/ The Mahjong Line was playing with fire with its ‘refresh’ of the beloved tradition, recently featured in Hollywood film Crazy Rich Asians – but how did the Chinese tile game begin?
From the clacking of tiles echoing from players huddled around outdoor tables in cities across East Asia, to dramatic cinematic showdowns in movies like Crazy Rich Asians , it’s clear that mahjong plays a deep role in Chinese social culture. But where did it come from, and how did the beloved four-player game begin?
Mahjong first appeared during Imperial China’s Qing dynasty around the mid-1800s, but it was influenced by Chinese card games like pai gow that go as far back as the Southern Song dynasty.
The game is usually set up with four players sitting at a table with 144 tiles that are mixed, stacked then distributed. It’s a game that requires strategy, intelligence and a bit of guile in reading other players’ tactics to acquire a winning hand of 14 tiles formed by melds of identical and sequenced pieces. More important is the game’s social significance and the fact that every class in society engages with it.
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The basic game has 136 tiles, including three suits of 36 that are divided into four numbered sets, each running between one and nine. There are also 16 wind tiles and 12 dragon tiles. Sets also include eight tiles with four flowers and four seasons, but these are not used if you’re playing the basic game.
The goal of the game is to get 14 of your tiles into four sets and one pair. A pair is two identical tiles. A set can either be a pung, which are three identical tiles, or a chow, which is a run of three consecutive numbers in the same suit.
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This is all why American company The Mahjong Line’s recent decision to “refresh” the centuries’ old tradition was greeted with such disbelief and outrage.
Priced at US$325 upwards, the new sets featured brightly coloured redesigned tiles that sparked an internet firestorm and accusations of cultural appropriation. Netizens slammed the firm’s apparent ignorance of the game’s Chinese cultural heritage, while the founders insisted they had offered a “respectful refresh” and “modern makeover”.
The version The Mahjong Line promotes is obviously the American style of play, which was brought over from China and adapted in the US during the 1920s, ironically during peak anti-Chinese sentiments. The Chinese Exclusion Act was still in effect then and wasn’t repealed until 1943, yet all the while mahjong sets were bought in China and brought over by American businessmen – an abominable piece of history which led the three Caucasian women behind the new brand to even be labelled “colonisers”. But the greatest grievances to The Mahjong Line might be the complete change to the artwork on the tiles.
The traditional Chinese artwork is steeped in symbolism alluding to concepts of balance, harmony, the flow of nature, the passing of seasons and mankind’s place under the heavens. It’s all very poetic and all very Chinese, which is why, unlike chess pieces and playing cards, the art on the tiles rarely, if ever, veers from tradition, aside from the materials used to make them.
It’s also because there is a tactile quality to mahjong tiles where high-level players – in a display of their skill – feel the engraved artwork to recognise what piece they have in their hand and decide how to play without looking at it. It’s one of the subtle joys of the game that The Mahjong Line’s new pink tiles, engraved with images of flour jars and the word “bam”, erased.
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It’s a triumph that mahjong has become so popular that it has been adapted in so many different cultures while inspiring young entrepreneurs to create their own sets. But it’s tricky business when you establish a brand and try to sell your take on mahjong off as a form of improved originality.
The firm’s founders have subsequently apologised for their insensitivity and rewritten their “about us” page, which is a start. And hopefully moving forward they’ll develop something that better honours the game‘s history and intent.
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Considering its popularity in Hong Kong and abroad, among everyone from gamblers to business moguls, it’s no wonder this recent ‘modern makeover’ provoked an angry backlash and accusations of cultural appropriation – but where and when was mahjong born?