Old Man's Play - Fading and the Fading Childhood Games

Author: He Chengbin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-10-01
Features: Jump Rope
In middle school, I was the physical education monitor in my class. During PE class, Teacher Xu often took a group of boys for sports while leaving the girls in my care, asking me to coach them in passing and shooting. I had very thin skin and would blush whenever I saw girls, and coaching them was almost unbearable—I would get so nervous my hands and feet would go cold. The girls completely ignored the shy male "coach" and made my life a misery.
"Girls are good at jump rope. Why don’t you join them?" One day, Teacher Xu handed me a bundle of ropes. I had never jumped rope before and thought it was just a girls' game. Clearly, Teacher Xu was putting me on the spot! I said I didn’t want to be the physical education monitor anymore, but he had already taken the boys out to play basketball and hadn’t heard me.
With no choice, I told the girls, "Today, let’s all jump rope." The girls must have known I couldn’t, and a few mischievous ones immediately said, "Monitor, please show us how to jump rope so we can learn from you." I replied, "You can’t jump rope? It’s something everyone knows how to do—what’s there to learn?"
The girls insisted I demonstrate, so I picked up the rope and started jumping. They all counted together, "One, two, three…" Before they even got to five, I’d tripped over the rope. The girls burst into laughter, drawing the attention of the boys nearby, who turned to see what was happening. The PE teacher came over and asked what was going on. I told him I didn’t want to take the girls out to play. The PE teacher glanced at the girls and said, "Don’t cause trouble and follow the rules. Anyone who doesn’t listen to the physical education monitor will be punished!" With that, he turned and walked back toward the boys.
The girls were amazing at jump rope—almost all of them were experts. They jumped rapidly, and the rope moved so fast it was hard to see. One girl was jumping when suddenly another ducked into her arms, still jumping the rope. The girls especially loved group jump rope, where two girls swung a long rope while the others took turns jumping one by one, or even two, three, or five at a time. I reluctantly joined them, and the girls all shouted, "One, two, three…" To my surprise, I managed to jump over fifty times, earning them a round of approving applause.
In my memory, the girls’ greatest skill was jump rope. Years later, when I started dating, I discovered my girlfriend could also jump rope. She said her main activity as a child was jump rope and kicking shuttlecocks, and that even this simple and easy-to-learn activity isn’t as popular now. Later, after I got married and had a daughter, she was in middle school and wasn’t as good at jump rope as I was. I told her, "None of the girls in our class can’t jump rope." But her response left me speechless: "Can the girls in your class play online games? There’s even a jump rope game online now."