Hana-Fuda Games

I've been interested in Hana-Fuda card games since I was at university. Already a games player and member of the university games club, I bought a pack on a trip to London. The late and much-lamented Mitsukiko Japanese shop had packs, and a little photocopied sheet with basic instructions. It was a must. Here was something new to take back - perhaps something I could win at (although I love playing games, I didn't win things very often, something that hasn't changed in the intervening years).

I soon found that there was a book in English which explained several games, from "Fool Flowers" through "Honeymoon Hana-Fuda" to the full monte version which is the flower card equivalent of Bridge and where a run of bad judgement will wipe you out really fast. I was hooked.

As well as Japan, various other countries use the cards, which are, to my eye, beautiful. I've maintained contact with several friends who play, and I've researched some of the non-Japanese variants. English language instructions seemed few and far between, and in 2000, I wrote a couple of pages for some of my friends, with instructions for versions of fishing games from Hawaii and Korea.

As a result of posting those pages, I was contacted by Ian Bowes, who is the owner of the FlowerCards.com site and moderator of the Hana-Fuda list on Yahoo. I've joined the list, and as a result, I'm in the process of writing up some more variants, starting with Hwa-t'u from Korea.

I hope that, like me, you'll enjoy the games. If you have any more details, variants you think I might enjoy, or corrections for these pages, please email me.