oh peh som

'oh peh som' is a method we used as children when we had to decide who should be eliminated or which team one should be allocated to. 'oh peh som' is not a traditional game but rather an efficient traditional way of picking the members for two teams. in fact, it can be tweaked to pick members for more than two teams.

my friend dick (the wise old owl) had asked me sometime back to blog about it but i did not get around to doing it until now. what finally prompted me to do it was when i saw four boys using this method to decide the pairs to play each other in badminton. but, they have a different name for this way. they call it 'black or white'.

in 'oh peh som', the palm and the back of the hand come into play. participants begin by placing one hand - usually the right hand - behind their back. they will stand in a circle or a semi-circle. anyone of them or all of them can shout out 'oh peh som'. at 'som', they have to bring the hidden hand to the front showing either the palm or the back of the hand.

say, like in this case of the four badminton players, two of them display their palms and the other two display the backs, the two 'palms' form one team and the other team members will comprise the two 'backs'. if one shows palm and the other three show back or vice versa, then it goes into another round of 'oh peh som'. the same thing happens when all four end up showing the same side of the hand. it goes on until it is two palms an two backs of the hand are shown.

'oh peh som' can also be used to decide on something you, as a group, want to do. for example, if you cannot decide on whether to go swimming at farrer park swimming pool or mt emily swimming pool, you can always 'oh peh som' to pick the venue for your swim. it is not actually a majority decision; it is more like the luck of the draw. i do not ever remembering any quarrel over a decision made in this way.

here is one overseas singaporean who still remembers oh ah, peh ah, som.