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 was popular in Japan so when I accepted a job at a 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."
It is indeed. Like everything else that Japan has imported over the centuries, mahjong has been adapted to suit local tastes. In fact two popular versions of mahjong are played in Japan - a somewhat modified four-player game, and the more radically transformed three-player 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! If you want to try the three-player game the rules in English are available here.
Mahjong was introduced to Japan from China in the early years of the twentieth century and became a popular urban pastime. But with Japan on a war footing from 1931-1945, mahjong was actively discouraged by the authorities.
Its fortunes 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, so that 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 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 jansoh 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 jansoh is not the exclusive preserve of men however, and every so often one or two of the more indomitable female players are often to be seen at the tables. The scene will be completed by the "mama-san", the dominatrix who presides over the place dispensing drinks, snacks, and words of advice about the complexities of the game.
You can play either the four-player or the three-player game in a jansoh in Hiroshima. 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, gratis...
It is worth visiting a jansoh just to see the mahjong tables. They are sophisticated marvels of modern technology. Each table contains two sets of tiles. While one set is on the table, in play, 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
