Snakes and Ladders

Saw this game being played in an episode of Murdoch’s Mysteries the other night, and was reminded of the first time I played it. I must have been in Primary 2 in Braddell Rise School.  

I wonder if Singapore kids still play this game nowadays. I think my children did. But that was in the 1990’s - and so ‘last century’.

** Creative Commons photo by Flickr.com member Silwertand

Toys were us (12) – Rubber seed ‘propeller’

My previous post about the rubber seed pods reminded my fellow blogger Philip Chew of another rubber seed toy that he used to play with. He has kindly emailed me a sketchto illustrate the description he gave in the comments section of the earlier post; which I have reproduced below.



I remember playing with rubber seeds and also the seed pods. Besides rubbing hot rubber seed on unsuspected victims, I made a propeller turned continuously by attaching it to a rubber seed.

Materials used:

A rubber seed, an ice cream stick, a short satay stick and a piece of string.


Method:

1) Make 3 holes on the rubber seed (top, bottom and center).
2) Empty the contents (kernel) inside the seed.
3) Fashion a propeller from ice cream stick and stick it to one end of the satay stick. Put the other end through the top hole on the rubber seed until it appears at the bottom.
4) Tie the piece of string to the center of the satay stick. Take out the free end of the string from the center hole. Pull tight and then roll the string around the satay stick many times by turning the propeller.
5) Now pull the string and the propeller will turn in one direction. The trick is to pull the string half way and let go for it to rewind around the stick. When pull again the propeller will turn in the opposite direction.

Toys were us (11) – Rubber seed pods

Help. I am going to need some help from the older readers with this one.

Recently, I went for a walk with my family at the MacRitchie forest area, near to Venus Drive. I saw many rubber seeds and seed pods on the ground, and I was reminded of a toy we used to make during my kampong days.

I think even the younger readers would know about the naughty thing we can do with rubber seed; rubbing it on the cement floor until it becomes hot and then pressing it against our victim’s arm without warning. But I am referring to the rubber seed pods, not the seeds.

Can you see the 2 sharp pointed ends at the top of the seed pods. By assembling two pieces one in the opposite direction, we can form a coupling. You then gently hold/clamp it with the thumb and middle-finger on the two pointed ends, and form a sort of wind-vane. When you blow on the seed pod, the coupling will rotate.

I tried to make one with the seed pods I found to show you but was unsuccessful. I think I have forgotten how it was done. Hope some of you can enlighten us. In any case, the seed pods I found at MacRitchie were rather old and dirty.

Toys were us (10) - Rubber Band Shooter (by Chuck Hio)

In an earlier post that Chun See wrote about making skipping ropes with rubber bands, I wrote about using the Rubber Band Shooter in a game using rubber bands in the comments section. Here's a recap:

1. Take 2 sticks and stick in on the ground about 8 - 10 inches apart. The rubber band of yesteryears can be stretch that long.

2. A rubber band is then stretch to both ends.

3. We put our own rubber bands on top of that stretch rubber band as out stakes.

4. At a distance of about 10 - 12 feet, we try to shoot the rubber bands down with our specially made shooter.

5. The rubber bands shot down is our winnings.

6. However, if our shooter some how got entangled with the stick or rubber band, then it is 'disqualified' and cannot claim any rubber band.

Here are 2 photos to show you what our Rubber Shooter looked like (top) and how we used it (bottom).

Toys were us (9) – Rubber band skipping rope

Reading Laokokok’s earlier post about Five Stones reminds me of yet another toy. Actually it was a comment by Pristan who said; “when I was young (long ago), I was an expert in 5-stones and that jumping over rubber-bands game - zero-point!”

The toy that I am referring to is the home-made skipping rope which we made from rubber bands. Unfortunately, I cannot remember exact how to make it. But fret not … I have a ‘kampong games consultant’, whose name by now regular readers should know … Chuck; the inventor of the deadly Scot327 fully non-automatic assault rifle.

Here’s how you make the rubber band skipping rope. I hope you can figure out from the pictures below. Frankly, I am not sure.




As far as I can remember, there were 3 methods of using the skipping rope. Method 1 is the normal single person skipping. Method 2 requires 3 players. Two persons will hold the 2 ends of the rope and swing whilst the ‘skipper’ will jump over the rope. Method 3 requires two persons. One person holds both ends of the rope in one hand and swings it in circular motions (like a lasso) close/parallel to the ground and the ‘skipper’ skips over it.

There you have it. A cheap and easy-to-make skipping rope to give you hours of fun and exercise.

