8 Dots

Did you know

• Taiwanese players see a box of mooncakes or a slab of mullet roe (烏魚子) in it. In Guangdong it can be the coffin.¹
• Along with the 4, it is one of only two dots tiles in this set drawn without any red or pink: every coin is blue.
• Eight is the lucky number in Chinese: 八 bā sounds like 發 fā, "to prosper", the same 發 that is on the green dragon.²

At the table

• It fits in two sequences, one fewer than the middle tiles.
• It is suji to the 5: once an opponent has discarded , a two-sided wait on the 8 would leave them furiten, which makes it a safer discard against them.
• It is dora when is the dora indicator. Turned up as the indicator itself, it makes dora.

Yaku it can help

• Tanyao simples only
• Chinitsu one suit only
• Chuuren Poutou the nine gates, all in one suit

Where the dots come from

Each dot is a coin: a round copper cash with a square hole, the everyday money of imperial China, straight from the coin suit of the money cards mahjong grew out of. A minority theory has them as the end of a gun barrel instead.³¹

Its Chinese names are 筒子 tǒngzi, "barrels", and 餅子 bǐngzi, "cakes". Japanese players first read 筒子 as tonzu; the pinzu they say now survives from the cakes. English speakers call the suit dots, circles or coins.³⁴

Sources

1. 麻雀牌, Wikipedia (Chinese) Chinese
2. Chinese numerology, Wikipedia
3. Mahjong tiles, Wikipedia
4. 麻雀牌, Wikipedia (Japanese) Japanese