A SCHOOL 'OF MA'LICIOUS RED HERRINGS

GEORGETOWN 3 APR 2011: Tuntutlah ilmu hingga ke liang lahat – Malay proverb

This popular adage rightly implies that learning is a full time job; 24 x 7, 365 days a year; until the final moment when you push up ‘bunga raya’ (in Malaysia, hibiscus flowers are more popular than the daisies) and you find either yourself tightly wrapped in a white cloth, or your relatives ceremoniously burning paper I-Pad2 and human effigies for you during Cheng Beng (All Souls’ Day).

Such learning culture must surely apply to the realm of treasure hunt, and all right-minded hunters should zealously upgrade themselves with newly-acquired knowledge. On the weekend, when most Chinese people were relatively busy attending to their dead ancestors at the cemeteries, a group of lively hunters were busy attending school in the OFMA Treasure Hunt 2011.

 

The Inception

This educational brainchild can be retrospectively traced back to almost 3 months ago, when Old Frees Muslim Association (OFMA) approached Paradigm Shifters to jointly organise an open motoring hunt, with the school teachers and Old Frees as the main target groups. The only caveat was the compulsory inclusion of some references to the alma mater, Penang Free School (PFS); its illustrious history and past headmasters.

With inspiration drawn from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, the COC of this hunt ‘of the school people, by the school people and for the school people’ decided to go one better:- it should also school people on certain attribute of this sport. Perhaps a valuable lesson on the finer aspects of the hunt that the participants can glean for self-improvement!

However the pertinent question is what aspect should be thrust into the limelight this time. After all, amidst the field of entries, there were some ubiquitous hunters who have been there, done that and seen them all!

For this public hunt, somehow the deployment of multi-layered cryptic solving may not suit the occasion. The participants (with beginners, teachers or families looking for a fun outing with children) may not appreciate mentally-baffling questions, with a plethora of anagram, acrostic, homonym and palindrome.

The Process

After much deliberation and consideration, a rather simple thought finally dawned.

The inherent objective is to test the hunters on their attentiveness and observation skill; the intended lesson is straightforward- if you don’t pay attention to the details, sometimes you may pay dearly. Never forget to be on your guard at all times in treasure hunts!

In line with the hunt theme on school, the hunters were invited to swim headfirst into a school of herrings. In this case, red herrings!

Make the questions generally simple and enjoyable; however a few may be deliberately crafted with the solutions possibly residing in more than 1 signboards (sometimes within the same one); but a subtle clue will point towards the more accurate answer.

With the strategy in mind, the question setting process invariably took on a paradigm shift - the hunt sectors were diligently scoured for possible decoys, the questions repeatedly tweaked and re-worded and any tell-tale traces of cryptic traps discreetly camouflaged.

In short, no effort was spared in order to lull the hunters into complacency and make the snare all the more inconspicuous.

A Few of the End-Products

Q: A clothing shop set by female siblings.

A: Sisters Collection

(Red Herrings: Sisters Galleriya; Sisters Beauty Saloon; Sisters Bridal Studio)

Q: Tall structure with great influence – raise a hand if you get the right answer.

A: Statue of Liberty (Red Herring: Tower Strong)

Q: Cool people like Obama and Kennedy stay in this accommodating place.

A: White House Hotel (Air-Conditioned) (Red Herring: White House Hotel)

The Result and Verdict

With the event delayed a day to cater for KL hunters (who arrived at the Pearl of the Orient on Saturday from MAH Hunt), the stage was set for an interesting Sunday showdown for 41 teams.

As anticipated on this occasion, many beginners were infallibly hoodwinked by the traps. Their lack of experience could be the plausible reason for their lack of vigilance.

More shockingly several regular hunters were equally susceptible to the temptation too. The dangled baits were unwittingly taken; the ploys worked like a charm and these experienced ones fell hook, line and sinker! Only a handful of attentive ones wisely evaded the obvious lures; their analytical skill and years of hunt exposure possibly alerting them to the danger like a Spider-sense.

During the answer presentation, a public backlash was more or less expected; after all nobody fancied the idea of being purposely set up and duped. You felt that if this was an episode from The High Chaparral, the COCs would be arrested as outlaws, put on trial and sentenced to death by hanging.

However when the verdict was eventually delivered, the participants unexpectedly gave the thumbs-up; with many enjoy the learning experience and appreciate the lesson. Some generously paid tribute to the craftiness of the questions, while others lamentably rued their lack of caution and underperformance. The effusive feedbacks were indeed heart-warming; with a few eagerly requesting for more.

It was akin to the victims of a pitfall trap to crawl out bruised from the experience, say thank you to the perpetrator and hand him a spade to dig more.

The Conclusion

The overwhelming conclusion seems to suggest that perhaps after all, there is no need for technical advisors to set many super mind-boggling questions in public hunts just to please the minority few. Not only will such practice scare away budding hunters, the cryptic lesson will be hopelessly lost on general public, who may not fancy giving treasure hunts a second chance.

Perhaps a few toughies would suffice to get the grey cells ticking; but focus on quality and well-set questions. Quality questions don’t necessarily mean tough questions; at the end of the day, hunters do appreciate thought-provoking and well-crafted posers.

