"Janken" (or "Rock, paper, sissors" as it is known to us) is a national obsession and the topic of this week's Cultural Conundrums by Kate Elwood in The Daily Yomiuri. She begins by saying that she has become skillful at the game since living in Japan. I found this true as well, since it is constatnly being used to make decisions in schools (elementary and junior high schools on the JET Program) where I taught when I first arrived-I still have students do it in class when they are practicing new grammar points or doing surveys and they absolutely love it (they also are enraptured by BINGO and HANGMAN--especailly at the college level). There's a variation as well, when kids are just playing it for fun, when one person has lost the other one says something like (I 'm not sure about the precise wording) "aidakosho" and point in a direction and if the loser looks in the direction pointed, they get a punch in the arm or something along those lines. Kids could be entertained for hours with this simple game. Anyway, Elwood notes:
...Rock, Paper, Scissors remains a part of everyday life for many Japanese people at least through their mid-20s. This is perhaps because it relies to some degree on psychological profiling of one's opponents to achieve success. (Apparently, this is the case--I just throw out any old hand formation. Then again, I usually lose.)
Rock, Paper, Scissors is used constantly by my university students to decide any conceivable matter. When I tell them that many U.S. college students know the game but don't play it much, they sometimes nod and say, "Oh yes, they flip a coin, right?" Umm...My instinct is to answer no, U.S. college students don't flip coins much, either.
A casual survey of my college-age U.S. acquaintances bears out my intuition. "When was the last time you flipped a coin?" I asked. No one could remember. "So how do you choose who will do something everyone wants to do or, conversely, something no one wants to do?" I persisted. Blank looks. "We just...decide," they said, with bemused looks.
I used to frequently use this method to decide who would make late order pizzas with my co-workers when I was working in the kitchen at Chuck E. Cheese's in college and got quite good at it (anything to get out of work). But I disagree with Elwood, I am pretty sure it keeps getting used well after the late 20s to decide teams at tennis, basketball, etc...We used it just this last Saturday to decide who would sit first on a basketball team with 6 players.
When one person has lost the other one says "Acchimuitehoi" which generally means "look there,hey". And "aikodesho" is used when win and loss is not determined. Janken is useful because we can decide matters quickly by it and Janken as the way to decide matters is rarely rejected by anyone. By the way someone never loses the other though I don't know the winning strategy. All Japanese hope to know the absolute winning strategy because they experience many Janken and if they know it, they will never be in any trouble and could lead an easy life.
Posted by: quoll | July 12, 2005 at 02:14 PM
"aidakosho" not even close to "Acchimuitehoi"-thanks for the corrections.
Posted by: MC | July 12, 2005 at 03:35 PM
Did I ever tell you the story of participating in a round of rock, paper, scissors on Japanese TV? I think the show was called "Wake Up Tokyo" or something like that - a morning "news" show similar to "Good Morning America" et. al. I was in NYC sitting reading the paper and was approached by a producer and asked if I wouldn't mind being interviewed on Japanese TV. Who minds being interviewed on Japanese TV? The host/interviewer was very friendly, jovial and an little zany - struck me that maybe he was the weather guy. I don't remember what he asked me, but it was all very scripted and involved me giving the thumbs up to something. At the end we did a round of Janken with big cheesy grins on our faces. I'm ashamed to admit the the outcome was predetermined so that we would tie - we both ended with rock. Afterwards I felt bad for participating in a fraud carried out on the Japanese people. I should have gone paper, but I didn't want to cause an international incident.
Posted by: phatrick | July 14, 2005 at 04:19 AM
Pat and Pahtrick, I saw this today and immediately thought that Phatrick wrote the article with a fake name. Enjoy.
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2005/4/8schweiger.html
paste into your browser if you have to.
Posted by: Kraig | July 16, 2005 at 05:26 AM
Well I can see stylistically, that this article is Phtrick-esque, but content wise, it isn't Phatrick-esque. I don't think Phatrick spend smuch time thinking about who he could beat up, but then again, recently he does have a lot of free time and may spend it pondering such scenarios.
Posted by: MC | July 16, 2005 at 12:30 PM
You'd be surprised what I think about. I'm flattered Kraig though I wrote it. Pretty funny stuff. Sort of reminds me of sitting around with Dave Moore back in the 20th Century and compiling competing lists of toughest tough guys. Each list had a theme: 1970s Hollywood actors; presidents; child TV stars; high school stoners, etc. As you can probably imagine, highly entertaining stuff.
Posted by: phatrick | July 18, 2005 at 04:32 PM
mc, you usually lose because you throw down rock too often. you should use scissor more.
Posted by: lou | July 21, 2005 at 02:44 AM
Hey, I don't think I lose too much, but, you may be right about my being partial to rock and paper.
Posted by: MC | July 21, 2005 at 10:50 AM