Toys Were Us (8) – Dividers Game

Laokokok’s latest post about the compass and mathematical instruments box reminds me of a game we used to play in primary school. I cannot recall the name of the game.


Basically, we make use of the dividers as a sort of dart to stick it to a board or the ground. Altogether there was a set of 6 or 7 moves, but I can only remember six.

1) The first one is easy. The dividers is placed on your palm. You have to toss it upwards so that it will do a 180 degree flip and hit on the ground with the sharp end.

2) The second is also easy. It is similar to the first except that the dividers is placed on the back of your hand.

3) You clench your right fist with wrist facing upwards. Then place the dividers on your palm facing right and then try to turn it downwards to the ground in one quick motion

4) The next one is tougher, and very hard to explain. You point the sharp end on the edge of your left palm (assuming you are right-handed) and with you right first finger, you flip it, again 180 degrees.

5) The next one is similar to no. 4 except that you point the sharp end on the finger.


6) The last one is simple. Just hold the dividers by the sharp end and throw it like a knife.

You probably have difficulty following my description above and so I made a short movie. I used a letter opener in place of the dividers and used a polystyrene box as the base. Pardon the poor quality. It is taken on a digital camera and not a video camera.

I think there may be one or two more moves which I cannot recall. If you can remember, please share with us.

Safety reminder: Hey kids. Please don't try this game. It's actually quite lame compared to the modern toys you have nowadays. But just in case you want to try it, out of curiosity, please be extra careful. Especially when you come to the last move. Make sure nobody is in front of you; or nearby. Thanks.

Toys Were Us (7) – Longlong

Let me tell you about another simple game that we used to play in our kampong days. But the trouble is, I cannot recall much of the details. In fact, I am not even sure of the name of our toy. I think it was called Longlong.

Like the Tong Choi Jar, the Longlong is made from a discarded food container; in this case the humble tin can. We usually used a condensed milk can. Simply put a few pebbles into an empty can with the lead removed. Then seal the opening by either stamping on it (with you shoes on of course, to avoid getting cut by the sharp edges), or banging it flat with a rock or brick.





This game is actually a variation of Hide-and-Seek. You need at least 3 to 4 people to play it. Here’s how you play the game.

Draw a circle on the ground and place the Longlong in the centre. Then pick a loser by drawing lots or what in Singapore is known as Oh-bey-som.

One of the players will pick up the Longlong and hurl it as far as he can. The loser will then have to chase after it to retrieve it and replace it in the circle. Meantime, the rest will run and hide. He will have to look for them. As soon as he spots one of them, he will yell out his name and run as fast as he can to pick up the Longlong and rattle it. At the same time, the player who has been spotted will try to beat him to the Longlong. Whoever is slower will become the loser for the next round of the game. The game is then repeated.

That as far as I can recall is how the Longlong is played. If any of the ‘oldies’ reading this blog remember differently, please enlighten us.


By the way, you must be wondering why I have removed the sticker/label of the tin can. I too was wondering why my memory of the Longlong was a shiny tin can without the label/sticker. I think it was because at that time, the condensed milk manufacturers had a promotion exercise whereby if you collected a certain number of stickers, you could exchange it for some gifts or cash.

Toys Were Us (6) – Tong Choi Jar

Do you know what is Tong Choi (Cantonese pronunciation) or Tang Chye (Hokkien pronunciation)? It’s the brown colour preserved vegetable that the hawkers add to your fish ball noodles and mee poks. Nowadays, tong choi is sold in plastic packets, but in our kampong days they came in earthen jars. Did you know that these jars can be turned into a simple toy pretty much like the Gelek Reng that my friend Chuck blogged about some time ago. Here’s how the game is played.



First you stand the jar on its side. Then you insert one end of a thin bamboo into the opening and roll it along on the ground. Those days of course the ground in our kampongs was unsurfaced. The bamboo should be flexible enough to bend a full 90 degrees as you pushed the jar along. In the photo below, I used a fishing rod as a substitute.



Two players can compete against each other by racing over a distance of say 20 to 30 metres. The idea is to keep the jar moving because once you stopped, it would topple over. At the same time, you should also try to keep it in as straight a path as possible. When we got tired of the game, we would simply crash the bottles by rolling them a full speed against each other. It’s not as easy as it sounds, because some skill is required to steer it properly.

I have been wanting to blog about this ‘toy’ for a long time because I think many of the younger readers would not know about it. But I was unable to find such a bottle at our supermarkets like NTUC Fairprice and Shop n Save. In fact, I couldn’t even find it in Ipoh. But recently, I was pleasantly surprised to find it in a neighbourhood mini-mart in Bishan and promptly bought a bottle. It cost only $1.20.

