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Text 1: Bowen, Z. (2015). Play on the mother-ground: children’s games in rural Odisha. South Asian History and Culture, 6(3), 330-347.

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Text 1: Bowen, Z. (2015). Play on the mother-ground: children’s games in rural Odisha. South Asian History and Culture, 6(3), 330-347.

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Bowen (2015) conducts ethnographic research focusing on children’s outdoor peer play in rural northern Odisha. In this village, children construct their ‘imagined maps’ from the perspective of play by playing in fields and streets, traveling between goats and cyclists. Their play has no demarcated place, but it interacts with a variety of things outside the boundaries of the play. Besides, their play is deeply rooted in their understanding of the symbolism of the soil, and the making and use of play tools reflect their ability to utilize the soil. According to Bowen (2015), children’s play here is within the ‘magical circle’, but has an impact on the world outside the circle. Overall, play in Odisha villages exemplifies children's play as a judicious use of space and creative engagement.

Before reading this article, I was able to understand play as an activity that is contextualised, but I did overlook the potential social role of children's play. But after reading it I realized that when I traveled to Tibet, I saw a lot of Tibetan children playing around the "Bible drums" and performing "Tibetan opera" in clumsy language. Our guide told us that the local government values children's playing because these activities attract more religious enthusiasts to Tibet, creating indirect value for the local economy and the study of world religions. Since then, I started to think about whether children's play is dynamically linked to the social environment they live in, and whether children's play is related to children's learning, so I decided to do some more in-depth literature reading in this area.

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Text 2: Eickelkamp, Ute. “Dingo, Monster, Rabbit, ‘I’: Personal and Cultural Meanings in Sand Stories by a Young Girl, Central Australia.” American imago 71.2 (2014): 99–129.

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Text 2: Eickelkamp, Ute. “Dingo, Monster, Rabbit, ‘I’: Personal and Cultural Meanings in Sand Stories by a Young Girl, Central Australia.” American imago 71.2 (2014): 99–129.

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This article describes how a girl in the central Australian desert has been able to reflect on her personal life and her struggles through sand painting (Milpatjunanyi). The stories Lila creates before and after being abandoned and after her mother’s return have different characteristics, the choice of imagery and her role in the stories show great variety. Through the changes in the family set and the inclusion of threatening characters (dingos), she shows the changes in the family structure after her mother's leave and the potential threats she felt after her abandonment. I was shocked at how much the changes in life experiences affected the construction of Lila's characterization and storyline, and as a result, I became acutely aware of the fact that storytelling, as a way of playing, is created precisely as a reflection and reenactment of life experiences, combined with imaginative representations and symbolic expressions. It reminds me of when I was in primary school and some of our friends used to play family role-play games together; One of my friends was from rural Northeast China, a place that honors patriarchy. In the game, she acted as a mother who never complained and did a lot of work every day, and she even thought that other family members should take it for granted. Later, I learned that in her family, the status of women is very low, they can't even share the same table when eating with men. Through Lila's story, I was able to better understand her performance in the game, as she mirrored her own experiences in her family, portraying a mother in the game based on her own mother's image. Through these, it can be shown that children's play not only reflects their personal experiences but also helps them learn how to portray the world subjectively.

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Text 3: Tuttle, B. (2018). Play, childhood, and playthings in Bor, South Sudan, 2009–2010. International Journal of Play, 7(2), 161-187.

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Text 3: Tuttle, B. (2018). Play, childhood, and playthings in Bor, South Sudan, 2009–2010. International Journal of Play, 7(2), 161-187.

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This ethnography describes the characteristics of children's play in Bor town, South Sudan. Children here do not particularly distinguish between work and play; they make and protect models of the home they have made, and they are responsible for simple tasks in large-scale activities, such as plastering in building houses and making charcoal for clearing ground. In doing so, they provide help to adults in their "work" in the process of playing. Through playing, children gain life experience through their initiative and mistakes and even develop skills that create social value. From here, I began to think about the relationship between working, learning and playing. While some scholars argue that the positive effects of play are considered to serve children in their work and life as adults (Ginsburg et al., 2007), this article also emphasises the significance of children's play for life at present, for example in helping the family to be productive. This reminds me of when I was a child and my parents taught me how to make dumplings; I made my first dumplings through trial and error by carefully observing their demonstration while using the dough to make various shapes to play with. As I subsequently learned to master this skill, I helped my parents become more efficient at making dumplings, and together with my observation of their division of what to do, I learned the importance of collaboration during work. This experience, together with the article, concludes that play has the potential to be part of work and that the line between learning and playing is blurred.

