Saturday, November 17, 2012

Japanese habit/custom ~6~ Janken

First of all, I give you an example.
There are three people here. And there is only one cake.
They can't decide who eat the one cake.
How do decide in your culture?
In Japan, we decide it by "janken".
Each person shows weapon  by hand.
I learned that janken is already common in USA and
they call Rock-scissors-paper.

Guu = Rock

Choki = scissors

Paa = paper

In Japan, when we express the three kind of weapon,
usually, the order is Guu, Choki, Paa.

I tell about how to do Janken
1 You say,"Janken Pon!!"
2All of you show your weapon at the same time.
  Guu is superior to Choki. Choki is superior to Paper. Paper is superior to Guu.
3 If the weapon was the same, you must show the weapon again, saying
  Aiko de sho!!
4 You continue until some one win the match.

You can decide the superior person by chance.
So this is the fair and peaceful way when you have to decide who is superior.

If you are excited so much, you may be tempted to show the weapon after
you check which weapon the other person show.
But it is called "Ato dashi janken (Oso dashi janken)"
(=delayed janken)
Japanese avoid from this ato dashi janken whether or not you do intentionally.
If you do that on purpose, you must be blamed by all of the people. ^ ^ ;


Thanks for reading!

Facebook page




5 comments:

Jan Erik said...

In Germany it's called "Schere, Stein, Papier". ^^

marimari said...

We always say Janken.
I learned that it is from Japan.
I guess German name
"Schere, Stein, Papier"
because it is hard for you to know
what Janken is.

Delilah said...

"Pierre, feuille, ciseaux" in french. Like in germany, it's the translation of what you do.
To determinate who is the loser (or the winner) we also use "tirer à la courte paille". The traduction is "drau lots". someone takes strawin his hand, and equalize the top. His hand hide the straw is different size. Everybody choose one, if you have the tiniest, you lose.

marimari said...

Oh, I see. It is also good way.
In Japan, French style is not
common.

Saku said...

I did "Schere, Stein, Papier" when I was a child very often.. haha
Now when my friends and I can't decide, we have little pieces of blank paper - one with a little dot or stroke or something - and the one who has the paper with the dot wins XD
It's quite the same as Delilah explained, only with paper.. haha