Games played in the 60s

This picture shows childhood games that young childrens played during the 60's, where most of them lived in Kampong. These games look simple as well as cheap to make. Usually these games were home-make by their parents. To learn how to play it likes a pro is not just a day or so but needs lots of patient and practices. On the right hand side of the picture shows five 'stone-liked' shaped bean bags. They are called the 'five stones'.They are usually made from left-over small pieces of cloths, sewed up to a triangular shaped, filling it with beans. The rule of the game is that the player has to throw one of the bean bag up to the air will picking up bean bags one at a time on the table until all the bags are picked only using single hand. If any of the bean bags is dropped, the game is over. More bags are threw and picked when player advance to the next more challangeing stage. This game will need the player to have good skill in throwing, catching and timing as well. On the left hand side of the picture shows the 3-coin likes structure with streamers protruding. It is called 'chapteh' in Malay. It is made of some rubbering materials tied together and some feathers are placed on top of them for stability when travelling in the air. The feathers has the same function of those in the badminton shuttercock. This 'chapteh' can be played either by passing around among players through kicking or by repeatedly kicking by the same player without allowing the 'chapteh' to touch the floor. The player who can kick the most number of counts wins. Personal feeling: I feel that these are the very unique games that childrens in the 60s' played in Singapore. I believed that most of our parents will bring back their old memories when they played these games again. These games are simple, easy to make, cheap to make and best of all, they do not need any batteries to operate. I feel that beside giving joys and happiness to the childrens, these games also provide certain kinds of training to their eye sight, hand and mind coordination which are good for growing up children. Nowsaday, we are all immused in computer games, playstations and handphone games which are not environment friendly at all. Spoken to my parents on these games, they did mention that indeed these were their favourite childhood games. I challenged my mother on the five stones game, and I was so impressed on how my mother can play so well. I was hardly able to match her even after hours of practices that I did. After losing many rounds of five stone games with my mum, I tried playing 'chapteh' with my dad, hoping to win him in this game since he mostly spent most of his time at work. However, I was wrong. He is good at it too and can easily kick about twenty counts. I was upset that I can hardly get more than ten counts. They comforted me that these were their childhood games since they were six years old and had been playing them daily for many years. I tell myself that I will practice more on these games so that I pass these unique childhood games of Singapore to my childrens, generations after genrations.