La la li la tam pong

Discussions on the Hokkien (Minnan) language.
Eng Wai

La la li la tam pong

Post by Eng Wai »

When I was small (even now), I always play a childish game called "la la li la tam pong". We normally use this to eliminate people from a group, for some purpose, eg to decide who got excempted from punishment/obligation etc, or to determine who will get the benefit.

For instance, 5 people are playing

We will say
*************La la li la tam pong

while saying this sentence, everyonge sways their palm to the left and right. When pong is said, everyone shows their palms, either facing down or up. If 4 show palms facing up, then the only 1 will be eliminated and game continuesd. If there is no unique person, continue the game with 5 people.

Then we will say
**************A pek chiak a pong
Same game rules apply. Eliminate the person if he is unique.

Then
**************A pong chi no hai

Then
**************A pek chiak gau sai

The song/poem/whatever has this 4 sentence.

Do you know what they mean? Pardon me for my own romanised version of hokkien.

La la li la tam pong
A pek chiak a pong
A pong chi no hai
A pek chiak gau sai

I know
a pek = an man about uncle age
a pong = mamak famous flour bread
chiak gau sai = eat dog ****

How about the others? Do you know what they mean? Or do I pronounce wrongly? Can you correct me?

Eng Wai
hong

Re: La la li la tam pong

Post by hong »

I just saw a malay show about cooking called ala-ala kampung which used la la li tam pong at the end of the show.I also interested to know is lalitapong is a malay or minnan?
Tang Loon Kong

Re: La la li la tam pong

Post by Tang Loon Kong »

Hai Eng Wai

I remember the la la li la tam pong as this:

La La Li La Tam Pong
Ah Pek Beh Ah Pong .............(Ah sells apong)
Ah Pong Lin Lok Hai ............ (The apongs fall into the sea)
Ah Pek Chiak Kau Sai ............(Ah Pek has nothing to eat . . i.e. eat dog ****)

This poem brings out the embededness of Hokkien language into the host countries that it had been given a place in.

Tang Loon Kong
Shanghai, China
Eng Wai

Re: La la li la tam pong

Post by Eng Wai »

Ya, it should be

La1 La1 Li4 La1 Tam3 Pong1
Ah3 Pek3 BEIH3 Ah3 Pong1
Ah1 Pong ??? Lok3 Hai4
Ah3 Pek3 Chiak3 Kau1 Sai4

The tones are the approximate Mandarin tones but indeed the sound is nearly the same of you pronounce it in Mandarin tones.

It should be Beih (sell) for the second sentence.
I can't recall clearly what is the third word for the third sentence, probably Lin as A Tang said. I will verify it later with my firend.

For the frist sentence, Tam might be wet, Pong be the flour bread, the 4th La be the la1 (pull in Mandarin), which indicate the making of the flour bread. Then La La Li is just sound for fun.

!?

Hong, what did yuo mean "used la la li tam pong at the end of the show"?

Eng Wai

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hong

Re: La la li la tam pong

Post by hong »

They used as an intro- lalilatampong than follow by malay song.this is why I am wondering is that a malay or minnan.I think you should ask are there any malay out there also singing lalalitampong.
Eng Wai

Re: La la li la tam pong

Post by Eng Wai »

Another game for interest

"som3 tri4" (mandarin tone)

Everybody knows scissors stone cloth (jian dao shi tou bu). "som tri" is similat to this but scissors are replaced by cup (instead of showing 2 fingers, 5 fingers are shown with the heads touching each other). And cloth is not cloth, but sea.

I played this game when I was small. The game rules are same as scissors stone cloth with cup defeating sea, sea defeating stone, stone defeating cup.

I wonder if this is an exclusive Penang game, or hokkien game, or whatever, because when I was in KL (capital of Malaysia) no one seems to know this game. What I observe is that a lot of people, including China Chinese know the scissors cloth stone game.

Do yo know "som tri" this game? If you do, do you know the meaning of it?

Happy New Year

Eng Wai
Eng Wai

Re: La la li la tam pong

Post by Eng Wai »

I am just trying to push this thread above all to gain more attentions from everyone.

Do you know this game "som tri"?

Eng Wai
Andrew Yong

Re: La la li la tam pong

Post by Andrew Yong »

I always thought it was "buys" rather than sells. You cannot distinguish tones in singing.

I thought the word was "tim" as in throw. Maybe someone else threw them into the sea.
Eng Wai

Re: La la li la tam pong

Post by Eng Wai »

Do you sing "La la li la tam pung" ? I always chant it only, never sing it. The word "beih" is quite clear to be "sell", not buy.

Do you know thw game "som tri"? Anyone else knows it? Can't be that I am the only one who knows it.
Sim

Re: La la li la tam pong

Post by Sim »

Don't worry Eng Wai - the "game" you mention was very common in my youth. I never heard it called "som tri" though. We always called it "one two som". Even when speaking Chinese, we would call it this. The name comes from the action itself. When two people are trying to determine who is the "winner" and "loser", then they hide their hands behind their head and both say out loudly together: "one", "two", and on the word "som" both players have to display their chosen symbol.

As in your case, we had "cup" (5 fingers bunched up at the fingertips), "stone" (a fist), and "sea" (the flat palm of the hand): "stone" defeats "cup" because it can break it, "cup" defeats "sea" because it can scoop water out of it, and "sea" defeats "stone" because a stone falling into the sea is lost. This seemed perfectly logical to me as a child (although it seems a bit odd to me now).

I'd like to add some comments to this whole discussion.

1) Neither "la la li" nor "one two som" were games *in themselves*. Rather, they were used (at the beginning of a game) as the means to determine who had to be "it". Like in the case of "chase" (which we called "a ci lot" or "a ci lut"), the person who had to be the chaser was determined with these methods; or in the case of "hide and seek" (I don't remember what we called this), the person who had to close his/her eyes and count to 50 was also selected in this way.

2) In determining who was "it", *both* "la la li" and "one two som" had to be used. This is because "one two som" can only determine the winner and loser from 2 people. When there are 3 or more people playing a game, first "la la li" was used to eliminate people: the whole group would stand in a circle and chant "la la li etc". [In my memory, we would wave our outstretched hands in the centre of the circle]. On the word "pong", each person would display either a palm upwards or a palm downwards. The "odd one out" (i.e. the person who had his/her palm up (or down) when all the others had their palm down (or up)) would be eliminated. Often there would be no single "odd one out", so the whole "la la li etc" would have to be repeated. Statistically though, it happens often enough that from a group of 4-6 people (the usual size of such children's groups) one will have a different palm-direction than all the others, so in this way, gradually, individuals would be eliminated, one by one, until there were only two people left. With two people, obviously "la la li" doesn't work any more, so then they switch to "one two som", and the final loser is "it".

Cheers,
Sim.

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