Pai

Pai (牌) is a traditional East and Southeast Asian card type, most closely associated with Chinese money-suited playing cards. The term broadly refers to long, narrow paper cards used in games such as madiao and later regional descendants, with suits based on monetary units like coins, strings and myriads. Known locally by related terms—including pai in Thai (ไพ่) and pai in several other regional languages—the cards spread widely through migration and trade, giving rise to local forms across China, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, and the Indonesian ceki tradition, and represent an important bridge between early Chinese card games and later developments such as Mahjong.