Gasing, tops or phak kan lock

Gasing: Still available in the market. Unlike places like
Taiwan, it is no longer widely played in Malaysia anymore

IF YOU HAD become a scientist, especially an engineer, you would have encountered angular acceleration, momentum and velocity, and gyroscopic effect, and reminisce about the younger days when we played with tops or gasing. Read here. For the rest of us, it was just a fine game with a rather crude name, if you were Hokkien: Phak kan lock are words, taken singly, have been parts of many vulgarities.

Our games, with all its variations, bore striking similarities with one in India call “bambaram” which was popular until the 1990s. Watch here. A Wikipedia entry describes how the game was played (read here), however, I have edited using the video above as a reference and some recollections of our own experience:

• Drawing a circle: Preceding the game, a small circle about 4ft diameter was drawn on relatively hard ground which allowed tops to spin well.
• Toss, spin and lift to define the first “prisoner”: The game started with a quick competition: On the word “go”, all players would wind their tops, toss and spin them on the ground, before lifting them with the rope and catching them. The last one to complete the process became the “prisoner”. He had to put his top at the centre of circle for others to aim at and hit. There was a trick to winning this competition: Wind the rope as little as possible – even halfway – and do just enough to complete the task.
• Whacking the “prisoner”: The next phase started when players took aim at and tried to hit the “prisoner”. The aims were to (1) break (gunna in Karnataka slang) the top and (2) drive it out.
• More and more “prisoners”: Each time a person took aim and tossed, his top must continue to spin until he was able to lift it to his hands – either with the rope or by easing it from the ground. Anyone who failed became a “prisoner” too.
• Escape: When a “prisoner” top was hit, and it moved outside the circle, it was deemed to have escaped. To qualify as being “outside”, the point of the top must rest outside circle and not touch the line at all.

There were many variations to the game and, many a time, the rules could be changed on the spot by the groups playing.

Parts and the making of a top

The top was made up of the following parts:

• The wooden part, made up of the crown at the top, shoulder and body, was made from meranti or kayu jambu batu. The former, softer and more easily broken, cost about 30 sen each (1960s). The latter, very durable, were double the price or more. Given the smoothness and evenness of the surfaces of the tops, they were made using a lathe. Watch here (a video from Mexico).
• The tip or point was made from a 3-inch iron nail.
• Rope with a button (an aerated water bottle cap, in our case) fixed at one end and knotted at the other.

Skills needed to play the game

• Underhand toss: In this toss, the player jerked his arm outward quickly (like a ten-pin bowler) and released the top. It was considered a bit feminine by the boys – much like underhand serve of volleyball or the underhand bowl of softball.
• Tophand toss: For this, the top was raised above the head, somewhat like what a cricket bowler did, and chucked groundwards in a quick but controlled manner.
• Spin and lift: After a top was spun, a must-have skill was to lift it while it was spinning with the rope placed around it. Most people just caught hold of the top. Some skilful ones, could lift the top and let it continue to spin on the palm.
• Coaxing a spinning top onto the palm: When the top was spinning on the ground, one could coax it onto the palm, and while it still spun, used it to knock other tops.
• Low jingki: There was a move called the jingki in which we tossed-spun the top forward and downward, and pulled it back while it was spinning in the air — and then let it land spinning on our palm.
• High jingki: There was another version which in which we tossed-spun the top forward and upward. Can be seen in the Bambaram video.
• Repairs and maintenance: Our 30-sen investments needed repairs once in a while – like sanding down chipped wood, straightening and replacing the points (nails), etc. After the purchase of a new one, however, we needed to season the wood with oil (usually Singer Sewing Machine oil). This was to prevent it from chipping easily.

Masters of the game

• Top spinning continues to be taken very seriously in Taiwan. View here some of the masters in action.

© Lim Siang Jin

Thart thien choo or capteh

Thien choo that is available locally: Made in China

The Malays call it capteh; Penang Hokkiens, thart thien choo.  I have only recently discovered it is a very old game and is still being played seriously in many countries. In 2003, when Vietnam hosted the SEA Games, for example, it was one of the official competitive sports. A blogger on traditional pastimes has given a detailed description of the game going back over 2,500 years (read here):

The earliest reference to a game of kicking a feathered object dates back to the 5th century BC in China. Later known as ti jian zu or “kick little shuttlecock”, the game was used to train military men. Shaolin monks in Henan during the Tang Dynasty were also known to have practised the game to strengthen their martial arts skills. It remained popular for about two millennia, from the Han (206 BC-200) until after the Sui and Tang dynasties. During the Song Dynasty (960-1278), chien tsu (jianqiu) meaning “arrow” became the game’s more popular name. The name is still used to refer to the “shuttlecock” used in badminton.

The writer also places the game in the modern context where it continues to have a big following:

In Vietnam, the game is known as da cau. In the 2003 SEA Games held in Vietnam, capteh was included as a competitive sport. Internationally, the game is also known as shuttlecock kicking. Featherball Associations in Europe, USA and Turkey also show how international the game has become. In Singapore and Malaysia, the game is known as capteh. The name is thought to be either Malay or Hokkien in origin. Variants of the name include chapteh, chaptek and chatek. The game is still very much alive in Singapore. As recently as March 2009, a capteh competition was organised in Singapore.[Some 16 countries have their own versions of the game with their respective names, as shown in a table in the story.]

