How Did a Cigarette Card Become an Alleyway Game?

Among the traditional alleyway games of old Shanghai was one played with cigarette cards, sometimes grouped with the local “nine games” tradition. This was not the recent schoolyard fashion of folding modern cigarette packets into “smoke cards”, but an older use of stiff printed cards or packaging pieces that children collected, swapped and turned into play.

One version involved drawing a circle on the ground, placing cards inside it, then throwing another card in an attempt to knock or waft the others out. Another was simply a distance contest to see whose card would fly furthest. The rules were simple, but the cards occupied two roles at once: they were game pieces and small collectables. Different pictures and brands could become common, desirable or worth exchanging.

The game says something broader about childhood in a period when purpose-made toys were limited. Packaging, bottle tops, marbles and scrap paper could all be reassigned a new use. A toy did not always begin as something bought for children; often it became a toy only after children gave it rules, competition and a place in their shared social world.

https://www.shqp.gov.cn/shqp/qpyw/20210323/825315.html
https://service.shanghai.gov.cn/sheninfo/specialdetail.aspx?Id=903a374e-4a1e-4f83-86d9-5fba391c1a77