Mah Jong

On my terrace, last summer.
Hats aloft against the unusual heat.

I have  perhaps mentioned Mah Jong before; I must have! The Thursday morning Mah Jong has become one of my most enjoyable pleasures/pastimes here and I can see that I am becoming somewhat Messianic in my enthusiasm. But the prompt for this blog comes from my youngest daughter who has Face-timed me twice this week on the subject! She was introduced to the game when she was staying here last August and learned more as a guest in Brugge, in October. She took to it so quickly that I sent her a set of her own. My sister similarly is now equipped to start her own group in Suffolk. Christmas in California was also suitably furnished which is where my eldest two grand-daughters were introduced to, and fell for, the seductive charms of Mah Jong. My son-in-law, strangely immune to its attraction, tended to refer slightingly to the four of us noisily enjoying our game, as those at the crack table; a jibe above which we rose as we happily clicked away. And now, two phone calls to show me how much they are enjoying playing the game in Bury St. Edmonds; apparently a mere six hours of enjoyment was had yesterday in my daughter’s neck of the woods and a pub. visit cancelled! Is there no end to the power of Mah Jongg?

For the uninitiated, Mah Jong developed as a card game in the Qing dynasty [1644-1912] in central China and spread throughout the world during the twentieth century. At some point, certainly by the late nineteenth century, the cards had been discarded in favour of tiles with which the game is now commonly associated.In fact, the earliest set of Mah Jong tiles dates from 1870. It was first mentioned in print in the West when the British sinologist and Consul-General to China and Korea, William Henry Wilkinson, published a paper on it in 1895 in which he maintained that the origin of the name was ‘Ma Tiao’ [hemp sparrow]The clicking of the tiles is said to resemble the chattering of sparrows. Mah Jong was imported into the U.S.A. in the 1920s where it quickly became all the rage! Abercombie and Fitch sold thousands of sets during the Twenties and Joseph Park Babcock published his book, ‘Rules of Mah Jongg’ known as the Red Book in 1920. He had lived in China for many years where he had learned to play and his book simplified the rules and thus fed the craze for the game which developed in the U.S. In the U.K., Alan Millington revived interest in the Chinese classical game of the 1920s with his ‘The Complete Book of Mah Jongg’ in 1977.

Sample of tiles: from top

Bamboo; East Wind; Circle;

Character; Circle again.

Mah Jong comprises 144 tiles based on Chinese characters and symbols; each player receives 13 tiles to begin and in turn draws and discards tiles until the first to complete a formal/legal hand with the 14^th tile drawn, attains Mah Jong. There are considerable regional differences in the rules and it has also been adapted for online play. Mah Jong can be described as a game of skill, strategy, observation and calculation involving a degree of chance. All of which leaves the reader still in the dark of what is actually involved in this popular game of Mah Jong! My only advice is to try playing it!!