Mah jongg a popular pastime for area senior
Houston’s seniors are manic about mah jongg.
The Chinese tile game is a staple at the Thomas A. Glazier Senior Education Center, which has anywhere from six to nine tables (four players each) on Mondays and Wednesdays. The Heritage at Towne Lake lends its clubhouse to a monthly group of eight tables. And at West University Place Senior Center, a modest five tables at its peak, the game is offered three times a week.
Outside of these scheduled gatherings are countless mah jongg games played at senior living communities such as the Buckingham and Eagle’s Trace, as well as single tables played amongst four friends in living rooms around town.
Lynn Chorn is well aware of the mania. As the new owner of Where the Winds Blow Mah Jongg Supplies and Gifts, one of the largest suppliers of exclusively mah jongg products in the U.S., Chorn said she’s seen her sales increase steadily since she bought the business almost three years ago.
“The game has been growing like crazy,” she said. “(Mah jongg) is a fun way to get out of the house, be social and stay in touch with friends.”
Chorn’s store is dedicated to growing mah jongg’s popularity in the U.S. It supports tournaments nationwide by offering products for raffles or grab bags, and by offering discounted mah jongg sets to local senior centers in need. The store’s site (www. wherethewindsblow.com) also connects mah jongg players to groups and teachers across the country. The site lists 24 teachers in Texas alone, with half of those teachers from Houston.
Judy Dankers, mah jongg facilitator at Lone Star College-CyFair, has taught the game at community centers and community colleges for more than 20 years.
Unlike clubs, hearts, diamonds and spades found in regular playing cards, the main tile suits in mah jongg are known as dots (circles), bams (bamboos) and craks (characters). Wind, dragon, flower and joker tiles are also used, depending on the version of the game.
Traditional Chinese mahjong sets have 144 tiles, while the American version, also spelled mah jongg, is played with eight additional joker tiles and score cards that are published annually. The most common score card is from the National Mah Jongg League Inc. (NMJL). Others include Marvelous Mah Jongg (also from Houston), American Mah Jongg Association, and the Next Generation Mah Jongg score card.
While the game can be intimidating to those who don’t know the rules, Dankers said students learn the game in about four lessons.
“The essence of the game is making order out of chaos,” she said. “We tell everybody to stick with it. It will all come together eventually like a pot of soup.”
Mah jongg begins loudly, with four players shuffling and “clacking” the tiles together in the middle of a table. Next, the players help each other build and connect four even walls of tiles, two tiles high, face down. Players then roll dice to see who goes first, divide the walls and sort their tiles.
All is calm until a person exclaims “pong” or “chow,” when they’ve made a set of tiles, or “mah jongg,” when they win the game.
For Chorn, mah jongg is a game better experienced than explained.
“It’s a very tactile sensory experience,” she said. “You hear the tiles, you feel the engravings on them, you see the colors. It’s like trying to describe eating
ice cream.”
West University Place Senior Center began offering mah jongg seven years ago to replace its bridge group. The game grew when recently retired baby boomers wanted to learn how to play, according to recreation specialist Patricia Noren.
“Mah jongg is a brain game,” she said. “There’s skill and luck involved. It’s not a piece of cake.”
Once learned, Dankers said mah jongg can be so addicting it becomes routine.
She’s seen players arrange beauty parlor visits and doctor’s appointments around mah jongg sessions, which can last two to three hours for 1012 games played.
Sandy Abdou, who teaches at the Glazier Center, said once a person understands the game, he or she is hooked. An avid player herself, Abdou turns off her cell phone when she plays.
“You want to see how many mah jonggs you can get,” she said. “It’s a game of chance and choice. What are your chances of you making the right choice and then having the luck of the draw? If I could play every day, I would.”