Jelte Rep - The Great Mahjong Book: History, Lore, and Play

UNPACKING YOUR
MAHJONG SET

You never forget the first timeyour first love, your first kiss, the first time you saw a mahjong set. The packaging could have been a tasteless plastic case or a refined rose wooden drawer box with brass fittings. The first sight of its contents is unforgettable: nicely arranged, softly shining tiles with odd pictures in subtle colors. What kind of game is this?

An antique mahjong set with five drawers containing the tiles and accessories

Tiles
To begin to understand mahjong, you must become familiar with its many components. A complete mahjong set usually contains 144 tiles, but often four and sometimes eight tiles more, in addition to some accessories. First lets look at the different types of tiles. They can be divided as follows:

Circles
Numbered from 1 through 9, four tiles of each number, for a total of thirty-six.

Circle-1 through Circle-9

The Circles are also called dots or balls. Since counting sticks contain dots, I prefer to refer to these tiles as Circles.

Bamboos
Numbered from 1 through 9, four tiles of each number, for a total of thirty-six.

1-Bamboo through 9-Bamboo

1-Bamboo is remarkable; on it a mythical bird called Pe-ling is depicted, which in Chinese means beautiful singing. However, the bird depicted is not always a Chinese songbird, but most often a peacock, pheasant, or a sparrow.

Characters
Numbered from 1 through 9, four tiles of each number, for a total of thirty-six.

1-Character through 9-Character

The lower red ideograph represents the number ten thousand. The upper part consists of the numbers 1 through 9, so the Character tiles represent the numbers ten thousand through ninety thousand in Chinese.

Dragons
Dragons consist of Red Dragons (often indicated with the letter C ), Green Dragons (indicated by F ), and White Dragons (indicated by P or B ). There are four of each tile, for a total of twelve.

The Red, Green, and White Dragons

The Chinese Characters on the Dragon tiles are Chung (middle) for the Red Dragon, Fa (growth) for the Green Dragon, and Po (blank) for the White Dragon. In some sets, completely blank tiles serve as White Dragons.

Winds
Winds consist of the East Wind (often indicated with the letter E ), the South Wind (indicated by the letter S ), the West Wind (indicated by the letter W ), and the North Wind (indicated by the letter N ). There are four of each tile, for a total of sixteen.

The Four Winds

Bonus Tiles
There are eight bonus tiles, which are subdivided in two groups of four tiles, and are differentiated by the color of their numbersone group has red numbers, the other green. The numbers of the tiles correspond with the seats of the four players. The number 1 belongs to East, 2 to South, 3 to West, and 4 to North. The tiles are not used to build hands (they do not form Pungs or Chows), but are used as counters for special bonuses (or penalties) applied to players.

The two groups of bonus tiles

The Chinese artisans have indulged their fantasies on the bonus tiles. The result is that the bonus tiles are not uniform in style or content. The only distinction between the two sets is the color of the Chinese characters.

The pictures vary from set to set and are not easily distinguished from each other. Sometimes flowers and seasons are depicted, sometimes flowers are used exclusively, and at other times there are no flowers at all. The following are some themes: wind-flower-snow-moon; fisher-woodcutter-farmer-master; music playingchess playingwritingpainting; and Chinese means of transport (handcart-sedan-rickshaw-junk) or structures (bridge-gate-pavilion-pagoda).

The Chinese tile carver can indulge his craft on the bonus tiles, creating the most beautiful decorations. This set from 1925, destined for export to America, has thirty-two different bonus tiles.

For Westerners, the characters on the bonus tiles are cryptic. The characters in each series often form a strophe from a poem that the engraver liked or that he felt he could easily appropriate. The two strophes have nothing to do with the bonus tiles they decorate. Because the bonus tiles give the engraver the opportunity to indulge his craftsmanship, fantasy, and artistic feelings, they are the most beautiful of the whole set.

The bonus tiles are also called The Eight Apostles by the Chinese, a reference to the eight immortal followers of the great Chinese philosopher Lao Tse (from the second century B.C.E.) who, through their ascetic and devout practice, became saints in their kingdom of heaven.

The modern Western versions are much more prosaic. They have clear texts and numbers and much less beautiful pictures. They represent the four seasons spring, summer, autumn, and winterand four matching flowersplum, orchid, chrysanthemum, and bamboo.