From quite early on in my life I had always wanted to learn to play mahjong. The teeming variety and exotic charm of the tiles fascinated me. I knew that mahjong represented one important strand of Japanese popular culture, so when I accepted a job at an English language school in Hiroshima in 1990 I took the opportunity to find out more about the game.
I asked some of my students about the game and two of them, Noda-san and Yoshimoto-san, offered to teach me how to play. "But there are only three of us." I replied. "Isn't mahjong a four-player game?"
"We'll teach you Japanese three-player mahjong." said Noda-san, "It's a very good game." He was right. I became addicted to "three-player mahjong" in my first year living in Japan.
Like everything else imported into Japan over the centuries, mahjong has been adapted and improved upon to suit Japanese culture. In fact two popular versions of mahjong are played in Japan. By far the most common version of Japanese mahjong is the Japanese elaboration of the original Chinese four-player game. The Japanese four-player game is commonly called "reach mahjong" ("riichi maajyan" in Japanese). Then there is the far less common and more drastically transformed three-player game, which is common in Hiroshima. That is the game which my two students taught me to play.
A standard mahjong set consists of 144 tiles divided into 36 types, each type occurring four times (4 x 36 = 144). The greater part belongs to one of the three suits, Coins, Bamboos, and Characters. The suits run from one to nine. The remaining tiles divide into three Dragons, four Winds and eight decorative bonus tiles called Flowers and Seasons.
Apart from the Flowers and Seasons, which are often discarded, the four-player game uses all of these tiles. However, the Japanese three-player variation cuts out all the tiles of the characters suit numbering from two to eight. This produces a faster, riskier game that is ideally suited for gambling - if only gambling were not illegal in Japan!
Mahjong was introduced to Japan from China in the early years of the twentieth century and quickly became a popular urban pastime. But with Japan on a war footing from 1931-1945, mahjong was actively discouraged by the authorities.
The fortunes of Japanese mahjong revived after the Second World War to such an extent that there were about 60,000 mahjong parlours (jansoh) in operation throughout the nation by 1983. Since then the game has been in something of a decline as fewer youngsters play it nowadays. By the early nineties the number of jansoh had fallen to something like 25,000. Nevertheless, that is still a lot of parlours! If you recognize the kanji (Chinese characters) for "mahjong" or "jansoh" you will not fail to notice the seemingly ubiquitous presence of signs advertising mahjong parlours wherever you go in urban Japan.
Poke your head inside the door of a typical Japanese mahjong parlour and a vista of a brightly lit, smoke filled room crowded with men sat around square mahjong tables in their suits or rumpled shirt sleeves will most likely present itself to you. The mahjong parlour is not the exclusive preserve of men however, and every so often one or two of the more indomitable female players can be seen holding court at a table. The scene will be completed by the "mama-san", the dominatrix who presides over the mahjong parlour dispensing drinks, snacks, and words of advice about the complexities of the game.
In Hiroshima, where the three-player game is a popular regional variation, you can play either the three-player or the four-player game. Moreover, not only are the fees quite low, the beer is cheap too! If you are lucky, mama-san will provide a range of tasty snacks or even some of her home cooking at no extra cost.
It is worth visiting a Japanese mahjong parlour just to see the mahjong tables. They are sophisticated marvels of modern technology. Each table contains two sets of tiles. While one set is in play on the table surface, the other set lurks in the guts of the machine. When a game is finished one of the players presses a button and the central section of the table opens up to reveal a cavity. The players push the tiles into the cavity. Another button is pressed and the central section closes. At the same moment four long narrow flaps slide open on the table and four completed walls of tiles emerge.
Meanwhile the tiles that were pushed into the table are automatically churned and shuffled and jostled into position ready for the next game. In this way players are saved the bother of having to shuffle the tiles and build walls after each game. As soon as one game is over the next game can commence without delay; an important consideration when you are paying for the time you spend at the table.
Of course, mahjong can also be played at home with friends or family. Mahjong sets can be purchased from many outlets and range in price from ¥2,000 to ¥35,000 and up. The game would typically be played sitting around the kotatsu - a low table with a built-in heating element for winter evenings. Until a few years ago kotatsu manufacturers catered to the mahjong-playing market by finishing the underside of most of the table-tops in green baize. If you wanted to play mahjong at home you could convert your kotatsu into a mahjong table simply by turning over the table-top.
Nowadays, with fewer people playing mahjong at home, fewer kotatsu come with green baize undersides. Instead, rubber mats made especially for mahjong can be purchased quite easily. A rubber mat serves to keep the noise down when the tiles are shuffled.
The influence of mahjong on modern Japanese culture is testified to by the fact that in 1991 the world's first museum dedicated to the game opened on the north-east coast of the Boso peninsula, to the south of Tokyo.
But with fewer young people taking up the game, does mahjong have a future? The Director General of the museum, Kyoichiro Noguchi certainly thinks so. Indeed, his vision for the game is full of lofty ambition. He expressed the hope that "Mahjong will contribute to the cultural exchange and peace of the world" [sic]. I don't know about that, but I am sure that the game will continue to be a popular aspect of contemporary Japan culture even if it never again reaches the zenith of popularity that it enjoyed in the early postwar years.
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