Chinlon
Description: Chinlon : burma's national game
The following selections appeared, in The Guardian Magazine (August, 1960) and in Forward (August 1, 1964).
Chinlon, sometimes called the poor man's game because it requires no special or forbidding outlay for equipment, is Burma's national game. Authorities on the subject have yet to decide whether chinlon originated as long ago as ancient Prome (seventh century A.D.) or as recently as the reign of King Pagan in the nineteenth century. A hundred years ago, it was the national game of note, played for the amusement or the king by royal attendants attired in crimson and velvet with their silken lower garments tucked up neatly to display and facilitate the graceful legwork of the game.
The common people also played chinlon after the day's work, in the cool of the evening, in both town and country. With the loss of national sovereignty and the fusion of foreign cultural influences, chinlon lost pride of place as the premier group game of the country. Having little to offer in the way of the glamour and excitement that are usually associated with most of the games played in Western countries, chinlon lost out to them.
Efforts to promote the game began in 1918 with featured competitions, followed by the formation of chinlon associations and training courses for chinlon referees from all the districts of Burma. In 1962 and in 1963, district representatives met together at Aung San Stadium and established standard rules for the game. They organized the All-Burma Chinlon Association and hope to make chinlon once again a popular sport.
The chinlon, or caneball, is made of six pieces of smoothly cut cane, interwoven to form a ball with equidistant holes about an inch and a half across. The current, standard-size chinlon measures sixteen inches in circumference. The best chinlon on the market does not cost more than about K 5 or $1.
The late lamented U Ah Yein, Deputy Director of Posts and Telegraphs, who during his lifetime was chairman of the Burma Amateur Chinlon Federation and gave many exhibitions to audiences in Europe as well as Burma, describes the game in this way.
Solo or Group Game
The game can be played singly and can as well be a collective one played by a group numbering as many as seven or eight. Generally, six makes a good and enjoyable team. The team stands in a circle, the players standing three or four feet apart from one another.
Solos are usually played by experts or professionals in shows and exhibitions. In team games, the combined footwork of the players is seen as the chinlon is passed from one player to another. "Give and take" policy is reciprocally observed throughout, while for the successful performance of various difficult and skillful strokes, concentration of mind and body is an essential factor, in addition to anticipation and activity.
The games can be played indoors and outdoors and at all seasons and by all ages. For a form of healthy exercise where strenuous exertion is not desired nor unhappy atmosphere from temper and excitement, chinlon is one of the games to be recommended.
No Hands
The idea of the game is to keep the chinlon in the air as long as possible by footwork; no hands are allowed. By foot-work is meant the use of the instep, the outer and inner sides of the foot, the sole, the heel, and the knee in the kicking or lobbing of the chinlon. The kicks may be called strokes, and they are various according to the nature of the elements used and the position and angle of the chinlon coming in the front, sides, and back of the player. While the primary rule of the game is not to drop the chinlon to the ground, the essence or beauty of the game is to display difficult and skillful strokes (tricks) in so keeping up the chinlon in the air. There is no stricture whatever as to when a particular kind of stroke must or must not be used; it is a matter left entirely to one's convenience and skillfulness.
There are standard rules laid down for making points in competition games. Each competing team plays its own allotted time in turn. Various kinds of front and back strokes are classified according to their nature, and points are given on a graduated scale according to the lesser or greater number of players successively playing the nominated strokes in rotation. Minuses are made for the drops and the violation of boundaries. The boundary is a circle twenty-one feet in diameter.
The Strokes
There are ten different kinds of chin-gyi (first-class strokes) prescribed by the Burma Amateur Chinlon Federation. Two examples show something of the skills a player must develop.
Unseen stroke (chin-pyauk): In performing this stroke, the player does not look at the chinlon throughout its semi-circular orbit around him. As the chinlon passes over his head, he performs his stroke with a sense of timing without further looking at the chinlon. This unseen stroke, or apyauk, has been classified into apyauk-kyi and apyauk-khale according to the range in distance the chinlon passes over the player's body.
Lower division stroke (cgin-galay): This is the modification of the ordinary stroke, namely, striking the chinlon with one foot while circling it with the other foot, striking the chinlon with one foot while placing the foot that does not strike above the foot that strikes, putting the chinlon between one's two feet and striking it with the lower foot or the foot at the back, whichever the case may be.
Book Title : WE THE BURMESE (Voices from Burma) Edited by Helen G.Trager