英語で日記(6/10) 今日は鬼ごっこをして遊びました。

10 June 2010, Playing in the park, tag of a candle

As my son found a park in my neighborhood, he's got his teeth into playing with elder school boys.

Yesterday also at dusk, I went there carrying my baby with my 5 year-old son in a sling of front. It was mild climate, the best time to be outside.

These days, my older son's favorite seems to be play tag even though he doesn't seem to fully understand the game. This time they played "Rousoku Oni", meaning tag of a candle. The rule is this. When a tagger runs and touches a non-tagger, the non-tagger will become an imitated candle raising both arms above the head. When another non-tagger huffs to the freezing candle, he can move again.

Every time we go to the park, who meet us are different. But they hail us friendly and play together. I appreciate it and have a good time. We went home at six o'clock. That has become the rule of kids including us.

語い

はまる　get one's teeth into
長男 eldest son, oldest son
鬼ごっこをする play tag
鬼 tagger
息を吹く huff
歓迎する hail
習慣 rule

Let me introduce one tag we often play in my church. This is "Mosquito Tag". One or two "mosquitoes" (taggers) chase other "humans". If a human is tagged, they feel so itchy that they have to squat. To save them, two human (saviors) have to get together around them, and put them "kinkan" by saviors' making circle around them and squat a few times, calling "kinkan, kinkan, kinkan", and they're set free.

If any human survives by the time limit, human win, and if the mosquitoes catch all human before that, they win.

That was such an amusing tag. I've never heard of the name, either when I was a child or now. Kinkan sounds nice for a play thing. Our rousoku oni (Candle tag) has been heard since my son entered the kindergarten. I think there're various kinds of tags across the country. Thank you for your information. It was nice talking with you.

[ごん]

私が子供の頃は「たすけ鬼」…捕まった人は所定の場所で手をつないで助けを待つ。屋外だと「缶蹴り」が全盛でした。
小一の息子に聞いてみると、「こおり鬼」「増え鬼」なんて話していましたよ。
身近に近所の子供たちと遊べる環境があるのは、良いですね。

>>ごんさんへ。そういえば、缶けりやたすけ鬼、ありましたね！！！ 思い出しました。昔は一定の種類のものしかなかったですが、最近の子供たちの鬼ごっこが多彩になっているのを感じます。また増え鬼は初めて聞きましたが鬼が増えるとなると思うとこれも面白いですね。こちら長岡は気軽に話しかけてくる人が多いようです。