A Glossary of Traditional Chinese Toys, Puzzles and Games
Main Reference:
An English translation of Play, Play, Play: Fun and Wisdom in Traditional Chinese toys,
CHANG Shih-Tsung, National Taiwan Education University, 1993.
张世宗 (國立台北教育大學): 玩遊戲, 太聨文化出版, 1993年。
| Category | English | Chinese | Material / Context | Description/Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toy | Ba’er | 拔兒 | wood | This refers to a 12-inch wooden object shaped like the stone of a date. It is firsr held uprright before hitting. |
| Toy | bamboo copter | 竹靖蛟, 竹蜻蜓 | bamboo | |
| Toy | bamboo crossbow | 竹弩 | bamboo | |
| Toy | bamboo gun | 竹槍 | bamboo | |
| Toy | Campanula | 風鈴 | wind, sound | |
| Toy | Camphor boat | 樟腦船 | water | This simple toy is made using a board as the body of the boat with camphor placed at one end. The boat is able to move without any additional force. |
| Toy | clay dolls | 泥偶 | mud, clay | Including clay dogs (泥泥狗), clay tigers(泥泥虎), and A-Fu, a well-known child figurine with a chubby face and a beaming smile. |
| Toy | Clay whistle | 泥人哨 | clay, sound | |
| Toy | cloth dolls | 布偶 | cloth | Including cloth tigers (布老虎)and other animal shapes |
| Toy | contra rotating stick | 逆轉棒 | gravity | |
| Toy | Crane lantern | 仙鶴燈 | light | |
| Toy | Cricket gourd | 蝈蝈葫蘆 | storage | |
| Toy | Deity standing on the palm | 仙人立掌 | gravity | |
| Toy | diabolo | 空竹, 空鐘, 扯鈴, 響簧 | bamboo | A diabolo can be a single cone, or resemble two tops joined at their tips with an axle. Players hold two sticks with a string tied between them in their hands and spin the top up and down the string, tossing it and catching it again. Diabolos come in all sizes and are differentiated by the number of ringing sounds they can produce. |
| Toy | Doll stickers | 尢仔標 | paper | |
| Toy | Dragon lantern | 龍燈 | light | |
| Toy | Fan Hua Ban | 翻花板 | wood | A kaleidoscope on a board |
| Toy | field toad | 地牛 | bamboo | |
| Toy | flapping crane | 振翅鶴 | paper | |
| Toy | flying eagle | 飛鹰 | paper | |
| Toy | Ice ape | 冰猴兒 | wood | A top made to spin on thick layers of ice. |
| Toy | Jumping ingot | 跳寶 | gravity | |
| Toy | kite | 風箏 | wind | |
| Toy | Kong Ming lantern | 孔明燈 | light | Named after Zhuge Kong Ming or Zhuge Liang [諸葛亮], recognised as the greatest and most accomplished strategist of his era，lighting the lantern symbolizes wishes to be fulfilled |
| Toy | Little Hand Drum | 小搖梆 | wood | |
| Toy | Lotus lantern | 荷葉燈 | light | |
| Toy | Monkey walking on a tightrope | 猴子走鋼索 | gravity | |
| Toy | Morphing paper flowers | 摺紙花 | paper | |
| Toy | Mu Ren Zou Xian | 木人走線 | wood | Literally, a wooden man walking on a rope |
| Toy | Paper flower ladderpaps | 翻花梯 | paper | |
| Toy | Punt-polel lantern | 篙子燈 | light | |
| Toy | rattle drum | 搏浪鼓 | wood | |
| Toy | River lantern | 河燈 | light | |
| Toy | Rolling ground tiger | 滾地虎 | gravity | |
| Toy | Shadow-picture lantern | 走馬燈 | light | Literally, “Walking Horse” |
| Toy | Sound board | 響板 | sound | |
| Toy | Sun and Moon Ball | 日月球 | wood | |
| Toy | Top | 千千, 陀螺 | wood | |
| Toy | WaterlLantern | 水燈 | light | |
| Toy | wooden dolls | 木偶 | wood | |
| Toy | Zhu Cao Pie Zai | 豬槽撇仔 | paper | Literally, the term means throwing piglets out of the trough. |
| Puzzle | assembly boards | 排板 | wood | |
| Puzzle | Butterfly Rings | 蝴蝶环 | metal | |
| Puzzle | Butterfly Wings puzzle | 蝶翅几 | wood | |
| Puzzle | Chinese ring puzzles | 巧环 | metal | A collected term that refers to all intellectual ring puzzles, the famous being the Nine-Connected Rings. |
