House of cards

A two-storey house built from cards. Couldn't
find those traditional CNY cards from my childhood.

WHEN I was small, and Chinese New Year greeting cards were small...

Well, not that terribly small, but they were usually just one leaf. Not folded. Just a simple rectangular card, usually with Chinese paintings of flowers or vases -- with the Chinese words "Gong xi facai" or some other greetings printed on them.

Or, they could be decorated with paintings of scenery, of mountains, waterfalls and pine trees. Some have nice ethnic motifs running all round the borders.

They came in the post, in thin pink envelopes.

The "two-leaf" cards were rare and so they were treasured more. And because these could "stand", they could be used as "foundations" when you build your house of cards. Those rectangular "one-leaf" ones were used as "floors" or "roofs".

I suppose these cards were the early day legos.