It’s a 200-plus-year-old game that crossed the Pacific in the early 20th century to start a craze that’s surged once again in popularity. Mahjong, the four-person Chinese game often featuring green and white tiles, is back in fashion.
The game, created in the 1800s in China, is similar to the Western game of rummy. Its objective is to create four sets of three — either three-of-a-kind or a sequence — and one matched pair, totaling 14 tiles. At least that’s how it’s played in China and other Asian countries, although different regions may have slightly different rules or variations.
But the version of mahjong that’s taking over kitchen tables, social clubs, libraries, bookstores and even breweries in the United States doesn’t follow those centuries-old traditions.
“The reason why I started teaching my friends how to play mahjong is because a friend of mine who retired before I did went to her senior center in her community and she learned how to play,” said Vivian Wu Wong, a retired educator and former interim director of the Chinese Progressive Association in Boston’s Chinatown. “She started to explain the rules to me and I said, ‘Wait a minute, that’s not quite right.’”
Wong said her friend was learning an Americanized version of the game with not only more tiles, but different rules and different winning hands designated by the National Mah Jongg League (NMJL) and the American Mah-Jongg Association.
The original Chinese version has 144 tiles and no designated winning hands. Instead, certain hands are more valuable than others, and more strategy is necessary since the combinations are endless. Players may also include gambling as part of the game.
“It’s interesting to see that the game has kind of taken on this other form, if you will, in the United States,” Wong said. “I mean, I think it’s great that people are playing. I’m not so sure I’m thrilled that people are changing the rules.”
Like Wong, Michelle Yee learned to play mahjong as a child. Yee, who immigrated to the United States from Hong Kong when she was 7, said her grandmother taught her and her sisters to play so she would always have a full table of four for her games.
“I think any family who has a relative who plays, they have to teach three other people to play,” Yee said. “We learn when we’re very young, first maybe by watching. So that’s how my three children learned how to play — they’re watching, and then they start playing.”
Yee plays the Cantonese style of mahjong, which she said is easy for beginners to pick up more quickly, in case they’re intimidated by the rules and more strategic play of other versions.
And although Yee said she’s interested in learning the American version of mahjong, she said she’d like players to understand the roots of the game.
“We want to make sure that whatever style people play, they understand where the origin comes from,” Yee said. “Not so much to receive credit as a Chinese American, but just to know where did it come from and how has it evolved in the current style that you’re playing.”
Wong agreed, and said that American mahjong can be viewed as both appreciation and appropriation of the Chinese game.
“I’ve seen so many examples of activities that have been adopted by mainstream American society that folks lose a sense of where they originally came from and what it meant to those communities,” Wong said. “So I’m just eager for people to learn more about the history and the role that it’s played in these different Asian American communities. And I think people should go back to the traditional rules.”
Guests
- Vivian Wu Wong, former interim director of the Chinese Progressive Association in Boston’s Chinatown; retired Milton Academy educator, chair of its History and Social Sciences Department, Asian Society advisor; Chinese mahjong player and enthusiast
- Michelle Yee, former public service worker, Chinese mahjong player and enthusiast
