charades

Charades is called "bi3 sho3 hua4 jiao3" in Chinese .

Last Friday, after the dumpling and Taiwanese rice noodle party, me, Kai, Erik, Tracy, and some testers played this game tegether. Amused to see how people from different countries acting out the words using various gestures and movements which are underminingly affected by their cultures or how they were brought up.

For example, Kai, the half American & half German & resident in France, placed one arm near his nose and raised up that arm to act out "An Elephant", whereas I, the Taiwanese, used two hands, placing my right thumb and point finger on my nose to form a circle in front of my chest and then my left arm streching out of this circle to form "An Elephant"! Do elephants look different in Taipei/Newcastle or New York/Boston/Paris?

How about the next... when Kai used two arms to round a circle in front of his belly and then bent aback his waist, Kenji the Japanese suddendly shouted "fat" and then "American"... the answer is......

Santa Clause!!!

Okay, okay, I was also teased for acting out "The Berlin Wall" and "Skiier"...

Plus, it's very interesting to see how quickly people guessed the correct answers. Erik and Tracy the couple always easily shouted out correct answers from each other's acting. Amazingly, I could quickly get the right answer from Kai's. This guy was soooooo kind to comment that it must result from my watching his behaviour closely! ha! seemed he could quickly guess mine too... anyway, in this case, how people think seems not affected by nationality and culture... interesting...

Playing this game was with loads of fun... we laughed out loud when the presenter kept using the same but audience-didn't-understand-at-all guesture or movement to act out the words. The presenter also laughed when audiences kept shouting out his/her every moverments, especially when Kai's acting... "uhh...touching his head, touching his face, uhh... thinking, wondering, ..." For one moment, I seemed to see a 12-year-old boy with a navy blue shirt, bursting out laughing with a sunshine-like face, wondering nothing and worrying nothing...