Forever a Foreigner

Kids love to play. That’s true everywhere on the planet, but even in games you can find cultural differences that alter the experience. Since I work in children’s ministry, the issue of games and children’s play comes up a lot.

As a teacher, how much effort do I need to put into games for kids? What kinds of games should we play? What even is “fun”?

This post is part 2 of a series. Here is the link to part 1: What Does It Mean to Be “Teacher” in Cambodia?

The Masters of Play

In Cambodia kids tend to be fairly independent starting from when they are old enough to go to school. Many kids walk or ride their bikes to school, and in the community kids wander freely from yard to yard, playing games in the streets and going off with friends to the parks or soccer fields. Kids are running errands for their parents as soon as they are old enough, getting sent to the corner or to the market to buy some vegetables or herbs mom forgot to buy.

I had this kind of childhood, growing up in a small, rural Cambodian community. I caught frogs in the rain on the street with my friends and was constantly in our neighbors’ yards. I rode my bike to and from school in 4th grade, and my siblings and I would ride our bikes out to the rice fields and around town. My mom sent me on errands all the time, like going out to buy fresh bread or hot cakes for breakfast, or running to the market to get an onion or some garlic.

In this kind of culture, you will find that kids on the whole tend to be pretty socially savvy. They build networks of friends early, and they know how to navigate complex social situations from a young age. They are used to creating their own fun with their friends, without interference from adults. They have a vast repertoire of games adapted to the space they have, the materials on hand, and sometimes a ball or a feathered birdie. Who doesn’t love playing “Crocodile,” “Ooh,” “Dog-with-a-Broken-Leg,” “Naming Hide-and-Seek,” “Throw the Birdie,” “Rubber Band Jump Rope,” “Hello Tag,” or “Police Catch the Thieves”? Some games can get pretty elaborate in their rules, some changing from area to area, but the kids keep up with it.

Kids are used to solving conflicts and negotiating fun amongst themselves, with one or two kids with strong personalities becoming the “មេ,” (mae) or masters of the game. These play masters enforce the rules, arbitrate disputes, and make decisions. I myself was one of these as a child, bossy and basically always right. For arguments, rock-paper-scissors is the ultimate decider. But there are also fights, and kids will regularly swear not to play with each other ever again…for a few days.

In Cambodian culture, adults do not involve themselves in kids’ games almost ever. If there are adult-led games, they usually happen at special end-of-year events and holidays, when there is a program of some kind and a party atmosphere.

Kids do not expect to be entertained by adults, and religious instruction doesn’t involve “fun,” traditionally speaking. So while adult-led, organized games might be interesting and novel, they are unusual and something of an oddity in Cambodian culture.

So what do these things mean for me when it comes to children’s ministry? For weekly Bible clubs and classes, I enjoy taking advantage of the cultural norms and taking a more hands-off approach when it comes to game time. I was at a Bible club in one area, and as the kids were arriving I handed them a feathered birdie and a jump rope and told them to play till lesson time. The kids immediately organized themselves into two separate games and entertained themselves until it was time to start.

At another Bible club, I called upon an 8-year-old boy (one of the oldest kids in the group) and told him that he was now the mae. “Go lead the others in hide-and-seek,” I said. He happily took off and did so. All the kids were occupied while I prepped my lesson.

What Is Fun About the Game?

I find that a lot of Western adult-led games tend to put a lot of focus on the individual and winning. The point of the game is to win, and the winner (or their team) is hyped up and their achievements are exaggerated with loud praise and prizes. In many games, the individual is asked to provide spectacle. Minute-to-win-it games and camp style games put a lot of pressure on an individual person and often ask them to do humorous, ridiculous, or embarrassing things in front of the group. Novelty and discomfort seem to be common factors in a lot of these games. That is not to say that all Western games are like this, but a lot of the program style games are. This is the “icebreaker” concept at work.

In Cambodian games, it is very different. Though they are still competing, the focus is on the experience of playing the game. The game itself has to be fun and enjoyable, to the point where I sometimes struggle to remember how to win certain games, because the process is the most memorable part. Recently we had a kids’ program, and my Cambodian coworker had the kids start playing a game in which there was no clear end, and therefore no “winners.” The game was like a windup toy, she just got them going, stepped back, and let them play until they were tired. Contrast this with programs in the U.S., like Vacation Bible School, which can be extremely competitive.

When I was in America, a church invited to me to come and be a speaker during their VBS week. They also asked me to teach the kids Cambodians games. I had to warn the program leaders that the games would not fit into their aggressive points-earning system. (The program leaders ended up liking one of the Cambodian games so much that they played it amongst themselves while the kids were gone.)

Most Cambodian games are played in teams, or have the person who is “It” changing throughout. Winning is still a great satisfaction, but there isn’t the same level of hype and celebration. Some games don’t involve keeping score at all.

Instead of winners getting rewards, losers get a punishment. Common punishments include: the members of the winning team slapping the hands of the losing team, the losers having to rap their knuckles, or, comically, two members of the winning team lifting the losers of one team into the air and bumping their backsides onto the ground. I introduced some simple games to one of my English classes, and the other teachers asked, “What happens to the losers?” When I was at a loss, they were puzzled, as they took it for granted that this would be a component of any game.

Group fun is the most important thing. Overly competitive people are not considered fun to play with, because they are sore losers. If a game causes someone to have a bad experience, the kid might want to stop playing. When something like this happens, kids might bend or suspend the rules briefly to keep everyone having a good experience. For example, in the most common form of hide-and-seek, the person who is “It” can get tagged again and again, causing them to remain “It” for a long time. If that person gets fed up with it, the kids might just start the game over with a new “It” to maintain peace and fun. 

So, as you can see, a game that is popular in one culture might not translate completely into another. I personally think it’s fascinating to study the local kids’ culture around games and play. You can get a lot of insight into the culture as a whole this way too!

To Be Continued…

There are many more observations taken from Cambodian culture to explore, but today we’ll stop with games.

This series is derived from a paper I wrote, compiling in detail my observations and analysis of the Cambodian classroom. If you feel interested in a deeper dive, you can access that document below:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MiZh-56Q1ecwl3MCc2rcG3kS5lO8AtD6/view?usp=sharing