How Did a Bamboo Pole Become a Horse in the Courtyard?

Riding a bamboo horse did not require anyone to build a recognisable horse. A child could find a bamboo pole or wooden stick that was not too thick and had no sharp splinters, hold it between the legs, grip the front and trot around a courtyard, lane or open patch of ground. Some tied on a strip of cloth as reins; others added nothing. Materials differed between regions, towns, villages and households, so no single construction should be treated as universal.

For some people born in China in the 1960s and growing up through the late 1960s and 1970s, the necessary object was close at hand. Several children might mark a starting point and nominate a wall, tree or step as the turn. With a shouted command, the pole became a racing horse. In the next round it might carry a messenger, a patrol or a passenger, changing identity with the story the group agreed to play. Speed was not the only skill. The children still had to settle who started first, whether shortcuts were allowed and what happened if someone collided with another rider.

The bamboo horse has a long history in Chinese texts and images, but that history should not be imposed unchanged on every later household memory. What persisted was a method of play. The pole supplied the bodily frame of straddling and moving; companions supplied the route, roles, calls and turns. The toy was therefore not simply the stick. It was the temporary world that a group of children agreed to believe in and maintain.

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