Khmer New Year Games

 

In honor of Khmer New Year, the biggest holiday of the Cambodian calendar celebrated from April 14-16^th, I wanted to share a little bit about some of the traditions and activities associated with this holiday. Typically, Khmer families use this time to go home to the village their family is from. Students in Thailand and Vietnam make the long trip back across the border; sons, daughters, nieces, and nephews living in the city pack up their rice cookers and clothes for a trip to the homeland. Khmer New Year is all about family, food, and celebrating the New Year.

One of the time-honored traditions of Khmer New Year is the playing of traditional games. Usually these are played at the temple or another common community space. This year I had the pleasure to learn about a variety of these games from my students and counterparts in the waning days of March, during this lost week before our semester tests where many teachers weren't teaching but students still had to come. To fill the time, the students began bringing the accouterments necessary for a variety of traditional games and played whenever teachers weren't teaching. Needless to say, it didn't take much convincing for me to join them.

1. Dung Dam Sluck Chu (Steal the Branch)

For this game, players are split into two groups. Typically, this is done girls on one side and boys on the other, but it can be mixed as well. You want two equal groups with one person not in a group; that person will be the caller. Then, each person is given a number (1,2,3....) on one side and then the numbers start from the beginning on the other side. So, one person on each side is number one, one person on each is number 2, etc... Each team stands facing each other a good distance apart, and a line is drawn in front of each group. A circle is drawn in the middle of the two groups.

The caller takes a tree branch, simultaneously putting it into the circle and yelling a number. Those two people run towards the branch. Once one person touches the branch and lifts it off the ground or out of the circle, the other person can tag her. If that other person tags her, the other person's team wins. If she can grab the branch and run with it past her team's line without being tagged, she wins. Usually one person runs to grab the branch quickly and then slows down and waits for an opportunity to run.

If two people are at a draw and nothing is happening, the caller can yell another number and allow two more people run and help. There is definitely a lot of strategy in this game including positioning your body to block the path of your opponent and distracting your opponent so you can run. 

2. Reeuoo Baong Kong (Catching Prawns)

In this game, you need a scarf or something to blindfold the catcher. The game starts with one person (the catcher) blindfolded. The other players make a circle holding hands around the catcher. Once the catcher is blindfolded and in the middle of the circle, spin the catcher around so he is a little disoriented. Then the people in the circle start to rotate around the catcher, moving faster and slower and making the circle bigger and smaller. The catcher tries to catch one person in the circle. When the catcher has someone, the catcher tries to guess who the person is by touching the person's hair, face arms, etc. If the catcher guesses correctly, then the person that was caught becomes the catcher. 

3. Pongrut Goo (Switching Partners)

For this game, choose one pair of players to start as “it” while the other players form a circle and hold hands. The pair that is “it” walks around the outside of the circle, holding hands as well. When the pair reaches a pair in the circle they want to tag, they hit the conjoined hands of that pair. Once they hit the new pair's hands, each pair must run around the circle; one pair runs clockwise around the circle, and the other counterclockwise. When the two pairs meet on the other side of the circle, the four players must switch partners and run back to the empty spot in the circle. Whichever pair doesn't make it back to the open spot in the circle becomes the “it” pair.

4. Bos Ongkunh (Throw Ongkunh)

Ongkunh is a type of vine grown in Cambodia (mainly in Stung Treng and Kratie provinces). It has a large stem and fruit. Each fruit has several seeds that are circular, flat and a couple inches in diameter. As the fruit ripens, the seed becomes hard,smooth and turn a dark brown color. The seeds are used to play this game. I am not sure where our seeds came from, but they had a large bag of them that the different classes passed around.. 

To start, the players need to be split into two groups; again, normally this is done with girls on one team and boys on the other, but it is not necessary. One group stands the seeds up on the ground in a formation that looks like this:

X		X
	X
X		X

The other group stands opposite and a few meters back from the seeds on the ground. Each person in this group should have three stones to throw. The objective is for the group that is throwing to throw the seeds and to knock over the seeds at the corners, not the one in the middle, as a group. Each person gets their three tries. If they fail to knock over all four corners, they lose; if they hit the middle seed, they also lose. However if they do knock down all the corners, they win.

To me, the most interesting part of this game is what happens when you win or lose. If your team is the winner, you take two of the seeds and use them to hit the members of the losing team on the knee. There is a very specific way to do the hitting, which I couldn't quite get the hang of. When you do the hit, you should hear the sound of the two seeds hitting each other; if you fail to produce this sound, that person can take your seeds and hit you in the knee. This all leads to a lot of harmless teasing and complaining, especially when the teams are split by gender.

 

 

5. Leak Kanseng (Hiding the Scarf)

For this game, you need a scarf or a length of cloth twisted into a rope. All the players expect for one (the person who is "it") sit in a circle; usually when players sit in the circle, they alternate boy, girl. The player that is "it" takes the scarf and walks around the outside of the circle as everyone sings a song. The words are "Leak Kanseng Chma Kham Kaeng OsLorng OsLogn" (hiding the scarf, the cat bites the angel, dragging your feet away). As the player goes around, she can tap the people on the back with the scarf. Once she chooses someone, she drops the scarf next to the person. The chosen player grabs the scarf, stands up, and tries to hit the "it" player. The "it" player runs around the circle and to the open space in the circle, trying to avoid being hit.

Others:

Tug of War
 

This game follows the same rules and format of Tug of War in the US. Again, the two teams are usually split by gender, and it is always a good time when the girls beat the boys!

 







Jump Rope

The rope used for Tug of War was also used to play jump rope. I haven't done that in a long time, but it was fun to use some of those old songs and rhymes... “Cinderella dressed in yella went upstairs to kiss a fella...”