Happy Lunar New Year! As we celebrate the start of the year of the Fire Horse, let's talk about the history of our favorite game!
Mahjong started in China around the middle of the 1800s. As Americans began traveling to China more and more in the early 1900s, they started to pick up the game of mahjong in their travels. In the 1920s, there was a huge boom in the number of Americans playing mahjong in the United States, including mahjong nights in President Harding's White House!
In the 1930s, as so many in the US had come to the game, there were many different versions of the rules being taught--likely due to people learninng the game on vacation and bringing it back to teach their friends, but remembering the game slightly differently. There was a major need for some standardization of the rules and how to play the game. A group of American Jewish women in New York stepped up to create the National Mah Jongg League, creating a standard set of rules and an annual set of hands in the NMJL Card. It was at this point, 1937, when American Mahjong emerged as it's own variation of the game of mahjong. Today there are many variations of mahjong played worldwide, including American Mahjong, Chinese Mahjong, Riichi Mahjong, Singaporean Mahjong, Hong Kong Mahjong, and many more.
There are major differences in the ways that Chinese Mahjong and American Mahjong differ. Here are the key differences between the two variations of mahjong play:
- Tile Sets:
- In Chinese Mahjong, there are 144 tiles in a set, including Bams, Dot, Craks, Winds, Flowers, and Seasons. There are no Jokers in a Chinese mahjong set.
- In American Mahjong, there are 152 tiles in a set, including Bams, Dots, Craks, Winds, Flowers, and 8 Jokers. Modern American Mahjong Sets are 160 tiles with an additional 2 Jokers and 6 Blanks that are often incorprated in gameplay via house rules.
- Charleston:
- American Mahjong begins with an opportunity to swap tiles around the table before the gameplay begins. This "dance of the tiles" follows a specific pattern around the table, Right, Over, Left, Left, Over, Right, and allows players to get rid of tiles that don't work for the hand they're building while collecting tiles that do.
- Chinese Mahjong has no tile passing after the deal. The gameplay simply begins.
- Racks/Walls:
- Chinese mahjong does not use racks. The tiles are stood up in front of the player without the use of a rack.
- American Mahjong using racks with a sloped edge to hold tiles only the player can see and a flat top to expose tiles when calling or exposing a winning hand. A pusher in front of the rack is used to push out walls in turn around the table.
- Hands:
- American Mahjong follows a set of prescribed hands from the NMJL Card, which is released annually in April. The NMJL Card sets forth all of the hands that may be played for that year and players match their 14 tiles to a single line on the card to win.
- Chinese Mahjong allows for more creativity when creating hands made up of pungs, kongs, chows, and pairs. These combinations do not have to "match" across the entire hand as with American Mahjong; instead each combination can be it's own separate thing with the way the combinations are built counting for more or less points when scoring.
- Seasons/Flowers:
- Chinese Mahjong does not allow for Flowers or seasons to be used within the composition of a players hand. Instead, they are treated as bonus point tiles, placed in front of the hand when dealt or drawn and then factored into the score of the hand at the end of the game.
- In American Mahjong, Flower tiles are part of the hand composition as laid out in the NMJL Card. Flowers are shown as F's on the card. Seasons are treated as Flower tiles in American mahjong.
- Scoring:
- Scoring in Chinese Mahjong is based on hand composition, how the hand has been structured with particular combinations by the player.
- American Mahjong scoring is based on the point value assigned to each hand on the NMJL Card.
Both Chinese and American Mahjong are wonderful ways to play the beloved tile game. This Lunar New Year, I encorage you to find a class on the version you've not played before and try it!
Shop the look from the video: