Lost Games

Capteh, jianzi, shuttlecock – these are different names for the same game that involves kicking a feather object and keeping it airborne for as long as possible.

But for those of Singapore’s Pioneer Generation, such as Mr Chang Yang Fa, 76, it is simply a fun game that he and his friends played as children, when there were no mobile phones, television or even playgrounds to occupy their time.

“Singapore wasn’t so built up with buildings and roads, so there were fields all around for us to play in. We would catch spiders or play with wild grass, or use our brains to improvise new things to play,” says Mr Chang.

“In those days, we had just enough money to feed ourselves during recess time and no money to buy toys,” he adds.

He and his friends would cut out circular discs from old rubber tyres. They would pierce two of these discs with a long nail, and insert and tie three or so rooster tail feathers in the hole.

“We wouldn’t pluck the feathers from actual roosters, but take them from feather dusters, which in those days were made of real feathers,” says Mr Chang.

There was no finesse or creator’s pride in making the capteh pieces. “These were things we would make and play with until they were worn out. Then we would just make another one.”

A person can play capteh alone, but there is more satisfaction and joy in making it a group activity, he says. “Playing by yourself was no fun. You could kick it 100 times, but nobody would be there to cheer or acknowledge it.”

“The fun thing about games like capteh is that there were no fixed rules when we played it as kids. We decided among ourselves how we wanted to run the game,” he adds.

The origins of the term kuti kuti are unclear, though it has been surmised to come from an old Malay word for “flip”.

The aim of the game is to flip one of your kuti kuti pieces onto one of your opponent’s pieces. It must stay on top and cannot slide off.

“Once that happens, you get to take that piece and keep it for yourself,” says Mr Chang.

“If you miss or if your piece slides off, you lose your piece to your opponent. You use whatever technique works for you – one finger, two fingers and so on.”

But he adds that the game is more about strategy than technique.

“You have to slowly manoeuvre your piece such that it is slanted just right, so that you can easily hop onto the piece you want. And, of course, your opponent is thinking the same thing on his or her side.”

One can slowly grow one’s kuti kuti collection by taking over other people’s pieces. “Then you walk around with a pocket full of kuti kuti, looking forward to recess time to see how many more pieces you can win – or lose,” says Mr Chang.

Dr Jernice Tan, a senior lecturer at the National Institute of Education under Nanyang Technological University, says that kuti kuti naturally trains manual dexterity in young children, due to the fine motor control it requires.

“Success depends on hand-eye coordination to accurately aim and flick one piece to hit or overlap with another. This requires precise object control, as players must manipulate the small ‘kutis’ with their fingers, adjusting the force and direction of each flick,” she says.

“The game also strengthens finger muscles and dexterity through repetitive flicking motions, ultimately honing crucial fine motor skills.”

Kuti kuti and other old-school games also support developmental skills such as spatial reasoning, attention and impulse control, adds Mr Jiayong Lin, a clinical psychologist with Annabelle Psychology.

“More importantly, they will also gain in-person social skills such as recognising facial expressions, coordinating verbal and non-verbal communication, initiating social contact, sharing of interests, real-time reciprocal interaction and more,” she adds.

Kuti kuti has somewhat stuck around to the modern day. But, instead of little animal pieces, today’s children are more likely to use erasers sporting the flags of countries.

Games such as capteh and kuti kuti were already considered heritage games by 1981, when The Straits Times published a story with the headline, “Bringing back simple joys of past”.

Accompanying that headline was an article about a People’s Association (PA) initiative to “reintroduce these games to schoolchildren at all its community centres”.

“These games have to do with our past and are part of our cultural heritage. We want to give the children an idea of some of the games played by their fathers and grandfathers, which have been forgotten,” said Mr Lim Chin Teong, then chief executive director of the PA.

Such initiatives might explain why Ms Rebecca Wong, who is in her late 40s, remembers playing five stones with her classmates at Raffles Girls’ Primary School in the mid-1980s.

“My mother had made me a set of oversized five stones, which I would take along to school,” says Ms Wong. She is the founder of vintage shop My Old School, which specialises in toys and novelties.

She mostly played five stones with her schoolmates during recess and in the open spaces around the school complex. The game’s inherent flexibility meant that there was no real “maximum” number of players, and its fast pace allowed players to come and go as they desired.

Like capteh, five stones has ancient roots. It has appeared in many different cultures throughout the world over recorded history, and has had many different names, including knucklebones and jacks.

