These old toys resemble how life was like back in the old days. The toys tell us that Singapore back then was not that advanced. The children had wooden or non-technological games then. The artifacts were made of raw materials such as feathers and others were used from simple things like plastic or natural environment likes the sand as the marbles' play pit.
Chapteh, marbles and "kuti-kuti" were the most common childhood games.
For chapteh, my parents used to play it with friends. During play, various parts of the body (except for the hands) are used to keep the chapteh from touching the ground. It is mainly to use your leg, especially the feet, to kick the chapteh and keep it from touching the ground. Friends competed to see who could keep the chapteh in the air for the longest time.
Marbles is also a popular game in the past. The game starts by drawing a circle in the sand with two boundary lines. Players will take turns knocking the pooled marbles out of the circle with their own marble. The winner will be the one who knocked out the most marbles from the marble pool in the circle or eliminate his opponent's marble from the game. This game requires accuracy and throwing skill to control the play of the game.
The final game is called “kuti-kuti”. The game involves two colourful plastic pieces, usually animal shaped, and the objective is to get your token on top of your opponent’s token. The game takes accuracy as you need to flick the token properly to win the game. The winner takes the opponent’s token.
These childhood games were very much enjoyed by my seniors but due to globalisation, these old games have been obsolete. The artefacts therefore prove that Singapore was a poor and undeveloped country in the old days.
Although undeveloped, Singapore back then had more fun time and had less stress as compared to current times.
