Category Archives: Game

Rest Room Pictures

Nationality: Japan
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: Japanese
Language: English

The informant has seen this game among Japanese middle school students when she was in Japan.

This is the game widely played by male students in middle to high school. Males students, usually a group of three to four, wait outside of the restroom until someone goes in and takes a photo of person urinating or sometimes evacuating the bowels. Taking pictures of evacuating the bowels is harder because the photographer needs to climb up the wall of the room without someone realizing. After taking that picture, they show it to that person who was in the picture, and ask for buy something such as candies and cakes. If they agree to buy something the pictures are deleted. But sometimes they keep pictures to remain powerful in the class.

The only rule that they follow is that these pictures won’t be shown to girls, only shown to guys. Therefore, people who got taken pictures do not really feel teased because they always pay back by taking pictures.  In this game, a camera in the mobile phone is used. Sometimes this is also a way that the student shows off his better quality of the phone to others.

I See London-Children’s Rhyme

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Seattle, Washington
Performance Date: 14 April 2012
Primary Language: English

I see London, I see France, I see _____’s underpants!

This is a popular rhyme amongst children and my informant remembered that he used to say it all the time. When they were either playing a hand clapping game or even just jump roping, the kids would sing this tune and pronounce that they saw so and so’s underpants, even if they happened.

I believe that sexual humor is always prominent no matter what the age and is especially getting more prominent in today’s culture. I remember boys would say this to girls in grade school and then chase them down to kiss them afterwards.

Handball

Nationality: Latino-American
Age: 7
Occupation: Student
Residence: South Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 16, 2012
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Additional informant data: My informant is a 2nd-grader in South Los Angeles. He has lived in LA his entire life. He is Latino and speaks both Spanish and English. He attends a public, coeducational elementary school, which has students from kindergarten through fifth grade. Several times during the day, the children at my informant’s school have a recess period, when they’re given access to balls, jump ropes, etc., and are allowed to play outside.

Contextual data: My informant and I sat down outside his classroom after two months of my teaching his class the fundamentals of folklore through USC’s Joint Educational Program. When asked about games he and his friends play at recess, he immediately thought of handball–a game he learned from his father. The following is an exact record of our conversation:

Jackson (me): Why don’t you tell me about handball?

I (my informant): Well, you hit the ball, you can bounce it, you can catch it, you can . . . you can’t scratch the ball and then you can’t hit the ball like straight, or else you’re gonna be out, uhh . . . you can do, you sometimes you can do rainbows, uhh you can do treetops sometimes, umm . . . that’s it, that’s all I know.

J: So those are different moves you can do with the ball?

I: [Nods]

J: What’s a “scratch”? What does “scratch” mean?

I: When you scratch it, it goes, like, on the wall, you scratch it, and then it goes like down, and then you’re . . . you’re out because you can’t scratch it.

J: Oh, ok. What’s a “rainbow”?

I: A rainbow is when it goes over the wall . . . umm . . . that’s it.

J: And, uhh, what’s a . . . what’s the last one? A “treetop”? What’s a “treetop”?

I: It’s when you get the ball on the . . . on top of the . . . the roof of the wall and it stays there and then it falls and that’s it.

J: Do you remember who taught you handball?

I: My . . . my dad.

J: Your dad?”

I: [Nods]

J: Was it a long time ago, or was it pretty soon? [sic “recent”]

I: Long.

J: Ok. And you guys play this at recess?

I: [Nods]

J: You play with your . . . with your friends from your class? Or do you play it with kids from other classes, too?

I: Kids from other classes and my friends from my class.

What my informant described for me is a common game played in elementary schools and middle schools, which I’ve also heard go by the name of “wallball.” While he had some difficulty explaining the technicalities of the game, for the most part, I understood what he was trying to convey–especially having played a very similar game growing up in the state of Washington. The point of handball is to take turns bouncing the ball against a wall, not letting it bounce twice on the ground in front of you before you hit it back. There is a strict set of rules that must be obeyed. If one is broken, the guilty player is “out.” For example, as my informant explains, “you can’t hit the ball like straight”–meaning you have to bounce the ball off the ground and then against the wall. If, when it’s your turn, the ball bounces twice before you can get to it, you’re out, and you generally go to the end of a line of waiting players.

The boy’s description of the game was particularly interesting for me because of its unique terminology. Unfortunately, I had a hard time visualizing what he was trying to explain, and I was unable to watch him play, but what we see is a complex system of etiquette and jargon all associated with the recess game of handball. I’m unsure about whether the game has some kind of underlying social significance, but, as far as I know, there is no canonized style of play, and it’s usually played by children without adults having to teach them. The game changes, in terms of specific rules and terminologies, and it remains popular across the United States.

Annotation: Seen in Louis Sachar’s 2011 children’s novel A Magic Crystal? (beginning of Chapter 5, no page numbers) (called “wall-ball”)

http://books.google.com/books?id=BDTfiYKVRxoC&pg=PT27&dq=wallball&hl=en&sa=X&ei=KvaZT6SxLaTe2QXB-cDbDg&ved=0CFwQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=wallball&f=false

Freeze Tag

Nationality: Latino-American
Age: 7
Occupation: Student
Residence: South Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 16, 2012
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Additional informant data: My informant is a 2nd-grader in South Los Angeles. He has lived in LA his entire life. He is Latino and speaks both Spanish and English. My informant attends a public, coeducational elementary school, which has students from kindergarten through fifth grade. Several times during the day, the children at his school have a recess period, when they’re given access to balls, jump ropes, etc., and are allowed to play outside.

