When I Was Just A Little Boy 8
Games with Paper
Ultimately, what surrounds us during primary school days was pencil and paper. Here are a number of things I remember playing:
We would fold a piece of paper like that and do all sorts of things with it, including fortune telling, riddles, and just ridiculing each other.
Another thing we would do on paper involves the grid exercise booklet (we have those with lines like typical writing pads for english and malay language classes, but for chinese language and math classes, we bought grid based books) and play a very similar game as Go or 围棋. Unlike the typical game of Go, this game played on the paper permanently kills of the opponent once a complete surrounding is done, and is actually marked by joining the dots. Here’s a simple run down of how you can also play:
– First, decide on a dot symbol (usually just cross and black dot) and who starts first.
– On a turn by turn basis, put down cross or dot on the junction of the cross grid (not within the boxes – same as Go)
– Once an area can be joined by adjacent dots (there are 8 adjacent dots for every dot) one can join the dots, which effectively make the opponent’s dot within the area “dead”. There’s no turning it around or removing – the pencil just keeps going on. If one’s adjacent dot is “dead” it cannot be used to surround the opponent again.
– Player with largest surrounded area wins.
Other games we play a less interesting to me, like folding airplanes, boats, birds, or even the one where one would put the finger over a vertically positioned pencil on paper and then press it down to create a path on paper, aiming to cross the opponent’s path…
Pencil and paper was supposed to be for work…
yes i remember making that type of stuff from paper, and i remember there is a game to it , but i totally forgotten what was it all about 😀
Echoing Lisa’s sentiment, there are many good old things that we enjoyed as a kid but seem to have gone down the drain of our memory. This series of blog posts that you initiated is a good move and should turn it into something (something that I have yet to conceptualise fully).
Your writings have forced me into a “bad day” – where I frantically struggled to locate the bits and pieces in my memory of my childhood days, fearing that they would disappear for good. But truly thanks to your effort here. It’s sweet memory. 🙂
Aih, this was just my own effort to “jot things down” as well. Memories fade, sometimes writing it on public medium like this and then imprinting them on even more people’s minds will help one remember in the future.
I’m also quite annoyed coz I can’t remember what I wrote in these papers. I vaguely remember using this to tease girls.