How Did a Wall Become a Winter Crowding Game?

Ji youzha, also called ji youyou in some northern regions, was a winter game played in schoolyards, courtyards or along a wall. It required no toy. Children stood in a line with their backs near the wall, or formed two sides, and pushed inwards from both ends. Someone squeezed out of the middle would run around and rejoin at the outside. Formations, calls and scoring varied by place; in some versions there was no winner at all, only a way to get moving during a short break.

The game belonged to particular material conditions. In the late 1960s and 1970s, heating was limited in many schoolrooms, playtime was brief, and children did not necessarily have a ball or manufactured equipment. A wall sheltered from the wind, preferably in the sun, and a group of classmates were enough. The children had to call together and judge when to apply pressure. Those on the outside could not suddenly step away without removing the line's support. Hats might fall off in the crush, be collected when the group broke apart, and the game ended as soon as the bell rang.

Its name and rules were strongly regional, so it should not be presented as a universal Chinese childhood memory. Nor was it safe: excessive crowding could cause falls, collisions or breathing difficulty, and there is no reason to recreate it unchanged today. What deserves recording is how children turned cold, a wall and bodily coordination into temporary play. There was almost nothing to keep afterwards. For a few minutes, the real ‘toy’ was the rhythm, force and boundary maintained by the whole line.