Sheng Ji

Sheng Ji is a family of point trick-taking card games played in China and in Chinese immigrant communities. They have a dynamic trump, i.e., which cards are trump changes every round. As these games are played over a wide area with no standardization, rules vary widely from region to region.

The game can be played with multiple decks of cards. With one deck, it may be called Dǎ Bǎi Fēn (Chinese: 打百分; literally: "Competing for a Hundred Points") or Sìshí Fēn (四十分, "Forty Points"); with two decks, as is most commonly played, it may be called Bāshí Fēn (八十分, "Eighty Points"), Tuō Lā Jī (拖拉機, "Tractor"), Shuāng Kōu (雙摳, "Double Digging Out") or Shuāng Shēng (雙升, "Double Upgrade"); with three decks, it may be called Zhǎo Péngyǒu (找朋友, "Looking For Friends").

The article below mainly describes the Bashi Fen variant, with players playing with two decks and in fixed partnerships.

Players and objective

The game is played with four players in fixed partnerships, with players sitting across each other forming a team. Each team has a rank that they are currently playing, henceforth referred to as their score. At the beginning of a match, everyone starts at a score of 2.

Sheng

Sheng may refer to:

See also

Sheng slang

Sheng is a Swahili-based cant, perhaps a mixed language or creole, originating among the urban underclass of Nairobi, Kenya, and influenced by many of the languages spoken there. While primarily a language of urban youths, it has spread across social classes and geographically to neighbouring Tanzania and Uganda.

Etymology and history

The word "Sheng" is coined from the two languages that it is mainly derived from: Swahili and English. The "h" was included from the middle of "Swahili because "Seng" would have sounded unusual.

Originating in the early 1950s in the Eastlands area of Nairobi (variously described as a "slum", "ghetto" or "suburb"), Sheng is now heard among matatu drivers/touts across the region, and in the popular media. Most of the Sheng words are introduced in various communities and schools and given wide exposure by music artists who include them in their lyrics, hence the rapid growth. It can be assumed to be the first language of many Kenyans in urban areas.

Like all slang, Sheng is mainly used by the youth and is part of popular culture in Kenya. It also evolves rapidly, as words are moved into and out of slang use. It is finding broad usage among hip hop artists such as Kalamashaka and G.rongi in the African Great Lakes region, both mainstream and "underground" (whose music helps spread the language and contribute to rapid changes or shifts in Sheng vocabulary), as well as among some university and secondary-school students, the language was not always associated with people who cannot do much for the society until when the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation noted the rise in both class and diversity. Radio presenters John Karani, Jeff Mwangemi and Prince Otach took it to the main stream by presenting the first radio shows using sheng phrases on the national broadcast. By 2010 almost every effect media show was presented in sheng.

Sheng (surname)

Sheng is the Mandarin pinyin and Wade–Giles romanization of the Chinese surname written 盛 in Chinese character. It is romanized as Shing in Cantonese. Sheng is listed 146th in the Song dynasty classic text Hundred Family Surnames. As of 2008, it is the 175th most common surname in China, shared by 700,000 people.

Notable people