I’ve been trying to learn how to play a game called 고스톱 (go-seu-top = “go-stop”), which is played with a deck of cards called 화투 (hwa-tu = “flower cards”) – see picture. It’s a very complicated “go fish” type of game that holds a status similar to poker in South Korea, often connected to themes of family togetherness or gambling-among-friends.
There’re several places online to find the rules in English, which is good because just watching the game, and even having it explained by someone as they play in moderately good English, is pretty incomprehensible. The best thorough description of the rules that I’ve found is at galbijim, a website devoted to explaining Korea to “expats.”
I don’t go there often, as I generally avoid the “expat” community, especially the online expat community. Collectively, they seem too negative about so much of Korea. I’m perfectly capable of feeling negative on my own (see previous several posts!). So… I hardly need the encouragement and influence of thousands of disgruntled foreigners. But anyway, galbijim’s explication of the game is pretty thorough.
If anyone’s interested, I’m sure it’s probably possible to buy hwa-tu cards in any Korean-owned grocery or convenience store on the planet. The Japanese use a version of the cards called hanafuda (which represents the same Chinese characters – 花鬪, in Japanese, as hwa-tu does in Korean) to play a game called Koi-koi.
