Mahjong mayhem

Grandparents! Would you like to find out more about a game that protects your grey matter by developing skill, strategy and speedy decision-making? Mahjong may just be the answer.

Mahjong 麻將 is part of growing up Chinese. Remember Joy Luck Club and Crazy Rich Asians? Some of my happiest childhood memories are around a mahjong table at Chinese New Year. My mother (not as glamorous as Michelle Yeoh) and David, my eldest brother, both excellent players, taught us well. We shared laughter, gratuitous advice, good-humoured insults, yummy snacks and a bonhomie that comes from being on holidays. Shouts of Pung! Chee! Sik Wu! The clatter of tiles being shuffled add to the fun. Relatively easy to learn and difficult to master, it’s a tactile, raucous game which not only relies on luck but strategy and memory.

In our DNA

All those warm fuzzies must have been passed down through our DNA. My Popo (maternal grandma) often played in a neighbourhood gambling den in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She won and lost small sums of money but always had enough money to buy me a bowl of noodles for a treat when I visited. The game is addictive, but my siblings don’t gamble. With my children, who barely identify as being Chinese, I have finally scored a hit at passing down an element of cultural heritage. They haven’t played for years, but I did teach them and also their spouses. Ally, who is British, had Sik Wu (winning) in his second game!

Faith, my daughter, loves mahjong, leaping from her dinner table to find some ridiculous headgear to signify that she was “chorng” or banker. Tip: if you don’t have a square mahjong table, play on the diagonal on a rectangular table. It works fine.

Grandkiddies learning mahjong

Inez, my mahjong chum from Timor Leste, has taught her grandkiddies mahjong. The kiddies invent their own names for the tiles. A board tile (park parn in Cantonese) has been renamed iPad, coin tile as Pizza, the Chinese character for middle as Sword, the bamboo tile as Noodles, the fortune tile as Vegetables. Clever kiddies! See below left to right.

I’ve been using mahjong tiles to teach Felix, now 6 years old, how to recognise Chinese numbers and the different “winds” or characters. He was super enthusiastic at first, could recognise all the Chinese characters then grew rapidly bored. Harriet loved pushing the tiles around and doing her own thing. Give them some time, their mum and I will teach them the game and they’ll learn to love it.

Intangible cultural heritage

You’d think that mahjong is as old as the invention of gunpowder. It comes as a surprise that although derived from older Chinese games, mahjong originated in the mid to late 1800s in Southern China. Boisterous small time crooks and debauched playboys first played the game while smoking opium in tea-houses and brothels. The upper echelons of Chinese society only succumbed to mahjong’s attractions in the 1920s, by which time it spread to America. It became popular especially amongst Jewish women.

I’ve often thought that the game is listed by UNESCO as being intangible cultural heritage, with China confirming that it is worthy of protection. If you aren’t sure what that means, think of flamenco in Spain, yoga in India and kabuki in Japan. The Chinese have listed acupuncture, mathematical calculation using abacus, Peking opera, calligraphy, blockprinting, paper cut, dragon boat festival etc but not mahjong. Instead mahjong was banned in the 1960s with all other forms of gambling. The Communist state sees mahjong as a humiliating historical artefact in the same category as footbinding and opium, all symbols of moral decay!

Paradoxically, the game was named an “intangible cultural heritage” by the Hong Kong government in 2014 – along with umbrella making, folk songs, kung fu and various street foods. But that’s not an official UNESCO listing, and with current events mahjong’s status may change in HK.

Cultural appropriation

In 2020 an American company founded by three non-Asian women tried to “refresh” the game by redesigning mahjong tiles, replacing traditional Chinese symbols with bags of flour, lightning bolts, and what looks likes Lucifer with horns and tail. While some call the designs bright and cheery, I think they were garish. There was a tremendous backlash. The company responsible apologised for any offence but has continued selling the offending mahjong sets at a hefty price tag.

I personally think that cultural appropriation occurred years ago. There were minor changes to the tiles, to make it more readily understandable to players from other cultures, and that’s acceptable. However a whole scale changing of the rules of the game to “western or American rules” is not. I’ve tried learning the Western game but find the minutia of its rules  unnecessarily complicated. Nearly each strategy has a label. Personally, I consider the Western game fussy and utterly unsatisfactory.

Conclusion

Some may feel that even to contemplate learning or indulging in a game such as mahjong is inappropriate given the horrible events that confront us in May 2022. May I remind you that mahjong was developed through tumultuous times – the Taiping rebellion, Opium wars, tussle between the Nationalists and Communists … It’s ok to have fun while trying our best to have empathy, and doing something to help.

No longer a game associated with decadence and debauchery, mahjong now cuts across lines of gender and class. Its devotees vow that the game promotes skill, strategy and speedy decision-making.  I play every fortnight with friends. Brother David’s still an excellent player at the age of 78. Eight of us love the social aspect and wonderful lunch provided by hostess Inez. Others may play chess and genteel card games, but we enjoy our Mahjong mayhem! Pung! Chee! Sik Wu!

Further Reading

Maggie Greene, “The Game People Played: Mahjong in Modern Chinese Society and Culture”, Cross Currents, East Asian History and Culture Review, Dec 2015 .  https://cross-currents.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/e-journal/articles/final_greene.pdf

Annelise Heinze, Mahjong: A Chinese game and the making of modern American culture, Oxford UP 2021­