One of my students asked me this question and I did not really know how to answer her. She was referring to the kinds of “games” that children and sometimes adults play in order to make a decision, like other forms of flipping a coin, for example.
Here in my country we also do rock paper scissors, but we call it joquempô. We also do odds and evens, par ou ímpar, and a more extended version called dois ou um, “two or one”, in which players present either one or two fingers, and then the ones who chose the same amount of fingers leave the game or become a team. This can also be done with up to five fingers, and then it’s called dedos iguais, “equal/same fingers”.
Are there any other such games in your country? My student really caught me off-guard when she asked that, I had never thought about this cultural aspect.
Also, I’m curious to know what you do and/or did as a child if you’re not from an English-speaking country as well!
That’s wild. In Japanese they say “じゃんけんぽん” when they do rock paper scissors, which is pronounced jankenpon.
Obviously Portuguese had a significant impact on Japanese language and culture with probably the most famous example being tempura. I just wonder which way janken went: from Portuguese to Japanese to vice versa.
Wow, that’s crazy, I didn’t know that! There’s a lot of Japanese immigrants in Brazil, particularly in the region around São Paulo and Paraná, so that might explain the origin of the word. Maybe Portuguese -> Japanese -> Brazilian Portuguese? I’ll have to check that out.
edit: I’m particularly interested in this because I’ve been watching Shogun lol
Wikipedia says it originated in China, became it’s modern iteration in Japan, and then spread to the world.