Mahjong a hit in US culture

Game originating in China has contributed to cohesion in cities such as New York

Every Monday, about 100 women — mostly from the Upper East Side of Manhattan — gather at a Park Avenue restaurant for one thing: to play mahjong, a dominoes-like game that originated in China.

"My members, most of them are from Manhattan, and I'd say the majority of them are from the Upper East Side, but I've got West Siders, I have a few people from Brooklyn," said Linda Feinstein, organizer of the Manhattan Mahjong Club.

"I have a group that comes in from Beverly Hills every single year for 10 days and they play mahjong on one of the Mondays," she said.

Feinstein, who learned mahjong when she was 9 years old on a family trip, immediately fell in love with the game. Her passion led her to start a mahjong club in 2005.

"It's just absolutely amazing how everybody just falls in love with it and becomes addicted to it," Feinstein said. "People don't just play here on Mondays — they play throughout the week."

"And there are tournaments," she added.

Originating in China during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the tile-based game has gained popularity among American players since it was first introduced to the US in the early 1920s.

Feinstein prepares mahjong sets and everything else for her members, who come on Monday afternoon, and each member pays $45 for participating in the game, which includes lunch, drinks and the venue.

"I provide everything for them, and all they need to do is to bring their own mahjong card," said Feinstein.

There are 144 tiles in traditional Chinese mahjong sets, while American mahjong sets have eight additional joker tiles and hands and rules scorecards published by the non-profit National Mahjong League.

"The rules [of American mahjong] are very, very different [from Chinese mahjong]," said Gregg Swain, co-author of the book Mah Jong: The Art of the Game.

"What's kind of sad is that back in the 1920s when mahjong was first being exported, Joseph P. Babcock, who really took mahjong to the world decided that the Chinese rules were going to be way too complicated for Americans and Europeans," Swain said.

Babcock decided to simplify the game, and then every other company that made mahjong sets simplified the game even more.

"So there were too many ways to play mahjong and nobody could agree," Swain said, adding that in 1937, five women from New York got together and created the National Mahjong League.

"They took a few principles of the Chinese game, but they really made it be their own," she said.

Starting in 1937 with only 32 members, the league now has more than 350,000 members and serves as the arbitrator for everything that relates to American mahjong.

"During the 20th century, a range of Americans engaged with the Chinese parlor game mahjong not only as an entertaining consumer good but especially as a way to build community," wrote Annelise Heinz, assistant professor of history at the University of Oregon.

According to Heinz, the tile game helped redefine the meaning of race, gender, and material culture in modern America.

Both Jewish-American and Chinese-American communities were built around mahjong during the 20th century, according to research conducted by Heinz when he was a doctoral candidate in history at Stanford in 2013.

Heinz called mahjong a "remarkable game that has retained its core interest and beauty across time and distance", adding that it offers "a rich and compelling topic of historical inquiry".

Unlike other leisure games in which "high-stakes partner relationships" pit players against one another, mahjong requires cooperation and strategy between players, which creates an "ideal forum for interaction between people", the report said.

Heinz believes that the aesthetic appeal of the game and its enjoyable intellectual challenge, combined with its deep cultural heritage, has contributed to a renewed attraction of younger generations.

Heinz noted that American mahjong is becoming increasingly diverse. Many veteran players are crossing ethnic and generational boundaries to learn other styles of play.

Recently a talk show host asked Oscar-winning actress Julia Roberts what she did to relax.

"I play mahjong with my girlfriends once a week," Roberts said.

"The concept of it is to create order out of chaos based on a random drawing of tiles."

"It's sort of like life," she added, "every day we try to make a little bit of order out of the chaos of life just with our random acts of hopefully wisdom and kindness."

Roberts said she was taught by one of her girlfriends and she also would love to see more people play the game.

"It's a friendly game, it's about food, and we catch up and we play mahjong and it's just a great joy," Roberts said.

"I think mahjong is the most popular game in the US because we are all looking for ways to escape from our worries," Swain said.

"And when you sit at the mahjong table, all you are doing is thinking about those little tiles in front of you, and think about how you are going to win with those tiles," Swain said.

"It really keeps your mind active, and then you are always thinking. When you play, you don't think of anything else except for the game," Feinstein said.

"You can have fun doing it. It's a serious game, but yet there's a lightness about it. It's the best game."

Feinstein said that in the US, mahjong is considered mostly as women's game, not for men.

In the decades during and after World War II, Heinz found, mahjong became the basis of important community building among American Jewish women. As families moved away from crowded urban centers in the postwar years, they encountered feelings of isolation in new suburban areas. Young Jewish mothers often "turned to mahjong as a way of building new social networks", according to Heinz's research.

The study also said that part of the reason mahjong was associated with Jewish women was that they held powerful positions as "leaders, entrepreneurs and game-smiths who created and nurtured American mahjong", especially through the development of the National Mahjong League in New York.

"I think that men don't consider it 'their game', it's mostly like poker, gin rummy, bridge is a men's game," Feinstein added.

"It's the escape that is important, but I really think it's the friendships that are developed around the table, that are what's key to the success of the game," Swain said.

"Because people are looking to connect with other people. Friendship is so important in life, and particularly as we age, social interactions are important, and the game of mahjong combines escape with social interactions, and you also have to use your brain a lot," Swain added. 

"There's dominoes, there's rummy, but nothing has the traditions surrounding it like mahjong," Feinstein said.

"It's the best game in the world, and it really fulfills the traditional sentiment of the game. I don't really know any other games that have such a past, such a history to it as mahjong," Feinstein said.

Swain said she started getting interested in hand-carved mahjong sets from China when she saw an antique set belonging to one of her friends.

"I decided I really wanted a hand-carved set," Swain said. "And I bought some hand-carved sets and fell in love with them."

Swain said she wanted to find out what the tiles represented, but she found no books on the topic.

"So I decided to do a book, but I didn't know anything about Chinese art," Swain added.

"To learn about Chinese art, I bought a lot of books," Swain said. "It's a fascinating journey and I kept learning all the time."

"And whenever I teach mahjong, I teach how the suits are based on Chinese money, and then I have to tell them all about the flower tiles, how they can be landscapes and bits from opera — so they are all learning a little bit about Chinese culture at the same time," Swain said.

Contact the writers at ruinanzhang@chinadailyusa.com.