[四色牌]，"祝你們旺！旺！發！ 6688" 112副， “旺”， 福建
Yet another deck of four-colour cards. This one was purchased in 2019, from a shop in Fujian, China. These cards are of the same sort as the "Hokkien" deck featured previously. (The name "Hokkien" is the Hokkien pronunciation of the Mandarin Fujian 福建 )
The Red and Yellow suits.
From Left to right (Both rows)
General, Valet, Minister, Chariot, Horse, Cannon, Soldier
As you can see, the basic shape of the cards has remained more or less the same. However, the cards are surprisingly small. Each card is about 2 cm wide and 5.5 cm long.
The card with rank 'general' (Leftmost card) has the character "Wang" 旺-- "Prosper" -- written in the middle. The maker is not explicitly mentioned in the deck, so we presume this character is either the maker's mark, or perhaps a wish of good luck.
The cards are printed on a cardboard. Their fronts are glossy, but the backs are left plain and untreated. Nonetheless, the cards are surprisingly slippery.
The Green and White suits-
From Left to Right: General, Valet, Elephant, Chariot, Horse, Cannon, Soldier
In the Red and Yellow suits, the third rank is written as "Minister". In the Green and white suits, it is written as " Elephant" This sounds odd, until you notice the two words sound the same in Mandarin (Xiang)
Anyway, observant readers would have noticed the cards have a black border, into which is cut some lines, circles or notches. This is the "Index" system of the cards. Although the previously featured Hokkien deck did not have it, a deck in the British Museum in the late 19th century has such a feature https://archive.org/stream/aen4312.0001.001.umich.edu#page/186/mode/2up That deck was collected in "Foochow" = Fuzhou. However, there are several differences between the indices in the two decks, as seen below.
BM signifies the British Museum deck, FJ signifies the present deck. The British museum book called the chess pieces by a rather unusual set of names-- it seemed to refer to the "Valet" as a "Queen" and the "Elephant" as the "Bishop"
The wrapper of the cards. The cards are sold in lots of 10 decks, wrapped thus.
Transcription:
祝你们旺！旺！發！
66888
Zu nimen Wang! Wang! Fa!
66888
Translation: "May you Prosper! Prosper! Strike it rich!" 66888.
The first notable feature of this pack is the writing. The character for "Strike it rich" 發 is written in traditional Chinese; the rest are written in simplified Chinese.
The second notable feature is the string of numbers 66888. The word for "Six" sounds very similar to the word for "go smoothly".The word for Eight sounds very similar to the word 發-- to strike it rich (The pun is almost perfect in Cantonese). As a result, the string of numbers are a wish that people who play with these cards will easily strike it rich.
***
In some parts of China, people take these playing cards, and fold them into el;aborate creations, like shapes of fruit, miniature houses, and even vases, as can be seen in this google search 四色牌折纸.
Here are two youtube videos of news clips from Taiwan, showing more of this remarkable art.
This is a short clip of an old granny in Taiwan who is skilled in the craft. This shows how the creations are put together-- by carefully folding each individual card, and joining the folded cards to a larger shape. The narrator states each card takes around seven seconds to fold, but a single creation involves hundreds of cards.
A brief note of the cards featured in the video. They have several differences with the deck shown here. Most notable is the shape of the cards ( slightly longer than the ones here), and that the Yellow suit has the characters printed in Red, rather than black ink.
This second video is also from Taiwan, but is slightly longer (eight minutes)
It is in the Hakka language, but it is subtitled in Chinese characters. Below is a summary of the video:
- The cards are sometimes called 挷胡子-- (Bang huzi in Mandarin; the Hakka pronunciation of these characters is different)
- The game is fast dying out in Taiwan. It is usually played by the elderly. The youth have taken to playing at Mahjong and Poker.
- Large supplies of the cards are easily available, as a deck is typically thrown away after a game.
- The video interviews a couple, 巫裕豐 and his wife 邱碧梅, whose hobby is making such creations. (The Mandarin pronunciation of their names is Mr. WU Yufeng and Ms. QIU Bimei)
- Mr. Wu is an auto mechanic by trade. He exhibits his creations besides his workshop. He considers making such models more intellectually stimulating than making cars.
- The video shows whole chairs and tables large enough to sit upon made from the cards. Such a set took about 6 months to make, and involved over a hundred thousand cards.
- A model of a large house took 3000 cards to make,
- even the simplest creations take several days; large ones can take over a year
- The couple make elaborate articulated creations from the cards.
***
The author wishes his readers a Happy New Year, and 2020 will be as prosperous and plentiful for them as the deck promises.
