Mahjong has been enjoyed by young and old all over the world ever since it was exported from China. It’s over five thousand years old, but it was accessible only to Chinese royalty before China became a republic in 1911. It appears complex and arcane but is easy to learn, in some ways very much like gin rummy.
From the 1920s through the 1940s, it was wildly popular in the United States, sometimes even more so than a bridge. Initially, the rules were translated from Chinese, so American adaptations tended to be rather free. At one time, American Mahjong could be played by several different sets of rules, until 1925 when a set of American rules were standardized.
A mahjong set contains a number of tiles, some racks to arrange them on, some dice to roll to decide which player goes first, and poker-like chips used to keep score. American Mahjong has 166 tiles, while other types have more or fewer. Traditionally, tiles are carved from bone, but heavy, well-made plastic tiles are cheaper and perfectly acceptable. The object of Mahjong is to arrange combinations of tiles, like melds in canasta or hands in poker or rummy. Each combination is worth a certain number of points.
Some of the tiles are marked in suits — circles, bamboo, and characters, which are actually Chinese characters representing the numbers one through nine. American sets will also have the Roman numbers written on the tiles.
In addition to the suits, there are the dragon tiles, which don’t actually have a picture of a dragon on them, but rather are marked with significant characters. The red character means middle or center and represents China as a self-reference being the center of the world. The green character means fortune which the Chinese highly prize and the white square represents the unseen, spiritual world. If you’re looking to play this game, you can play it online here.
The last type of tiles in a traditional mahjong set is the wind tiles which represent the four directions. Moreover, depending on the variation you play, eight flower and season tiles can come into the game. They do not help you build a hand but help you get more points for your hand. Lastly, unique to the American version, there are eight joker tiles which can represent any tile to help make a winning hand.
The tiles are placed face down in the middle of the table and mixed thoroughly by all the players. The sound of the tiles being stirred around is an important part of the game’s ambiance. In fact, the name “mahjong” is derived from Chinese words meaning little sparrows fussing about in a bush, which is what the tiles sound like.
In a traditional Chinese Mahjong game, each player then takes 34 tiles and builds a wall in front of her, two tiles high and seventeen long. If the flower tiles are in play, then the wall is composed of 36 tiles. If the American version is being played and flower tiles are being used, then that’s 38 tiles total. The players then push their walls to the center of the table, forming a square. To commence the game, a set of three dice is thrown to designate where to “break the wall”.
Players are dealt with game tiles from the wall and placed on the racks in front of the players. Now the strategy begins where the players try to form the right combinations by drawing from the wall or picking up from the floor of discarded tiles. Three of a kind is “pung”, and four of a kind is “kong”. A straight of three tiles is a chow. For a winning hand, you need 4 of these combinations plus an extra pair for “eyes”.
Mahjong is an intriguing and even addictive game. Buy a mahjong set and begin playing with your friends and family. If they can’t keep up with you, join a Mahjong club in your area. There are lots of people willing to share your passion for this highly entertaining and thoughtful game.
