Shang Da Ren cards 1

"Shang Da Ren" cards, Taizhou Luqiao playing-card factory ,96 c.
[上大人牌]，台州市路桥商海字牌厂  96副。

We now turn our attention to a sort of playing-card that is hardly known in the west-- the Shang da ren cards. These cards pop up occasionally in the literature, but to my knowledge,nothing substantial has been written about them.

These cards are based on an old Chinese text, that is 24 characters long. It was much used in former times as a penmanship exercise. It goes:

Shang Da Ren, Kong Yi Ji, Hua San Qian, Shi Qi Shi. Er Xiao Shen, Ba Jiu Zi, Wang Zuo ren, Ke Zhi Li. 

"His greatness, Confucius, has taught three thousand children, of which Seventy became virtuous scholars. A young scholar like you, should study from eight or Nine sages, should learn to be benevolent, and hence understand courtesy and manners" 

The first translation is by  Hans Steinmüller, in Communities of Complicity: Everyday Ethics in Rural China, p.189. Pages 188-194 contain a fascinating discussion of the game involving the cards ( called Shaofo in the book).  Another translation is found in the 1901 Catalogue of the collection of playing cards bequeathed to the Trustees of the British museum by the late Lady Charlotte Schreiber page 193. In my opinion, it is slightly less accurate than Steinmüller's. 

For the reader's convenience,the table above shows the characters of the text. The characters are numbered and have the pinyin Romanzation added to them. The two translations are also presented, broken down line-by-line. 

The cards are named after the first three characters of the text, Shang Da Ren- "His greatness" 

Each of the playing-cards bear one character of the text. This unit is repeated a number of times, to form the whole deck. In the deck below, the basic unit is repeated 4 times, yielding a 96 card deck.

 There are a huge variety of Playing-cards bearing this 24 character text. Some of them alter the phrasing of the text, others omit large sections of it. In all cases, the characters used are  heavily stylized, almost illegible except to the initiated. There are a variety of games played with these decks, which I hope to explain in a subsequent post.

This particular deck comes from Hubei, a province in Northern China. The cards are popular there.

1:上 2:大 3:人 4:孔（邱?）5:乙 6:己 7:化 8:三 9:千

The first three lines of the text. Cards 1, 2 and 3, "His Greatness" are printed in red. The inscriptions on cards 4, 5, and 6,(孔乙己) show barely any resemblance to the standard forms of the characters. 

[ The author suspects the card 4 does not depict the word Kong 孔, Confucius' family name, but a highly stylized version of Qiu,邱 his given name] 

10:七   11:十   12 :士   13:爾 14:小 15:生   16: 八   17 :九  18 :子
The next three lines of the text.  Note that the middle card of each trio is marked with a red spot. Card No. 13, I think is 爾, but cannot say for certain. 

19: 佳 20: 作 21:仁 22:可 23:知  24:礼

The last two lines of the text, in their glorious illegibility.

Below is a very brief and general summary of the games played with this family of cards. 

The game played with these cards is similar to Rummy or Mahjong, which it more closely resembles.
Players are dealt a hand of cards. In each turn, a player draws a card from the stock, forms melds with it (if possible) , and then discards a card from his hand. The subsequent player may capture the previous player's discard to form a meld of their own.  Players win by successfully melding off their entire hand.

 There are several types of meld. the first form is multiple copies of a single card, as for example three copies of the card 大 ( No. 2).  The second form is three cards that constitute a sentence of the text, as for example 化三千 ( cards 7,8, and 9).   Melds involving certain cards are reckoned to score higher than others. 

Rummy Tiles

[Rummy Tiles] 104+8 C, Singapore.

In Singapore, mahjong shops sell a kind of gaming-tile. The tiles are called 'Rummy', after the game that they are used to play. However, these cards are quite different from the Rummy tiles that are commonly known in the West.These tiles are in effect a pair of International pattern decks that have been transferred into tiles.

The cards have been fairly faithfully transferred. The pips are fully represented on each card, which have an index in two corners to assist the player. The Double-ended courts are also rendered in detail, with the appropriate index attached to each rank. The ace of Spades is also enlarged, agreeing to custom. 

