Playing Cards from South East Asia

Southeast Asia sits on the old monsoon routes between India and China. Traders carried spices, scripts and stories. The Ramayana travelled with them, and courts turned it into mask theatre like khon and wayang. That shared picture language, with Hanuman, Garuda, court dress and temple patterns, also appears on the region’s playing cards. Chinese money suited cards arrived early for gambling. Later, European style packs came through colonial and local printers in hubs such as Singapore, Batavia, now Jakarta, and Manila. In the twentieth century these strands mixed into decks for casinos, tourism and state events.

Brunei • Cambodia • East Timor • Indonesia • Laos • Malaysia • Myanmar (Burma) • Philippines • Singapore • Thailand • Vietnam

REFERENCES:

• Reid, Anhtony: Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce 1450-1680, Yale University Press, 1988