‘Cartoon cards’ or ang kong ngah pai

THE “CARTOON CARDS” or ang kong ngah pai that we played came in perforated sheets (bigger than A4), designed to allow us to tear them into small ones. We ended up with about 20 cards, roughly 2in by 2.5in in size, from each big piece. On one side are reprints of full-colour cartoons and illustrations, probably of Japanese origin. On the other, one-colour graphics.

Such cards were part of the seasonal games in Penang. I suspect now all these could have been orchestrated by importers and distributors – invisible hands. Otherwise how could these seasons have happened with such regularity, widespread distribution of their appendices.

As far as I can remember, there were three ways we played such cards:

• Shooting the head and tail like marbles (read here). In this version, we switched the marbles for cards.
• High-five: This was between two players, each holding a card on the palm. They performed a high-five and allowed the cards to drop. If the cards landed with similar sides (full-colour or one-colour) facing up, it was a draw. If they landed differently, both cards would go to the person with the full-coloured side facing up.
• Currency: In school we were not allowed to gamble, especially with cash. However, seemingly innocuous games like opening books to add up their numbers, tossing coins to guess heads or tails, etc, were indeed gambling, as were the tontin games peddled by street vendors. In some of these we used cards to bet. We didn’t wager with cash so it was okay, I suppose.

© Lim Siang Jin