Traditional Culture Encyclopedia - Traditional stories - The origin of rock, paper, scissors and cloth is

The origin of rock, paper, scissors and cloth is

Rock, Paper, Scissors, Cloth, is a guessing game. Originated in China, then spread to Japan, Korea and other places, with the continuous development of Asia-Europe trade it spread to Europe, in modern times gradually popular in the world.

Origin and history:

"Rock, Paper, Scissors, Cloth" originated from the Chinese invention of the guessing game, which has been played in China since the Han Dynasty, while no other country has the soil and history to produce this game. There is no record of "rock, paper, scissors" in the West at all prior to its interaction with Asia, and Western writers of the late 19th century refer to it explicitly as an Asian game.

"Rock, paper, scissors, scissors" as a form of guessing has been documented in China for a long time. The All-Tang Dynasty Poetry recorded a poem, "The Order of Beckoning Hands," which vividly depicts a similar game in metaphorical terms. According to the book "Five Miscellaneous Groups" compiled by the Ming Dynasty's Xie Zhaozhe, the tradition of guessing can be traced back to the Han Dynasty's Hand Signs Order. Ming Li Rihua's Six Research Zhai Notebook contains the cloud: "The common drink, with the fingers flexed and stretched to wrestle with each other, called the exempted fist, also known as the exempted finger." In the Ming and Qing novels, more records. Dream of Red Mansions" 63rd written cloud: "each other have three wine, they will guess boxing to win singing a little song." In the 109th episode of Water Margin, it is written: "Guessing fists and fingers are exempted, and big bowls of wine are eaten." Zhao Yi, a Qing dynasty person, has a poem "old fist boom thumb array, riddles fight lots of theater".

Chinese and Koreans generally call it "rock, paper, scissors". The Japanese call it "rock, scissors, paper", which is similar to the way it is called in the Americas and Europe.

This fact shows that "rock, scissors, paper" was introduced from China to Japan, and then from Japan to Europe and America in the 19th century.