Mah Jongg–A Game for the Ages

The 8 Immortals playing Mah Jongg

I received an old Japanese Mah-Jongg set the other day from Orcrist. After some initial investigation it appears that the set was made in the 1950s or earlier. It was missing a couple of tiles so I’ve sent out some feelers to see if I can replace them. I can replace them with stickers made on my computer from scanning the other like tiles but I would prefer not to if I don’t have to. There were a whole bunch of papers stuffed underneath the tiles. I initially removed the tiles to count them and match them into groups so I could see if any were missing. I came upon a page from what appears to be an old encyclopedia page. I’m going to try to read it to you. Although some of the words are missing, they have been cut off, I will do the best I can.

MAH JONGG, MAH ZHONG, also spelled mah-jong, is a game that is been played in China since around 500 BC. It is now played in many parts of the world. Mah-Jongg is similar to many card games. But small rectangular tiles engraved with Chinese drawings and symbols are used instead of playing cards. The “deck” consist of 136 standard tiles and several additional tiles. In the Orient, players use 8 additional tiles. In the United States, the number of additional tiles varies from year to year, as determined by the National Mah-Jongg League in New York City. 4 persons usually play Mah-Jongg, but 2, 3, 5, or 6 can also play. Players try to form winning combinations of tiles by drawing from a pile of tiles, exchanging tiles with other players, and by discarding tiles. A rule book list point values for the winning combinations. Usually, each player begins the game with chips equaling 5000 points. Losers give chips to the winner equal to the value of the winning hand. Play may continue for a set number of rounds, or until a player wins a certain number of points.

So there you have it.

I also found an article from the SYRACUSE POST – STANDARD written by Anita Altman for the August 21, 1975 edition.

“Four Dot,” “Two Bam,” “Crack,” “West,” the clicking of tiles and the “Woo” – the sound of Mah-Jongg (which sounds a little unusual for the person who is never played this version of a Chinese game).

But to many women, these sounds are characteristic of getting together with friends and engaging in an individual competition.

Starting the 1st Thursday of September. There will be a Mah-Jongg Tournament, sponsored by the Syracuse section of National Council of Jewish Women. Groups of 4 women will play 10 games once each month throughout the year. All the players will rotate with each other as well is the home where the game is played, says Mrs. Gerald Reback, Chairman. Winners of each game receive a set number of points, depending on the value of the hand played (as determined by the National Mah-Jongg League), whether the player picture winning tile or whether the winning tile was thrown by another player, and whether the hand was concealed or exposed. The scores for all players are tallied for each month and these are published in the Council’s monthly bulletin. The top players will be recognized in June. Monies raised through this project help fund NCJW Research Institute for Innovation in Education at Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Annual Schools for Community Action; and other group activities. The Mah-Jongg Tournament is open to all intermediate players and interested women who may contact Sheila Reback Manlius for more information.

THE GAME

The game of Mah-Jongg is played with 136 or 144 tiles (or P’ AIS) that resembled dominoes but are instead engraved with Chinese symbols and characters which are divided into suits and honors.

A fad in this country in the mid-1920s, the game was revived after 1935, but never regained its initial popularity. The Chinese origin dates back to the 19th century, but it was an American resident of Shanghai, who introduced Mah-Jongg to the west after World War I. Joseph P Babcock wrote a modified set of rules, gave English names to the tiles and added index letters and numerals familiar to Western card players. The pieces are named and numbered as follows:

– Bamboo (Bam), numbered 1 to 9, with 4 of each number, resulting in 36 tiles.

– Circle (Dot), numbered 1 to 9, with 4 of each number, adding up to 36 tiles.

– Character (Crak), numbered 1 to 9, with 4 of each number, hence 36 tiles.

– Honors, 4 Red Dragons, 4 Green Dragons, 4 White Dragons – 12 tiles.

– Winds, 4 East, 4 South, 4 North, 4 West, which equals 16 tiles.

These add up to 136 tiles.

