When I started writing this, I didn’t think it would be a storybook.
It’s probably just for me.
I’ll share it anyway. Maybe it will tell you something too.
Why are there so many cards on the streets?
I noticed on Koh Samui that there were so many cards of all kinds on the side of the road.
I didn’t think about it for a long time. I just took note of it. I’ve seen a lot of cards lying around, that’s all.
I’ve seen them in Thailand, Indonesia and Laos. Sometimes just one card, sometimes several together.
Then I saw a Joker in Laos once. For some reason I wanted to pick it up, but in the end I stepped over it.
That’s when it started.
I started thinking about what the secret could be in the fate of the cards.
I read about it, and later I talked to someone about it. The reason is what I suspected.
Card games are illegal in these countries. So, if there’s a risk of getting caught or the player doesn’t want to keep the evidence with them, they simply throw away the deck.
The game is okay on certain occasions (funerals, weddings) and there is no problem if it is played in private.
I understood a situation in hindsight. I saw a couple of women playing one time. They were playing in great spirits. It was such a lively scene that I asked them if I could take a photo of them. They objected vehemently.
The Joker
That particular Joker came my way in Houayxay, my first Lao settlement.
I still don’t know why I wanted to pick it up.
Two days later I thought about going back to get it. Yet there was only one Joker lying on the banks of the Mekong.
Then on my last day – the Thursday before the two-day boat trip – in Houayxay, 50 meters from the Mekong, I saw a bunch of muddy, dirty cards by the side of the road.
I collected the ones that weren’t completely unusable. A total of 18 cards. I went home and cleaned them.
Because there, on the banks of the Mekong, I decided that I would collect them until I could put together a complete deck.
A few days later, I made a spreadsheet in which I started to record which cards I collected, where and when. This spreadsheet had a constantly decreasing worksheet, on which I only saw the missing cards.
From then on, I was constantly paying attention to the dust of the road.
If I saw a card, I took out my chart. If I found a missing piece, I put a card or cards in an empty peanut bag I had made for this purpose. I cleaned it at home, noted it in the chart, and put it in its place in the deck.
I got two rubber rings and tied my ever-growing deck with them.
I often live in numbers
I had no idea when the deck would be ready.
That’s why the game was exciting.
It’s good to see how this search went in retrospect.
I had to bend down into the dust, mud, and grass a total of 18 times in 9 cities, two countries.
I often used my feet to dig the cards out of the ground. Sometimes I had to climb into the ditch to get them. I picked up a lot and threw away a lot.
Then I came across things that I hadn’t even thought about at first.
For example, a set of Bridge rules. A paper box, soaked and battered, but still usable. Then a paper frame that eventually contained the entire deck.
In Van Vieng, I had a heavy, wooden-framed double bed. The bed’s foot was as wide as my palm. So for two days I slept with the deck of cards wrapped in a tissue under the foot of the bed. Just to straighten out the crooked cards.
I didn’t have a rule that I only collected cards that were fresh and undamaged. In fact, I had a more used idea that the more life-giving a card was, the more interesting it was.
I later replaced one card with another, and the reason for this was that the back of the card I found the second time around was more interesting.
There are both paper and plastic-based cards in my deck. Some are completely intact, some are torn, some have holes. Some are faded and some I couldn’t clean completely.
I was worried about the Jokers. What are the chances of finding two of them? Because even though Jokers are not part of the poker deck, I decided that I wanted to collect two. In the end, it turned out to be four because I didn’t have the heart to leave the second pair.
This exciting game for me lasted 41 days.
The game ended 3 days ago, here in Vietnam.
At least the first round.
Because maybe I’ll repeat this game.
Storytelling cards
As I was going along, I had the idea that by the time I finished collecting, I would actually have created an interestingly written storybook.
After all, each of the cards tells me something.
The only card that I didn’t find but received, for example, will always tell about O. The Queen of Spades will always remind me of how much he liked it when I told this card story to the man. He asked me to show him the table of the missing cards. Then he went back to the kitchen and, after a while, brought the Queen of Spades. Not the eight cards that were still missing at the time, just this one.
The Queen of Spades will remind me that I once found smaller cards, about 2×3 cm. The next day I gave one of these to O, who pinned it to the memory column.
There is a card that whispers to me about the motorcycle trip and reminds me of the guys’ faces.
There will be one that shows the image of the deaf European kid digging in the dirt on the side of the road in 40 degrees, with a phone in one hand and a few torn cards in the other.
The last card found in the deck was the Three of Diamonds. He will tell you that when I found him, I had not had a single hit for a week. He was the only one missing. Since this was the only card left on the worksheet showing the missing cards, I knew I was looking for him. And then in Hanoi I saw a card on the street with a very beautiful back. It was the second card in Hanoi, I didn’t keep the first one because it was no longer missing from this deck. And as soon as I saw the back of the card, for some reason I knew exactly that this missing Three of Diamonds would be it.
It was him.
And the feeling that I knew exactly that it would be him made me very, very happy at that moment.
These pages are already telling stories.
I wonder what they will say in a year or two.
They tell stories in digital form
When I realized that this collection provided the framework for a story, I decided to digitize the collection and make a small book out of it.
You can check it out here, scroll through it, and see if one of the other pages speaks to you too.
What will happen to the deck?
My first thought was that when I finished collecting all the cards, I would make a video in an impressive place, preferably on a high place, where I would scatter the collection into the air.
After all, I don’t want to own anything, it would be appropriate to give back the freedom of the cards.
Later, I thought that I would rather put the deck up for auction one day. Maybe there will be someone who would listen to the story the cards tell. And I will give whatever money I get for it to an organization that works with children. Let the children benefit from my stupid little game.
Until the fate of the deck is decided, I will lovingly keep it among my few belongings.
In the meantime, I offer it to you with love!
Turn the pages with the same joy as I worked with it.
Buy me a coffee?
If you enjoyed this story, you can buy me a coffee. You don’t have to – but it means a lot and I always turn it into a new adventure.
Buy a coffee for Steve
Linktree
Short introduction