Paper Scissors Stone!

One of the most important differences In Taiwan that I have somehow neglected to tell my readership about is the way people play rock paper scissors. Just about everything is decided from playing this game including; who gets to do things first, who has to do things they would dislike to do, and who gets to be the home team in baseball. Ok im lying about the baseball part but its still a very popular game probably more so than back home. People of all ages can play for hours upon hours and seemingly not get bored.

Lets start with the basics. Being Chinese, everything is backwards. Even the number for the police/ambulence is 119 (this im not joking about). It may not surprise you then, that the first of the three said objects of the game is paper. Back home as many of you probably know, we would normally say the rock first. Already an interesting cultural comparison. Back home we value ROCK. It represents sheer stregnth and for that reason many of us have trouble beleiving rock can beaten by anything, yet alone paper. The Chinese apparently see the virue in paper, and have adopted it as their own and possibly favorite of the three as indicated by its order, well ahead of scissors and rock. Scissors procedes paper and is fairly similar in its action as back home. Scissors then is not followed not by rock...but by stone. Somehow stone just sounds so much more composed and less brash than rock. Its like comparing Ryu to Ken in streetfighter.

When you put it together it sounds something like Paper, Scissors, Stone! Except in English this usually sounds more like: Pay-pah, Scee-sus, STONE! Everyone gets really excited as they discover who the victor is and kids will usually inact the result of the match quite enthusiasticly. The results are still the same, As paper covers stone, scissors cut paper, and stone crushes scissors.

One noteable difference is that there is no "Shoot!" I fucken hate shoot. Whoever invented it is probably the biggest cheater in the history of the world. I mean who EVER learned to play the game with shoot? Whoever started this ridiculousness, was probably some asshole who was pissed off that his rock, which he relied on way too much, kept getting beaten by paper, and thus made up the excuse that both parties werent supposed to act until shoot and that rock wasnt his real move. Yeah right. The game as we know it in north america is no longer quite the same as no one knows whether they are supposed to play with a shoot or not. This has probably caused countless miscommunications, tainted results, and has managed to give even more strength to an already overrated rock. The shoot is useless and im glad it doesnt exist over here.

I know your probably all thinkging that this sounds wierd and Chinese. At first I would have agreed with you, but now I have to admit that I kinda like it. I uesd to say "paper scissors stone" only in class to avoid the confusion amongst kids as to what this rock thing is and why it comes before everything else while secretly laughing to myself over their ignorance. Now I see my own ignorance, and choose to say paper scissors stone, out of respect for the culture I am living in and also out of respect for what is probably a better "shootless" version of the game. I know that I will probably get made fun of by everyone except for maybe Shaggy when I get home, when unconciously I say paper scissors stone, but its ok I can accept that. It takes time to realize that things arent always done exactly the same all over the world. Sometimes they may surprise you by being a little bit better.