My problem now is: How to finish the whole bottle of tong choi alone, as no one else in my family eats the stuff.

Can You Guess What This Palm Oil Seed Can Be Used For – Chuck Hio

One of the favourite places that my exercise buddy Chun See and I like to go to for our brisk walking is Bishan Park. I envy the residents of Bishan for having two huge, beautiful parks at their doorsteps. The first one is bounded by Bishan Road and Marymount Road, and the second one between Marymount Road and Upper Thomson Road. On those days when Chun See has to fetch her daughter from the MOE Language Centre at Bishan St 14, we would use the park connectors joining Bishan Park to Potong Pasir.



My personal favourite is the park next to Bishan Road. There is a small ‘farm’ inside the park where they (the nearby residents, I guess) have planted many types of vegetables, fruit trees and flowers. It reminds of my of my kampong. I use the opportunity to show off to my friend my knowledge of the names of the many different plants.



I was very happy to see some palm trees near to this garden. I saw many seeds on the footpath. When I was a kid growing up in our kampong at Hillview area, we used to collect these seeds. I showed some of them to my sister, and she too could recall, with fondness the ‘toy’ that we used to make with this type of palm seeds. Can you guess what toy it was?

Answer …... Wedding Rings. We kids would pretend to get married and give each other these rings.

Do you know how it is done? It is very simple actually. We simply take the seed and rub it repeatedly against a hard and rough surface such as the cement drain or floor until it becomes flat. Then we knock out the centre core and … voila, we have a cheap wedding ring.





Out of fun, I actually made one from the seeds I found at Bishan Park and gave it to my wife. When my 11-year old son saw it, do you know what he said?

“How come got no diamond?”

Toys Were Us (5): Carton Boxes – By Chuck Hio

This afternoon, after work, when I went for my regular brisk walking exercise at MacRitichie Reservoir with my buddy, Chun See, I saw some kids playing with something I used to do three-and-a-half decades ago.






























Watching the kids laugh and squeal in excitement as they slid down the grassy slope in their carton boxes, my thoughts went back to those childhood days when I grew up in a kampong known as Tian Tor Long. Do you know where that was? I give you a hint – the name means Battery Factory in Hokkien.

Give up? It was a kampong located at the Princess Elizabeth Housing Estate, around the Hill View area, near to the Ever Ready Battery factory. The slope was just behind Princess Elizabeth Community Centre. It was around 1970, and I was about 10 years old at that time.

As the words of the Carpenters song go, “Those were such happy times, and not so long ago. How I wonder where they’d gone.”

Sadly, we had to move out to make way for progress in the 1980’s. We moved to a flat in Hill View Avenue, not far from where we grew up. Today the place is an open ground awaiting development.

“Looking back on how it was
In years gone by
And the good times that I had
Makes today seem rather sad
So much has changed.”

(Carpenters - Yesterday Once More)

Toys Were Us (4): Gelek Reng – By Chuck Hio

I have been wanting to post about this game for some time. However, I find it difficult to decribe without a good picture, and it is a bit too much to go and actually construct one.

Fortunately, I recently came across an article with a good photo in the Straits Times of the Mentri Besar of Trengannu playing this game with the kids. The game is called Gelek Reng in Malay.


The picture is quite self-explanatory. Basically, it involves rolling the bicycle rim from one point to the other with a stick. I am sure many of the older readers will remember this kampong game that we used to play in the old days. The is another example of the toys we played using 'recycled' material.

Toys Were Us (3): Kledek – By Chuck Hio

My friend, Chun See has labeled me a ‘weapons expert’. So today I will teach you a simple game that is somewhat less violent. It’s called kledek. 2 to 5 persons can play this game.

1. Draw 2 parallel lines on the ground at a distance of about 10 to 15 feet apart. One line is the starting point and the other is the target point.

2. Each player, get yourself a piece of flat, round stone of about 2 inches in diameter. Our time, we usually used broken cement.

3. Standing behind the start line, try to cast your stone as near to the target line as possible. The one nearest is the winner and the one furthest is the loser.

4. As a penalty, the loser must carry the winner piggy-back from the start line to the target line and back. The last will carry the first, the second last carries the second and so on.

5. Next the winner will throw one of his slippers to a distance of 10 to15 feet away, and challenges the loser to throw his slipper to hit the winner’s slipper.

