Hi everyone, this is Alan from Austin, Texas. I met Ta0 at the Austin JuggleFest this past weekend and he introduced me to this forum. Glad to be here! Short intro: I am a native Taiwanese from Fongshan, now I’m studying Electrical Engineering at UT Austin. I saw from previous posts that there’re some interest in Taiwanese tops so I thought I’d share what I know.
Here is my little collection:
I got all these around when I was in first grade in Taiwan (2000~2001) when my grandpa taught me how to spin it on the ground. The top second from the left was the one that was most common in “school supply” stores everywhere. As of now, the most common one I see in stores is the one third from the left. The first four are made of solid wood, the fifth one I believe is plastic. The last one is made out of glass! When it was new, LEDs on the top of the top would light up when you spin it. As you can see I already cracked glass and the LEDs no longer work.
From previous posts, I know you guys know that there’re “top clubs” at schools in Taiwan, with the most famous team from Mei-Hua Elementary School. My elementary school didn’t have a top team, but two other schools in my district did. However, I do not know if they still do today… the children population is decreasing rapidly in Taiwan. Anyway, it’s unfortunate that I don’t see people play with tops on the streets anymore. Back in my grandpa’s generation, tops was a very common toy children played with and battle; in fact, most of them make their own! My grandpa was one of those kids (he was born in 1930s under Japanese rule).
If you’re interested, here is how he made tops:
- Find hard wood. The harder the better, or your top would break or crack when you battle with other tops. The most common wood they’d use was from the trunk of “Longan”.
- Cut and shape the top with a blade. This process usually takes multiple days.
- Dig a small hole on the bottom of the top with a nail for the tip to be inserted later.
- Find a tip. My grandpa said this is by far the hardest part. He said people commonly look for square nail heads for the tip (instead of round tips used today) for the string to grip better when you battle. The good news is, if your top breaks, you can always collect the tip and reuse it.
- Soak the top in water in preparation to insert the tip. Apparently if you hammer in the tip when the wood is dry, the entire top would crack.
- Hammer in the tip.
- Optional: Sharpen the tip for battling.
As you can imagine there aren’t standard sizes for those handmade tops. They can range from just 3cm to 10+cm in diameter.
There’re multiple ways to play tops with your friends. The easiest was to compare how long your top can stay spinning. The second game is top battling. This game is nowhere to be seen today. Only people over ~50 years old played this. I am glad my grandpa passed it on to me. The traditional name for the game is pronounced Ding-Gan-Log in Taiwanese; the literal translation is “Hammer Top”. Here’re the rules, it is very similar to a game of marbles:
Prep:
- Draw a circle/ring in the sand.
- Each player puts an agreed amount of tops into the ring as the “starting bid”.
Then, each player takes turn smashing the tops in the ring in hopes to knock tops out of the ring. In each turn, you gain tops (and you get to keep it) if you managed to knock tops out of the ring. Of course, you can lose tops too. You’d lose a top (and it gets placed in the ring) if:
- Your top did not land inside the ring. (bad at aiming?)
- Your top stopped spinning after landing. (this is why square nails for maximum grip is crucial)
- Your top stops inside the ring. (This happens very often on sand)
The game ends when there’re no more tops in the ring.
As you can probably imagine, they’d use lots of force to throw the tops. This is why the game is called “Hammer Top”. With the tips made out of sharp nails, the top landing in the sand looks like someone hammered a nail. Oh, also bonus points if you’re able to break someone else’s top in the process.
It’s hard to find a video of this game, since no one plays it anymore, but I managed to find a video of two old men reminiscing their childhood game here, while describing the rules to bystanders:
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They’re playing on concrete in this video, but usually the game is played on sand.
Maybe next time at a festival we should play a game of traditional Taiwanese “Top Hammering”
That’s it for now. Anything unclear above or anything questions about Taiwan feel free to ask me. I also speak fluent Mandarin and Taiwanese, so if anyone needs a video translation…etc. Let me know. I’m so glad I’m introduced to this great community!
