Doll cards 娃兒牌 Part 1: The Cards

We now come to a kind of playing card, which is vanishingly rare. Used in Sichuan, it bears the name of  娃娃牌"Wawa pai"- Doll cards  or 娃兒牌 " Wa'er pai" -- Dolly cards.

The earliest mention of them I have came across is in the  "Catalogue of the collection of playing cards bequeathed to the Trustees of the British museum by the late Lady Charlotte Schreiber", printed in 1901. The deck is tersely described:

No. 32. From Chungking. Oiled cards, red backs. Consists of eight each of the eight characters contained in a familiar prayer : — 

 壽 比 南 山 福 如 東 海 

That is, May you have " Long life like the southern hills, happiness as (the broad) east sea." There are in addition eight blanks, bringing the total number of cards in the pack up to 72. 


N.B. The Chinese usually write the phrase in reversed order: 福如東海，壽比南山 -- Fu Ru Donghai, Shou Bi Nanshan, i.e. Happiness as the broad East Sea, Long Life like the Southern Hills. A word-by word translation is as follows:

Note; there are two ways of writing the sentence, in Simplified and Traditional Chinese. Traditional Chinese is used in the Catalog, Simplified in the cards featured below.

 I will present two decks of cards in this post. They seem to be the only types available at present.

1: "Wa'er pai" .Taizhou Yunping plastic playing-card factory. 72c.
1: 娃儿牌-- 台州市路桥 云平塑料牌厂. 72 副

This deck is made by a company in Luqiao, a town in Taizhou. Taizhou is in Central China, and is quite a distance away from Chongqing /Chungking, which the British Museum cards are from. The Chinese Wikipedia article on the cards says they are used in Chongqing and and Sichuan.  

This deck, and the British Museum Deck are similar in structure. There are Nine subjects in both deck.  Eight of these subjects are Chinese characters that make up the phrase  壽比南山 福如東海 The ninth subject [ in my deck] is a card that depicts the figure of a child, called in Chinese the 娃兒"Wa'er" -- Dolly.There are eight copies of each card, yielding a deck of 72 cards.  One of the eight copies of each subject is marked with the picture of a doll/ child . Cards so marked play a role in the game.

The "Plain" cards, arranged in order. The cards themselves use the Simplified version of the Chinese Characters. The Traditional forms of the characters ( Used in the Catalogue ) are shown below each card. The right-most card, with a human figure is the " Dolly" card. These cards are made of plastic. 

The Eight "Marked" cards. As you can see, each card bears the motif of a child in the middle. In addition, each of the Chinese Characters has a small quatrefoil in the top-right corner. 

On the Marked dolly , a large Chinese seal replaces the human figure, which is placed in the middle of the card. The words on the seal, written in the archaic seal-script are "太平天國" -- Taiping Tianguo-- Tai Ping Heavenly Kingdom.  

2: Wawa pai. [anon] 72c.
2: [娃娃牌]:72 副

The structure of this deck, and the above deck are identical. The main difference is in the material the cards are made of. The cards in this deck are made of a varnished/Lacquered fabric. The manufacturer states the fabric is silk. The faces are a beige colour, and their backs are plain red, in which brushstrokes can be seen. When the cards are new, they are heavily impregnated with a sort of white powder to prevent them from sticking. Cleaned of the powder ( which the manufacturer says is gypsum) the cards look like this:

The Plain suit. Like the cards above, they use the Simplified Chinese Characters. The Dolly card ( far right) contains a much more elaborate human figure than the one featured above. It shows a child bearing a vase of flowers. Also note the cards have square corners. 

The marked cards. The cards are structurally similar to those in deck 1. They possess a human figure in the middle, and the characters have a mark. In this deck, however, the mark is a star/asterisk unlike the quatrefoil of the deck above. 

The marked Dolly card ( Far right) also has a "Seal", but the characters are now written in a more normal font, imitating handwriting . The human figure on that card is missing its face; such errors/vagaries in printing are frequently encountered in the deck. 

I shall describe the game played with these cards in another post. In summary, the game involves forming melds of cards. It resembles mahjong, but it has its own perculiar scoring system.  Melds involving the marked cards score extra points. 

Four suited money cards 1: Kitty cards (MaoMao pai)

[Kitty cards], Jingzhong Tianzi No. 2065 , 36c.
[貓貓牌] 進忠天子 No. 2065, 36副
These cards were made in Chongzhou , Sichuan.
There is almost no information about this deck online. The Chinese wikipedia article considers this deck to be a kind of Six Tiger card, which comes from Chongzhou, Sichuan. I have doubts if the cards are actually used to play the game of 'six tigers'. However, there is nothing in the structure of the deck that prevents you from doing so. The name literally translates as 'kitty cards'. Before you ask, yes, Doggy cards do exist.

The suit of tens 拾. 

