….how the agonistic principle plays a part in the development of Chinese civilization far more significant even than the agon in Hellenistic world, and in which the essentially ludic character shows up much more clearly there than in Greece. The point for us is that all these contests, even where fantastically depicted as mortal and titanic combats, with all their peculiarities still belong to the domain of play. An Annamite scholar, Nguyen van Huyen, has taken up the theme for Annam, where these customs were in full flower until quite recently, and given an excellent description of them in a thesis written in French. Here we find ourselves in the midst of the play sphere: antiphonal songs, ball games, courtship, question games, riddle-solving, jeux d’esprit, all in the form of a lively contest between the sexes. The songs themselves are typical play-products with fixed rules, varied repetition of words or phrases, questions and answers. Anyone who wishes to have a striking illustration of the connexion between play and culture could not do better than read Nguyen’s book with its wealth of examples.