Mahjong is that thing for me.
Let me try to define Mahjong for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about.
Mahjong is a game that originated in China. It is played all over Asia and especially in Southeast Asia! The actual game play is somewhat similar to playing Rummy. It is a game of skill, strategy and calculation. Instead of cards, the game is played with tiles with Chinese characters and symbols. It is typically played with four players representing the four winds, but you can still play it with three players. Engineers tend to play well as they can hold numbers in their heads, calculate and remember what has been played/discarded! Ordinary mahjong is easy to learn. It is more challenging when you branch out and play other hands and I think there are hundreds of hands. I play by the International Rules of Mahjong. I have Singaporean friends who wanted me to play their version of Mahjong. I was always a little skeptical as they played for money and I would have had no idea if their hands were real or not. Let's just say if you play Mahjong with a person of Chinese decent the game is a little different. For the Chinese, the symbols on the tiles and each of the hands have meanings.
These are the three suits in Mahjong.
Characters
Circles (Stones or Coins)
Bamboos
Other tiles are:
The Dragons: Green, Red, & White
and
The Winds
This is an example of a winning hand of Ordinary Mahjong
For ordinary mahjong you need four pungs (3 of a kind) and a pair of the same suit
OR
you need 3 pungs (3 of kind), 1 chow (a run of 3) and a pair in the same suit. Pungs in winds and dragons are acceptable.
Now that you have the idea . . . . .
I LOVE to play Mahjong. It could have become an addiction for me if I was a weaker person! I love the challenge of trying to win with difficult to get hands. It is one of those things that is mindless and engaging at the same time. The AWA (American Women's Association) in Singapore would have Mahjong every Monday at the club. I restricted myself to only playing once a month with the Company's Spouses group. I think it is like the Bridge groups of the 1960's here in America. Groups of women get together to play and the social aspects are nice too. Anyway, for a couple years a foursome of us would get together once a month on our own. We would gather in the morning and play until we had to catch taxis to beat our kids' school bus home - some days were close, especially if it was raining!!!! The four of us are very different women in very different stages of life, but we each had a special relationship with each other and then as a foursome. Anyway as life happens, expats get new assignments or repatriate and our little foursome was split apart. I had the great joy this week of hosting a little Mahjong reunion for our foursome. It was a fantastic day! We all just fell into place and it was as if we had never been apart! We had not played as a foursome in three years. We had such a great time!
I have taught my kids to play so I can play Mahjong on family fun night and I am about to teach my parents (they need something mentally challenging to do). I continued to play mahjong with the spouses group in Singapore until I repatriated and really enjoyed it. However, the foursome can't be replaced and it is somewhat bittersweet that we have moved on in life.
I do hope to have another Foursome of Mahjong gals someday.
Treasure your friends as life moves and changes quickly!
