COMPARED with today's video and online games, roller skates and skateboards, the popular kids' games and hobbies from the 1950s to the 1990s seem a little obsolete, despite being simple, healthy and fit for groups of people at no cost at all. But like a glass of great wine, these old games and hobbies leave an everlasting fragrance in the minds of many. From playing marbles to collecting cigarette cards, these games and hobbies once flourished in the small lanes and old streets of Jiading District. Today, they can hardly be found but remembering them can bring back happy childhood memories.

Marvelous memories of striking marbles

Fan Shengchun and Han Jing

Playing marbles was a popular game among Chinese boys for quite a long time. However, it's quite hard to trace its origin.

The glass marbles differ in color and size. Besides common blue, green and yellow marbles, patterned marbles called "orange segments" or "little white dragon" were the most popular and valuable.

During my childhood in the 1980s, vendors would sell the glass marbles at street stands in villages, with two marbles costing 0.1 yuan (1.5 US cents). Players usually lean a brick against the wall and then let a marble freely down from the brick. The player whose marble rolls the farthest will be entitled to strike other marbles. He'll win the rival's marble if he hits the target, otherwise the opposite player can try and strike back.

Players can also dig a series of holes in the ground and advance step by step. The player can try to hit the rival's marble in the same hole, then strike it out of the hole. The first to complete the course will win the game.

The game somewhat resembles golf, of course the course of the latter is much larger, but both need to strike the ball into the holes one by one, which require steady and accurate strikes.

Self-made toys were top for impoverished kids

Tao Jiming

I made toys myself in my childhood around the 1950s and 1960s when my family was impoverished and struggled to make ends meet.

Wooden spinning tops were quite popular among children in winter at that time. The tops differing in shapes could be bought from department stores. Although the wooden tops made by toy factories looked delicate and lovable, most children could not afford them. Therefore, they began making their own tops.

I remember that we once cut a piece of chinaberry wood brought by a classmate of mine from a rural area in order to make a top ourselves. However, it was really no easy job to make a well-shaped top, so we asked the father of one of our classmates who happened to be a latheman and helped us make the top perfectly.

We usually played the game on the hard and smooth ground, rounded the top with a rope for several circles, then threw the top out with the end of rope in hand, the top would land on the ground and whirl wildly. The competitors should throw their tops simultaneously and the winner was the one whose top could whirl for the longest time.

Nowadays, the tops are usually made of plastic. It's easier to pick up the game than before but I find it less fun.

(Translated by Han Jing)

Hoop-rolling turns jealousy to friendship

Huang Shunfu

Hoop-rolling" is an old longtang (alley) game familiar to most elderly people in Shanghai. Children would roll iron hoops along the ground in various ways using a hook or a stick. They could easily make the hoop move forward, turn around, accelerate and turn back. It looked almost like a professional acrobatics show when many children rolled the hoops together.

"Hoop-rolling" was one of my favorite games when I was young, because I had few toys at that time. However, it was hard to find suitable iron wire and a hoop for the game. Thin iron wire could be made into a hook easily, but the hook could hardly control a rolling iron hoop, and it was difficult to make the perfect hook of thick wire.

It was even more difficult to find an ideal iron hoop. They weren't available at any local store and even if they were, my family had no spare money to buy one. As a result, many children would take the iron strips from broken wooden basins and turn them into iron hoops. If any family had a broken basin, children of the family would definitely play the "hoop-rolling" game the next day on their way to school.

However, I had few such chances to get an ideal hoop from broken basins, because my grandmother would ask my uncle to repair anything broken at home. My uncle was a clever man who repaired bicycles. He could repair almost everything from doors and windows to clocks and basins.

I was over-delighted one summer vacation when my uncle gave me a wheel rim dismantled from an old bicycle after he saw I was jealous of my friends who had hoops from broken basins. I felt it was the best toy in the world. The wheel rim from the bicycle was a perfect hoop for the rolling game because it had a groove on the surface. I could control it easily using a bamboo stick. It was the happiest time for me and Xiao Ping, the daughter of my uncle, as we managed to roll the hoop in many innovative ways as it was so perfect.