Contextual data: My informant and I sat down outside his classroom after two months of my teaching his class the fundamentals of folklore through USC’s Joint Educational Program. After I began asking him about games he knows and plays often, he came up with freeze tag–a popular children’s game–and began explaining it to me. The following is an exact record of our conversation:

Jackson (me): Can you tell me about freeze tag?

I (my informant): Freeze tag is a game where you have to tag a person and they . . .  they stay there for . . . uhh . . . as long as they . . . uhh . . . forever, or if somebody stays, or if somebody tags them, somebody else, they . . . they . . . they’re unfroze, umm . . . if they’re all froze at the same time, the person who . . . the person who tagged them wins freeze tag and . . . if they don’t get all tagged . . . if they don’t get all tagged, then the person loses and the other people win, and that’s it.

J: And it ends when recess ends? Do you just keep playing until the bell?

I: Yeah.

J: Who do you usually play it with?

I: My bro— uhh . . . my friends, and my sister, and my brother, and my other sister, and my other brother.

J: Ok. How many people play, usually?

I: Five or six.

J: Ok. Do you remember who taught it to you, or did you kind of just learn it from people at school?

I: Umm . . . my . . . my . . . the one who taught it to me was my grandpa.

J: All right. Do you have anything else you want to say about freeze tag?

I: Nope.

I suppose few students in the United States–and probably in many other parts of the world–haven’t played tag at some point in their lives, and freeze tag is one of the most common versions. Whoever is “it” has the goal of “tagging” all the other players by chasing them down and touching them. When someone is tagged, they must freeze in place, and they can’t move until another player touches them.

While my informant didn’t have any ideas about the underlying significance of freeze tag, I have a few. The notion of one person being “it” and tagging others–rendering them physically immobile–seems to me like a sick person infecting others. If this is the case, it makes sense that someone else must “un-tag” them; that’s like being healed by somebody else. I discussed this with my roommate and he told me at his school they used to play this same exact game, but there they called it “germ tag,” and whoever was “it” had the germ. This reinforced my idea of freeze tag being modeled after some kind of fear of viruses or infection, as everyone is trying to run away from someone who has suddenly become dangerous, in a sense. In addition, this person is (or was) one of their close friends, which makes the chasing and tagging process a lot more disturbing. The person who is “it” is singled out and has the task of subduing all their friends, and the intentional quality of their behavior might reflect on the pervasive feelings against people who infect others with diseases.

Beyond this, freeze tag (or any kind of tag) could just be another schoolyard attempt at labeling “the Other,” or maybe it’s just a simple, fun game. It’s extremely common, but rather than discard it as commonplace because of it, I think we ought to pay special attention to the game precisely because it’s so widespread.

Annotation: Seen in the title and plot of Caroline B. Cooney’s 2004 novel Freeze Tag. Here is the Amazon.com synopsis of the book:

From best-selling author Caroline Cooney comes this suspenseful story of Meghan, whose relationship with her perfect boyfriend is destroyed by a girl who can freeze people with a touch of her finger.

When Meghan and West first played Freeze Tag with Lannie, it was no ordinary game. Because when Lannie tagged someone, they really froze. Icy blue and cold. Like death.

Now Meghan, West, and Lannie are in high school, and Meghan and West are in love. They’re the perfect couple. But Lannie is determined to have West for her very own… and if she doesn’t get her way, she’ll freeze Meghan… to death.

http://www.amazon.com/Freeze-Tag-Point-Caroline-Cooney/dp/0590456814

“I Went to a Chinese Restaurant”

Nationality: Chinese/Japanese/Pakistani
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 24, 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

Contextual data: When asked about childhood games or rhymes she knew, my informant immediately thought of this game. My informant was born and grew up in Hawaii. She says she first learned this in first grade at school through a friend. She says at the time everyone used to play it. The lines are said simultaneously by two partners, to a simple tune, clapping hands in different patterns every other syllable. At the end of the game, both players freeze, and whoever moves first loses. This can be decided by the spectators surrounding the players, or by one of the players themselves. The following is a transcription of the song’s lyrics (line breaks my addition):

I went to a Chinese restaurant / to buy a loaf of bread. / The lady asked my name, / and this is what I said: / my name is L-i-l-i pickle-eye pickle-eye pom-pom beauty x-y cutie Indiana Jones don’t move!

My informant and I both had difficulty thinking about the significance behind the song or game–in her own words, the game “sounds nice” and “it doesn’t matter when you’re in first grade”–but I’m sure there is some. Perhaps “pickle-eye pickle-eye” is some kind of racial slur against Asian facial features (perhaps the owner of the Chinese restaurant?), and “pom-pom beauty x-y cutie” could reference any number of things, from cheerleading to large breasts. The lyrics are so abstract and seemingly disparate that it’s hard to string them together. Perhaps by this point they’ve changed so much from their earliest forms that it’s actually impossible to pinpoint any original, intended meaning (if there ever was one), and now people find significance in the simple pleasures of playing the game.