Here’s some shitty cultural appropriasan… February 25, 2009

Thanks Disgrasian, for help with my post title.

So yesterday I was sitting with Daniel while he was playing some games on his computer, you know, the standard ones like solitaire, minesweeper, hearts, etc. When I saw that he had “MahJong Destiny” (or something with a similarly ridiculous name), I suggested that we play, thinking of games at Grandma’s and clinking tiles and the satisfaction of “peng,” “chi,” and drawing a flower from the “wall.”

I learned, soon enough, that what they were calling “MahJong” was in fact something called MahJong solitaire, an inanely simple game of matching tiles to “uncover” layers of tiles underneath. As a bonus, you could pick a tiger formation, a flower formation, or even a dragon formation to match tiles from! Wowie!

This hurt my soul a little bit. Real, classic, Chinese MahJong is a fast-paced and complex game that requires skill and strategy, but almost every “classic” MahJong game you find online is this stupid matching game. Yeah, it’s clearly “really hard.” Release the birds? Fuck that! 

How obnoxious is it that they’ve done this? The only reason I can see that they would appropriate MahJong for this purpose is that the tiles seem exotic in their colorfulness and Chinese characters. Why not just play with random pictures, or shapes? 

The 1981 creator of the game Brodie Lockard (who I can only assume is not Chinese) claims that it’s based on an ancient Chinese game called “The Turtle.” Why not call it the motherfucking turtle, then? I feel like a real idiot knowing that I’ve said I like playing MahJong when half the people I said that to probably thought I meant this stupid game. So, Dell, and the rest of the internet: play your stupid matching game if you want, but don’t call it something it’s not. That’s an expression and a perpetuation of cultural ignorance and appropriation.

Here is one version of the many real ways to play MahJong, supplemented by Wikipedia. Brodie, I hope this blows your mind.

There are three suits: bamboo, stones, and numbers. The suits range from 1-9, with four copies of each tile. There are two kinds of honor tiles, winds (north, south, east, and west), and dragons (the blue “baiban,” or “clean slate,” the red “zhong,” or “bullseye,” and the green “fa,” or “prosperity.” There are also flower tiles.

With 144 tiles in play, each of four players shuffles the tiles (making an awesome chattering sound) and builds a wall of tiles: 18 tiles long and 2 tiles high.

The dealer (I’m not even going to go INTO how the dealer is determined…) throws three dice and sums up the total. Counting counterclockwise so that the dealer is ’1′, a player’s row is chosen. Starting at the right edge, ‘sum’ tiles are counted and shifted to the right. The dealer takes four tiles. Counterclockwise, everyone takes four tiles (a 2×2 block) until everyone has 12 tiles. The dealer takes one tile, everyone else takes one tile. You can only draw a tile if it is uncovered (i.e. if it is the top tile or the uncovered bottom tile).

A turn involves a player drawing a tile from the wall and then placing it in his or her hand. The player then discards a tile onto the table, face up. This signals the end of his or her turn, prompting the player to the right to make his or her move. Each player says the name of the tile being discarded. 

Players must discard a tile after picking up one. The strategy behind discarding tiles is basically as follows. In order to win, or get “MahJong,” a player must have four sets, and one pair. Sets are made with three of a kind (they have to be the same wind, dragon, or number AND suit), or with a run (tiles with three consecutive numbers, all in the same suit, i.e. 1 stone, 2 stone, 3 stone). 4 of a kind is sometimes valid as well. If someone discards a tile that can help you complete a set, or win, you may take immediately after they discard if

• you need it for a run-set, and only if your turn is after the player who discarded it (this is known as a chi or chow)
• you need it for a three-of-a-kind set. 

Usually players play a couple of rounds in one sitting, smoking, drinking, and yelling loudly is optional. I won’t even get into scoring, or other versions of the game.