I rolled the hoop proudly to school after the summer vacation. I controlled the hoop so skillfully and shocked my classmates. They cried to their parents to ask for a wheel rim from an old bicycle, but resulted in nothing as few families could afford to buy a bicycle at that time. They were jealous and even "hated" me.

In the winter, they forced me to walk across a frozen river which was dangerous because the ice was still rather thin. I had to walk on the ice while rolling the hoop and managed to get to the other side of the river safely. I laughed at them with triumphant pride.

My friends were enraged by my laughter. They also rolled their hoops and tried to walk across the frozen river like me. But they failed, the ice broke and all of them fell into the freezing river.

I ran back home to call for help. Parents rushed to the river and saved them all. The parents told their children I saved their lives and asked them to apologize to me. My uncle also presented a wheel rim to each of them after hearing about the incident. The rims converted us from "enemies" into best friends. I felt quite warm in my heart that winter.

(Translated by Yang Jian)

Smoking habit has a culturally healthy benefit

Chen Zhaoxiong and Xu Chi

The words xiangyan paizi means "cigarette cards" (pictured cards in cigarette boxes). However, people in Jiading District called the cards "foreigners" because the earliest cards found in Jiading featured images of foreigners - such as pirates, beauties, heroes and children.

Cigarettes came to China in the late Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and were called "Danbagu" at that time. Legend has it that Pu Songling, author of the well-known classic novel "Liaozhai Zhiyi," used to attract passers-by to chat so as to collect raw materials for his stories by placing tables with cigarettes and cups of tea on the streets. He often used the cigarettes to lure passers-by for a pleasant chat, but at that time, there were no cigarette cards at all.

The first cigarette cards found in Shanghai dated back to the beginning of last century. The popular cigarette cards at that time were Laodao, Daying and Sanpaotai, all colorfully printed.

As for Chinese cigarette cards, such as Meili, Hongjinlong, Baixibao and Jinshu were printed by the tobacco manufacturers who followed the trend of that time.

The Chinese-made cigarette cards can be divided into two categories.

One category is a set of pictures, including portraits, flowers, birds, antiques, operas and other subjects. No one knew exactly how many cards were in one set and people could collect as many as they wanted.

In this category, the sets featuring pictures of airplanes, artilleries and machines were numerous, while the cards in the opera sets were usually about the latest popular operas that attracted both children and the elderly.

The other category contains complete stories, such as "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," "A Dream in Red Mansions," "Seven Heroes and Five Gallants," "The Twenty-four Filial Sons," "Tale of the White Snake," and "Lady Mengjiang."

People who occasionally got one or two cards of the set and loved it very much, would tend to keep purchasing the whole set to complete their collection.

To entice people to buy more cigarettes, the tobacco companies would even publish advertisements saying that anyone who had a full collection of a "Foreigner" set would be rewarded a large box of cigarettes. Of course, it was very hard to acquire the entire collection.

Industry insiders once revealed that such promotions were actually a trick played by the companies to gain profits. Take the set of "Water Margin" for example. There were a total of 108 figures in one set, but only three or four copies of several figures in the set were published, which means that it was almost impossible to complete the collection.

Young boys in the past were very interested in the cigarette cards. The pictures can be viewed as a source of knowledge and the cards could be played as toys.

They played the cigarette cards mainly in two ways - "scrape" and "fly."

In the "scrape" game, one player should lay his cigarette cards on the ground, and the other one, with a card in hand, making a full swing of his arm and scrapes the card on the ground in front of the other. If he can make it turn over, he wins the opponent's card. If fails, it will be the turn of his opponent.

In the "fly" game, people hold one card each against a wall and let them fall. The one whose card "flies" the longest distance wins the game and takes the cards from their opponents.

