I think for as long as I can remember, I love old stuff! Old and worn out looking places with peeling paints and objects that have been lovingly handcrafted by artisans. I love our traditional Malaysian toys but it seems to be fading in obscurity (These days, most people are ‘ wii-ing’ or playing online games). When Bits n’ Bobs were invited to participate in a weekend charity bazaar at local shopping, I decided to sell ‘batu seremban’ or ‘5 stones’. For those who haven’t played it before, it’s five small sealed cloth bags filled with green beans or rice that are tossed in six stages of play. I played more with pebbles as my mom didn’t let me near her green beans or rice to fill the pouches.
Although most would think of this game as a ‘girls’ game’, I remembered this primary classmate of mine, Azman. He was the undisputed King of Batu Seremban in our school for his quick speed and agility.
How is this game played? This game can be played by a single person or in a group. In the first 6 stages, only the right hand is used when playing. The basic rules are, when collecting a bean bag, you cannot move or touch the surrounding bean bags and you will miss a turn when you are unsuccessful in catching or collecting the bean bags. Who gets to go first, depends on how many bean bags a player can catch with the back of his/her hand. All the bean bags are placed on your front palm, tossed into the air and then caught with the back of your hand. The player with the most bean bags gets to start first. In the first level, the player throws the five stones with his/her right hand. Then they will pick one stone and toss it into the air and quickly collect another stone before finally catching the falling stones in the same hand. This continues until all the stones are picked up. Then the player repeats with 2nd level by picking up 2 stones and so on.
Although it sounds simple, this is really a game that tests your hand and eye coordination. We got a very generous mention in the i-remaja magazine July's issue. It's in a great article on retro stuff written by Intan Fuhaira(love the paper dolls!). Thanks Intan!
