Our
daughter Evie arrived home from school recently, breathless. This in
itself was not unusual because: A. She’s eight. There’s always something
dramatic happening. And B. She’s eight. She runs everywhere.
What was
different was the reason. From her school bag, with a flourish and a
“ta-daa”, she produced something so extraordinary, so unique, that I instantly
had to concede I had no idea what it was.
It
was a flat-ish bit of plastic about the size of her hand, with some sort of animal,
or Martian, or super hero, or thing, embossed on one side. It could’ve been a
medal, or a badge, or, I thought, a wind-up bath toy that had gone onto the
road and got run over.
“It’s
a smacker!” Evie said, adding the requisite “D’uh!” to illustrate how the world
had passed me by.
This
having propelled me no closer to enlightenment, Evie elaborated that it was
“the latest big thing” at school, that smackers had, in fact, taken over, and
that everyone was doing it. As a parent, I innately knew this included the cool
kids. I also knew I'd be dispatched to buy some, urgently.
We
all remember crazes sweeping our schools. And I don't want to sound like some
cranky old bugger who thinks all was better in his day, but the things that
grabbed our imaginations were – how would you say it? -- much much better. Crazes
are now more crazy. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be either.
After
consulting urbandictionary.com, I was relieved to learn Evie wasn’t using
“smackers” in one American slang context, and that the third grade hadn’t been
consumed by ecstasy. These smackers were of the weird but benign toy variety.
In a quirk of international schools in China, they came from South Korea.
The
point of them soon became clear to me. It was to annoy parents, by making as
much noise as possible. To achieve this, one player puts their smacker
lumpy-side down on the ground (or wooden floor, for maximum volume). The other
player then slams their smacker onto it, with the aim of flipping the first one
over.
If
it's flipped, natural selection would seem to dictate that the thrower wins
that smacker, and thus builds their collection. But of course natural
selection, like disappointment, is now illegal. The school quickly drafted legislation
to ensure smackers could not be played for keeps, lest it be seen as a form of
gambling.
Having
now studied it, in another unexpected bonus of parenthood, I will admit that
learning how to slam bits of plastic onto the ground, properly, is a skill. But
as a new-wave dad unmoved by old shibboleths of parenting, I will freely tell
the kids it's one of those things they'll never need in real life, like any of
the maths homework I can’t help with, or the much-overrated Pythagoras’ theorem.
On
this point have I clashed with my doctor wife. She’s more mathy and sciency
than me, or to use proper English, a nerd. I’m pretty sure she had a poster of
Pythagoras on her wall as a kid. She regards his theorem, which is different to
a theory in ways I also don’t understand, as reverentially as most people
regard “socks first, then shoes”. But
I’m sorry, in my everyday life I just don’t get confronted by that many
triangles, much less fret about how big they are. My mind boggles thinking
about what my wife’s patients must look like.
On
reflection, it’s clear that smackers are, in fact, better than Pythagoras’
theorem, in that they teach risk and reward. Noone ever lost by miscalculating
the sides of a triangle, unless it was once the subject of the world’s most
geeky bet.
A smacker, yesterday. As described, the latest craze in Beijing is a bit of plastic in the shape of a thing. |
This is what it would look like when one lands on another, if the author possessed one other "thing" -- a high-speed camera. |
![]() |
Pythagoras, the man who invented triangles. He might not be as good as smackers, but clearly by this picture he does deserve credit for inventing the Weber barbeque. |
At
least smackers could teach risk and
reward, had the school not banned playing for keeps. My old school was old
school. We played marbles, and if we lost, we lost our marbles. Yes, it was a
form of gambling, but at least it didn’t involve money. For that, we just used
money.
We
used to toss coins toward a wall. He who got his coin closest to, but not
touching, the wall, won all the coins. I guess you could say this resembled a
form of gambling for money, but then, it was a Catholic school after all.
Another
craze was a game called “knives”. If you’re thinking we just threw sharp knives
at each other, don’t be silly. The winner was in fact the kid who speared his
knife into the ground closest to, but not touching, his rival’s foot. For some
reason, this game did get banned.
We
had other crazes that came and went, like yo-yos, and other, more enduring
past-times which you just don’t see any more, like fighting. Now, if kids are
going to throw down, that too is meant literally, with smackers.
Evie
begged and bugged me daily to get her some of this playground gold, available
only, she insisted, on the third floor of a building in the Korean part of town.
I finally snapped, saying I wouldn’t pander to such whims, and that I’d get
some at our usual toy market when good and ready. That day came and, of course,
there were no smackers to be found. I put my tail between my legs, drove to the
Korean quarter, and there, in a tiny third-floor shop, found the Holy Grail
that was a box of smackers.
Evie
took them to school. Once. They’ve sat in a bag at home ever since. I guess the
craze had come and gone.