Are you interested in learning a new game to play with family and friends? Learn about Mahjong, a game that originated in ancient China and is played all around the world today! Learn the setup of the game, rules and basic strategy.
my family owns a $1500 ivory and bamboo mahjong set (stole it from a rich old dead guy) but none of us know how to play it. After watching this video I still have no idea how to play it
I was first exposed to the game in a local Asian supermarket. I still use the exact same set I bought all those years ago! Super fun social game, met many good folks through a game or two.
Really appreciate the video. Am off to watch the 2nd in the series. (Read the comments and appreciate that the music distraction is not just me.) Rest of video is really nice job for beginners!
6:00 I was under the impression that the dealer doesn't take the last 2 tiles from the same stack of 2. Shouldn't the dealer take the 1st and 5th tile from the edge (ie the top tile from the 1st and 3rd stacks)? Also, at 5:43, it's mentioned that south follows east but the sitting position is not the 'usual' geographic position. Clockwise, it should be E-N-W-S or am I wrong? (edit: the video mislead me - the game is played counter-clockwise which means E-N-W-S in mahjong sitting position. The needed correction is that the game is played anti-clockwise and not as shown in the video)
In China, the compass directions were read looking up at the sky from the ground. This would make it E-S-W-N when moving counterclockwise. This is the opposite of how it works in the West, where people looks down on the Earth from above, and would make it E-N-W-S when moving counterclockwise.
@@argonwheatbelly637 Correct. Turns are taken counter-clockwise in MJ and I forgot about it. That means E-S-W-N. I am correct on the tile draw though :)
Whew! I’m so confused🙀 I’m a visual and hands on kinda person. I learn better by doing. So, not giving up . Just signed for Mahjong game night at a local restaurant. Wish me luck!
With all due respect, the players' turns, in the video, are going in the opposite direction the game's rules (in all variants known to me, including Western ones) establish quite clearly. You should be taking turns from left to right (E, S, N, W, in that order, keeping in mind the order of the directions is not the same as established by the compass; it is meant to follow the movement of the sun (in the northern hemisphere) from east, to south, to west, then (when not seen) to north. The wall itself is consumed in the *opposite* direction, from right to left (which in your video you are doing correctly). In brief, the turn of players goes counterclockwise, while the tiles are taken from the wall in a clockwise fashion. The directionality of the game is part of its deeper symbology and should be respected, since directions are such a crucial part of it. A lot of effort is put, in the rules, towards the assignation of positions to the players and the keeping of the cycles of rotation. These cycles, again, go in opposite directions: Players counterclockwise, and the wall clockwise.
I’m thinking this is probably Chinese mah-jongg and not American mah-jongg. Although Table games are different with every group this is not how we build walls. The numbers is different and determining east is different and we know immediately which wall is broken first.
By an English set, do you mean a set made in England? Or perhaps you mean a set with English indexes translating the Chinese characters? Anyway. Regardless of what you meant, it has always seemed (to me, of course) sheer laziness not to bother to learn the very few characters that playing mahjong with an untranslated set takes. 1, 2, 3 and 4 are obvious... so 5 numerals and 4 direction characters. NINE symbols. That's it. Why miss the chance to expand your cultural universe by this small bit?
