Dots: coins on the table
The dots suit shows one to nine circles. The design is usually traced to coins — the old Chinese copper cash had a square hole in the middle, and many tile artists draw each dot as a flower-like ring. In Chinese the suit is called tong (筒) or bing, and English speakers call it dots, circles, balls, wheels or coins.
Dots are the easiest suit to read because you can simply count. The one-dot is the exception: it is drawn as a large, ornate medallion and is easy to mistake for a decoration until you know it.
Bamboo: strings of coins
The bamboo suit shows sticks of bamboo, usually green with red highlights. It is thought to represent strings of coins threaded together. In Mandarin it is tiao (條) or suo (索); English names include bamboo, bams, sticks and strings.
The one-bamboo almost never shows a single stick. Instead it is a bird — a sparrow, peacock or phoenix depending on the set — and beginners regularly fail to recognise it. Once you know that the bird means "one bamboo", the rest of the suit is easy to count.
Characters: the myriads
The characters suit uses Chinese writing. Each tile has a numeral from one to nine on top and the character 萬 (wan, "ten thousand") underneath, usually in red. The suit descends from the "myriads" suit of old money cards. English players call it characters, cracks or craks; Japanese players call it manzu.
This is the suit beginners find hardest, because it requires recognising nine Chinese numerals. The good news is that only nine are needed, and most are simple — one, two and three are one, two and three horizontal strokes. Many modern sets also print small Arabic numerals in the corner.
Terminals and simples
Players divide suited tiles into terminals (the ones and nines) and simples (two to eight). The distinction matters in strategy and scoring. Simples can join runs in more ways, so they are more flexible; terminals can only join a run from one side, which makes them easier to discard early.
Several scoring patterns depend on this split. A hand made only of simples is a scoring element in Japanese mahjong, while hands made of terminals and honours are worth more in many styles. You will see terminals and simples mentioned constantly in strategy articles.
