Malaysia Truly Asia Part II: 麻将

//Malaysia Truly Asia Part II: 麻将//

mah·jong also mah·jongg ( P ) Pronunciation Key (mäzhng, -zhông)n.

A game of Chinese origin usually played by four persons with tiles resembling dominoes and bearing various designs, which are drawn and discarded until one player wins with a hand of four combinations of three tiles each and a pair of matching tiles.
http://www.dictionary.com

So how did Mahjong started? One theory (which I find amusing..but it may true..) is that Confucius developed the game....why? (Green parts from wikipedia)

• The appearance of the game in various Chinese provinces coincides with Confucius' travels at the time he was teaching his new doctrines: Hmm...it may be just coincidence...
• The three dragon Cardinal) tiles also agree with the three Cardinal virtues bequeathed by Confucius. Chung ( , lit. middle) the Red, Fa ( , lit. prosperity) the Green, Po ( , lit. white) the White represent Benevolence, Sincerity, and Filial piety respectively: It does? Zhong means Benevolence? Fa means Sincerity? I didn't know that...
• Terms used in the play of the game Pong, Chee and Kong also give evidence to this theory. Confucius was of the Kong family his full name being Kong-Fu-Tze, he married a girl named Che and adopted the term Chee meaning 'to connect': But this does not explain the "Pong" thingy...but I find the part about Confucius naming "Chee" after his wife funny....and it is not pronounced as "Chee" anyway...it is pronounced as "Chi"...

But how I'm not gonna write a whole entry on how Mahjong oringnated...So as I mentioned in the previous entry...in Kukup, they provided us with Mahjong set...so of course we played Mahjong.

This is me paying my grandma after she "hu"...

And me agonising over which tile to discard...

Isn't my mum so cute? I'm in this pic by the way...

Did I mention that my mum is very cute?

There are a lot of fascinating things about Mahjong, like how Confucius may have invented it, how the rules vary from country to country (and the fact that there are so many versions of Mahjong is fascinating enough)...

Or if you don't know...the suits of the tiles are money based...meaning the tong suit represent the copper coins...the suo suit (the bamboo one...) represent 100 copper coins per suo...and the wan suit represent ten thousand coins...

But the most fascinating thing about playing Mahjong for me is not just the game itself, or its history or anything...it is the talking that occur during the game...all sorts of things were talked about (by the way I went with my 2 aunties, grandpa & ma, mum dad sis n bro)...so of course when we are playing Mahjong...they will talk about all sort of things...that normally I won't be listening in to....

Topics like problems between my dad and mum (when my dad is not around...my mum will talk to my aunties)...problems with my grandpa living at my aunties house (of course this was topic only when my grandpa is not around)...and stuff like that...somehow I was always there playing, listening in to all these...lots of 家丑 so to speak...which I shan't elaborate further...

Anyway...before I end off...this is one funny thing that happened when my sis played Mahjong (for the first time in her life..)

She's got 6 suo and 8 suo...


The person on her left (before her) discarded this tile..



And she chi....



We saw...we laughed....and laughed and laughed...and even pointed out to her what's wrong....and she still don't get it...until like 5 minutes later....she can't seem to differentiate between tong and suo...

I guess she's just not suited for gambling...