Khmer New Year Games

Khmer New Year is in a few weeks. New Year is a time when families come together to celebrate with food and drinks, as well as singing, dancing and a visit to the monasteries. They also play traditional games and strangers are welcomed to join in.

Khmer traditional games are to be played in the days leading up to and on New Year Days. A few are games to be played only on those days, while several others can be played at any gathering. The game of teanh prot (pulling the rope) is a game you might understand as tug-of-war. This is a ritual game to be played on the evening of the last day of New Year in the village square or on temple grounds. I wrote about teanh prot before. You can read it here.

The second game is my favorite, bos angkunh (throw angkunh). Angkunh is a vine tree grown in the northeastern part of the country. It consists of a large stem and contains large fruits. Each fruit has a few seeds that are circular and flat, the size of a kneecap. (Incidentally, angkunh is also the Khmer word for the kneecap.) As the fruit ripens, the seed becomes hard and smooth and turns a beautiful burgundy color. This seed is used to play bos angkunh.

There are two ways to play the game, the simple and the extended versions. The simple one consists of just throwing the angkunh seeds to hit the target angkunh seeds. The extended one adds five more stages to the throwing stage. Both versions end with the same penalty calls jous.

Players in this game are divided into two teams with the same number of people. Each team plants five seeds in a pyramid shape, representing Mount Meru, in the ground facing each other, between six to eight meters away. Both teams decide beforehand how many seeds they want to use as throwing seeds. They also decide which team throws first. Every member of each team is given a chance to throw the seeds. In the simple version, the “throwing team” throws the seeds in order to knock down the “planted seeds” of the other team one by one, leaving the middle seed (top of the pyramid) last. When the “throwing team” successfully knocks down all of the “planted seeds” and the other team cannot knock down all the seeds, the winner will get to jous (hit) the kneecaps of the losers. However, if the “throwing team” knocks down the middle seed before the other seeds, they will lose and vice versa. The jous is accomplished by holding one seed against the kneecap, and hitting it with the other seed using one hand; only kids are allowed both hands. If any member of the winning team fails to produce a clicking sound when hitting the loser’s kneecap, the losing team gets to hit back. And getting your kneecap hit by angkunh seeds can be quite painful.

The third game is called chaol chhoung or bos chhoung which means to throw chhoung. Chhoung is a piece of scarf rolled into a ball the size of a bare coconut and tied at the end to form a tail used for holding and throwing. This game is the most popular because it includes spontaneous dancing and singing duets. And since the duets are spontaneous, they can be flirty and playful.

This game is played the first night of New Year by two teams made up of males and females. Ten or 20 people make up each team, standing in two rows opposite each other. One team throws the chhoung to the other team. When the chhoung is caught, it will be rapidly thrown back to the first team. If someone is hit by the chhoung, that person moves to the other team and the whole team must dance to get the chhoung and their teammate back while the other team sings. If a gal has her eye on some guy, she can aim for him and sing a flirty song to get his attention and vice versa.

Khmers don’t really follow certain rituals involved in these games anymore. Teanh prot is played anywhere, anytime, and cutting off the rope at the end of the game is no longer performed. However, people do not play bos angkunh and chaol chhoung after New Year Days. If you ever find yourself in Cambodia around New Year days, join in a game or two.