A game of rock, paper, scissors (RPS) is an acknowledged way of settling a friendly dispute, often seen as a more sophisticated alternative to tossing a coin. It appears a deceptively simple game, two players facing each other and simultaneously making one of three hand gestures, a closed fist representing “rock”, a flat hand “paper” and a fist with the index and middle fingers extended “scissors”. The player selecting rock will win if their opponent has chosen scissors but will lose to paper. Scissors will beat paper and if the players make the same selection, the game will be drawn.
Citing a reference in a 16th century book by Xie Zhaozhi, the World Rock Paper Scissors Association trace RPS’s origins to a game called shoushiling or “hand command” played during the Chinese Han Dynasty (206BC to 220AD). By the 17th century, a version of the game called mushi-ken had reached Japan where the thumb represented a frog, the little finger a slug, and the index finger a snake. The slug triumphed over the frog but lost to the snake while the frog beat the snake.
The direct forerunner of RPS is Janken, a Japanese game, which used the now familiar rock, paper, and scissors gestures and grew increasingly popular in the 19th century. In a Malaysian version a bird replaced scissors and water paper with water beating rock as it makes it sink, a bird overcoming water which it drinks and a rock crushing the bird. In Indonesia a variant uses an elephant, indicated by a slightly raised thumb, and a human and an ant, signified by outstretched index and little fingers respectively. The ant frightens the elephant but is crushed by the human who, in turn, loses to the elephant.
It was not until the early 20th century that the game reached the West, a letter in The Times in 1924 describing a game of “zhot” which resembled what we know as RPS, claiming it to be of Mediterranean origin. This misconception was soon rectified by another correspondent who identified it as Jan-ken-pon, a game which they had seen played throughout Japan. This exchange suggests that RPS was relatively unknown at the time in Britain, at least to readers of “The Thunderer”.
The French children’s magazine, La Vie au patronage, described the game in 1927, calling it a “jeu japanois” while in America the 1933 edition of Compton’s Pictured Encyclopaedia noted that what it transcribed as John Kem Po was a common method of settling disputes amongst Japanese children. “This is such a good way of deciding an argument” it proclaimed “that American boys and girls might like to practice (sic) it too”.
But is it just a random game of chance or are there strategies that can be deployed that increase the potential of success? We will find out next week.
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