They are calling it a "mahj mitzvah."
After my mother-in-law moved into assisted living here a few years ago, the same dear friend, offered to go and help teach any men or women who wanted to learn the ancient game. Anything to help a fellow mahjong maven get a few more players so there could be a game. Unfortunately it never happened because of the physical disabilities and the sad comings and goings of people in my mother-in-law's assisted living facility.
In the entire time my mother-in-law lived in assisted living the only thing she complained about (besides the food, but we won't go there) was that lack of mahj mavens. When she moved to Chicagoland to join our family here, she joined a recreation center to take mahjong lessons and meet new friends. She made a lot of sacrifices to move closer to her family -- the biggest was to leave Philadelphia, the second was to give up her treasured mahjong and card groups at the swim club. To the very end of her life the ladies she shuffled tiles with in two cities were among her loyalist friends.
Mahjong, for those of you who have never heard the shuffling of tiles and learned the ceremonial breaking of the wall or the jingle of the winnings purse, was originated in China. World-wide the best players are still men. According to Wikipedia, it has only been played here in the USA since 1920.
I don't know when it was hijacked by Jewish women, but I think today they keep it thriving in the West. I grew up in a mahj house, in the Philadelphia area. One night a week and maybe an afternoon or two, when possible, the snack tables with bowls of nuts, pretzels, fruit and other nosh, were set up around a bridge table and mom's mahjong set.
The set was proudly purchased with S&H Green Stamps. I can still taste the glue on my tongue as I type this.
I have early memories of helping my mom turn the tiles face down for the players to swish around before drawing and stacking them neatly to build walls against their raised racks. Then there was the sound of the tiles clacking as she and her friends kibitzed and cackled before starting the next game.
When the game was in play my sister and I knew better than to interrupt. Sometimes a fifth person moved stealthily around the table like a satellite waiting for her turn to play. She would discreetly try to not show any emotion as the players built their hands.
When the National Mah Jongg League's new card came out each year, word of its availability spread like wildfire. Mom's friends were almost orgasmic about the new card. Although they all kept the tri-fold card, which shows the official hands and rules of the game, in front of them, most of the mavens didn't need to refer to them. My mom had that card memorized before almost anyone else she played with. She took great pride in frequently being asked to sub in other games looking for a fourth player.
At the beginning of each new season, there were deep discussions over the challenges of this year's card versus last year's. I'll bet there are some players out there who could compare all 76 years of the National organization's hands. As in baseball, there is also a more junior American Association.
Even when macular degeneration impeded mom's eyesight she could still play mahjong. The touch of the tiles, which have numbers, and dots, and jokers, and dragons, and flowers etched on them was second-nature to her.
My dad joked about how he didn't know how they understood the card since it was in Chinese. Chinese symbols that is.
I remember having a conversation with mom, when her eyesight began to worsen, about getting a larger print edition of the card. She said she would be embarrassed to have to use it.
I reminded her that years ago when she needed to get the Canasta decks with bigger numbers, the rest of the women she played with happily adapted. Most were probably relieved to have the larger typeface.
Mom finally had to give up mahjong in her late 80s, not because she couldn't see so well, but because she couldn't reach from her tile rack to the table center to discard her useless tiles and pick a new one. Bad rotator cuffs and arthritis caused a premature end to a 70-plus-year-hall-of-fame-career as a mahj maven. I know with my mom's passing away in February she was reunited as that elusive fourth player with her other friends who preceded her, or even my mother-in-law, who never gave up on looking for a game.
Where ever I have lived I've been asked if I play mahjong. I understand the fundamentals and vocabulary of the game, but have had no desire to play it. Maybe there were too many "sushings" when I was watching mom and "the girls'' spend the afternoons at play. Sometimes the sound of the tiles clacking into each other makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
A lot of my friends are picking up the game or finding their foursomes, perhaps feathering their empty nests.
Maybe on the next trip to Philadelphia I will drag the mahjong set out of my sister's guest room closet and bring it back to Chicagoland.
Maybe my daughter, or son, will want to play someday.
I remember there was a Seinfeld episode in which George Costanza's mom is playing Mahjong...before that I had always just associated it with the Chinese!
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