By Chamiya Carnathan

In October, our Japanese teacher dropped some knowledge bombs and initiated us into the arts of the Japanese Rock-Paper-Scissors. Otherwise, known as じゃんけん (Janken)! Although it is called different names in different places, the rules of the game are generally the same in every country. 

グー (Guu) = Rock
チョキ(Choki) = Scissors 
パー (Paa) = Paper

To start the game, players show their fists at the same time. Players will say “じゃんけんぽん” (Jankenpon) which is a phrase to be chanted by the players together. Players are to show their hands at the same time when they say “ぽん”(pon). To make it more chaotic, in class, everyone battled against the teacher. The students were standing tall and ready to defeat the teacher, “せんせい,” in the game, while the teacher was positioned in the front with her hands ready. Victory belonged to the last person standing, the one who outsmarted せんせい. And if no one could beat her, せんせい emerged as the champion.

After the class played a round of じゃんけん against our teacher, せんせい taught the class a different version of じゃんけん. The game starts generally the same where players would show their fists at the same time. “じゃんけんぽん” is chanted at the same time and players would show their hands at “ぽん”. This is where the fun begins to play out. In this version, グー, チョキ, and パー represented different numbers. 

グー (Guu) = 1
チョキ(Choki) = 2
パー (Paa) = 5

Picture this, players unveiled their hands and a thrilling race begins. The challenge? Lightning-fast mental math. Here’s the twist: quickly announce the total in Japanese after adding up the numbers displayed on both hands! For example, player one has グー and player two has パー. The added number is 六 (6). The first person to yell out “六” wins the game. 

I personally love this version of じゃんけん. The more players in the mix, the crazier the number-crunching ride becomes. The pressure to add, convert to Japanese, and blurt it out first is super stressful but also really exciting. It’s also a great practice for learning numbers in Japanese. Whenever I play Rock-Paper-Scissors with my friends or family, I teach them the Japanese version. It’s so fun for both me and them because they learned a different version of じゃんけん and I’m excited to teach them about it.