The first thing to note about the cards, is their central illustration. Each card has  rather elegant line drawing of a flower. The suit-symbols of the cards are less stylized than other cards of their family; they still bear some resemblance to the normal forms of the chinese numerals. 

The card labelled '1' in the above illustration seems to have the inscription 歪子- "Slanted child"

That card has the maker's telephone number on it 

The suit of 贯, or Guan

Note the red mark on the Nine of each suit. 

The suit of 索, or strings. 

The suit- character is so stylized the author cannot identify it with certainty. 

The suit of cash, or 钱. 

The character has been abbreviated to 戋, the right-hand portion of the full character. 

The card labelled 1 seems to be the ace in this suit, but the author cannot identify it with certainty. Like the card in the suit of tens, it has the maker's telephone number written on it. The deck featured on the Chinese wiki article has a maker's name in its stead.  The maker's name is Wang Yi 王亿. From an examination of the deck, we find it is identical to the present deck, the maker's name excepted. 

Long cards 4: 樂山圈牌 Leshan cards

No. 8090,  Leshan Quanpai, Leshan Wanchengda industry Co Ltd, 80+10c.

No. 8090 樂山圈牌， 萬盛達 80+10

This is yet another form of "Long cards". They are used in Leshan, a part of Sichuan, China. These cards do indeed deserve the title of "Long cards". They are significantly longer than most kinds of Chinese playing card, ( 12 x 2.5 cm).

These cards belong to a family known in the west as "Character cards". The Chinese Name, 圈牌, Quanpai, "Round cards" may refer to the distinctive shape of the figures printed on them. The cards are also known as 樂山橋牌 -- Leshaqn Qiaopai -- "Leshan Bridge cards".  The Western game of Bridge shares the same name 橋牌Qiaopai , but as far as I know the games played with the Leshan deck have nothing to do with the Western game. They are occasionally known as 樂山貳七拾, Leshan er-qi-shi --Leshan Two-Seven-Ten  , after a game played with the cards,

As mentioned in a previous post, these cards use the two forms of Chinese Numeral as "Suits" , each suit containing the ranks from 1 to 10.

The suit of "Large writing" Below the cards are the standard forms of the characters depicted, as well as the Arabic numbers they correspond to.  The characters have become extremely stylized, more so than other kinds of card. 

The 1 of this suit reminds me of a stout man wearing a bowler hat. 

The maker's name, Wanchengda is printed in the middle of each card. 

The suit of small writing. Again, the corresponding standard forms of the characters are printed below each card.  In this deck, the large suit is printed in red, and the small suit in black. This is unlike other forms of Number cards, like the Luzhou deck. In such a deck, only the Two, Seven and Ten of each suit are printed in red, the rest of the cards printed in black.

Note card of rank 9 (2nd from right). The prominent Loop has three gaps in it. This suggests the cards were originally printed by stencil. Examination of the large suit bears this out. There are no complete white-on-red shapes. All shapes have a small gap in them, necessary for supporting the stencil. 
The brash simplicity of the 1 is rather pleasing.

The deck comes with a set of Ten extra cards, each numbered with an Arabic Number from 1-10. The first three are shown above. Each card possesses the same motif on both sides (i.e, no "Backs"). I have yet to find out their function. 

Games played with this deck:

As mentioned above, the main game played with the deck is called " Two-Seven-Ten" 

樂山貳七拾, Leshan er-qi-shi --Leshan Two-Seven-Ten. This game is of the same family as rummy and mahjongg, but is closer to the latter. Players attempt to form melds of multiple copies of the same card, or sequences of cards. The game also has a special meld, which consists of the Two, Seven and Ten of each suit, hence the name. 

"Long cards" 3:泸州大贰 -- Luzhou Da er

No. 189 " Big Two" [ Luzhou big two] , Binwang, 80c.
No, 189 《大贰》[泸州大贰]  宾王， 80副

Now we come to the another sort of Long cards, known to the West as the "Chinese character" cards. These cards distinguish themselves by the use of Chinese characters, instead of suit-symbols. Cards of this sort have featured before [ Four color cards, also ]. This post will show another sort, based on Chinese numerals.

The Chinese have two ways of writing numerals. One way is used for ordinary purposes. It is called "Small writing". Another way  called "Big writing" is used for financial purposes. The "Big writing" is much more complex. This prevents forgers from altering numbers, a thing that is easy with Small writing. The two forms are shown below.

The Big and small methods of writing form the two suits,  Their numbers for one to ten comprise the  ranks  There are four copies of each card in the two suits; the deck thus has 80 cards.

There are several varieties of cards that are based on such a principle. This particular example is used in Luzhou [ Luchow], a place in the South of Sichuan. Their chinese name, Da er, means "Big Two"

The cards in the "Small" suit. The cards of Two, Seven and Ten, are printed in red. The rest are printed in black. One of the cards of rank 1 possesses a QR code. 

The cards in the "big" suit. Like the small suit, the 2, 7 and 10 are in red. The maker's name is found in the center of each card. The letters are printed in a distinctly blobby font.

