page_title: Mahjong tiles
section_title: Quartets
hierarchical_section_title: Mahjong tiles / Contents / Flower tiles / Quartets
caption_attribution_description: English: Top row represents the Four Arts. Bottom row are the Four Noble Professions.
context_page_description: Mahjong tiles are tiles of Chinese origin that are used to play mahjong as well as mahjong solitaire and other games. Although they are most commonly tiles, they may refer to playing cards with similar contents as well.
context_section_description: The average set, if it contains flower tiles, will have two quartets of flower tiles, differentiating the color and/or style of the labels. Each quartet contains four unique tiles, which are numbered from 1 to 4 or otherwise distinctly labelled (common Chinese sets will have one quartet with blue Arabic numerals and the other group having red Chinese numerals). Each number matches a seat (1=East, 2=South, 3=West, 4=North).  Winners can double their score if the number on their flowers matches their seat number. There are also bonuses from collecting an entire quartet and in some variations, immediately winning from collecting all the flowers. As they reward points for pure luck, many games do not include them or are considered optional.
  The four tiles in the Four Seasons (Chinese: 四季; pinyin: sìjì; Cantonese Jyutping: sei³gwai³; Japanese: 季節牌; rōmaji: kisetsuhai; Vietnamese: bốn mùa) quartet are:
   or  or 
  Spring Chinese: 春; pinyin: chūn; Cantonese Jyutping: ceon¹; Vietnamese: xuân
  Summer Chinese: 夏; pinyin: xià; Cantonese Jyutping: haa⁶; Vietnamese: hạ
  Autumn Chinese: 秋; pinyin: qiū; Cantonese Jyutping: cau¹; Vietnamese: thu
  Winter Chinese: 冬; pinyin: dōng; Cantonese Jyutping: dung¹; Vietnamese: đông
  The four tiles in the Four Gentlemen (Chinese: 四君子; pinyin: sìjūnzi; Cantonese Jyutping: sei³gwan¹zi²; Vietnamese: Tứ Quân Tử) quartet are:
   or  or 
  plum Chinese: 梅; pinyin: méi; Cantonese Jyutping: mui⁴; Vietnamese: mai
  orchid Chinese: 蘭; pinyin: lán; Cantonese Jyutping: laan⁴; Vietnamese: lan
  chrysanthemum Chinese: 菊; pinyin: jú; Cantonese Jyutping: guk¹; Vietnamese: cúc
  bamboo Chinese: 竹; pinyin: zhú; Cantonese Jyutping: zuk¹; Vietnamese: trúc
  Thai, Vietnamese, and Malaysian mahjong sets contain two more quartets of flower tiles in addition to the Four Seasons and Four Gentlemen. These are the usual subjects:
  Four Arts (Chinese: 四藝; pinyin: sìyì; Cantonese Jyutping: sei³ngai⁶; Vietnamese: Tứ Nghệ): 1. Guqin (琴), 2. Go (棋), 3. Calligraphy (書), 4. Painting (畫)
  Four Noble Professions (Chinese: 四業; pinyin: sìyè; Cantonese Jyutping: sei³jip⁶; Vietnamese: Tứ nghiệp): 1. Fisher (漁), 2. Woodcutter (樵), 3. Farmer (耕), 4. Scholar (讀)
  While some Vietnamese sets use the Four Arts and the Four Noble Professions, most of them use emperors (Chinese: 皇; pinyin: huáng; Cantonese Jyutping: wong⁴; Vietnamese: hoàng) and empresses (Chinese: 后; pinyin: hòu; Cantonese Jyutping: hau⁶; Vietnamese: hậu). They are not decorated with pictures but just the number and character (e.g. Third Emperor 三皇, Fourth Empress 四后).
  The earliest known Chinese sets contained twelve flowers but no Four Gentlemen tiles and the Four Seasons were unadorned. Sets with large numbers of flowers were once popular in Northern China to play the game of "Flower Mahjong" (花麻雀). They typically had 20 or more flowers with some described as having up to 44.
caption: Four Arts on the top, Four Noble Professions on the bottom
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