My wife and I joined a Maj game organized by a couple, Peg
and April, we have known for twenty years through a lesbian parenting
group. Our kids have all gone off to
college, and in our newly found free time we have embraced Bams, Cracks, Dots,
Dragons, Winds, and Flowers. I see these
colorful smooth tiles with their specific suits and designs as odd metaphors. Or
maybe it’s the whole game.
Deciphering the correct patterns to construct, passing ivory
tiles to the right and across, building and picking from walls, certainly wakes
up our brains; we struggle humbly to find our hands, learning the complex rules
and rituals of play from our coaches Peg and April.
This isn’t my first exposure to this ancient Chinese game,
popularized in America in the 1920’s and embraced by Jewish women, who as I’d
expect from Jewish women, felt compelled to make up their own rules and form an
official organization, the National Maj Jongg League. My mom played Maj and I can remember the
sound of the tiles clicking and clacking on the card table on nights when the
ladies played at our house.
I never learned to play Maj from my mother, who has lost her
ability to play the game. This was one of the first signs of her dementia. She couldn’t make a Maj hand, and
unfortunately the group of women she played with weekly in Scottsdale treated
her with more cruelty than kindness, chiding her for not keeping up. My mom, never a gracious loser, gave up and
stopped ordering her yearly Maj card from the League.
“Flowers are the easiest to get,” my Maj Coach Peg, who wears a pair of socks decorated with Maj tiles, whispers
as I identify a hand that I want to play that includes a set of Flowers. And a
few minutes later, my 84-year old Aunt Sydell, who on her annual visit to see
her sister, my mom, is sitting in on our game, says increduously, “Why are
there so many fucking flowers?”
Expert player that she is, she’s spotted an
irregularity. Instead of 8 flower tiles,
we are playing with 16; my Aunt explains that although 16 Flower tiles come
with the Maj Jong set, the rules require that you take half away and play with
just 8. 8 fucking Flowers.
Our skeptical friends/coaches Google this rule and discover
that she is correct; over time, the number of Flowers used has in fact decreased.
This complicated game is in flux from year to year, as dictated by the all
powerful National Maj Jong League; the card with the published patterns for
winning hands changes to keep things interesting.
“The League is coming for you,” I warn our patient friends/coaches,
who have learned the game from Peg’s New York based mother, who by the way is
neither Jewish nor Chinese. But she is a New Yorker who has infected her
daughter with the Maj bug. They take out
the extra tiles somewhat reluctantly.
Later we get into a friendly discussion about concealed hands. Our friends disregard the “C” that appears at
the end of certain hands on the card; in play this translates to drawing all
tiles from the Wall, with the exception of the 14th tile. You can’t call or take tiles that are
discarded from other players when you are going for Maj Jongg with a concealed
hand.
“We aren’t ready for this, yet,” April explains to Aunt
Sydell. “We’re still learning. Come back
maybe in twenty years we’ll be farther along. In another few years we might
even start playing for money.” Aunt Sydell laughs and promises not to turn us in
to the League. She’ll be back to monitor our progress.
I am impressed by the complexities of this game; Aunt Sydell
has been playing for over fifty years and it shows. She knows the NML 2017 card by heart; she is
aware of which tiles have been played and can even accurately predict what hand
everyone at the table is going for as the game progresses. Her memory at 84
blows us all away. My mother on the
other hand, doesn’t remember that her sister even came to visit the day after
my Aunt flies back to Scottsdale. Bam,
Crack, goes my heart.
“We can have the next game at our house,” announces my wife,
as we conclude our recent game. Then she frets that we don’t have snack tables.
There is no room on the main table to
keep noshes and drinks, thus the need for snack tables. I expect I’ll see some oversized packages
arriving in the next few days from Amazon. Play on.