 The following are some videos that give an idea of what’s happening now in the world of capteh:

• A group of boys at SMK Cheras Perdana, Hulu Langat, Selangor, having an informal game of capteh. Quite skilful, I might add. View here. 
• Singapore’s “oldest” player at 84 (2017). Inspiring. View here. 
• One version of the game: Kick and add up the number of times. The first person to reach 100 wins. View here. 

How we played it

Capteh, as I recall, was not very popular among us although it was part of the games-children-play annual calendar of Penang. Like the versions above, we tried to outplay each other by seeing who could maintain it in the air as long as possible. The problem was that it took a lot of skills to do that. Moreover, it was an informal game with no tournament that would put aspiring players on the ladder to some level of fame or measure of achievement. In the school setting, we used to string rubber bands across the corridor and played an improvised sepak raga.

Frangipani: An unforgettable experience with the capteh was the use of the frangipani flower as a substitute. If we bunched, say, 15, together, and tied them with a rubber band at the pedicil (the part that connects to a stem, I think), they form a fluffy kicking toy. Upon further use, they turned brown and pliable and, surprisingly durable. Some of us used the top of the forefoot to kick while others used the arch – sepak raga style.

© Lim Siang Jin

Mata chat, chiak bak and kham bak chieu

Kham bak chieu or hide-and-seek.
Adapted from Wikihow graphics

THE LARGE field at Westlands Primary gave us a lot of options for play. Football was the official favourite; then there were those for the masses – games that needed few or no equipment, or delineated space, and all could join in. I am referring to mata chat, chiak bak and kham bak chieu (or hide-and-seek).

Mata chat

In mata chat (cops and robbers) we had two teams that were picked via a ritual using two 14-syllable Hokkien rhymes. The selection process started with forming a circle. A leader would start to chant “chui lo chui lo, chui peng peng, chui chui chiak pah cho lang peng” (to select a mata or cop although the peng meant soldier). He would begin the first syllable by pointing to someone and moved to next person with each consecutive term. Somewhat like musical chairs, the person who ended up with the 14th syllable (say, peng) became the cop. To pick a chat or robber, we recited “chui lo chui lo, chui chat chat, chui chui chiak pah cho lang chat”. This would go on until two teams were selected.

There was little correlation between these rhymes, well-known for their fun, frivolity and humour, and the game itself. Roughly translated, the sayings ended with “whoever has eaten a full meal became a cop or a robber”. I had forgotten all about them until I was reminded by Kay Liang and Ong Seng Huat.

Each team had a set of objectives:

• The mata had a station where they kept all the chat they had caught. Their aim was to chase and catch as many robbers as possible and keep them at the station — it could be by a wall or at a porch for cars. In our case, the wall of the secondary school workshop facing the field served us well; it was strategic and provided some shade from the afternoon sun.
• The chat, on the other hand, aimed to avoid being caught. They also tried to rescue their comrades from the station. A mere touch of hands by a free team mate allowed any captured chat to run off.

Shirts could be torn in this game where the end-game (with cops capturing all the robbers) was seldom ever reached because of the short time we had during breaks or before and after school.

Chiak bak (literally “consume meat” or, more generally, “inflict pain on the flesh”)

This sado-masochistic game, which could involve groups of 20 to 30, needed only a tennis ball – hard enough to inflict pain but not terribly harmful if we did not hit sensitive parts of the body like our eyes. The objective was straightforward: When you got the ball in your hands, re-direct it at another, to hit him as hard as possible.

The game started with a boy throwing the ball into the air, to be caught by another who would then try to hit someone else. Once you caught the ball, you cannot chase after others with it. One of the most dangerous situations was to find yourself right next to person who had caught the ball. You could try to wrestle the ball from him or curl up like a ball [sic] on the ground and take a hit.

Kar Keat remembers a tactic in which a group would pakat (make a pact): “It was used normally by a small group to bully others. They would form a pact prior to the start. In the game, they would fan out among the crowd of players. When one member got the ball, he would toss it to a partner who was in close proximity to another to cause maximum damage. Many a time they targeted people they wanted to bully.”

On rainy days, when the grounds were moist and muddy, the tennis ball soaked a lot of moisture, resulting in 3-4in mud marks on our white school shirts. It was a sure way of getting a scathing response from our parents when we got home.

Kham bak chieu

The basic kham bak chieu (literally “closed eyes” or, in English, hide-and-seek) was simple. One person closed his or her eyes leaning against a spot on a wall or tree, and counted — sometimes in multiples of five (5, 10, 15 and so on) to, say, 100. In the meantime, the others, which could number more than 10, went into hiding. Upon finishing counting, the “seeker” went around to look for the “hiders”. The moment anyone was spotted, there would be a race back to the counting position. In this way, groups of winners or losers were separated out. Finally, one of the losers would be chosen to be the next seeker. The selection process could involve lalalilatampong or one-two som! (these will be the subject of another story).

Another name of the game was ah chi lok. If I recall correctly, there was a slight variation in the version we played in our community; it involved a chase where the seeker had to chase and grab hold of a hider to pick the next person to seek. Like other traditional games, we could vary the rules as we we went along so it was not unusual to find differences among groups of players.

At home, we had the night-time variation that scared the seekers out of their wits. There were two instances that I remember very well: (1) Under the camouflage of darkness, some of the hiders would gang up and rush to the counting station in a group and left the seeker aghast at the mob rushing out (2) A darkish friend of mine, wearing dark shorts, decided to remove his white T-shirt. It was almost impossible to spot him until he was 20ft away, by which time it was too late for the seeker, caught off guard and shocked, to race back.

© Lim Siang Jin