Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Quiz Time Again (Only those below 30 can take part)



Can you tell me the name of these seeds and their uses?


Hint: Long before some of you were born, we already had Counter Strike.




17 comments:

Xavier said...

Thems cloves, and they cure diarreraear, consterpaction, and haidackin.

Anonymous said...

hi i'm bryan from acsi canoe team
nice page you've got here uncle.
found out abt it from weng ngai. what a surprise !haha. quite interesting articles u've got here tho. hope u'll continue posting these kinda stuff !

Dee said...

Yes i think i learnt this during my secondary school days. One of the spices. CLOVES.

Informative n great website ;-)

Anonymous said...

ooh...Bunga cengkeh! but uncle, im stumped at how you make a game out of this. I only know that the dried version makes nasi briyani and many other dishes smell good.

Lam Chun See said...

Hi Bryan,thanks for compliments. Hope you do not mind I used your photo without permission in earlier blog on P Tekong.

I will ask my friend Chuck to tell you guys the name of the plant/seed. You will know what it is used for in less than a week. But pls do keep guessing.

Lionel Tan said...

use: play games...
em...I don't know leh...totally no idea...

THE SLY ONE said...

yeah, used to play that when I was young.. those days. I've not seen these in a long long time.

Anonymous said...

hmm not cloves... what are they... uncle, don't keep us in suspense please... :o)

Lam Chun See said...

Actually I also don't know what plant it is from. Hoping that some of you able to tell me. I just know that my friend Chuck used to use them as bullets for his home-made gun - toy gun I better qualify. I will blog about it once he gives me more details.

Anonymous said...

When I was young, we played with it as bullets for our toy guns (home-made type). So we called it 'bullet seeds'. It can be plucked from a creeper plant in our Kampong area in the present Bt Gombak area.

For more details, look out for Chun See's next blog.

Victor said...

Chun See, I know that you specified that this game's only for those under 30. I am way overaged for this game. But you didn't set any restrictions regarding comments. :)

I haven't seen anything quite like the seeds. Pardon me for saying this, but frankly, some of them looked quite lewd. Oops sorry, its my 'slanted' power of observation again.:)

How big are those seeds? Just another tip from me (hope you don't mind) - you may want to add a paper clip or even a ruler into your photo for size comparison purpose. Guess the seeds couldn't be too big since as Chuck said, they were used as bullets for your toy guns. (Who's Chuck by the way, your childhood friend?)

When I was young, the neighbourhood kids, including me, used mata kuching seeds (looks like longan seeds but smaller) as bullets for my lastiks (a Y-shaped catapult which we fashioned ourselves using sticks or thick stiff wires and rubber bands). The targets? Birds, chickens, cats, dogs, in fact anything that moves.

For shooting each other, we used a milder weapon. Bullets were made from a small square piece of paper folded many times into a tiny and tight 'v' shaped bullet. The propulsion was provided by several rubber bands held taut between the thumb and the index finger of the left hand. The right hand hooked the v-shaped bullet onto the rubber bands. The bullet was then pulled back as far as it could go. Aim was taken and the bullet was released. If you heard a cry of 'ouch' from your unwary friend standing some distance away, it meant that the bullet had found its target. And you could be sure that your friend would retaliate.

Lam Chun See said...

Victor is right, I should have photographed the bullets with a paper clip for comparison. Anyway, the size is about that of a peanut, or chick pea (kachang kuda).

After some explanation from my friend Chuck, I realsized that it was a mistake to call it a 'seed'. It was actually flower bud. The flower is white in colour. I have enlisted the help of my biology teacher wife and biology student son to help me get to the 'root' of this mysterious plant. Meantime, if anyone know the answer, pls share.

Oh yes, kids above 30 are also welcome to try.

Anonymous said...

the paper bullets i remember very clearly... and the pain associated with it was a big part of my childhood. the flower/seed thing that i have been trying to figure out, looks purplish to me... like unopened morning glorys...the plant is a creeper?

Lam Chun See said...

Yes, its a creeper.

Being the 'avid blogger' that Mr Miyagi said I was, I actually went with my friend Chuck last Sat afternoon to Seletar Farmway area where he harvested them for his son's gun to take a photo of thsi mysterious plant. Unfortunately, it was raining cats and dogs and so we were not able to get a good picture of the flowers.
(Actually, I was going to visit a relative in Yio Chu Kang area that day).

But really tempted to go again to get a better picture but afraid the Mrs will think I am crazy; or worse still - nothing better to do.

THE SLY ONE said...

The "bullets" is best used when it's dried, so it won't break easily. I have such a toy gun when i was young..and it was make of wood.

Kevin said...

the buds look like cloves.. but clove plant is a tree.. so if you confirm its a creeper.. and the tri-lobed leave belongs to it.. I have no clue either.. will try asking frens

Unknown said...

I was looking for the name of this plant. Thanks to your post, I have managed to trace it. The plant is called "Thunbergia fragrans [Sweet Clock-vine, White Lady]".