ExclusiveChildhood Games: All It Took Was a Call | Vietnam Within Us

Welcome to Vietnam Within Us. There was a time when all it took was a child calling for my name out in the land, and I knew the afternoon was just about to begin. You know, back then, only a few well-off families in our neighborhood had a TV. The rest of us after school ran out to the yard to fight each other. There was no need to make plans or get ready. One child called another, and a little while later, there was a whole chattering crowd. My favorite was O An Quang, a game of small stones played on chalk squares. A friend would sit down and draw the squares on the ground of the yard, and I would run off to collect small stones, bringing back whichever ones fit my hand to use as pieces. At first, only two of us play, then the other drifts over one by one. Some stood and watched, and some called out move. One child insisted on waiting for his turn. The little stones passed from square to square, and laughter slowly filled the yard along with them. Some days, we didn't just play, we made our own toys. I still remember all of us sitting in the circle whittling spinning tops from scrap of wood. Everyone worked with great care. One child made a top shape like a mushroom. Another had no idea how to carve and ended up with something lopsided. Yet nobody felt ashamed. We all looked at what we made and laughed until the whole yard rang. Some of those tops spun and some toppled the moment they turned. But how long they spun hardly seemed to matter next to the fact that we had made them together. In those days, one game led to the next. Jump rope, hide and seek, tug of war. I remember that picking teams for tug of war was always noisy. Everyone wanted to stand beside the person they liked And they argued until the yard rang Then finally took our places When the shout to begin went up Nobody remembered what the argument had been about We just gripped the rope and pulled Once my team was dragged down all at once One child tumbling onto another Our clothes smeared with dirt And nobody minded We lay there on the ground laughing out loud. High and sick left another memory that we still bring up. One friend hid so well that he fell asleep. And the rest of us searched and searched without finding him. Only when his parents went looking did they discover him sleeping soundly in his hiding place. The grown-ups were worried and scolded him for playing until he fell asleep. We kept laughing about it for years because to children then, a friend falling asleep in the middle of a game was enough of a story to remember for a very long time. On windy afternoons, we took our kite out to the fields. The kites we made ourselves were clumsy. Some were pasted unevenly and some tipped over and fell as soon as they rose. But we ran to pick them up, mended them, and tried again. When a kite caught the wind and slowly climbed into the wild sky, we all stood below looking up, the cool breeze of the fields tossing our hair, and none of us wanted to go home just yet. Maybe you didn't know that the ordinary things like these would stay with us for so long. We only knew that after school, we went looking for each other, played until the sky turned dusky, and ran home only when we heard our parents calling. We might quarrel over something tiny today, and tomorrow we meet again, chattering as if nothing had happened. Then each of us grew up and went our separate ways, And the yards of those years slowly changed. Only as an adult did I realize that my childhood had been built from simple things like these. Small stones picked up in the yard, chalk lines on the ground, clumsily carved spinning tops, a tug-of-war rope, a homemade kite, and friends who were always there after just a single call. I am grateful to have inherited those folk games. They have passed through the childhoods of many generations before us and were then handed to the children of the neighborhood so that we could play on our own, argue on our own, make up on our own, and grow up together. Those games gave us a way to have fun, and without meaning to, They also kept us together through years that we didn't yet know were the best of our lives. Now if someone asked what I remembered about my childhood, I probably wouldn't remember how many games of Ong Kueang I won or how many times my team won a tug-of-war. I would only remember the calling out in the land, the afternoons running barefoot, The lopsided spinning tops rolling across the yard, a friend who once fell asleep in the middle of hide and seek, and a whole pack of children lying in a heap, laughing after a tug of war. Those memories have walked with me through so many years that today, looking back, I understand how some joys seem so small and yet are strong enough to stay for a lifetime. What about you? Which games did your childhood have? If there is a game that still takes you back to those afternoons, please share with us.