Getting ready for mahjong
I have assembled two mahjong set-ups to hopefully use for our Green Bluff Tiles on the Bluff group. It’s taken me so long to get my act together, we will see if anyone is even still interested!
But now I know how to play (yikes, MUCH harder than the Chinese version we have been playing for decades, but also much better). I dug around the shop and garage and found two card tables and bought some cheap tablecloths.
Here are my cute tables, one in blue-greens and one orange:
I rescued our old dining room chairs from the going-to-the-dump pile and recovered them with $5 stretchy covers from Amazon (amazing, 5 stars). These chairs were completely clawed up a year or two ago (thanks, Chester), utterly destroyed, and we just bought 4 new chairs for our table. I finally pulled the old chairs out when I cleaned the garage a few weeks go, and I’m glad I did, because we don’t have any folding/card table chairs. These will be comfy.
This is one table. We use a mat for decoration and also to cushion to sound of click-click-click tiles. The racks have a place to put your working tiles and then a flat part to “expose” tiles that you pick up and use from discards. I happen to have these little rechargeable cafe lamps, and then are perfect on a mahjong table. These tiles have a very traditional design on them. The two scalloped rectangles on the table are “shufflers”, which are like plastic card salad tongs for mixing up the tiles (they work surprisingly well.) Two dice and hand sanitzer and we’re all set!
This table turned out REALLY cute with some really fun, modern design tiles and a really cheery mat.
Mahjong has three suits, these are an example of one of them, kraks. Kraks have Chinese characters on them and are associated with the color red, although they are not always red like these. There are 4 krak tiles each 1-9 and then also four dragons that match, in this case red dragons.
These are examples of the bamboo suit, or “bams”. Pretty self explanatory! Associated with green. The one bam is always some kind of a bird.
This picture shows several things. First, the third suit is shown to the left, “dots”. In this design the dots are represented with little flowers, cute. The white dragon goes with them. Then in the center you see some jokers (not used in Chinese mahjong, but they are CRITICAL in American play) and also flowers (there are 8 of them, and they are used for some hands.) Then to the right you see NSEW, the four winds. There are four tiles of each of these as well. This is a really pretty set, and it was also super inexpensive. I wasn’t sure about the quality ordering from Amazon, but this one was a great value.
Here you can see a sampling of the more traditionally-designed tiles for my green table. Starting at the top working down: The bams (cute little owl is the one bam); jokers and flowers (which also include seasons in this set); the dots; the kraks. These styles and colorings are pretty close to the Chinese mahjong set we have previously used.
The racks in American mahjong include a “pusher”, typically hinged. To deal mahjong you first build 4 walls in a square, and then one of the walls is “pushed” (rotated) toward the middle of the space, to make it easier for everyone to draw their own tiles.
Now the crazy part of American mahjong- the annual card. This trifold cardboard card cryptically lists the 33 possible ways to win a hand. You have to pick a line and pursue it, and I’m telling you, doing that in real time as the game is progressing is WILD! I cannot believe people talk and DRINK while playing this game - it takes all of my focus to figure out the best way to go!
You have to read the parenthetical details to understand how to decode the syntax. Learning to decode this card ON THE FLY is a wild experience. The little plastic blue piece is intended to help you hold your place on the specific line you are pursuing. But I don’t think I like these little ones because they are not heavy enough to push the card flat. I might have to keep looking for other options.
My favorite line is CONSECUTIVE RUN $4. You either have 111 222 3333 4444 of one suit or you can have 111 222 of one suit and 3333 and 4444 of a second suit. And by the way, it doesn’t have to be 1-2-3-4 - it can be ANY four consecutive numbers. And the green/red do not mean bams/kraks - it just means any two suits. And yes, I will repeat: You figure this all out ON THE FLY!
I will be teaching Steve and Montana (probably individually, to give me extra teaching experience) in the coming weeks. One other cool thing about American mahjong is you can play it with 2 people (you can’t do that with Chinese) and it is the same basic game. Wish me luck!
