When Eileen Pearlman, a recent arrival to Hawaii from Texas, was seeking new friends and a new community here, she looked to her Jewish faith and joined Temple Emanu-El in Nuuanu. Now she has a regular circle of friends in Kailua, and is expecting to make more from around the island as well.
But it’s not just worship that’s bringing them together: it’s mahjong, the popular table game that originated in China, spread through Jewish American communities on the East Coast and has since become a popular game throughout the nation, particularly among older adults. With pandemic restrictions dropped and people eager to gather and socialize again, mahjong in its myriad styles is clicking with communities across the island.
“We definitely have had a number of people who have expressed interest in learning how to play,” said Pearlman, who is now overseeing the return of Temple Emanu-El’s mahjong program and has found games on the Windward side to play in as well. “Not all of them have shown up yet, but we’ll get them there.”
Temple Emanu-El shut down its mahjong sessions during the pandemic but is now having weekly evening and daytime sessions. The sessions are for temple members only, but there are many other ways to learn the game. Several mahjong instruction sites are online. For those who prefer in-person instruction, public libraries are a possibility — the Waianae branch recently held classes — and in the Chinese community, the game remains extremely popular.
“I have been having friends and family saying ‘mahjong, mahjong, let’s play,’” said Michele Choy, a member of the Tsung-Tsin Association, a Chinatown organization that originated as a group representing the nomadic Hakka people of China. “I would say it’s reviving. It’s not dead — my friends, the young ones, are doing it.”
The association is holding two mahjong events later this month, a Zoom webinar on April 26 with an expert on the spread of mahjong in America, and a teaching session on April 30 at its clubhouse in Chinatown. The sessions are open to the public and interested people can register at ttahawaii.com.
Edwina Lee, who is organizing those events, has held mahjong sessions for several Chinese groups over the years. “It’s good for your memory, especially the older generation,” said Lee, who learned the game from cousins from Hong Kong.
In Chinese, “mahjong” means “sparrow,” and according to a documentary by CCTV, the national broadcast station of China, the name is believed to refer to sparrows that feasted on stores of grain. Soldiers had to chase them off and would play the game — or something like it — to pass the time. (“Jong” is a term that often refers to the military.) In its current form, mahjong is believed to have emerged in the early- to mid-1800s, but according to the documentary, its roots lie in a card game that dates back almost 2,000 years. Its distinctive, matchbox-shaped tiles are believed to have emerged around the 12th century.
The game itself is similar to rummy. Most of the tiles are grouped in suits and are numbered one to nine. There are also specialty tiles such as flowers, dragons, winds and in some cases, jokers. Players take turns picking up and discarding the tiles as they try to build combinations out of them, such as pairs or triplets, or runs of at least three. A winning hand consists of 14 tiles in combinations of two to four tiles.
In China, certain winning combinations became identified with particular cities or provinces, such as Hong Kong, Shanghai or Canton, each of which have their own style of mahjong. An “American style” was popularized in the 1920s when Joseph Park Babcock, an American engineer who had worked in China, published a book of rules for mahjong, according to the website mahjongmuseum.com. That standardized the game to an extent, although other styles also emerged.
These days, probably the most common type of mahjong played in America, except for possibly some Chinese styles, is promoted by the New York City-based National Mah Jongg League. Every April, the league publishes a card that displays the winning hands for the year, which it sells to raise funds for charity.
Having uniform rules allows strangers to play together without confusion. That is convenient for Hawaii’s “snowbird” population, who can easily find a game when they visit here, as well as for Hawaii residents when they travel, Pearlman said.
“If people leave Hawaii to go to the mainland, if they go to another temple and they’re going to play with the sisterhood at the temple, they’re going to be playing American style,” she said, adding that the game is not particularly difficult to learn. “Once you know the basic rules, the best way to learn is to simply play.”
Not surprisingly, Hawaii, with its diverse cultures, has a wide range of mahjong styles. Lee said she knows Filipino people here who play a unique style of mahjong. “It has animals,” she said. “I don’t know where that came from.”
Sue Schneiderman, an avid mahjong player who has been holding games in Kailua for more than 25 years, has developed what she calls “Kailua style” mahjong.
“We have a combination of British, Chinese, Western and modern American,” said Schneiderman, who invited Pearlman to join in her mahjong games. “We have taken different books of mahjong and taken hands from the books that we thought were appropriate. So we have etiquette and rules of mahjong, and then we have basic counting of hands, and then we have special hands, along with the normal hands like the Chinese play.”
Many people in Hawaii have learned to play both Chinese and American style mahjong. Sheryl Lynch, branch manager of the Waianae Public Library, originally learned “Wright-Patterson” style mahjong, which was developed by the wives of officers at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. She learned Chinese style after getting locked inside the electronic entry gate to the Aiea Loop Trail during a blackout and saw three Chinese women at a picnic table with a mahjong set.
“Their fourth (player) was outside. They said, ‘You wanna play?’ And I said, ‘Yes!’” she said. “That’s when I realized how flexible the Chinese style was. It’s the same game but the rules are different enough so you got to learn (them).
“The game is really good for keeping you on your toes. It makes you think. There’s luck involved, but if you’re not thinking, you’re never going to win.”
About 10 years ago, the Waianae Public Library hosted a series of mahjong classes that gave rise to a regular series of games on the west side of Oahu.
“People from that original class are still playing mahjong today,” said Coco Green, who organizes those games today. “They come from all over the island, so even though it’s a Waianae-based group, there’s somebody from Waipahu, there’s someone from Aiea.”
The group meets at places such as The Beachhouse by 604, a restaurant in Waianae that offers spectacular views from its large outdoor lanai. One weekend in March, Elaina Bolanos, a photojournalism student on break from her mainland college, joined more than a dozen other women at a mahjong session there. She said she likes the strategy of the game, which she’s still learning.
“I enjoy trying to figure out my hand as we go along, maybe getting a good one, of getting a bad one and figuring out where to go from there,” she said.
Mahjong has also gotten exposure in popular culture, with the 2018 film “Crazy Rich Asians,” as well as in the 1989 film “Driving Miss Daisy” and the 1993 film “The Joy Luck Club,” which even includes a reference to “Jewish mahjong.”
Cynthia Ning, associate director for the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, has written a basic guide on Chinese mahjong, which can be accessed at 808ne.ws/Chinesemahjong. She said mahjong seems to have a visceral appeal to people, and for Chinese people in particular, the game conjures up cherished memories.
“You feel these cool tiles in your hand. It proceeds so fast, and there’s this clicking-clacking,” she said. “Friends sit around and drink tea and eat watermelon seeds. People can do it all night. It doesn’t take your full attention to play mahjong, you can be chatting. The whole family comes together and kids can be running around playing and people are playing mahjong. It’s very social.”
