Tag Archives: Game

The Salata Game

MP is a 47 year old Syrian immigrant from Damascus, Syria. She is an accountant and has lived in the U.S. for almost 30 years now. She explains a game that she would play as a little girl with her friends in Syria. She said girls from 1st to 6th grade would play this game and it was called “salata.”

MP: 

One person would start the chant: “Salata, salata, tabal-naha, kushi fiya illa bandora.”

Translation: Salad, salad, we made it, everything is in it except tomatoes.

Then, the next person would reply by chanting: “Bandora fiha, wa kulshi fiha illa khass ma fia.”

Translation: It has tomato in, and everything in it except lettuce is not in it.

And the game would continue with each person chanting about a different vegetable to add to their salad. 

Context: This was told to me in an in-person conversation, and I was able to perform it.

Thoughts:

Although my informant played this in Syria as a little girl, it was also a game that I used to play in America. It was used in my Arabic school to teach us what vegetables are called in Arabic in a fun way. When my informant told me about this game, I was surprised that it was one that I already knew and have played before. This game was played by both boys and girls, however my informant told me that when they would play it in Syria, typically the boys played with the boys and the girls played with the girls. When I would play it years later in my Arabic class, boys and girls all played together. 

Car Game

Main Piece:

Informant: This is my car game that I play every time I drive and also just every day I do this every single day it’s become a way of life for me. And basically, the game is for every Kia Soul that you see it’s one point for every vintage Subaru that you see it’s one point so like things like the ones that have like the split color siding, you know, the old logo, et cetera. Um, and then if you see a Subaru Baja, which is the truck Subaru made from 2000 to 2006. And they discontinued it because it was so unpopular. It’s worth 10 points. And it is minus one point for a cop car minus two points for concrete with their lights on because it’s annoying and ablest and, yeah, and then the other versions that we’ve had that we’ve played is like for every like, quote, liberal, gay, whatever. Sticker it’s plus one and like for every like Trumpy sticker it’s minus one it just really depends on oh yeah, it really depends on where you are though because I feel like it’s a little biased played in Texas because it’s really unfair because you’re in the negatives and that’s no fun. Um, but it only Yeah, so and then my whole thing is like the more points I have, the better of the day I’ll have so it’s an emotional thing and it fucking holds up to I swear. 

Relationship to the Piece: 

This is a game my informant came up with and has taught to all of their friends, which they now play. It has spread around their cohort, taking on a life of it’s own.

Context: 

The informant is one of my friends, a 19-year-old theatre major at the University of Southern California who grew up in Texas. I was told this as we were hanging out in one of the theaters on campus as we were talking about folklore. 

Analysis:

I think it’s interesting how the point system involves what the car is decorated with as well, because the predictors of good or bad days start to make a little more sense. For my informant who grew up in a conservative part of Texas, the bumper stickers were a reminder of the people they lived around who weren’t very accepting, but at the end of the day, it’s about the cars and the points. These indicators might seem silly, but they are a way of external reassurance of your emotional state, I’ve started playing it and I’ve noticed that I almost force myself to have a better day if I’m in the positive, which I feel like has actually helped my mental health because I end up in the positives more often than not. 

Slide (Game)

Text:

“Your hands would slide (Interweave your hands with your friend’s hands and then slide them out and then draw them both towards yourself) and you’d then start doing patty cake [clap your own hands together than then hit your partner’s right hand with your right hand, and then clap your own hands again and repeat with the left hands]. You would start counting each time you and your partner hit hands and skip the number five while counting – 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 etc. and then when you got to 50 you would skip from 49 to 60. If someone said 5 (including 15, 25, 35, etc.) then they were ‘out’.”

Context:

EK is a 19 year old American student at USC. She described a child’s game she remembers playing with her friends while growing up. She was raised in Northern California. 

