"Mahjong, or, Mah-jongg, is a game which convention says was invented in China in the late 19th century, and then became very popular all over the world in the 20th century. It is played with 144 tiles which in older sets are made of bamboo and ivory. Modern sets are often made of plastic, but that doesn’t stop you having a good game.

The 144 tiles comprise three suits called bamboos, characters and circles and there are 1 to 9 of each of these suits. There are also four wind tiles, N, S, E and W, and three dragon tiles, red, green and white. There are four copies of every tile, ie 4 of 9 circles, 4 west winds etc. Finally there are 8 bonus tiles called flowers and seasons. Special counting sticks for scoring are provided and you can gamble if you want to. In many parts of the world gambling at mah-jongg is a popular sport but in this country we tend to play just for pleasure.

In older sets tiles are beautifully made and decorated with Chinese symbols and half the pleasure of playing the game is handling these beautiful tiles.

There are many variations of the game but the standard game we play at u3a involves tiles being dealt out and then collected to make threes and fours of particular tiles. Collecting 3 identical tiles is called a PONG, and collecting 4 is called a KONG. Different tiles have different bonus values.

4 people play around a table, the tiles are shuffled face down, players build a four-sided wall of all the tiles. Each player is then dealt 13 tiles. The idea then is to discard and collect identical tiles and shout PONG or KONG!, and get rid of all your tiles and then you’ve gone MAHJONG!

This in a nutshell is how to play mah-jongg, but there’s much more to it than this, and people can get very addicted to the game - it’s great fun."

Peter Toghill, 19 Oct 2022