Wednesday, January 11, 2006

My Adventure of Reliving an Adolescent Pastime



On my drive to work this morning, and while channel surfing like I always do in order to ease the boredom of getting stuck on the Sungai Besi bottleneck, I happened to chance upon FLY FM’s call-in competition. It seemed that the competition involved contestants to battle it out using the Rock-Paper-Bird technique.

The winner will be given the chance to get their filthy hands on a sweet new Nokia phone or something to that effect. Cellular incentives aside, it was a wonder how the said station could take a common adolescent pastime and turn it into a radio competition.

Anyways, this particular bloke on the show was a wee bit slow (in reflexes or in the head, or both) and kept shouting out his choice of element, ages after his opponent’s

For those of you who have been on a different planet all this while, the mechanism of the said game is simple; simple and common enough to the extent of not having me explain the whole bloody thing to you.

Standard practice provides 3 elements/weapons for each player (two players’ only la, more than two, the Lat Ta Li Lat technique shall be utilized);

#1. Rock (or Stone): a clenched fist.

#2. Paper (or Cloth or Water): all fingers extended, palm facing downwards, upwards, or sideways (thumb pointing to the sky).

#3. Bird: a half closed fist, oval in shape ( or Scissors: forefinger and middle finger extended and separated into a "V" shape (not too be confused with the sideways, upwards reversal and a constant jutting motion with the shout of ‘Up Yours, Chelski/Manc/Gooner!’)

Owing to the wonder of modern day technology, a click of the mouse reveal that people in other countries too play this particular game, although with different variations of the ‘elements’. Some have slight variations, others… I’m too afraid to ask.

In Sweden the game is called sten, sax, påse (rock, scissors, bag). The gestures are the same - the flat hand is considered a bag, you can put the rock in.

Burma has the soldier, sergeant, tiger version. Tiger eats sergeant; Sergeant outranks the soldier, while the latter shoots the tiger. This technique was once demonstrated by a Burmese friend with hilarious consequences.

Japan has the village head, tiger, mother of village head. How in the hell do you sign, ‘Village Head’s Mother’?

Even in an ep of the That 70’s Show, Hyde and Fez duked it out using : Foot, Cockroach, Nuclear Bomb. Foot beats cockroach by smashing it, nuclear bomb beats foot by blowing it up, cockroach beats nuclear bomb by surviving the blast. Go figure.

Now wouldn’t be nice now to be able to use in our working adult lives.

“Ok Encik, Kita lawan Oh Som, kalau saya menang, loan saya approve.”

“Ait, takde hal”

"Pakai mesingan mana aci, En. Hurnain"

Ah, bliss.

21 comments:

DoneCheap DoneRight PC said...

Very, very interesting, later...

Sarclover said...

you know how they play rocks, scissors and cloth in Chinese???

she tou, chien tau, pu!

means Rock, scissors and cloth respectively...

eh.. how come i am not linked uh??? eeee.. 9 tak baik..... :(...

Kakakaaaa... <-- ngada2

an0nymous-ign0ranus said...

our version of the lat ta li lat:

Lat ta li lat ta li tam plung
(or Lai lai li lai tam plung)
Apek bei apong
Apek lei lo hai
Apek chak gau sai

Or something that sounded like that.

HoooHooooooo

Leen AshBurn said...

Hey I was listening to the same segment too! :)

I think last time my version siap ada matahari, air bagai. Dunno how that came about.

I always win though. The sun kicks the sh**e out of everyone teehehe.

Anonymous said...

apart from village head's mom, based on the pic, how can paper beats the rock?

*still thinking*

Fiza said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Fiza said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
chics said...

in japanese they also have this game but i forgot what it's called.

i can only remember "kami" which means paper.hehe

anyway was listening to fly fm this morning.It's the joke day. A girl really made a bad joke till I had to switch my channel coz I tak sanggup nak dengar lawak dia.Bley camtu?

kepala_angin said...

selalu lah malas nak dgr the DJ yapping about, tah apa-apa.

Fiza said...

mat salleh ni paham ke apa yg aku ckp ni? :p

sarclover:
we hv another version of it,

kan nenna tiuuu!

hihihi

Fiza said...

arnold:
kewl! a park ranger who's into juicy fruits.

eejitbabe: tak terbelit lidah ke nk menyebut? syg bebonar ekau kek apek tu haa. :)

Suraya said...

my japanese teacher in skool dulu ajar, coo-chee-pak (bukan cipap ye, harap maklum) batu-gunting-kain. kain kena potong dgn gunting, gunting kena hantam dgn batu, n kain bungkus batu. cam hampeh, but i played it with friends last year nevertheless, n i'm like... almost 30?
i think pokcik tua kalau tau main pun diorang main game ni. cam best kan? ;)

Fiza said...

leen:
kids can be very cheeky. i know, i used to be one.. err, or am still one?

one kid tried using 'god'. we beat 'im up real good. heh.

teek:
paper is supposed to 'wrap' rock up. works to a certain extent.

Fiza said...

chics:
in actual fact, SHE was the joke.

hohoho.

KA:
FLY FM's has a pretty decent duo. So has Mix..but hey, don't u ride the LRT?

Fiza said...

FelineMom:
..and if u could teach Knight to play it, so much the better?

hihihi

madnessinvain said...

Jom lat talilat.

Kalah tak boleh ngorat siti nurhaliza.


Ada brani?

an0nymous-ign0ranus said...

sayang mende sama itu apek ... itu semua carut tu, in hokkien. cannot remember what they mean though.

Fiza said...

MiV:
wa takde hal. we use the burmese version, ait?

kaiser:
ur secret hideout is the longkang in ur neighbourhood? sweet!

babe:
i love it when u talk dirty, babe! =)

Cosmic_GurL said...

Ahhh...yr entry brings back memories of me and my bros selalu "wan tu som" with each other to escape housework. Sapa kalah kena cuci pinggan mangkuk. We settle things using the same method until now. Hehehe...

Invader Voobee said...

anyone have had those jinx games? where if two people said a word or phrase at the same time, they'd have to battle it out by "sep"ing the other person and saying "Chop cakap dulu!!". Yeah i play that with my younger sister a lot (notice the present tense). Other versions i've heard is simply saying "Jinx" and the other person who looses can't speak a word until a third party calls his/her name out.

No? hhmm maybe i'm the only one then.

Yo 9, if you've got a problem with Blog comment spammers, you can turn on word verification in your settings.

Fiza said...

cosmic gurl:
that explains of how well u cuci pinggan nowadays. =P

invader:
me like getting spammed. all those spammers are my friend. when i rule the entire planet one day, i'll make their death as painless as possible. =)