East Asia

Iron-cast top. String wound, snapped, spun on a sheet.

Forty-eight cards, twelve months, a tatami room at night.

Black and white stones on a 19-by-19 wooden grid.

Japanese chess. Captured pieces re-enter, switching sides.

Hundred-poem cards. The reader chants. The hand snatches.

Wooden cup-and-ball. Three cups, one spike, one persistent ball.

Hammer the middle blocks out. Keep Daruma upright.

Blindfold pin-the-features-on-the-face — New Year's parlor game.

Slap a card down hard enough to flip the rival's.

Four wooden sticks for dice. Lunar new year staple.

Five plastic stones, five rounds, one uplifted hand.

Folded paper tiles slammed flat to flip the rival's.

Toss arrows into a narrow-mouthed pot. Court ritual turned game.

Korean chess on a 9-by-10 board with diagonal palaces.

Chinese chess across a river. Cannons jump to capture.

Tiles clack. Seasons, dragons, four hands at the table.

Feathered shuttlecock kept aloft by foot circle.

Vietnamese variant of xiangqi played on village stoops.