A while ago, I became intrigued with a relatively old Chinese game called Mah-Jong. Now, before I proceed any further, please understand that there are many ways to write this word, regardless please accept my spelling for this game’s name which I will hence forth spell out as “Mah-Jong” dash included.
The story of how I came about Mah-jong for the first time must trace its origins to an old solitaire-type game I used to play in the early days of the Internet back in the mid-90’s. That game was essentially tile-matching but I had grown particularly fond of the tiles and the symbols on them. When I later discovered they could be bought as gaming sets I literally bought the first one I came across online through eBay. The set I bought back then was a travelling set with rather diminutive tiles but I was still totally fascinated by them. However I did a totally blotched job of trying to sell the idea of playing what is essentially a 4-player game to family and some friends with the result that I did not find the necessary gaming partners to get things going. As a consequence I just stowed that box someplace, totally forgot all about it until now.
Some months ago a quick search on the Internet revealed a whole smorgasbord of information concerning this game. I discovered for the first time ever not only one set of rules but diverse ways to play the game. I learned that the Japanese variation was becoming increasingly popular even though in my opinion it is not suited for beginners to Mah-jong. I downloaded various rule books including those for the Chinese International version but they all had the same problem as far as I was concerned, they just felt too complex at least for a beginner.
As I always do I began to adapt the game, putting rules together piecemeal from diverse variations in order to arrive at a rule set I could present to family and friends without bewildering them. I would like to believe that I succeeded in that. Slowly my choice of rules gravitated in a synchronistical way towards a format strongly reminiscent of the British Majhong (yes without the dash) Association variation…which was when I finally found and purchased their official Mah-jong rulebook. Sadly the BMA is not that active in the UK which is a pity given that the rule set is sound and does offer a sound basis for beginner level play.
The more I play the game the more I realise just how brilliant it really is. It plays like rummy to an extent but then the rules differ considerably when it comes to what scores most points. It’s also a game that allows you to play it at many levels. A beginner level allows you to come to terms with the game and develop a feel for the strategy required; a more advanced level forces you to think harder in order to build hands of increased complexity.
Yet the real mystery lies in the history of this game. At first the impression I was given was that this game was an ancient one dating back several hundred years when in fact this is not the case. As I later found out, though this again is open to debate, the tile-based Mah-jong game was an invention of some Chinese army officers in the 1800’s but based (and here’s the catch) on an even older card game called Ma Diao.
Several internet searches later I discovered that Ma Diao was a popular card-based game during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911 AD). The deck used was composed of 40 cards. There were four suits as follows
· The Wen Suit – 1 to 9 plus an additional “½ Wen” which was also known as the “Flower” and a card called “No Wen” also known as the “Blank”
· The Suo Zi Suit –1 to 9 with no additional cards
· The Wan Suit – Again 1 to 9 with no additional cards
· Then Shi Suit which had 11 cards numbered 200,000 to 900,000 (in steps of 100,000) with an additional three cards number 1 Million, 10 Million and 100 Million. This last card was also called the Red Ten Thousand.
I have found that Ma Diao was essentially a trick-taking game for 4 players in much the same way as Mah-jong is a 4-player game. From a first foray into understanding what this precursor of Mah-jong was all about it would appear that the game dynamics were very different but I have still to find a comprehensive set of rules in order to better understand what this game was really all about.
What is apparent at least is that three suits out of the original four passed on into Mah-jong and were then quadrupled so that you now have 4 of each tile in each of the three suits used in Mah-jong. In Mah-jong you in fact still find the Wen suit or circles/coins, the Suo Zi Suit or bamboos and the Wan suit or characters.
The Dragon tiles you find in Mah-jong are also considered, according to some sources, evolutions from three cards present in the Ma Diao card deck. The Red Ten thousand became the Red Dragon, the Flower from the Wen Suit became the Green Dragon and not surprisingly the No Wen (Blank) became the White dragon which is represented as a blank tile in some Mah-jong sets.
This strong link between what was essentially a card game and the tile-based version we know as Mah-jong is what led me to do some research into Ma Diao, so far I have only identified a paper describing this game but I’m having some problems sourcing it since it is currently not freely available on the internet. If I get lucky, this blog will definitely get to know about it! Wish me luck!
0 comments:
Post a Comment