Five stones, as knucklebones, even has a small cameo in the epic Greek poem, The Iliad, which is thought to have been composed in the eighth century BC. In Book 23 of the tale, Greek warrior Patroclus – a bosom buddy of Achilles, the legendary demigod hero – talks about how, as a child, he accidentally killed a playmate over a game of knucklebones.

All versions of the game involve a series of throws that become increasingly complicated.

Similar to capteh, five stones is not a toy to show off. This stands in contrast to the way that yo-yos and fidget spinners became status symbols in the 1990s and 2020s, respectively.

“The stones were very utilitarian in that sense,” says Ms Wong. “If they fell apart, you would use someone else’s or hope your mother could make a new set.

“Because they were handmade, everyone’s set would be made using different fabrics and fillings, like beans or rice. So, the stones would also be of different weights and sizes, like my oversized ones. You’d be great at playing with your own set because the size and weight of the stones would be so familiar.”

Like five stones and capteh, pick-up sticks was not invented in Singapore. The version of the game people know today is thought to trace back to 17th-century Europe, under the name of Mikado.

It is not clear when pick-up sticks came to Singapore. Did the British bring the game with them when they colonised the island? Or, thanks to the natural cultural diffusion that has always existed in human history, did it make its own way to South-east Asia?

“As a human species, we have always lived in a globalised world, with people, ideas and things moving between places,” notes Dr Ivan Kwek, senior lecturer at the Department of Sociology & Anthropology at the National University of Singapore.

“The simplicity of the games (like pick-up sticks, five stones and capteh) and their rules, as well as their openness to change and adaptation, probably helps in their diffusion,” he adds.

Pick-up sticks is very similar to five stones in its simplicity, says Ms Wong. Both games are portable, can take on any number of players and are accessible to all, due to their simple props.

“Everyone had the same kind of sticks, pretty much. It was not a toy to show off,” she says.

“Unlike five stones, though, you need time and patience to play pick-up sticks because you don’t want to disturb the rest of the pile when you take your turn,” she adds.

But winning was never the point for Ms Wong and her playmates. “It was just a way to have fun together during recess. Once the game ended, we just forgot about it and moved on to the next game.”

Ms Wong and her peers might think of pick-up sticks and other old-school games as just trivial pursuits of their youth. But, broadly speaking, games are important for the healthy development and continuation of human society.

As Dr Kwek explains: “They are cultural activities that provide humans with a context to enact, work out or negotiate aspects of living in society.”

These games may have gone out of fashion, living on only in memories and heritage initiatives – including this interactive. But there is value in remembering them.

“Thinking of them as traditional games assures us with a sense of continuity and connection while, at the same time, acknowledging a sense of loss – for instance, of ‘the good old days’, kampungs, simpler lifestyles – without needing to renounce the present,” says Dr Kwek.

Dr Han Minju of Singapore Management University, who has studied heritage and nostalgia, adds: “Singapore has undergone a dramatic transformation in just a few decades. Such dramatic change can create a need for psychological anchors, something timeless and grounding. These games may serve exactly that function. They represent a simpler, more ‘authentic’ time that helps manage the anxiety of rapid modernisation and change.”

But it may be too soon to write these “heritage” games off as relics of a pre-digital age. Some of them have existed for thousands of years, before Singapore even had any kind of name.

Dr Kwek says: “In different places and times, the material used, the forms they take and how they are played are likely to bear some resemblance (to one another), but also some differences. This underscores the innovative impulse of humans. They do not just adopt, but also reinterpret the games in ways that better suit their contexts.”

And in today’s context, they can be a bridge to the past – a tangible conduit for connection between younger and older generations; a connective tissue of sorts.

“The older generation might often struggle with finding a common platform to connect with younger people, due to very different developmental experiences in time,” notes Mr Jiayong Lin, a clinical psychologist with Annabelle Psychology.

“Traditional games can therefore be a joint experience for shared enjoyment, rapport-building, and trust in cooperation and problem-solving together.”

When the last survivors of those older generations pass on, the digital format can help keep the memory of these old-school games alive. It may be through games such as the ones you played in this interactive, or versions that use virtual reality, artificial intelligence or other technologies humans have not even conceived of yet.

Maybe 100 or even 500 years from now, people will be playing futuristic versions of these games – thereby keeping this unique part of our cultural heritage alive for generations to come.