Passion is Thy Name!

As a kid growing up in a big family of cousins all around the same age group, we were always looking for games (sometimes inventing new ones) to play at our grandparents’ place after school and before our parents came in the evenings to take us back to our respective homes.

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One afternoon years ago, we were all holed up indoors due to heavy rain. As super-active kids back then, we were quickly bored outta our minds by the first hour in the afternoon. So one smart cousin went digging in Ah Kong’s store room and out came Ah Kong’s old, not-used-in-years Mahjong set. Curious pairs of eyes eyed the box eagerly while the oldest cousin was tasked to request permission from Ah Ma to play with this new-found toy.

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Upon Ah Ma’s nod, all of us crowded around the living room and Ah Ma proceeded to teach us the basics of Mahjong. Since then, some got bored of it and returned to the usual games of backlane badminton, police-n-robber, hide-n-seek, etc…while some of us got strangely hooked to it. I was one of the few who got hopelessly hooked.

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Together with a few other cousins, we played Mahjong every single afternoon for a long, long time. It was so long ago that I don’t even remember if we were hooked on it for months or years. All I remember was that it was a loooonnnggg time before we moved on to other games. There were more than 4 of us who stayed with the game, so we had to rotate.

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This CNY, instead of the usual card games, we decided to start a sidegame of Mahjong and my interest got rekindled. As the many different sets of rules were explained to me by my hardcore Mahjong friends, I realised that my Ah Ma only taught us the very basic rules of playing Mahjong and left out ALOT of other rules like counting points. She must’ve thought it right to not divulge too much of the game to us kids. Darn, I feel cheated! :\

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All these years, I’ve only known one way to play the game : the 4-player game. Simple and straightforward. This CNY, I learnt the more interesting version of the game : the 3-player game. I was so fascinated with it that I sat with the Mahjong aunties the entire night watching them play and asking them the occasional “How many points is that set ah?”, “What does that mouse tile mean ah?” dummy questions.

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Then, I went online to dig out more info. It seems the name of the game was derived from Confucius’s fondness for birds. Mahjong is loosely translated to ’sparrows’. Go here to read about its history and why players go “Pung!” and “Kong!” and “Chee!”. The 3 sets of cardinal tiles are actually in-line with the 3 cardinal virtues bequeathed by Confucius : Hóng Zhōng (中) which means Benevolence, Fā Cái (發) which means Sincerity and Bái Pi (白) which means Filial Piety. Interesting stuff, eh?

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As the game got more popular and widespread, many different variants of the game was invented. Wiki has a good list of these variants.

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If you’ve never played Mahjong before and want to learn about it, go here for a super easy to follow article on the game.

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If you want to get a set of the tiles without blowing an obscene hole in your pocket, go to Jaya Jusco and proceed to the stationary section. Look for a square brown bag that comes in 2 sizes. The small bag which goes for RM68.90 is a 3-player set while the big bag which goes for RM98.90 is a 4-player set.

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I got myself the 4-player set ‘coz I wanted to have the option to play either a 3-player or a 4-player game with the same set. And yes, I’ve checked. The 4-player set has the extra ‘flower’ and ‘joker’ tiles that are required in a 3-player game.

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Now, with 2 tables and 2 sets of Mahjong tiles at my pad, my friends no longer need to sit around waiting for their turn.