The earliest surviving mahjong sets date to the 1870s when the game was largely confined to Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Jiangsu.[1] They already exhibited various traits found in modern sets. The core of the set is the 108 suited tiles which were inherited from Chinese money-suited playing cards. The Wind honor tiles and the Four Seasons tiles were also found in the earliest sets. The honor tiles known as Arrows (Dragons in English) developed to their current form by 1890 concurrent with a new style of play called Zhōngfā (中發).[2] Flower tiles, once known as Outer Flowers (Chinese: 外花; pinyin: wàihuā; Jyutping: ngoi6faa1), were not universally accepted until the 1920s. In contrast, many early sets contained wild cards with specific powers known as Inner Flowers (Chinese: 裏花; pinyin: lǐhuā; Jyutping: loei5faa1) which disappeared from most of China but are still found in Vietnam and Thailand.[3][4]
Joker tiles (百搭牌, pinyin bǎidāpái) can be used to replace any suited or honor tile in putting together a hand subject to local restrictions. Four jokers are sometimes used in certain variants of Southeast Asian and Chinese mahjong, including Shanghainese mahjong. American mahjong uses eight jokers.
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