But the most striking feature of the cards is their colour. Each suit is assigned a colour. Spades are black, Hearts are Red, Clubs are Green and Diamonds are yellow. The tiles are so small [ Around 3.5 by 2.8 cm], the risk of confusion between suits would be higher if only two colours were used. 

Knowledgeable readers might recognize these as the four colours of the German Turnierbild decks, save that clubs and Spades have swapped colours.

Through the four suits, the courts possess an identical design. They are differentiated only by the suit symbol, and the colour of the frame that surrounds the courts.  

The King is clearly inspired by the King of Diamonds in a standard deck. The Jack and Queen are less certain. The Queen might be inspired by Possibly the Q. of Diamonds or Clubs. 

The Suit of Diamonds. The attention to detail in the courts is formidable. The maker has taken care to give the faces and bodies of the courts different colours. 

The Joker depicts the head of a clown. There are Eight jokers in this set, corresponding to four in each deck. 

The tiles are relatively thick, as seen in the picture. 

Their backs are "Plain".By contrast, Most kinds of mahjong Tiles sold have a layer of different-coloured plastic attached to their backs. 

The tiles in their carrying-case. Such cases are also used to store mahjong tiles. The case is made of leather-like plastic. Within this case are stored four smaller "trays" that make the tiles easier to bring out of the case. In between them is an oblong tray, which would be usually filled with jetons. This set lacks the jetons. 

 Note the Eight blank tiles in the left-hand side of the case. These are spares, If a tile is lost, this blank tile can be sent to an engraver to be engraved with a replacement. 

"Cuajo Filipino"

"Cuajo Fillipino", Fournier, 112c.

  Now we come to a curious version of the Spanish pattern ( see here and here) used in the Philippines. This particular example was made in the 1970s ( from an inscription found among the cards of the deck) by the Spanish company Fournier
  Spanish playing cards are still used ( albeit to a small extent) in the Philippines. This is not surprising from a nation that was colonized by Spain for over three centuries. Images of people using what are clearly Los Dos Tigres cards in the Philippines can be seen on the net, as well as videos of people participating in a curious gambling game called Sakla.  This involves a full deck of  Spanish playing cards. For a Fillipino's thoughts on playing cards in his country, see here https://libertadfilipinas.wordpress.com/2014/12/19/lost-filipino-culture-playing-cards-ii/

The most unusual feature of the deck is its structure. The deck has four suits, like most Spanish decks; but instead of the full 12 cards in each suit, there are only seven, viz;

  King, Knight, Valet, 4, 3,2 Ace, 

This unit is repeated four times, to give a full deck of 128 cards. Observant readers may note that this structure is identical to the Chinese Si Se Pai, --four units of 28 cards each ( see here and here)

The nature of the game played with this deck bears this out ( As pointed out on Pagat.com's page on Cuajo ). There are only two acceptable "runs" in this game; King, Knight, Knave, and 5, 4, and 3. This corresponds to the melds of 将士相 and 車馬炮 in Se Se pai. Rules for the game may be found here 

The suit of cups. One of the hings that strikes me is the sheer vividness of the color. The deep indigo blue, the vibrant orange, etc. This pattern preserves the "AHI VA" of the Los dos Tigres deck, found on the Knight of cups. On the 5 of cups is written "CORTES TABLA"

The second thing to note is the absence of index numbers, which are otherwise found in Spanish decks. Nonetheless, the "Pinta" (Pattern of breaks in the frame indicating the suit) are still present. 

The suit of coins. It is surprising to note that the ace of coins still bears the arms of Castile and Leon. The five of coins bears a profile of a woman. The four of coins bears the maker's name. 

The suit of swords. The ace of swords bears the inscription "CORTE TABLA", which is also found on the five of cups. The slight longitudinal  curvature of the cards is especially evident in this photograph. They are made out of a particularly fine material; almost resembling plastic. 

Three views of the wrapper. The cards are made by Fournier of Spain ( who has made several decks already featured on this blog). It is interesting to note that the deck is explicitly identified as "Cuajo Fillipino" perhaps indicating that the cards were solely made for export? 

 The back of the cards, and a warranty slip.