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Text 5: Simmons, C. A. (2014). Playing with popular culture–an ethnography of children's sociodramatic play in the classroom. Ethnography and Education, 9(3), 270-283.

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Text 5: Simmons, C. A. (2014). Playing with popular culture–an ethnography of children's sociodramatic play in the classroom. Ethnography and Education, 9(3), 270-283.

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From previous articles, I already understood that play is a reflection of personal experiences and the culture in which one lives, but this article is a further step in my thinking and has given me an insight into how children play and learn in the collision of different cultures. This article observes classroom activities of a primary school in Australia, focusing on children's performance in improvisational theatre games. The children draw on and creatively adapt a wide range of film and television characters, lines from television programs, stories and children's songs that they have taken from popular culture (summed up in the article as a 'popular culture toolkit'). Simons (2014) suggests that through such adaptations, children reinforce and validate their own culture. At the same time, children demonstrate their subculture by devaluing authority roles or displaying maverick activities in the drama play. Therefore, I began to understand that children can build bridges between the dominant culture and their own group's culture through playing and briefly achieve a balance of different powers in their daily lives.

When I was in primary school, we did a paper-cutting activity while playing, and we decided to cut out animals from the Chinese Zodiac. However, most of us didn’t use animals in the traditional shape, and there were even winged horses and snakes that walked upright. When we exchanged the idea of our work, some said that they were inspired by the characters in the game they were playing, while others said that they wanted to make interesting changes to the traditional images. This shows the process of children combining traditional and emerging cultures while playing to build their own understanding of certain subject. Through this article and my own experience, I have learnt that playing provides a platform for children's selective absorption and recreation of various cultures as children learn from the collision among them while playing.

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Buchoff, R. (1996) ‘Riddles: fun with language across the curriculum’, The Reading Teacher 49 (8): 666–8.

Eickelkamp, Ute. “Dingo, Monster, Rabbit, ‘I’: Personal and Cultural Meanings in Sand Stories by a Young Girl, Central Australia.” American imago 71.2 (2014): 99–129.

Eshach, H. (2007) ‘Bridging in-school and out-of-school learning: formal, nonformal and informal education’, Journal of Science Education and Technology 16 (2): 171–90.

Ginsburg, K. R., and Committee on Communications, & and Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health. (2007). The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds.Pediatrics(Evanston), 119(1), 182–191.

Jirata, T. J. (2012). Learning through play: An ethnographic study of children's riddling in Ethiopia. Africa, 82(2), 272-286.

Simmons, C. A. (2014). Playing with popular culture–an ethnography of children's sociodramatic play in the classroom. Ethnography and Education, 9(3), 270-283.

Tuttle, B. (2018). Play, childhood, and playthings in Bor, South Sudan, 2009–2010. International Journal of Play, 7(2), 161-187.

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Text 4: Jirata, T. J. (2012). Learning through play: An ethnographic study of children's riddling in Ethiopia. Africa, 82(2), 272-286.

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Text 4: Jirata, T. J. (2012). Learning through play: An ethnographic study of children's riddling in Ethiopia. Africa, 82(2), 272-286.

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This article observes how Guji children in Ethiopia are entertained through riddles. When they are riddling, children here interpret riddles using their logical thinking and ability to grasp details. At the same time, the riddles reflect the daily activities of the Guji people, such as hunting, dancing, herding, and fighting, and the children use the riddles to connect images to reality in order to make sense of the social and natural cultural environment. By interpreting complex riddles, they not only gain the abstract ability to solve problems but also acquire practical skills that are useful in everyday life, which is consistent with the way children’s informal ways of learning as described by Buchoff (1996) and Eshach (2007). I believe that the authors' observations serve to illustrate that riddles can be used both as a way for children to entertain themselves autonomously and as a way for them to acquire knowledge. It also further suggests that playing and learning are not in opposition to each other.

However in real life, as I understand it, at least in many Chinese families, parents draw a clear line between learning and playing, and strictly limit the amount of time their children spend watching TV or playing games, which is considered "not doing their job". After reading this article, I am even more suspicious about such a belief. This is because there are some ways of playing such as chess, blocks, number games. These types of games provide children with the opportunity to develop problem-solving skills, spatial imagination and maths skills. At the same time, even some of the animated films shown on television express good educational value. Therefore, I think it is one-sided and arbitrary to directly define play as "negative" or "useless" thing, instead, if the time and content of play are reasonable, playing can be a way of learning.