This is the only article on the entire Internet about the card game
"Chi-Chi-no-Chi"
A thorough three minute search of the googles has me convinced. This is it!
According to renowned Chi-Chi-no-Chi historian, Shizuka Henry, the game originated with her family in the Shige fishing village area of Numazu City, Japan. From there it spread to more family, close friends and a wayward American who followed her home from a party in 1999.
The game was originally played at the end of the year, during the New Year holiday. My Chi-Chi-no-Chi historian wife tells that she and her sister, parents, aunts and uncles and gaggle of cousins would all gather at her aunt's house to play when she was a child. First the adults would play and then the kids. Much drinking was involved with the adults, things would get broken and people injured. Indeed, my wife says there's still a damaged tatami mat covering a hole in the floor that was the result from one rambunctious game in the upstairs room of her her aunt's old house (a building now used as a shed and for storing himono fish drying equipment).
Her extended family no longer plays but since having kids of her own, of our own, the game has been revived and we play a few times a year in addition to the big New Year game.
Basically the game is insanely exciting dangerous reflex testing fun; therefore, I aim to popularize it.
Here's how to play
1. Get a bunch of prizes. Anything will do such as candy and bags of chips, canned or bottled drinks, any packaged foods--instant soup, noodles, rice, macaroni or canned meats or... well basically anything. Dish soap, paper towels or other household imems. Get things people want or need. Add in some money--a few dollar bills or even some $5s (it's coins up to $10 in Japan so paper money will get ripped and have to be taped back together) but you get the idea. Just get a bunch of stuff for prizes.
2. Get a deck of cards. Four like cards are needed for each player. It doesn't matter what the cards are. For example if there are 5 players then 4 Aces, 4 Kings, 4 twos, 4 threes and 4 fours. Add or remove cards as players join or get taken away by ambulance. Easy shmeasy Japanesey!
3. Everyone sits in a circle on the floor (It could be at a table but think floor is better since grabbing, clawing, kicking and wrestling often ensues someone getting a winning hand.)
4. Put some prizes in the middle of the circle, but only enough for some of the players to get a prize. Like for five players maybe two prizes; for six to 8 players 3 or four. One good prize for each round.
5. Shuffle the cards and deal four cards to each player face down.
4. Play the game by saying, in unison, "Chi Chi no Chi" ("chi" like in cheese) while discarding one card down on the floor in front and to your right and quickly picking up the card the player to your left discarded as you say the final "chi". The object is to get four of a kind. When a person gets four of a kind they grab a prize and all the other players try to grab a prize too. There are not enough prizes for everyone to get one and usually one prize is more valued than the others, so the result of this is chaotic full contact wrestling and fighting, mutilated prizes, contents spilling onto the floor, people bleeding, lots of laughing.
i.e. Great FUN!
Having bandaids for one prize or nearby is suggested.
Enjoy!
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