When Emily was younger and spent more time at our house, we always played a lot of games. One game that we played was Chinese Checkers. If you go to a toy store, most times you won’t find Chinese Checkers in the game section. I guess it’s considered too old fashioned and not high-tech enough for today’s generation. But Emily always enjoyed playing it when she was here.
The name always fascinated me — it’s not really like checkers, except for the part where you “jump” over the playing pieces. In checkers, when you jump your opponent’s checker, you take it off the board… not so in Chinese Checkers. That’s not the only difference, of course, because they are different games.
I always just assumed that the game must have been invented, or originated, in China. So I figured this would be a good exercise to keep my extensive research sharp. Although, once again, my extensive research, wasn’t totally conclusive — it did uncover the fact the game is not a variation of “checkers” and it didn’t originate in China. Like a lot of things, there’s a bit of historical uncertainty about the origin of the game. Wikipedia, a usually reliable source, indicates the game is of German origin, but more of the sources I found seem to agree that it first appeared as a game called “Hoppity” that was popular in Great Britain in the latter part of the 19th century. The original game (like Chinese Checkers) allowed for more than two players — the board was square and players could play from all four corners of the board, allowing up to four to play. The game did eventually make its way to Germany, where it was changed to play on a six-pointed star shaped playing board. The Germans re-named the game “Stern-Halma.” Halma is the German name for Hoppity and Stern is Star. So the modern-day game as we know it was at least finalized or refined in Germany. But “Chinese” was never associated with the game. When the game showed up in America, it was released by the Pressman Co., an American toy company, under the name “Hop Ching Checkers.” The board was decorated with dragons and Fu Manchu images and the words were written in a chop-suey style font.
The game was released in 1928 and it soon became more popular than either its English or German ancestors. Because the game was so successful, other toy and game companies wanted to get in on the craze — and each of the various companies spin-offs included the Oriental (today, Asian) themes originated by the Pressman Co.
Eventually, Milton Bradley Company patented the name “Chinese Checkers,” for their version of the game, in 1941. And the name stuck. Even in China, the game is known as “Chinese Checkers” although the game has no actual ties to the country.
Claire is always saying she’d like to find something not made in China. I realize that’s getting harder and harder to do, but if you buy Chinese Checkers, it may be made in China, but at least it wasn’t invented there….
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