Since the mid-1950s, commercial advertising has almost disappeared in China, and the tobacco companies have ceased to produce cigarette cards.

To meet the needs of little boys, some printing factories started to print the pictures like old cigarette cards on the white board paper, each contains 100 small cards and cost about 0.1 yuan (1.5 US cents). The buyers needed to cut the paper with a scissor into small pieces, and played them just like the old cigarette cards.

DIY cars encouraged kids to get technical

Fei Yang

We played games requiring no equipment such as hide and seek or hopscotch during childhood and board games such as military chess or GoBang. My childhood favorite game was "four-drive vehicle" involving a remote-control car which occupied most of my time after school.

The name is derived from a cartoon called "Four-drive Boys" in which each animated character controlled racing cars using a remote control. At that time, boys were always dreaming of having a "Superstar" racing car model, the namesake of the leading racing car in the cartoon. It was most fashionable and expensive. Owning the "Superstar" model could be considered the equivalent of owning an iPhone 4 now. For a primary school student, I could only afford a common one.

The racing car models cost around 10 yuan (US$1.5) to 30 yuan. After class, schoolboys would play with self-assembled racing car models in the corridor outside the classroom. School teachers encouraged students to assemble the car models as a part of the extracurricular popular science program.

The schoolboys spent their leisure hours discussing the upgrade of car models and saved their pocket money for model parts. It would bring about a sense of achievement to make their own motors.

I have only kept the self-made motor among all my car models which were thrown out by my father as a farewell to my childhood.

(Translated by Han Jing)

Elastic band connects the memory of two generations

Zhu Yanli

When a scene featuring girls skipping with the rubber band appeared on the TV, I was touched and asked my mother: "Mom, did you play that in your childhood?"

A proud smile appeared on her face. "I used to be the top player of it in my school," she said.

Both my mother, who was born in the 1960s, and I, born in the 1980s, have unforgettable memories of playing Chinese jump rope or rubber band skipping (tiao pi jin). It tops all children's games and appeals to girls.

Chinese jump rope is a game suitable for children and was prevalent from the 1950s to the 1980s. The elastic rope used in the game is a string of rubber bands.

In my view, there are three reasons for the popularity of Chinese jump rope. First, there is no space limit. Children can play freely in a small space of 20 square meters. Secondly, there is no player number limit. Even one person can have fun if she ties the elastic rope around two tree trunks or chairs. Thirdly, it is easy to acquire rubber bands. Rubber bands were sometimes used to tighten cuffs because clothes used to be self-tailored and every household had rubber bands. Spare rubber bands would be connected to form a long rope for the game.

Children who had such an elastic rope were popular among their friends at that time. When the bell for dismissing class rang, a girl would draw out an elastic rope from her schoolbag, wave it in the air and a group of children would follow her. They even wouldn't miss the short 10-minute class break to play the game. Quite a few Chinese jump rope groups could be found scattered across the playground before and after classes.

Chinese jump rope players were usually divided into two opposing groups. The playing order was decided by the "rock, paper, scissors" game. The losing side would select two team members to act as "human trunks" to stretch the rubber band tight. Usually, thin and tall members were preferred for this, so that the rubber band could be held high and the distance between two sides of the band would become narrow, which increased the difficulty for the rivals. If they failed, it was the turn for the other side. I, always a fat girl since childhood, had been anticipating being recommended to stretch the rubber band. "Human trunks" also needed to pay attention to the tension of the rubber band. It could be neither too loose nor too tight.

When everything was ready, "skipping" started. There were a lot of patterns, easy or difficult, to play such games. If it were listed as an Olympic game, I am sure it would attract great audience attention. Girls jumped vigorously like leaping fish and flying swallows. Their plaits swayed up and down with the rubber band, delighting others. Somehow, few boys would join to skip the elastic rope. If any boys asked to join, they would be mocked by other boys.

Apart from various skipping patterns, there were also rhythmical children's folk songs to match the patterns.

(Translated by Xu Fang)