Chinese Playing Cards 中国纸牌

Introduction   介绍

An 11th century source reports that the game of cards appeared in the middle of the T'ang dynasty (613-906) and “that a certain Yang Tan-ien greatly esteemed the playing of cards”, and that these cards had markings taken from dice. This evidence suggests that card playing began in China at an early date. Printing had also been developed in China as early as the eighth century for printing Buddhist texts, and later, banknotes or money printed on paper. At some point playing cards were also printed from woodblocks. Another report dates from 1294, when Yen Sengzhu and Zheng Pig-Dog were apparently caught gambling in Enzhou (in modern Shandong Province). The law case notes that nine paper cards and thirty six taels of zhong tong period (1260-1264) paper currency were seized, along with wood blocks for printing cards. Our next source is from the writings of the Ming dynasty scholar Lu Rong (1436-1494), who notes that he was sneered at for not knowing how to play cards when he was a government student at Kunshan in modern Jiangsu Province.

We note that printed texts, paper currency and playing cards were all produced in China long before they eventually arrived in the West. Indeed, playing cards, religious images and decorated fabrics were to become the earliest applications of printing technology in Europe, following suit from earlier developments in the East.

Shanghai is the centre of modern day playing card production in China. Between 1931 and 2010 more than 35 playing card factories existed in Shanghai, including several that have now closed. Today there are over 70 playing card factories throughout China. China has a large variety of playing cards, including cards featuring landscapes, animals, advertising, cultural or historic themes, and so on.

During the period 1966-1976, known as the “Cultural Revolution in China”, card games were generally prohibited and cards were no longer manufactured. When new factories started printing playing cards again in the 1970s the English indices A, K, Q and J were substituted by 1, 13, 12 and 11 respectively. These packs are now rather rare. Chinese people play a lot of cards in the streets. Sometimes when one player has lost his money the whole deck is thrown into the air.

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Money Suited Cards

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Mah Jong Cards   麻将纸牌

Above: 8 cards from an unusual chromolithographed Mah Jong pack, c.1910, in which the suits show 108 characters from the 'Story of the Water Margin'. The suit sign, printed in blue, is the old form of 'wan', meaning 10,000, as shown on the higher ranking suit(s) of old money suited cards which traditionally showed the Water Margin characters. (Courtesy John Berry).

The Chinese took their cards with them wherever they travelled and traded in the East, and we find Chinese cards in use not only in the mainland but also in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, North Borneo and Vietnam. A paper version of the tile game, Mahjong Cards are also played with in Japan as well as in many different parts of the world both by the local inhabitants and the Chinese settlers.

Above: modern Chinese KR brand Mahjong cards, manufactured by Qingyuan Wan Qi Poker Products Co., Ltd. and also marketed in Hong Kong   See also: Malaysian Mahjongg Cards • Mahjong tile game.

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Domino Cards   十五湖

Domino cards, deriving as they do from the 21 throws of a pair of dice, could be descended from the earliest known playing cards. Often these cards contain drawings of flowers, butterflies, animals, images from popular stories or lucky charms which embellish the otherwise rather dull designs.

The cards where the pips are oriented vertically are called 十五胡. The ones where pips are oriented horizontally and have water-margin characters are called 川牌 Sichuan cards, after the part of China the cards come from.

Above: Chinese domino cards featuring characters from the celebrated Chinese novel "The Water Margin" 水浒传.

Above: “Double Happiness” Domino cards containing small symbols emblematic of the blessings of life. Another similar example is shown below; in this case the cards were exported to Hong Kong. The importer's name can be read on the side of the box.  Click on image to zoom.

Chinese Character Cards

Cards with Chinese characters on them that children used in pre-modern China to learn to write their first characters. See Chinese Wikipedia→

Above: Chinese Character Cards described in "Catalogue of the collection of playing cards bequeathed to the Trustees of the British museum by the late Lady Charlotte Schreiber" published in 1901, p.193. Information courtesy Jonathan Will.

Other Regional Types

Above: “Double Happiness” brand Hakka [客家] playing cards (used by Hakka ethnic communities who have a separate identity from the Cantonese people). The wrapper of the Hakka playing cards shows the phrase "中國江蘇製造” Made in Jiangsu, China   more →

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Characters of “The Water Margin” - 水滸撲克

These images often appear on Chinese money-suited, domino or Mah-Jong decks (as seen above), as well as French-suited cards  see more →

Above: cards from a double boxed set of 108 cards featuring Characters of “The Water Margin”. Image courtesy Matt Probert.

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More packs by HCG Poker Productions

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Children’s Playing Cards   玩具纸牌

Above: 'Mini-Poker' miniature cartoon character playing cards made in China by @pple, based on comics and computer games   see more →

References

• Money Museum; Chinese Empire, String of 100 Ch'ien