All of the Hash House Harriers chapters that exist around the world are independently operated. It's not like we have a centralized command that hands down rules to the rest of us. I recall a story a long time ago where someone, somewhere wanted to start a new Hash House Harriers chapter and they reached out to the Mother of all Hashes in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where the very first HHH organization was formed. The person wrote and asked permission to open a new chapter where they lived and the response from KL was "It doesn't have anything to do with us, do whatever you want!"
So you can expect there to be slight differences between how various Hash chapters are run depending on where you are in the world. There is no lawbook on how to Hash. However, since all new Hash chapters are started by people who started Hashing elsewhere they tend to base the new one on the rules that existed in the last place they participated and one of those things are the signs you are going to see when you are on trail.
This was from around Christmas of last year, hence the festive nature of the signs but that is rather unimportant. It's not like we changed the rules for that specific run and it would be disastrous if we ever tried to do something like that since most of our runners aren't exactly academic scholars.
I'll break it down like this
The circle
This is one of the most common ones that you are going to encounter and most trails will have a lot of them. When you get to a circle sign that means that the true trail IE the one that you are meant to be following, continues somewhere within 100 meters of where you are currently standing. The part where the trail carries on will be indicated either by flour that is on the ground or by pieces of paper attached to plants. If you are the first to discover the true trial you shout out "ON ON!" so the rest of the group knows where to go. There will normally be some scraps of paper left under a rock where you discover the true trail, and you should scatter these near and down the path that you discovered in order to let other people know which direction to go. Also, someone who is standing near the circle needs to tear out a part of the circle indicating to anyone that is lagging behind at to what direction they are meant to continue in.
This is probably the most important part because if you don't do this, we just have a bunch of old people wandering around in the jungle, lost.
The FT sign
The FT stands for "False Trail" and this is a little trick that people will throw in there to make the day extra fun. Some times you will see the flour indicating that you have found the trail and you shout out "ON ON!" indicating that everyone should carry on in your direction. Then you travel a few hundred meters more only to see a FT sign and this indicates that you have been duped and you need to go back to the circle and try again.
This can only be used on trails that have circles made out of flour because otherwise it would have 2 directions torn out of the paper and the people that are lagging behind will not know which way to go. If there is some confusion the laggers will figure it out as well because they too will encounter the FT on the trail.
The W/R sign
This doesn't happen all over the world but it does in Chiang Mai and about 50% of the other Hashes I have attended. It stands for "Wimp/ Rambo" and it is normally reserved for special events that are longer than average. The wimp trail will only be about another km before you get back to the camp, the Rambo trail will be another 3-5 or perhaps even more depending on the event. No matter what the case is this will be spelled out by the Hares before the run even begins so you don't have to be exposed to any unexpected surprises.
The On In sign
This indicates that the trail run is nearly over and that you are quite close to the camp that you started at. At this point people are no longer allowed to pass the person in front of them without permission. Of course there is no magic force field preventing you from doing this but if you do pass someone without permission you are going to get put on the ice. If you like getting put on the ice you can go ahead and do it without permission but pass a bunch of people at the end and you are going to spend a lot of time on said ice so I hope you enjoy having numb buttocks.
There are other signs but these are the ones that are more commonly used. No matter what signs are used and no matter where you are in the world there will be a briefing before the run begins and these things are explained although sometimes they are explained too quickly for you to really catch on.
If you are a dunce like a lot of people in the world are you can always ask someone to explain it to you on trail because this is a big part of what the Hash House Harriers are all about anyway. We want to run and drink beer sure, but a lot of what we do is about socializing.
If you want to come and run with us in Chiang Mai you can go to our website for full details about upcoming runs. We are currently doing at least 3 per week.