Interpretation: 

Growing up in Minnesota, we played all sorts of clapping games, but I’d never heard this one. It’s interesting that the “patty cake” hand clapping motion was presented as a given, and while I understood it, I assume other people wouldn’t know what “patty cake” meant, however it might be a more widespread game than “Slide” is. It seems as though this game is a derivation of “patty cake”.  Since it is a bit more complicated than “patty cake”, it would probably be seen as a more ‘mature’ way for older kids to play “patty cake”. Emily Rivas (2020) talks about the “patty cake” hand clapping game and describes it as “the most classic and simple clapping game out there.” Perhaps its simplicity is what has caused it to be generalized to so many other games. If you read the rest of her article “10 classic hand clapping games to teach your kids”, she even describes the hand motions of one of the rhymes/games “Miss Mary Mack” as a derivative of the “patty cake” hand clapping. Even more interesting is there is a game called “Slide” in this article that looks significantly different than the “Slide” described above in both lyrics and hand motions. Nevertheless, “patty cake” has a long history and some debatable origins as a nursery rhyme (Di Donato, 2016), but its proliferation in new derivations of the game is incredibly intriguing. Hand clapping games are great for kids and also very common (in variable forms) in my experience because they can be played anywhere and are easy to learn, while also being competitive, which makes them fun. They are something that gets passed around by kids without anyone really knowing where they came from, and since the informant told me about a game I had never heard of (and I supplied her with games she had never heard of), it is obvious that they their usage varies even across the United States.

Annotations/References:

Di Donato, Jill. “The History of ‘Patty Cake’ Is More Interesting than You’d Think.” Romper, BDG Media, 9 May 2016, www.romper.com/p/the-history-of-patty-cake-is-more-interesting-than-youd-think-10222. 

Rivas, Emily. “10 Classic Hand-Clapping Games to Teach Your Kid.” Today’s Parent, St. Joseph Communications, 8 Sept. 2020, www.todaysparent.com/family/10-classic-hand-clapping-games-to-teach-your-kid/. 

Four Square (Game)

Text:

“There are four squares [on the ground] and everyone stood in an individual square and one square was the “King” – the person who had done the best so far or got there first in the beginning. You are hitting a ball in a square [from one person to the other], calling different names out of moves or “tricks”. One move was “around the world”, where if the ball hits in your square you have to spin before hitting it out. You moved up in ranks if you did well, and if you didn’t hit it, lost the ball, if you hit it out of your square, or it double bounced [bounced twice] in your square you would be out. One move was called the “penny drop” where you hit the ball really lightly so it would double bounce in someone’s square, and they would be out.”

Context:

MM is a 24-year-old American Missionary from a town in the middle of California. I asked her about any games she remembers playing while growing up and what the rules were for the game. 

Interpretation:

Four Square is a game I played growing up during recess as well, but for me, it looked a bit different than the way my informant described it. While the basic rules remained the same, we had a distinct oikotype of the game that didn’t involve the tricks that my informant mentioned. When I mentioned some of the rules of the way I played it growing up, my informant hadn’t heard of those either. It’s interesting to me that I could’ve gone to any group of children where I am from and the rules would’ve been the same, but now if I tried to play it with people from a different state, we probably wouldn’t be able to agree on how it would be played to the point where a game with a basic concept has completely different rules in different places. Games like these can develop subcultures where children really take them seriously and competitively and they turn into more of a sport than a game. It showcases the inherent competitiveness of kids and their way to make creative fun of their own. 

Handkerchief Game

Everyone, children for this game, sits within a circle, someone goes around holding a handkerchief and everyone chants,
丢,丢,丢手绢. 小小的朋友请你不要打电话快点快点抓住他

Diū, diū, diū shǒujuàn. Xiǎo xiǎo de péngyǒu qǐng nǐ bùyào dǎ diànhuà kuài diǎn kuài diǎn zhuā zhù tā

“Throw throw throw the handkerchief. Little little friends, please can you not call the phone, hurry hurry catch him”

After this, the person outside changes with the person who they were at when the song ended and the new person is handed the handkerchief and the cycle begins anew.

S is an older Chinese immigrant who migrated to the US over 20 years ago. He still has very close contact with relatives in China and regularly participates in Chinese cultural practices.

Context: I interviewed S about Chinese cultural customs and beliefs. This is a children’s game. As such, is typically played by children.

This is a children’s game. Similar children’s games are played in the US as well. Duck duck goose is a very similar concept where children are in a circle and one person must choose who in the circle must get out. The main difference is the power to choose is held within the chooser in duck duck goose while the power is held within the song, making it equal. This is interesting to me because S was born after the Chinese Communist Party rose to power in China. This was during the Cultural Revolution, so many themes of equality were present throughout society. This more equal power sharing could be a result of the Communist Revolution.