BRITZ英会話教室

Since childhood Autumn has meant one thing to me - conkers!　Conkers is another name for a horse chestnut (slightly different from the edible Japanese chestnut). Since they can't be eaten, chestnuts are used by children in my country to play a game called Conkers, and there is even a World Championship for this 'Sport'. It is very simple to play, and all you need is a conker with a hole in it (an adult should do this with a skewer) threaded onto a piece of string about 30 cms long. One player holds there conker on the string at arm's length and the other player gets to use their own conker to hit it. Then they take turns to hit each other's conker until one breaks. That player is the loser and the winner gets to tie a knot in their string to show that they have won. You build up points by defeating stronger conkers and collecting the points of the broken conker. When I was a child we took this game very seriously and would spend the walk home from school looking for the biggest and best conkers. If we couldn't find any good ones on the ground we would throw our school bags and umbrellas into the trees to try to knock them down - and of course would then have the problem of getting things stuck up the tree.
This week I have been teaching some of my students how to play the game of Conkers, using Japanese 栗. They seem to be a lot harder than British horse chestnuts and very difficult to break - but I've been enjoying passing on a tradition and reliving the excitement of the Conkers tournament we would have at school every Autumn.

子供の頃の秋の思い出と言えば“Conkers=トチの実割り遊び”です。“Conkers=トチの実”は“Horse chestnut=トチノキ”の別名で日本の食用の栗とは若干違います。食べられないので私の国では専ら子供達が“Conkers=トチの実割り遊び”というゲームに使われます。“Conkers=トチの実割り遊び”は世界選手権まで存在するれっきとしたスポーツなんですよ。
遊び方は簡単、トチの実に穴を開けそこに30cm程の紐を結びます。一人がその紐を持ち、もう一人が自分のトチの実を相手のトチの実に当てます。それを交互に片方のトチの実が割れるまで続けます。割れた方が負けで勝った方は自分のトチの実に結んである紐に結び目を作り勝利の証とします。より強いプレーヤーに勝てば高得点が貰えます。私が子供の時は本当に真剣に勝負していて、学校からの帰り道により大きくて強そうなトチの実を捜したものです。道端に落ちてなければバッグや傘を（それらが木に引っ掛かって困るのを承知の上で）トチの木に投げて実を落とそうとしていました。
今週、私は日本の栗を使い、生徒に“Conkers”の遊び方を教えました。日本の栗はイギリスのソレより固くなかなか割れませんでしたが、この伝統的なイギリスの遊びをこうやって日本の子供達に伝えていると子供の時、学校で熱中した事が懐かしく思い出され、感慨深いものがありましたね。