Fun and Games

Many of the games my elementary students play could be found on any playground in America. My kids play tag, which is called Oni gokko, literally “demon chase.” The child who is “it” is known here as being the “oni,” or demon. Another common game is Kakurenbo or Hide and Seek. There is one interesting difference with this game. In America when the person who is “it” is done counting they say, “Ready or not, here I come!” Here in Japan the oni calls out “Mou ii kai?” which means “Okay, are you read?” If you are ready you call back, “Mou ii yo!” which means “Okay, ready!” But if you aren’t ready you can call out “Mada da yo!” which means “Not yet!” The oni waits and calls out again later to see if you are ready yet. It just seems more polite here as the oni asks if you are ready and gives you more time where as in America when the counting is finished they are coming if you are “ready or not.”

I also know of a game similar to red light, green light. It’s called Darumasan ga Koronda, which means the Daruma doll fell down. A daruma is a Japanese toy and good luck charm and they are usually made in such a way that they are very difficult if not impossible to knock over (weighted at the bottom). The oni stands away from the group and says the phrase as fast or as slowly as they please (varying speeds is a common tactic of the clever player). Then they turn around to try to catch their friends moving. If they see them move then that person must go and hold hands with the oni. The rules for how to free the caught kids and such vary from place to place. The kids also love to play musical chairs which is called the “isutori” game, literally chair and tail. It took forever for me to realize that this game was NOT called the “History” game; believe me, it really sounds similar!

I did a report on Japanese children’s games in college, so I knew about most of these games before I got here. One thing that thrilled many of my students was that I knew a common hand clapping game. We did these all the time as kids; I remember “Miss Mary Mack” and “Shame” in particular. Basically it’s just a game where you sing a little song and do hand motions together with a partner. And the faster you can do it the more impressive it is. While researching for our project my partner and I learned a game called Arupusu ichiman jyaku and performed it for the class. The song is sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy strangely enough. The song is about dancing in the mountains and makes about as much sense to me as the songs we used to sing. But the kids absolutely love it when I break out my skills and play with them. They are shocked that I even know about it, let alone that I can go just as fast as any of them. It always makes me smile.



But in one of my last classes before summer break we played a game that I had never heard of before. I was playing with my first graders and they decided we should play a game called Hana Ichi Monme. The name means “a flower is one monme,” and a monme was an old Japanese unit of weight for approximately 3.75 grams. Just go with it. The game is really similar to “Red rover.” The kids make two lines holding hands. One group walks forward and sings a verse of the song. Then they walk backwards while the other line walks towards them singing the next verse. The song goes like this:

(1) Katte ureshii hana ichi monme
(2) Makete kuyashii hana ichi monme
(1) Ano ko ga hoshii
(2) Ano ko ja wakaran
(1) Sōdan shiyō
(2)Sō shiyō

Translation:
We're so happy we won, hana ichi monme
We're so upset we lost, hana ichi monme
We want that kid
We don't understand which kid you mean
Let's talk about it
Yes, let's

So then the kids huddle together and decide who they want from the other team. When they are ready they announce that they have decided. They get back in line and call out to each other “Ayaka-chan ga hoshii” which means “We want Ayaka!” and the other team does the same. The two chosen kids meet in the center and play janken, which is rock paper scissors. The loser joins the winning team’s line. The winning team starts the song on the next round. As I said, it’s similar to red rover with its two lines of kids trying to capture everyone else. But this game relies on rock paper scissors rather than the brute strength of breaking the other team’s line.

When we started the game it was just three little girls and me. I didn’t know the song, and of course I ended up on a team by myself. I had kinda figured out the rhythm of the song, so I just kinda hummed it. The kids seemed to enjoy that. The first grade teacher was there and she sang my part for me. But soon people saw us playing and came to join the game. Soon we had like 12 kids playing and it would have taken a very long time for a line to completely be captured by the other team.

As a final note on games, one of my elementary schools often asks me to teach the kids games that I played as an elementary school student. I usually teach them how to play rock paper scissors in English although we don’t play it nearly as much as my kids here do. I’ve taught the kids red rover and duck duck goose both with pretty good success. I have used Simon says as part of several body parts lessons. I once changed it a little so that instead of saying Simon says I said please. So I would say, “Please stand up. Sit down.” It just made the English in the game a little more useful and introduced a way to be polite. But it’s hard to play Simon says too long with the kids because they catch on really fast and are nearly impossible to get out! But my favorite game to play with the kids is “heads up, seven up.” I change it here and call it “heads up, stand up,” because that is more useful English and most of the time the classes are too small for us to have seven people up front. We normally manage about four. I really enjoy this game because it includes some good English and is still simple enough for them. They will play this game all period if I let them, and I often do. It makes for a nice laid back class that lets everyone have minute long naps. Which some days I really need.