6. If he accepts the challenge and succeeds, the ‘punishment’ is ended. If he misses, he has to carry the winner for another round and the same thing is repeated.

7. If the loser chooses not to accept the challenge, then the winner will throw his second slipper to try and hit the first slipper. If he succeeds, then the loser has to carry him for another round, and the same thing is repeated. If he misses, the ‘punishment’ ends.

For the girls who find piggy-ridding too unladylike, they can pull ears instead.

Toys Were Us (2): “Lastic” – By Chuck Hio

Hi, my name is Chuck. I am an old friend and business associate of Chun See's. Today I want to share with you (especially the younger ones) about a toy that I used to make and play with during my childhood days. Unfortunately, I don’t have Chun See’s skills in blogging. So I will ‘tumpang’ this article in his blog.

First a bit of background about myself. I was born in 1960 and grew up in a kampong that is located at the Hill View area off Upper Bukit Bukit Timah. Like Chun See, I have fond memories of the games and pastimes that we enjoyed as kampong kids. Those days, we kids have to design and make our own toys.

One of those toys is the catapult. We called it the ‘Lastic’. I will explain to you how we make the lastic but please just learn this for knowledge only; and do not go and make one and do naughty things with it. It can be turned into a pretty nasty weapon.



Step 1:

Select a good tree branch. Look for a tree branch that has a Y-shape. The 2 arms should be roughly of equal size. Chun See says he and his friends used to make their lastic from the Sendudok, or Singapore Rhododendron, but I prefer the Tembusu tree which was easily found in our kampong. The Tembusu wood is stiffer and stronger and thus provide a more sturdy frame.

Step 2

Trim of the excess materials but leave sufficient length of the arms to be tied together with a binding wire. Trim off the bark.

Step 3

Roast the branch over a fire for about 10 to 15 minutes to remove the sap. We usually placed the it over 2 bricks and build a fire with dry twigs.

Step 4

Untie the arms. You will find that the arms now will retain a beautiful curved Y-shape. Now we can trim off the excess lengths from the arms.

Step 5

Get 2 strips of rubber of about 8 to10 inches long to form the slings. We usually cut them from the inner tubes of bicycles.

Step 6

Cut a small rectangular piece of leather and make 2 slits at the ends.

Step 7

Tie one end of the rubber strip to the lastic arm and the other to the leather. Use rubber bands to fasten them.

Step 8

Repeat for the other arm and there you have your completed lastic.


What do we use the lastic for? We used it to shoot at toads, birds and fruits. For practice we shoot at lamp posts and tin cans. Chun See says he used his to shoot at his neighbour’s pigs which roam into their compound. For the ‘bullet’ we used small stones or pebbles. Sometimes we even use glass marbles, but it is a bit expensive.

I hope you have learnt something new today. Again, I want to stress. This catapult can be quite dangerous. Please do not make it.

Acknowledgement: My special thanks to the management of Cititech Industrial Building for permission to chop off one of the branches of their many Tembusu trees.

Toys Were Us (1)

Dear friends, I am glad to report another case of increased father-son bonding as a result of this blog.

After reading my article about my kampong days, my old friend Chuck, who is in his forties, recalled the toy gun that he and his kampong buddies used to play with. Chuck used to stay at a kampong in the Hillview-Bt Panjang area, where the present Bt Gombak complex stands.

This doting dad actually spent 3 hours to rebuild his gun from memory for his 10-year old son Scott, and shared with the boy his childhood adventures in using the gun to shoot birds, lizards, dragon flies, cockroaches and all sorts of two-legged creatures. Not only that. He drove all the way from their home in Sengkang to Seletar Farmway, to harvest the 'bullets' from roadside plants which grew there(sorry still unable to identify the name of the plant).

Presenting the Scott 327– A product of love and Singaporean creativity

Later, when I had occasion to meet Scott, the kid was so proud in showing off his new toy to me; eagerly explaining to me how it worked and asking me to try it. At first, when I looked at it, I wasn’t terribly impressed. But when I tested it, I was really surprised at its effectiveness in terms of accuracy and range – you could easily fire it across the width of a basketball court and hit a human target.

Here’s how it works.

Step 1 – Pull the trigger back slightly and insert a bullet and release to grip the bullet

Step 2 – Pull back the rubber band to hook around the bullet

Step 3 – Aim and fire by pulling the trigger slowly to release the bullet

To my young friends out there. You must have heard your parents boast frequently about how creative they were in ‘inventing’ their own toys back in the old days. Well; you have just seen one example here.

I will be sharing more examples with you in future articles under the series, Toys Were Us.