– In addition: Flowers and Seasons, 4 of each, or 8 of either and when added to the others equal 144 tiles.

The game, played with 4 people, is done so without partners the object of play, similar to Rummy, card games, is to obtain sets of tiles.

There are 3 kinds of sets: “Chow,” a run or sequence of 3 tiles in the same suit in numerical order; “Pung,” a sequence of 3 like tiles of the same suit and number, 3 Dragons of the same color or 3 identical Winds; “Kong,” a Pung plus the 4th matching tile.

To begin a game, the tiles are divided evenly and placed face down in double rows or walls in front of each of the 4 players. The stacks tiles represent the Great Wall of China and the player who leads “breaks” the wall by selecting 4 tiles. Each player, in turn, takes 4 tiles until East (who leads) has 14 and the others 13. Next is the Charleston, a series of passes. Each player passes 3 tiles to the person on her right, 3 to the person a crossed, then 3 to the person on the left. This is followed by a 2nd Charleston – left, across then right.

The actual play, then begins. The 2nd “wall” is broken (? I think this might be an error by the reporter) and East begins the play by discarding one tile reducing her hand to 13. Then each player, in counterclockwise rotation, picks a tile (either from the wall or the last one discarded) and then discards one. Any player, regardless of whether it is her turn, may claim the previous discard. If it completes part of her hand. The play continues until a player completes a “Woo” or winning hand, or until all wall tiles have been used. It is a game of luck and skill and even now, after explaining it as simply as possible and sitting in on an afternoon Mah-Jongg game, I believe that I could play – very slowly, though.

I found another article from 2007 basically saying the same thing. It did mention there were places on the Internet where you could go to find out if there were players in your area. Just for fun, I checked to see if any of these websites were still up and running.

– http://msoworld.com/mindzine/news/orient/mah_jong/history no longer exists, however,

http://msoworld.com does. It is called Mind Sports Olympiad. It is very cool, go ahead and check it out.

–http://mahjongtime.com is a website called “Mah-Jongg Time”. It is a place where you can play Mah-Jongg. It appears to have free sign-up to play. When I get done with my blog, I will check it out further.

–http://amja.net is the official website for the American Mah-Jongg Association. It is up and running, and another place. I will check out.

There are a couple of other websites that I suggest you check out if you are at all interested in learning about the game of Mah-Jongg.

–http://www.mahjongtreasures.com is a wonderful site with an area where you can go to read about the history and see some of the vintage Mah-Jongg sets. The owner is also working on a history of Mah-Jongg.

–https://www.nationalmahjonggleague.org/ is the official website for the National Mah-Jongg League. They are the folks who make the official rules and hands card that so many players use.

In case you are wondering, I know how to play by Chinese rules, Japanese rules, National Mah-Jongg League rules, and Wright-Patterson “military” rules. I have, obviously a Japanese set, 2 Chinese sets, and 4 American sets of tiles. 2 of the American sets are new. The other 5 sets are all vintage, which in American terms can means whatever you want it to mean in terms of age or era. In terms of age, they are all from the last century. I might be classified as retro, while Orcrist is definitely vintage.

