CHILDREN’S HAND GAME
“Chopsticks”

Myself
Brandon, MS
2007

Informant Data:
Cathryn Brown was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, on September 3, 2000. She attended kindergarten through high school in the same school system and spent much of her childhood with other girls of her age. Her background is somewhat Creole, as well as generally southern. Her family origins are European and Native American, with most background from France. She is non-religious, but the area she grew up in is very religious, predominantly Christian. She is single and a sophomore at Dartmouth College.

Contextual Data:
Social Context: Cathryn originally learned this rhyme on the school bus for her elementary school and continued to use it throughout elementary, and beyond though less frequently. Older children on the bus often taught it to younger children. The younger children almost always lost to the older children. In fact, Cathryn remembers teaching it to younger children with the express purpose of beating them. She suspects that this is part of the reason the game was continually distributed each year.
Cultural Context: This game was generally played with the people surrounding one’s bus seat. As such, the opponents were not necessarily friends, just people in close proximity. This game did not tend to be one that friends frequently played with one another, likely due to the fact that the game can loop when 2 players who are very familiar with the game play together.

Item:

Chopsticks Video: Click Here to View

This game is played with two people, each begin with the pointer fingers of both their hands extended. One of the players (Player 1) begins by hitting the other person’s (Player 2) finger, and the Player 2 adding the number of fingers on the hand Player 1 used to hit Player 2’s hand (the first round the addition is always only 1 finger). Then, the other player goes, and can choose which hand to use, and thereby how many fingers to make the other person add to their hand. Once a hand is “full,” or all of the fingers have been raised, that hand is out of the game, and set to 0 fingers. The player that puts down both hands first is the loser. During gameplay, the fingers can be “split” across the hands instead of hitting the other person. To do this, the player taps their hands together, and redistributes the fingers as they please. This can be used to bring a hand back into the game, by splitting the active hand to return fingers to the dead hand. Because of this, the game can potentially loop indefinitely.

Cathryn Brown, 20
210 Evergreen Drive, Brandon MS
Dartmouth College, Hanover NH
Dartmouth College
Russ 13
20F