rock paper scissors illustration – Image from various sources. Any complaints related to copyright please contact us
Bolong.id – Scissors, Stone, Paper suits are quite legendary suits in Indonesia and the world. This suit has been very popular for a long time and usually this suit is made to decide or determine something. This suit besides being so popular in Indonesia, also popular in some other countries.
Reported in Intangible Heritage IP Center on (18/01/2022), the origin of the rock paper scissors suit is from Asia. It is known that, this suit is described in a book written by Xie Zhaozhe (谢肇淛), he was a writer in the Ming Dynasty. In the book, it is written that this suit game has existed since the Han Dynasty (206 BC to 220 AD).
At first, this game was called “shoushiling”. Not rock paper scissors either, but frogs, snails, and snakes. Likewise in Japan, this game was originally called “sansukumi-ken” in Japan, where the choices were also a frog (represented by the thumb), a snail (represented by the little finger), and a snake (represented by the index finger).
For the mention of scissors, paper, rock was originally coined by Japan and his nickname is “Janken”. Then immediately down the modern version, namely “Rock, Paper, Scissors”. Hand games that use movements represent three opposing elements, namely, scissors, stone, paper.
Then in the early 20th century, this rock-paper-scissor suit spread beyond Asia. This is influenced by Japan’s contacts with the Western world. therefore the name used in this game is a translation from Japan, namely “Rock, Paper, Scissors”.
Then this game spread to America. In America the game is called Rochambeau. Some stories claim Rochambeau comes from the names “Ro,” “Cham,” and “Beau” meant to represent rock, paper, and scissors.