Treasure hunters are like baseball players; they love the challenge of hitting well-thrown curved balls by the pitchers. The immeasurable thrill of hitting some, more than compensates for the few that they will surely miss.

The task for the COC is to ensure that the balls are thrown within the striking distance of the hunters; if lob too high, the hunters will be inevitably frustrated; or if pitch too straight, they may feel unchallenged. The COC must seek to understand the capability of their participants, before deciding on how the balls should be thrown.

Until they do, the learning culture must surely apply to both the hunters and COCs!

RESULT - TOP 10 WINNERS & POINTS BREAKDOWN

PHOTOS

 



Hunter Ho Seng Hooi came out
 of semi-retirement to finish 1st

Mixed Codes hunters relaxing

 before the hunt



 

Hunters doing Poco Poco dance

  

Hunter Sabirin doing Taichi Poco?







   

Group Photo



Hunter Asri looking for friendly solution!





Alex & Teck Koon loved to find Dr M

A kungfu scene of chopsticks catching ball?






 WINNERS

 


Open 2nd Winner - In Pg for Food



Open 3rd Winner - Jolly Hunters



Open 4th Winner - Simply Whack



Open 5th Winner - Mixed Codes





PFS Family Category - 1st Mesti Menang

  

QUESTION ANALYSIS

SHARKS AND RED HERRINGS
Overall there are 3 tough sharks and 4 elusive red herrings in the OFMA pool
 of hunt questions, lying in wait for any unsuspecting hunters.

SHARKS - Q12 Er Hu, Q16 Licence & Q26 Kaliammans
Q12 - Er Hu tests hunters first on knowledge about recent event,
 before putting together an extraction cryptic to get the answers
(typical Uncle Chong's question)

Q16 - License tests hunters' ability to recognise DJ (Double Jeopardy) style;
with some helps from the hint.

Q26 - Kaliammans was intentionally crafted with careful choice of words,
 to depict a surface reading that differs from its hidden message.


RED HERRINGS - Q6 Moshi, Q19 Sisters, Q23 Liberty, Q27 White House
 Q6. This tests the hunter's ability to spot anything unusual in an
 innocuous question. Only 4 out of the Top 10 spotted the
 red herring; with unsurprisingly 3 of them regular hunters from KL.

Q19. A replica of Q6, but this time the Sisters hint is more subtle.
Only 2 teams managed to steer clear.

Q23. This time, the pattern has changed slightly.
Instead of words, the alternative comes in the form of picture.
Only 3 teams saw the hand-raising structure.

Q27. By now, any cool-headed hunters would have smelt something fishy here.
So it's pleasant to see that 70% got it correct this time.



5 AWARDS

The following awards are bestowed to the following teams,
which had performed admirably in the following categories:-

Most Steady-Hands Hunters Award - Penang Runners
(for max score in OFMA Challenge 2, with chopsticks)
They were spot-on with the right strategy & teamwork in transporting the balls.
Perhaps their frequent visits to Pg char kueh teow stalls helped too.

Most Street-Wise Hunters Award - 2 Sneakies + 2 Innocents; Macam-
Macam Adaaaa (for highest score in Road questions - 26 correct out of 30)
These 2 teams managed to handle most of the sharks and red herrings in the hunt.

Most Resourceful Hunters Award - Pg Runners, In Pg for Food,
 Simply Whack, Mixed Codes, Mesti Menang, Progresif
(for getting the Deli staples)
Only a handful of shops carry that brand & kudos to the team for finding them.

Hardest Question Solving Award - Mixed Codes, Ultraman vs OFMA (for
being the only team to correctly answer Licence and Kaliammans respectively) 
These 2 questions were tough to solve;
 but these 2 teams managed to crack them after all.

Red Herring Hunters Award - Jolly Rogers; 2 Sneakies + 2 Innocents
(for catching 3 out of 4 red herrings listed above)
They managed to avoid most of the pitfalls in the hunt;
possibly due to their years of experience, practice & vigilance.

PARTICIPANTS FEEDBACK

Claire Chin - "It was a good hunt with good quality questions.

We took a gamble to search for treasure but couldn't find 2." 

Mohd Asri - "Good hunt btw. Still reeling from your MESTI question."

Margaret Sha - "We were guilty of eating too many red herrings. Almost choked!!!".

Jayaram Menon - "The question on Times paper was very well worded.

 We were thrown off by the innocent word paper."

Yap Weng Heng - "Sure ah... Penang got sell Deli staples?

 How come cannot find one!"

Edward Yeap - "I mentioned to my teammates about Times Academy,

 but nobody checked that out!"

Stephen Chin (Edward's teammate) - "You got say meh?"

CK Loh - "Luckily we parked our car in front of Sisters
 and studied all the 4 sisters properly".

Stephen Chin (again) - "Aiya... can solve toughie like Er Hu,
 but careless in dropping easy one like Times Academy.
 Maybe we're too advanced-level thinking."

Elaine Cheong - "We solved the License & Road Tax,
 but we bombed on the easy ones!"



If the feedback is accidentally misquoted, pls feedback ASAP.
Thanks.