T3a - a conversation about Mah Jong

When I got married to the lovely Jo, I knew there would be many things that would change in my life, and that I would be introduced to new things. One of these things is the game of Mah Jong. We’re not talking about a strange matching tile thing that you get with Windows, we are talking about a tactical game that is played over four rounds which is a cross-breed between Gin Rummy and dominoes. The tiles used look like this….

On the second row of tiles from the bottom you can see the characters for counting. These ‘character tiles’ used in the game are the same figures used for counting in Taiwan, China and other places. I asked Hsinte about Mah Jong. It is not really played in Taiwan because of its Chinese roots. During Chinese rule, gambling was forbidden, however, Mah Jong was allowed, despite the vast amounts of money that are often played for. So at the same time as Taiwanese people were arrested for gambling Chinese people were allowed to play Mah Jong. If this ‘double standard’ was not sufficient, Hsinte also told me about ‘political Mah Jong’. Bribery and corruption, like gambling were against the law, but Mah Jong was legal. So if you wished to bribe someone you would play Mah Jong, and play in such a way as to loose and in effect hand your money over to the opposition. Legal bribery - great….

I think I might now have a different image in my mind when I sit down to play Mah Jong with my inlaws on Boxing Day!

Hope you all have a wonderful day - there’ll be more about mine shortly.

P
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This entry was posted on 17/09/2009 at 09:05 am and is filed under Paul's diary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.