stay within the base for a twenty-four-second count without looking to give the other team time to hide. The main purpose of the game was to hide as deep in the field as you could if you were on the other team. This way the base team would be forced to go deep into the fields to find you, and if they spotted you they would yell “bloody murder”, which would cause the hiding team to chase the entire base team back to their camp. If someone on the base team got tagged by the hiding team then that individual would switch teams. This process would go on until one team had all members and there was no one left on one of the teams. The informant noted that the hiding team did not have to wait until a base member yelled bloody murder in order to run after them.

Analysis: Looking at this game from all accounts, one gets the sense that this folk developed around groups of children whose fathers went to war during the twentieth century. The tactics of the game mimic a lot of war tactics used during guerrilla warfare, and thus one can conclude that the children put together “bloody murder” from the circumstances their fathers were undergoing during wars. In a strange way, perhaps even an adult incorporated this among children in order for them to learn or be introduced to war tactics, this way the children would grow up familiar with the basics of guerrilla warfare. This ensures that the upcoming generations of the American military would have strong, knowledgeable soldiers and leaders. When looking from another lens, this game could have also been a bonding activity amongst children who had absent fathers on account of the war, and thus bonded with one another through “bloody murder.” Children’s folklore tends to be anti-constitutional and is spurred by their inner creativity and the hardships they faced from being institutionally controlled.

Korean Handgame

Performance Date: 2/22/23
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

English translation: 

On the blue sky, Milky Way,

White boat

A tree of a tree and a rabbit 

It’s not a mast and there’s no sting.

It’s good to go to the west country. 

Cross the Milky Way to the cloud country. 

Where are you going after the cloud country.

Shining brightly from a distance

It’s a new star lamp. Find the way. 

First, you clap with two hands, then each other’s front of their hands touch, then clap together (all in a wave-like motion). Then clap again, then both mirror one hand above, one hand below, and clap together, then a final clap with both hands from each. This will continue until the song ends. 

The informant explains that the Korean hand game combines a Korean song with hand clapping that goes along with the rhythm. She was taught as a kid by her mother and quickly began to do it with her friends. The song is called Half Moon, and the lyrics seem to relate to the night sky and stars. The informant believes that it may have some tie to other Korean folklore but is not entirely sure. She explains that most if not all Korean children know this game.

The interesting thing about this hand-clapping game is that the game really is not a game. There is no winning in this game, and it simply ends when the song ends. There is no competition, and nothing to achieve other than the cultural aspect. I believe that because it is of Korean culture and origin, it has a more collectivist culture and thus its purpose is different.

Tumbang Preso

Nationality: American
Age: 54
Residence: San Gabriel, California
Primary Language: English
Language: Tagalog

M is 54, and grew up in Manila, Philippines, and currently resides in San Gabriel, California.

M described to me a game that was played among the children in his neighborhood called tumbang preso. The rules as he recalled them were, that someone “guards the can” while the other kids take turns ‘“trying to hit the can with their slipper.” And that the object of the game was the “knock down the can” and avoid getting tagged by the “can guardian.” This game was corroborated by M (50) who said that she also grew up playing the game. I asked them both why slippers were utilized specifically. M replied that it was the “only thing they had” and that it was easier to play games with household objects.

Upon further research, I learned that the game name, tumbang preso, is also known as Kick the Can. It has a lot of similarities in its rules and the way that it is structured, compared to other tag-based games, like capture the flag. I find it interesting that most countries have some sort of variation of tag, albeit with different items used, according to where the children grow up.

“Interrupting Cow”: Knock Knock joke

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Residence: California
Performance Date: 2/16/23
Primary Language: English

Original text:

Informant: “Knock knock.”

Collector: “Who’s there?”

Informant: “Interrupting cow.”

Collector: “Interrupting cow who–”

Informant: “MOOOO!”

Context: The informant is 18 and a freshman at USC studying Theater and Anthropology. They learned this joke while on the bus in elementary school. They exchanged this joke with their friends at school, getting laughs on either side with this unconventional delivery of the classic “Knock Knock” joke. They state that “recess, lunch, or in between class time” was the perfect stage for this joke. 

Analysis: The informant is a white American that went to public school in Barrington, Illinois. Among jokes that are popular with young American children, “Knock Knock” jokes are definitely one of the top choices. The format is one that almost every kid knows, and it goes a little something like this: the joke teller says “Knock knock”, the listener responds “Who’s there”, the teller says “x” (any word or phrase), in response the listener says “x who?”, and the teller tells the punch line. This variation of the “knock knock” joke is interesting because it doesn’t follow the typical pattern: the teller interrupts the listener mid-sentence as the punchline. The phrase “interrupting cow” is already humorous and familiar to young children because of the emphasis placed on learning the names of animals in elementary schools. Children also memorize the sounds that each animal makes very early on, making the punchline of “MOOOOO!” relatable and funny. Many families in the rural American Midwest own farms with cows, which also might bring an extra sense of familiarity to the children in the general semi-rural area of Barrington, Illinois.