Janken

Last night I won $200 (20,000円) playing Rock, Paper, Scissors.

Except that’s absurd, and there’s no way you could ever win $200 playing Rock, Paper, Scissors.

I won the money playing Janken, which on initial inspection looks like the Japanafication of Rock, Paper, Scissors. However, it differs on some fundamental level that makes it entirely feasible for someone to win money at it.

In Japan Janken is the great equalizer. The kids seem to play it from the time they learn to walk, freeing up their hands for all of the spasmodic, epic flailing about required by the game. And once they’re old enough to play it, they seem to immediately start using it to settle disputes, in much the same way that we’d flip a coin in Canada or have an arbiter choose a number between 1 and 10.

I most often see janken getting used to settle who gets the leftovers from school lunch. All the students who are interested in a given part of lunch stand up, and they all janken off furiously for it. And “furiously” is the best word for the way Japanese students go about janken. It’s a full body sport, from my first graders who flail their hands or hop up and down excitedly as they wind up, to my fifth graders who strike elaborate poses mid-janken, throwing their handsigns like punches.

These very fifth graders nearly tore down the classroom today as we had an English lesson mostly centered on janken, poorly disguised as a lesson on “how many?”. And the best way that question could have been phrased for the lesson would be “how many of your classmates did you destroy?”. The noise and action of 25 fifth graders throwing down janken in English, Canadian (Suu-Sum-See!), Chinese, Korean, and Chinese was like the wind up to Armageddon. In all the violent throwing of handsigns, energetic posturing mid-game, and ecstatic fist-pumping at victory, I’m surprised more kids didn’t get clocked or plowed through desks and chairs in all the action. The kids were out for blood, and I had to bellow over the discord to reign them in at the end of the janken portion of the lesson.

The reason the kids throw so much of themselves into the game is also one of the main reasons janken is so very different from the western Rock, Paper, Scissors:

It is indisputable.

Regardless of the outcome of a round of janken, the decisions holds and never seems to be questioned. There is no “he cheated!”; there is no “best two out of three?”. Once you have janken-ed over it, it is decided. I saw this most keenly when I stepped up to fight for leftovers with one of my elementay classes, only to win and be forbidden to share my spoils with the runner up: the teacher informing be that janken is “Japanese law.”

When you’re talking about janken, luck never enters into the discussion. When you win at janken, it is because you are strong. When you’re beaten at janken, it’s like being bested in an arm wrestle. The game holds a bearing on this society that is ridiculous, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see business men resorting to covert hand signs to overcome commercial impasses; hung juries throwing rock, paper, scissors around to sort out their differences, the judge never batting an eye when told that they came to the decision by janken.

It’s in this world that you can win $200 at Rock, Paper, Scissors; in this world that your boss will marvel at your ability for the achievement.