Mom learned Mahjongg when I was in first or second grade. (The solitaire game of the same name was invented by Westerners, and completely unrelated.) As a stay-at-home mom, she needed to pass the time after Dad had gone to work and we schools. There were many young mothers like her in that sleepy mid-Taiwan governmental town. Mahjongg caught on. Pretty soon, it became the standard weekend social activity (sleepy governmental town). A few rounds of phone calls would arrange the game. People gathered after lunch and played on until the small hours — every weekend.
We kids had the job of not bothering them and we were very good at that. We would come back to re-energize and quickly escape back out of their sensory ranges. By the time the games ended, the kids would have been sound asleep here and there, and got carried home. Good times!
The game continued pretty much to even today — different city, different players, but the same game. Grown up kids became helpers and servers: refresh tea and snacks, empty ash trays, set up and clean up, etc. We were also drawn to the game, those complicated patterns, strategies, joking, teasing, and jousting. Mahjongg was fascinating.
But they would not teach us! This is gambling and for adults only. If we catch you playing Mahjongg with ANYBODY, you will be punished.
Finally, in my mid-30s, I sat down with my in-laws and asked to be taught. Surprisingly, they didn’t fully agree with each other on what exactly the rules are. Players obviously would invent new variations on the fly. The in-laws usually played with different circle of friends and, over the decades, developed different “dialects.” My tutelage was as enlightening to them as to me.
As Kids grew up, they were intrigued by the mysteries of the game. In our variation, each player gets 13 tiles and tries to arrange them into winning patterns, Gin Rummy style. Different patterns win different amounts. So this is a game of optimization: assess the tiles on hand, choose the most profitable path, and be ready to change as new tiles are dealt into your hand continuously. This constant re-evaluation and seizing/missing opportunities are additive. Time elapses quickly.
Like me, they sat down with me the second day and tried to learn the game for real. Wife and I, surprised, found ourselves explaining the rules slightly differently. Hmm.. Life is a full circle.
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