Mahjong Lessons

This week I started to play mahjong. I most definitely have an overly romantic notion of mahjong but I definitely wanted to learn it. I started my lessons this week (tutor: 80-year-old woman) and it felt a bit like being lost in Wonderland, where everyone else understands some kind of inscrutable logic you can only weakly follow…

 

So what do we do first?

Turn over all the tiles and put 14 on your rack. That’s your hand.

Okay, I have 14 tiles.

You don’t have a card so you’ll share my card.

A card?

The card, I have the card for 2019 but I need to order the card for 2020.

The card is like the rules?

Yes.

The rules change every year?

Yes.

[Thought bubble: The rules change every year???].

We can share my card.

Oh, thank you.

Now look at your tiles and put them together.

Together?

Put the suits together in order. There are cracks [ed. note: this is actually spelled “craks” but that’s how it sounded to me], bams, and dots. There are also dragons.

[Thought bubble: I…don’t even know what to ask].

What’s this tile? It doesn’t have a number.

That’s south. There are four of each of the wind tiles: north, south, east, west.

Oh. Okay.

Do you have any flowers?

Flowers?

If you have flowers, put them on one end.

I don’t think I have flowers.

You know what, show me your rack…No flowers.

I didn’t think so.

Now we need to stack the tiles in the middle.

Is there a certain way they need to be stacked?

No, they just need to be stacked.

Oh. Okay.

You can choose a tile from the middle and keep it if you need it or throw it out. If you need a tile from the middle you can take it but first you need to call it.

[An ask-able question!] How do I know if I need something or if I should throw it out?

If you have more than one of the same number, you want to keep them. But only if they’re the same suit.

And the suits are the craks, bams, and dots?

Yes, this is a crak [points to a tile with a Chinese character], bams are bamboo [Oh!], and dots have these dots [ah, yes, of course]. This is a dragon, a red one, and there are also green ones, and this one is a soap.

Soap?

The white dragon that looks like this.

Okay, and what is the object of the game? [my burning question for the last twenty minutes]

To build one of the sets from the card.

Ohhhh…and then what happens?

That’s a mahjong.

What if I get a mahjong?

The game is over and you win.

 

So…wish me luck. Also, any mahjong players out there?