Mahjong

02/04/08

I am always intrigued by Mahjong. Perhaps, I used to be a hardcore fan of Hong Kong movies, and one scene that I always saw in those movies was people, particularly middle-aged women, playing this ancient Chinese game.
This past weekend I had the first taste of Mahjong and I am loving it! It needs skill, strategy and calculation as well as a certain degree of luck.
Aaron, my lovely friend, taught us, Travis, Millet and I, how to play the game. Since he was from Hong Kong, he taught us Mahjong Hong Kong style (they also have Taiwanese style, Shanghai style, Japanese style and so on). It’s quite complicated but it was challenging. Travis and I could not read or understand any Chinese character so what we did was to memorize the pictures. Mahjong has so many rules and certain ways to declare when you grab someone’s discarded tiles to match your tiles. For example, when you pick up a discarded tile to match with your 2 identical tiles (becomes three identical tiles), you have to say “Pong” (I have to say the most fun part was when everyone was so excited to grab that tile and yell “PONG”!).
Though it was our first time, I think all of us did pretty good. It ended up Travis won four games! I told him the next time I would switch my seat with him.
We agree that finally we find a new hobby to do during the weekend. Instead of going out dancing, we can just play Mahjong, drink and gossip like desperate house wives.
Damn, I am getting old!

Tae Athikomvittaya