Mah-Jong Madness

On this dreary, wet, and grey London Sunday, my flatmates and I took one look out the window and decided that we'd be staying in. After we all lay around on the couch and moaned for a while, trying to think of something fun to do, Jenny made the decision for us. She went straight for the games corner (a nod to Char-Par here) and picked up the dreaded Mah-Jong mini briefcase.

You see, in our games corner we have many entertaining and easy-to-play games of all types, games of intellect and games of chance, board games, card games, even a game called "Butt Head" that includes brightly colored nylon hats fitted with strips of velcro onto which a fuzzy ball is thrown by drunken teammates. You name it, we've got it. And, lurking in the shadows of these other fun games on the shelf, that maroon-colored mini briefcase has been hiding ever since we moved in, rubbing its evil hands together and cackling. It came from the depths of Sam's mom's garage in Cardiff. Why he decided to bring this blasted mini briefcase all the way to London, when he didn't even remember to bring ONE of his FOUR umbrellas, and when none of us know how to play Mah-Jong, is a total mystery. But he did. And today we got it out and gave it some love.

Now, if one were to simply open up the mini briefcase and look inside, one would see and admire several neatly stacked rows of shiny, engraved red-and-white tiles, but glean absolutely no fraction of a clue about how to play. Luckily, Jenny recently discovered a Mah-Jong handbook with color illustrations at a second hand bookshop and bought it, thinking, of course, that it would teach us how to play. Here are a few examples of the helpful hints it offers:

"The player who draws East Wind is the leader for the first round. West Wind sits opposite him, South Wind sits to the right of East, and North Wind sits to the left. Note that these are not the standard points of the compass."

Oh, good. That's helpful already. Read: There are four compass points, and these will be assigned to the four players, but for some secret reason they won't be in any logical order, so if you're confused just accept it as a special, magical game-world in a far off land and shut up about it, you massive moron.

Next: "After each hand has been played, the privilege of holding East Wind passes to the player on East's right, unless East himself goes Mah-Jong or the game is a goulash."

These terms need absolutely no explanation, as they are clearly common knowledge for the entire human race.

"Thus in the following game, if South, West, or North go Mah-Jong, South becomes East, West becomes South, North becomes West, and East becomes North"

Obviously.

The book then goes on to explain how, after the "Twittering of the Sparrows," when the East Wind has judged the tiles to have been "washed" sufficiently, he calls "Pow!" to prompt the other Winds to take 36 tiles at random and build a double-layered "Wall" which will then be added together with the other players' "Walls" in order to make a square which will keep out the bad spirits of legend, in a clear-cut and perfectly rational chain of events. Then one player, assigned by a toss of the dice, performs the "breaking of the wall," and the bad spirits are never mentioned or worried about again.

So by now I assume that you all have a firm grasp of the fundamentals of this classic game. Don't forget that the tiles in the "Kong Box" can NEVER be replenished (Ha! I bet you thought they could, you idiot) and all Pungs, Kongs, and Chows must be exposed or concealed, and eventually fished or called. If you were wondering what happens when a player comes to the point when he must declare that he is "one for Mah-Jong," please see "Letting off a cannon" on page 39. At that point, if you still don't understand, then give up like we did.