How to Play Mahjong
Mahjong, also spelled majiang or mah jongg, as it is played around the world today, is not the ancient Chinese pastime you might think it to be.
Stories are often told of a lonely Tang Dynasty princess who invented the game to ward off boredom more than twelve hundred years ago. Many say Confucius himself enjoyed the game as Ma-chur, and there are even a few who claim the game entertained Noah and his family on the Ark.
In truth, however, the current game was invented only about 150 years ago. In 1846, the rules of a set-forming card game—Ma Tiao, which was similar to Gin Rummy and very popular in Shanghai—were applied to a ceramic tile game by a clever imperial servant named Chen Yu-Men.
Decades later, when China became a Republic in 1912, the game took off as a welcome diversion from troubled times. It was called “mahjong,” which means “hemp bird” or “sparrow,” because getting the winning piece is as difficult as catching the Chinese bird of cleverness.
