Mahjong Tales

To better understand why the designs of mahjong tiles vary so much, it is necessary to go back to how and where mahjong developed. China has a long history of games, and with particular interest to a student of mahjong, card games. Chinese playing cards were originally woodblock prints on sheets of Chinese paper which were then cut up, producing cards roughly half the width of a Western playing card. Most of the designs were based on money, with 3 or 4 suits of single coins, strings of cash, myriads of cash and also, literally Characters (Craks).   Below we first see a Ma...

"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."  -Alice in Wonderland At a mah jongg tournament last year, I witnessed the player opposite me win four games in a row. Impossible? No. Improbable? Yes. I wanted to quit. I felt bad. I doubted myself. I was jealous. I had evil thoughts. But I smiled each time and congratulated her because I knew I'd talk about her at lunch. “Who is she?” my friends wanted to know, so I pointed her out. “Oh, yeah, her,” someone said, “she’s always so lucky.”  We nodded our heads, each of us trying to recall a former moment of glory, preparing to top...