 The back of the box contains a rather pleasing announcement. 

Red Cross Society of China
Binwang Playing-card Co. Charitable fund

One box of Biwang poker-cards, Heaps of Love for Humanity 

When you purchase a box of Binwang Poker cards, or playing-cards, We will donate One Chinese Cent to the Red Cross Society of China, to show our Dedication to Society and love of Humanity

This donation resembles the situation in Russia, where the proceeds of the Playing-card tax went to the imperial orphanage. 

Games played with the deck 

The game played with these cards is similar to Rummy or mahjong, the latter bearing a closer resemblance. The Chinese Baidu article  article describes the game thus

 " It is loved by Young and Old, Male and Female alike. Playing it is a must at Festivals and Gatherings ...  It is far more lively and dynamic [than mahjong, ] " 

"Long cards" 2: 川牌 Sichuan Cards

No. 888- [Sichuanese domino cards] Binwang, 105+10c
No. 888 《川牌》 宾王， 105+10副

 Now we come to the other form of "Long cards" -- Ones based on Chinese dominoes. There are several kinds of Domino cards used in China, such as the "Fifteen point" (十五湖) cards used in Hong Kong ( see Here). These cards are used in Sichuan [Szechuan] ( yes, the same place as the sauce!) and are thus called by the Chinese "Sichuanese cards" ( 川牌)

The composition of this deck differs in several ways from Chinese dominoes made of wood.
A set of domino tiles contains 21 unique tiles. Some of these tiles are doubled. The complete set contains 32 tiles.
  The structure of the Sichuanese deck is simpler. There are Four copies of each tile/subject. The deck thus contains 21 x 4 = 84 cards. However, some decks, like this one, possess 5 copies of each card. To these 105 cards are added "Jokers" . There are two kinds of joker, with five copies of each kind. The whole deck thus contains 115 cards.

The pips in the Sichuanese deck are oriented horizontally, unlike the vertical arrangement of pips in the Fifteen-point cards. 

In the middle of each card, is depicted a personage from The Water margin, a Chinese novel. The personage depicted does not influence the actual value of the card. It is merely decoration. Decks are produced that lack the central personage
The individual ranks are also given names. For example, the [6,6] is called "Heaven" . These names are the ones used in Sichuan. Some differ from the names used in Pai Gow, which may be more familiar to western readers.  

Pips	Chinese Name	English Translation	Character depicted
[6,6]	天	Heaven	Song Jiang, leader of the 108  outlaws
[1,1]	地	Earth	Gongsun Sheng
[4,4]	人	Human	Tai Ming
[1,3]	和	Harmony	Zi Jing
[5,5]	梅子	Plum Blossom	Ge Ping
[3,3]	長三	Long Three	Wu Song
[2,2]	長二	Long Two	Monk Hua

 Of the five copies of each card, one of them is marked with a green flourish (like the  [5,6]) , and the other four are plain. (like the [4,6]). I have chosen to alternately show cards that bear the flourish, and cards that do not. I must emphasize that ALL the subjects exist in Flourished and unflourished forms. 

Pips	Chinese Name	English Translation	Character depicted
[5,6]	斧頭	Axe	Zhang Qing
[4,6]	紅十	Red Ten	Yang Zhi
[1,6]	高高兒	Tall One	Suo Cao
[1,5]	貓貓兒	Kitty	Xu Ning
[4,5]	紅九	Red Nine	Lu Junyi
[3,4]	紅七	Red Seven	Huyan Zhuo
[1,4]	紅五	Red Five	Li Ying

The Last Seven cards in the deck. The central personage is printed in Red or Black, depending on the presence of red pips ( the 2s and 4s) in the card. For example, the [1,4] which has red pips, has its its personage printed in Red. The [2,3], which has no red pips, has its personage printed in Black. This is probably economizing on the printer's part. However, the presence of red pips affects the score a card is given in the games played. An observant player might exploit this feature.   

Pips	Chinese Name	English Translation	Character depicted
[3,6]	黑九	Black Nine	Wu Yong
[2,6]	平八	Level Eight	Lin Chong
[2,5]	黑七	Black Seven	Hua Rong
[2,3]	黑五	Black Five	Zhu Gong
[3,5]	黑八	Black Eight	Guan Sheng
[2,4]	二紅	Two Red	Liu Tang
[1,2]	丁丁兒	“Ding Ding”	Dai Zhong

The two "Jokers" of the deck. On the Left, printed in green is 聽用- Ting Yong- "Listen and Use". On the Right, printed in red is the 財神 Cai shen-- " God of Wealth" . 

Here are two copies of the [1,1] one with the flourish, and one without. 

Games played with the deck

The two main games played with the deck are 打亂出- Da Luan Chu, a Trick-taking game, and 鬥十四 - Dou shisi , a rummy-like game. I hope to describe the rules of the two games in subsequent posts.