Translation

The following is a FAQ taken from the Japanese site www.janken.com. This site flourished during the jankenpon boom of the 80's. Unfortunately it is now long dead; some pointless and trivial realtor's homepage (or something equally banal) now occupies the 'janken' domain name. How ephemeral and vain a thing is Mankind!

www.janken.com was almost the only place on the web that attempted to collect together detailed Jan Ken Pon information in a readable form. I doubt that whoever wrote the content will mind me presenting a rough translation of his work for posterity -- so here it is:

Janken Q&A

What is the basic meaning of the term 'janken'?

The Koujien (a major Japanese dictionary) defines 'janken' as:
A type of ken in which one makes a fist for rock, flattens the palm for paper, and extends the first two fingers to represent scissors. Scissors beats paper, paper stone, and stone scissors, and this may be played competitively or used to decide what order people will do something in. Also called ishiken (rock ken).

What does 'ken' mean?

Originally, in China, ken meant 'fist', 'grip', 'force', or 'strike'. This is why kenpou (a martial art) is called a ken. On the other hand, a game in which victory was decided by the shape of the extended hand together with a number was also called ken. Investigating still further, it seems that this usage of ken somehow appeared in the Sung period. The origin of ken, and the activities and popular beliefs with which it's spread were associated, are unknown. However, it is thought to have been concieved as a competitive game, or else a form of gambling.

Although with the passing of the ages many ken games arose, it is the one called honken (original ken) that was spread to Japan. It is therefore this ken that can be called the root of janken.

About when did 'honken' reach Japan?

According to Shogakukan's 'Nihonkokugodaijiten' dictionary, ken arrived in Kyuushuu in 1642, spread to the Osaka area by around the Edo period, and spread to Edo (now Tokyo) by about the Kyouhou period (i.e. about the 1720s). Because it first arrived in Nagasaki, it was sometimes called 'nagasakiken' or 'kiyouken' (Kiyou being the old name for Nagasaki).

How was 'honken' played?

It was played between two people, each of whom would simultaneously extend 0 to 5 fingers of one hand, and at the same time predict the total number of fingers. Whoever correctly predicted the number of fingers shown was the winner.

Originally, this was a game played in drinking places and red-light districts, only between adults. It was played as a drinking game, in which the loser would have to take a drink.

Afterwards, various kens were created. Willow-ken, tail-up ken, deep-river ken, strip ken, circular ken, hand-up ken, follow-me ken, blindfold ken, and fists-together ken were among the gesture-based ken that appeared. (My translation of the names of these many obscure games is probably not very useful).

Then how did 'janken' come to be?

What is called 'janken' comes from the 'guu, choki, paa' or 'rock, scissors, paper' sansukumi way of thinking. Sansukumi is expounded in the book called the Kan'inshi, which describes how the snake fears the slug, the slug the frog, and the frog the snake. Each of the three parties holds the others in check, so that the three cannot move -- in short, the same relationship as between rock, paper, and scissors. When this idea propagated to the honken and other ken games, games like janken resulted. The jankens of the Edo period included shouyaken and mushiken (village-headman ken and insect ken).

Shouyaken, also called fox-ken, was played with the village-headman, musket, and fox symbols. Village-headman was indicated by sitting in a dignified manner, as if in the seat of honor. Musket was represented by miming carrying a musket in both hands. Fox was indicated by holding up both fists at an angle -- in other words, gestures were made with the whole body. The rules were that the headman beat the gun, the gun beat the fox, and the fox beat the headman.

Mushiken was played with the snake, frog and slug symbols. Snake (thumb) beat frog (index finger), which beat slug (ring finger), and slug beat snake. Mushiken was a children's game, whereas shouyaken was played after brief dancing and singing, accompanied by the samisen, by adults in their tatami rooms. (Does this mean it was like musical chairs? Maybe someone can translate it better.)

After this, many and varied jankens appeared, and it is thought that the modern day 'guu, choki, paa' janken appeared too.

Then Japanese soil is the cradle of the guu-choki-paa system?

This may sound like a contradiction, but actually there are many, many theories in existance. As well as the theory that the sansukumi based janken was devised in Japan, there is also the theory that a tradition handed down from China metamorphosed into janken. And it is certainly true that guu-choki-paa, in other words using the fingers and palm to imitate rock, paper, and scissors, is done in many countries outside Japan. It is therefore impossible to give a definitive answer.

What kinds of jankenpon exist outside Japan?

For example, in Korea janken is called 'Kai bai bo', where kai is scissors, bai is rock, and bo is cloth or paper, and the gestures and rules are exactly the same as in Japan. In Thailand, janken is exactly the same as in Japan but called 'Janjii'.

In India and Indonesia, and on Bali, janken is played with elephant, human and ant, where elephant beats human and human beats ant.

In China janken is the same as in Korea, except that sometimes guu is 'hammer' and paa is 'bomb'.

Moreover, the Cantonese people of China play not a sansukumi but a gosukumi game. The symbols are god, chicken, gun, fox, and termite. God is the thumb, chicken the index finger, gun the middle finger, fox the ring finger, and termite the little finger. The sukumi relationships are like this: with God and Chicken, chicken is sacrificed to god and thus loses. With God and Gun, the gun introduces people to god(?) and thus God wins. The termite eats the God's statue, and thus wins. The gun defeats the chicken. The fox defeats the chicken too. The chicken defeats the termite. The gun defeats the fox. Other than that, the god and the fox are good freinds, as are the gun and termite, and the fox and termite take no notice of each other, so these symbols tie with each other. According to these rules, the god and gun are strongest, and the chicken weakest.

The Malaysian 'Wan Shi Zan' janken is connected with this gosukumi. In this janken, pistol defeats everything except water, and bird loses to everything except water. Stone defeats bird and plank, and loses to pistol and water. Plank defeats bird and water, loses to stone and pistol. Water defeats stone and pistol. Bird loses to plank. Because not all throws have the same strength, these games feel very strange to those used to sansukumi games.

In addition, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Myanmar and Laos, within Asia, have various janken variants. Beyond Asia, the English-speaking world has 'scissors-paper-rock' or 'stone-scissors-paper', which is just the same as scissors, paper, stone janken. However, janken is not as commonplace there as in the various countries of Asia, and essentially Asia may be considered the heartland of janken. In Europe and America, instead of janken people often throw a coin in the air and guess which way up it will land. The principle at work is thus not sansukumi but a binary either/or.

Origin of the word 'janken'

One theory is that 'janken' comes from 'jakuken' (stone kanji + ken) or from 'ryanken' ('both' kanji + ken). However, it might also come from the Buddhist expression 'ryakenhoui', once uttered when making a decision to obtain the guidance of Buddha. 'Pon' may simply be a mimetic word indicating decisiveness, or it may be derived from a mahjongg term. There is also the possibility that it derives from the pronunciation (at some point in history) of the Chinese word for 'cloth', which was the third throw in the Chinese system. It seems clear that the exact origin of this word will never be definitely known.