Figure 1.--Here we see Japanese children engaged in a competitive game of tug-of-war. We believe that this is part of a gym class. Notice thre chin straps on the caps.

We see primary children involved in a range of competitions One popular game will be familiar to Western readers--tug-of-war. At one school the children divide up into teams identified by brightly colored capd. We are unsure just how common this was. Nor do we yet have much information on other games. As far as we can tell, the competitive games are mostly derived from Westerm games, but perhaps Japanese readers can tell us about some traditional Japanese games the children play.