| Puzzle | Clever Puzzle Ring | 益智巧环 | metal | |
| Puzzle | Deity Ferry | 仙人擺渡 | wood | |
| Puzzle | Deity Lock Pick | 仙人开锁 | wood | |
| Puzzle | Deity Shuttle | 仙人穿梭 | wood | A Deity Shuttle is made of a horizontal rod and two pieces of coins. There is a hole in the middle of the horizontal rod which allows a thread to go through. This looks like a shuttle that runs to and fro on the weaving machine during weaving. There are 2 small holes at both ends of the rod to hold the ends of the thread in place. To solve the puzzle is to bring the coins together. During the game, the coins have to pass through the small hole which is even smaller than its diameter. |
| Puzzle | Deity Stairs | 仙人登梯 | wood | |
| Puzzle | Double Round Jigsaw Puzzle | 雙圓七巧板 | wood | |
| Puzzle | Egg Puzzle | 蛋形拼板 | wood | |
| Puzzle | Escape Rings | 金蝉脫殼 | metal | |
| Puzzle | Five Finger Rings | 五指环 | metal | |
| Puzzle | Four Amazing Division | 奇分四喜 | wood | |
| Puzzle | Golden Turtle Rings | 金龜环 | metal | |
| Puzzle | Heart-shaped Puzzle | 心形七巧板 | wood | |
| Puzzle | Hua Rong Road | 华容道 | wood | |
| Puzzle | Lady Scale | 贵妃秤 | wood | |
| Puzzle | lantern riddles | 灯谜 | lingual | |
| Puzzle | Left Right Fight Rings | 左右逢源 | metal | |
| Puzzle | Lovers’ Rings | 鸳鸯扣 | metal | |
| Puzzle | Lu Ban Lock | 魯班锁 | wood | |
| Puzzle | Maze Rings | 迷宫环 | metal | |
| Puzzle | Nine Connected Rings | 九連環 | metal | Also called “Cardan’s Rings” and “Sigillo Salomen” in the West. In Nine-Connected Rings, all rings are interloped on a bar or a frame in a shape ranging from a sword to a butterfly. One either tries to release all the rings from the frame or hook them back on by following certain steps. The name has been extended to cover similar puzzles with number of rings not limited to nine. The procedure of releasing or interconnecting the rings is actually repetitive in shifting the ring up and down around the frame. However, as the number of rings increases, the steps required increases exponentially. A minimum of 241 steps are needed to solve the nine-ring puzzle. |
| Puzzle | Nine Curve Rings | 九曲环 | metal | |
| Puzzle | Nine Halls Diagram | 九宫图 | wood | |
| Puzzle | Pagoda Rings | 寶塔环 | metal | |
| Puzzle | Pentominoes | 五方联 | wood | |
| Puzzle | puzzle boards | 拼板 | wood | |
| Puzzle | Pythagorean Puzzle | 畢氏七巧板 | wood | |
| Puzzle | Qi Zhong Yi | 歧中易 | metal | |
| Puzzle | riddles | 猜谜 | lingual | |
| Puzzle | Round 10 Assembly Board | 园形十巧板 | wood | |
| Puzzle | Seven-piece Tangram | 七巧板 | wood | |
| Puzzle | Six Components of Excellence | 六子聯芳 | wood | Also known as 六疙瘩 |
| Puzzle | Sliding Tiles Puzzles | 滑板 | wood | |
| Puzzle | Spiral Runner | 螺旋转轮 | metal | |
| Puzzle | Swallow Jigsaw Puzzle | 燕式七巧板 | wood | |
| Puzzle | Three Coincidental Parts | 巧合三寸 | wood | |
| Puzzle | Three-star Constellation | 三星归位 | wood | |
| Puzzle | tongue twisters | 繞口令 | lingual | A kind of word puzzle popular in Song (A.D. 960-1279) and Yuan (A.D. 1279-1368) Dynasties in which a character is broken up into its parts to form a puzzle phrase. |
| Puzzle | Wire Flywheel | 铁线飞轮 | metal | |
| Puzzle | word riddles | 拆白道字 | lingual | |
| Game | catching the chicks | 老鷹捉小鸡 | field | |
| Game | Cat’s Cradle | 挑绳，翻花绳 | String | This rope play trains children fingers skills in picking, turning, crossing, purling and so on and team competition encourages concentration and cooperation. Typical rhymes are often chanted by children at play. |
