We are kicking off our full-length series on how to play American Mahjong with an introduction to mahjong tiles. If you've been wanting to learn how to play mahjong, start here!
Mahjong is a game played with tiles. There are 152 tiles in American mahjong, if you're following NMJL rules. (Or 160 tiles if you include Blanks and your extra 2 Jokers).
There are 3 suits in mahjong tiles: Bam, short for bamboo, Dot, and Crak, short for character (referring to the Chinese characters found on traditional mahjong tiles). Within each suit of tiles in mahjong, there are numbers 1 through 9 and a matching Dragon. The Green Dragon goes with Bam, White Dragon (also called Soap) goes with Dot, and Red Dragon goes with Crak. There are 4 of each suited tile in a set of mahjong tiles.
In mahjong, there are also non-suited tiles, called Honor Tiles. The non-suited tiles include Flowers and Winds. There are 8 Flowers total in a mahjong tile set. Flowers are shown as F on the NMJL Card (covered in our next video). Winds are shown as N.E.W.S. for the directions depicted on the tiles, North, East, West, and South. There are 4 of each Wind tile in mahjong.
Jokers are wild tiles and can be used to represent any mahjong tile, as long as they are in a group of three or more tiles in your mahjong line/hand. Jokers can never be used in a pair or as a single in your mahjong line. There are 8 Jokers used in tournament-style mahjong (NMJL rules). Your set of Southern Sparrow mahjong tiles includes 10 Jokers for a bit of extra luck. If you're playing a tournament you'll want to pull out two of the Jokers.
Blanks are NOT technically part of American Mahjong, if you are playing by the National Mah Jongg League rules. If you want to play in a mahjong tournament, you may not use Blanks. Some groups who play socially choose to include Blanks in their gameplay, so I want you to know how to use them if your group plays that way. Blanks can be exchanged for a dead discarded tile so that you can claim it for your mahjong hand when you otherwise would not have been able to. There are 6 Blanks in a set of mahjong tiles.
I hope this is helpful in your journey to learning to play mahjong! The best way to learn the mahjong game is to hire an instructor to teach you in person.
You can find a list of instructors here: https://southernsparrow.com/pages/find-an-instructor
You can explore more how tos for mahjong here: https://southernsparrow.com/blogs/how-to-play-mahjong
You can shop mahjong tiles, mahjong mats, racks with pushers, and other accessories here: https://southernsparrow.com/collections/shop-all-products