Kong Pung, and Chow! Or I play Mah Jongg

Good Morning! I told you before that I would write a blog on Mah Jongg since I started playing again after an absence of several years. Let me begin by saying it’s been a great time, I’ve met new people, have new friends. I guess that’s what gaming is all about. I’m going to begin by reading a poem written by a long time Mah Jongg player named Jelte Rep.
Come…
Come and let the wind take you
to where the winds gather
and three dragons meet.
Come to the square center of the world
where the wall keeps the ghosts at a distance,
where the moon reflects off the bottom of the sea
and where the flowers blossom on the rooftop.
Come and be seduced by Mah Jongg
game of the 100 wonders
game of 10,000 options
game of the sparrows
game of the winds
game of the dragons
game of dumb luck
game of sharp reasoning
game of 100 wars
game of 100 victories
game of 100 thoughts
game of poetry
game of symbolism and wisdom
game of greed and rotten luck
game of beauty and refinement
game younger than the singing of the bird
game more bewitching than the sunrise
game so easy to play
game so hard to control
game so hard to resist.
There been many questions about the age of Mah Jongg and where it began. Some people speak of centuries some people speak of a millennium. There are even people who think that Mah Jongg was played on Noah’s Ark to pass the time. There are several games that precede Mah Jongg,but in its present form Mah Jongg is a little less than 200 years old 1200 years ago a courtesan in the Tang Dynasty played a game with 32 cards that happen to be made of wood and ivory. There are one or two sets of these cards in a couple museums. They look a little bit like Mah Jongg tiles but probably look more like regular playing cards. 700 years later, they added more cards including bonus cards. Around 1846, a Chinese Imperial servant combined several different games change the cards to tiles and basically created Mah Jongg. The game was a hit! Because there were no written rules, each home Providence, town, street, home, and family, each had its own version of the game. It could be said that Mah Jongg was as varied as a recipe for chicken soup. What is even more interesting is nowadays, the Chinese version is different than most of the varied Western versions. There are some basic rules of Mah Jongg that are the same no matter what version you play. That is to say, if you don’t play by the rules, you’re probably not playing Mah Jongg.
I grew up playing Mah Jongg the Chinese way. Simply put, I learned to play the game with no jokers, using seasons and flowers, and having a set number of special hands. I am now playing the Wright-Patterson form of Mah Jongg. It was developed by a group of officers wives in the late 1920s. There are three, for lack of a better word standard ways of playing Western Mah Jongg. There is the all-American, Maj, and military Mah Jongg. Most Americans play the all-American variant. Maj has eight jokers. Military Mah Jongg has a discipline, control, and orderliness. If you are playing Mah Jongg anywhere near a base you are probably playing military Mah Jongg. The most unique aspect of the armies playing rules are the dozens and dozens of bizarre special hands which American soldiers are so proud of, they had them copyrighte. When the cultural Revolution broke out in the People’s Republic of China Chairman Mao Zedong waged a cruel war against “for old ones”. They were old ideas, old cultures, old traditions, and old habits Mah Jongg was declared a waste of time and an onset to corruption and a very evil element. The game was forbidden and anyone caught playing Mah Jongg was punished in public. Chairman Mao died in 1976. The sins of Mao as it is known, is partially blamed on Jiang Qing, commonly known as his crazy wife. The ban on Mah Jongg was finally lifted in 1998 with a set of official playing roles which were established by the Ministry of sports affairs and forbid gambling.
There are some funny little rules for playing British Mah Jongg. In England the ruling party is called the British Mah Jongg Association. It guards over the regulations organizes tournaments and acts as a referee. If you’re familiar at all with Mah Jongg, tiles are shuffled face down then built into four walls. In Britain to players, usually South and North, never east mixed the tiles and tell East judges they been sufficiently shuffled and calls “Pow”. In Holland bonus tiles are not used. In France, you’re likely to hear “Je vous supplie: pas de grands jeux!”(I beg you: no special hands!) In Germany, you hope never to hear “Entschuldigung, Frau Müller, aber Sie haben eine tote Hand.” (I’m afraid, Mrs. Johnson, you have a dead hand.) In Italy, a dead hand, meaning the player can no longer Mah Jongg, sound something like “Scusi, Signore, Lei è Grandissimo Signore .”(Excuse me Sir, but your hand has too many tiles.)
Typically Mah Jongg is played with four players each representing a wind, ESWN ( East South West North, (eat soup with noodles).) However there are ways to play, two, three, or even five players. There are some very good books to teach you to play Mah Jongg, there are games on the Internet, where you can play real Mah Jongg, not the match two tiles Mah Jongg. There are probably Mah Jongg clubs in your local area. Gotta run, playing Mah Jongg today. (PS:  I don’t know why the Italian is smaller than the other words. No insult intended, it just won’t change.)