| Game | Finger guessing | 猜拳 | drinking | Also known as “Throwing fists”. This is a simple game to decide on win/lose. In a wine game, a dinner guest could challenge another one into throwing fists to decide who should drink. The players would throw open their fists, showing certain number of their fingers, while the challenger would call out a number. If the number matches the total fingers put up by both players, the challenger would win. The challenge is not limited to straightforward calling of numbers. Especially among intellectuals and scholars, sophisticated calling phrases have been devised to challenge the literary knowledge of one another. |
| Game | Grassfight | 草玩 | grass, plant | Grassfight is in two different forms. In a phsical fight, different specis are used to cross cut each other. In a literary form, names of the grass are called to match, or ‘overpower’ the other. In Chapter 62 of the classical novel Dream of the Red Chamber [紅樓夢], in the grassfight between two young girls, “arhat pine” [罗汉松] was used to match with “Buddha willow” [观音柳] , and “beauty canna” [美人蕉] with “noble bamboo” [君子竹]. |
| Game | hand shadow play | 手影戲 | light | |
| Game | handball | 手球 | field | |
| Game | Kicking dance | 蹴鞠舞 | field | The earliest form of football game |
| Game | kicking sand bags | 踢沙包 | field | |
| Game | kicking shuttlecocks | 踢毽子 | field | |
| Game | Leaflets play | 葉子戲 | paper | This card game, orginally made of leaves and invented during the Tang and Song dynasties (A.D.960-1279), was spread to Europe as the Mongolian troop marched to the west. After merging with the local cultures, it gradually evolved to become poker. |
| Game | Ma Diao | 马吊 | paper | This Leaflets game was for four players. |
| Game | Mahjong | 麻將 | tile | Evolved from Ma Diao, paper cards were replaced by more lasting stone tiles in mid Qing dynasty. |
| Game | playhouse | 扮家家酒 | field | |
| Game | Ring toss handheld games | 套圈圈 | water | |
| Game | Sand drawing | 沙畫 | sand, water | |
| Game | selling drums | 卖摇鼓 | field | |
| Game | stepball | 踏球 | field | |
| Game | stickball | 竿球 | field | |
| Game | Water Margins cards | 水浒牌 | paper | Evolved from the Leaflets game, this set of cards display the main characters from the classic Water Margins. |
| Game | Water swing | 水秋千 | water | This sports game is played in the following way. First, place the two poles of the wooden frame (of the swing) respectively onto two barges that are close to each other. Next, the player must stand on the suspended wood plank and use great strength to treadle on it. By doing so, he could swing high up. Once the plank reaches the same level as the top of the plank, the player will release his hand from the swing, somersault in mid-air and fall gracefully into the water. |
| Game | Wine games | 酒令 | drinking | Literally, “Drinking rules”. These are games played with wine drinking in dinners. Losers are made to drink. There are over 700 kinds of game rules in 6 major categories ranging from dice throwing, finger guessing; and verbal linguo. |
| Game | Puffing paper frog | 噴田蛤仔 | paper | This simple game places the folded paper frogs in confrontation. Each player tries to puff into his/her own frog to jerk it into smashing the opponent’s frog. |
A Joint Presentation of SSAGSg and Prof CHANG Shih-Tsung, first uploaded October 3, 2010
Last changed on August 7,2011