Maj Jongg Madness

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 14^th 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.