SUBMITTED BY:

Lat, Kristel

Moralizon, Christianne

BSN III-B

SUBMITTED TO:
Ms. El Angeles

Chinese Dominoes
(A standard thirty-two-piece set of Chinese dominoes, which have existed since at
least the Song Dynasty [960–1279].)

The Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) author Xie Zhaozhe (1567–1624) initiated the
legend that dominoes were first presented to the imperial court in 1112. However,
the oldest confirmed written mention of dominoes in China comes from
the Former Events in Wulin (i.e. the capital Hangzhou) written by the Yuan
Dynasty (1271–1368) author Zhou Mi (1232–1298), who listed "pupai" (gambling
plaques or dominoes) as well as dice as items sold by peddlers during the reign
of Emperor Xiaozong of Song (r. 1162–1189). Andrew Lo asserts that Zhou Mi
meant dominoes when referring to pupai, since the Ming author Lu Rong (1436–
1494) explicitly defined pupai as dominoes (in regards to a story of a suitor who
won a maiden's hand by drawing out four winning pupai from a set). The earliest
known manual written about dominoes is the Manual of the Xuanhe Period (1119–
1125) written by Qu You (1347–1433). In the Encyclopedia of a Myriad of
Treasures, Zhang Pu (1602–1641) described the game of laying out dominoes
as pupai, although the character for pu had changed (yet retained the same
pronunciation). Traditional Chinese domino games include Tien Gow, Pai
Gow, Che Deng, and others. The thirty-two-piece Chinese domino set (made to
represent each possible face of two thrown dice and thus have no blank faces)
differs from the twenty-eight-piece domino set found in in the West during the mid
18th century (in France and Italy).
Chinese dominoes are used in several tile-based games, namely, Tien Gow, Pai
Gow, Che Deng, Tiu U and Kap Tai Shap.

In Cantonese they are called 骨牌 "Gwat Pai", which literally means "bone

tiles", it is also the name of a northern Chinese game, where the rules are quite
different from the southern Chinese game Tien Gow. References to Chinese
domino tiles can be traced to writings from the Song Dynasty (AD 1120). Chinese
dominoes should not be confused with mahjong tiles, which use a different tile set.

Each tile pattern in the Chinese domino set is made up of the outcome of a throw
of two six-sided dice. There are therefore 21 unique patterns. A tile set consists of
32 tiles in two "suits" or groups called "military" and "civilian". There are no
markings on the tiles to distinguish these suits; a player must simply remember
which tiles belong to which group.

The tile set contains two each of eleven civilian suit tiles (6-6, 1-1, 4-4, 1-3, 5-5, 3-
3, 2-2, 5-6, 4-6, 1-6, 1-5) and one each of ten military suit tiles (3-6, 4-5; 2-6, 3-5;
2-5, 3-4; 2-4; 1-4, 2-3; 1-2). Each civilian tile also has a Chinese name (and
common rough translation to English): The 6-6 is tin (天 heaven), 1-1
is dei (地 earth), 4-4 is yan (人 man), 1-3 is ngo (鵝 goose or 和 harmony), 5-5
is mui (梅 plum flower), 3-3 is cheung (長 long), 2-2 is ban (板 board), 5-6
is fu (斧 hatchet), 4-6 is ping (屏 partition), 1-6 is tsat(七) (long leg seven), and
1-5 is luk (六) (big head six).

The civilian tiles are ranked according to the Chinese cultural significance of the
tile names, and must be memorized. For example, heaven ranks higher than earth;
earth ranks higher than man etc. Remembering the suits and rankings of the tiles is
easier if one understands the Chinese names of the tiles and the symbolism behind
them. The military tiles are named and ranked according to the total points on the
tiles. For example, the "nines" (3-6 and 4-5) rank higher than the "eights" (2-6 and
3-5).
 The military tiles (since there is only one each) are also considered to be five
mixed "pairs" (for example, the 3-6 and 4-5 tiles "match" because they have same
total points and both in the military suit). Among the military tiles, individual tiles
of the same pair (such as 1-4 and 2-3) rank equally. The 2-4 and 1-2 are an odd
pair. They are the only tiles in the whole set that don't match other tiles in the
normal sense. This pair when played together is considered a suit on its own, called
the Gee Joon (至尊 Supreme). It is the highest ranking pair in the game of Pai
Gow, though the tiles rank low individually (in their normal order). When a tile of
this pair is played individually in the game of Tien Gow, each takes its regular
ranking among other military suit tiles according to the total points. The rankings
of the individual tiles are similar in most games. However, the ranking of
combination tiles is slightly different in Pai Gow and Tien Gow.

Using the same coloring scheme of the traditional Chinese dice, every half-domino
with 1 or 4 spots has those spots colored red (for example, the 4-5 domino has four
red spots and five white spots). The only exception is the pair of 6-6 tiles. Half of
the spots on the 6-6 domino are colored red to make them stand out as the top
ranking tiles.