This Chinese table game, described as ‘the new pickleball,’ is surging in the DC area
The sound of clinking glasses pierced over the din at Lucky Danger in D.C.’s Chinatown. Past the tables filled with diners and happy hour patrons on a Wednesday night, toward the back and beyond another bar in the restaurant’s inner sanctum, the washing is taking place.
The “dishwasher,” however, is an automatic mahjong table; and the “dishes” in this case, are mahjong tiles. “Washing” is the term used to shuffle them.
Overseeing the Wednesday night learn-to-play mahjong classes is Tim Ma, resplendent in red, a kindly presence giving hints to new players who picked up the game quickly, and telling those who needed a few more tries what tiles to discard and which ones to keep.
Mahjong is a game that originated in China. It’s usually played with four players, who pick up and discard tiles until they have the combination they need to win
Beside the elder Ma is his son, also called Tim, an acclaimed chef and the owner of Lucky Danger.
“My dad has always been the teacher,” the younger Ma said. “He also was teaching mahjong classes on the rooftop of Any Day Now.” Ma’s restaurant up the street from Nationals Park in Southeast.
The mahjong room at Lucky Danger was added as a way to introduce and show off this “important piece” of Chinese culture.
He said that in movies, such as “The Joy Luck Club” and even “Rush Hour 2,” mahjong is often in the background.
“You just know it’s there,” said Ma, the restaurant owner. “It’s a game that’s very specific to us.”
Mahjong’s exposure gained a significant boost with the 2018 film “Crazy Rich Asians.” During one of Lucky Danger’s Wednesday mahjong classes in September, a student said she wanted to learn how to play after seeing the movie.
But even before the current “mahjong fad resurgence” some 100 years later, University of Oregon professor Annelise Heinz said the game remained a big part of Chinese American and Asian cultures, and it became popular with Jewish American women and wives of U.S. Air Force officers.
How a game from China became part of American culture
Heinz wrote “Mahjong: A Chinese Game and the Making of Modern American Culture” and has studied the game and its cultural impact during her career. She said the game was a national fad in the 1920s.
“It has a remarkable ability to adapt and to evolve in different cultural contexts,” Heinz said. “In American society, different groups have kind of put their own particular stamp on the game.”
Its social aspect, Heinz added, is a way to get to know people in new communities, “or repeatedly uprooted communities, like Air Force spaces.”
While the social benefits are a constant, the rules of the game change depending on the variant being played.
The NOVA Mah Jongg group met at an Italian restaurant in August. Typically, the group, organized by Melissa Flavell, plays American mahjong at Wegmans. August marked one of its big get-togethers, and after ordering appetizers and drinks, it was time to wash the tiles — this time by hand rather than the mesmerizing automatic mahjong table — and let the games begin.
The mahjong taught at Lucky Danger is a 13-tile Chinese style game, while Flavell’s group is playing American style mahjong.
One of the key differences between the two, and there are many, is in American mahjong, players do “The Charleston,” which involves passing unwanted tiles between players several times in the beginning. Another big difference is American mahjong uses a yearly card that lists winning combinations of tiles or hands.
There are more variants of mahjong than those two, with different regions in China and in other countries putting their own spin on the game.
Heinz said a rising generation of younger and millennial-aged Asian Americans starting businesses in places such as the Bay Area have also put a spotlight on mahjong, claiming it and using it to connect to their heritage in the context of rising xenophobia.
“For me, it’s just the culture,” chef Ma said. “The culture of introducing a game that’s so important within the Chinese community, and introducing it to a different audience and a different community that just wants to learn something that is so close to, like our hearts.”
In fact, it’s a family affair.
“This is what we do. When we get together, after a meal, we play mahjong,” Ma’s father said.
From millennial moms to retirees: ‘Everybody’s playing’
A friendly game among strangers was taking place at another table, with “the queen” holding court. One of the women at the table called Victoria Hansard, of Alexandria, by the wrong name. She said an easy way to remember it was to think of Queen Victoria. Soon, Hansard, Jennifer Resio and Nannette Henderson were sharing stories and laughing like old friends.
Mahjong is a frequent activity in retirement and community centers. Retiring baby boomers moving into new communities are among the groups most often discovering the game in an effort to meet new people, Heinz said.
Restaurant owner Ma said that he has seen some young groups in their 20s and 30s who play every week because they learned the game during the pandemic.
It was during the COVID-19 pandemic that Flavell’s NOVA Mah Jongg group had a surge of interest from people who wanted to play. From a small meetup group some eight years ago, NOVA Mah Jongg now includes an active Facebook community of more than 120, newsletters, get-togethers and instruction offerings.
“We bring people together that typically wouldn’t probably get together unless it was this game,” Flavell said, adding there’s no one type of player these days. “Everybody’s playing.”
Flavell said it used to be a lot of retirees, but now, “It’s the millennial moms, husbands are playing. Everybody’s coming together to play.”
The new pickleball
Samantha Perez is playing her first live American mahjong game with two women she just met during Flavell’s get-together in August. Perez said mahjong is a good game for getting to know people and for hanging out with friends.
“It’s very interactive. You have to set the board up and you have to share your tiles with each other and you’re building a wall of tiles together. It’s a good flow to an evening — there’s natural breaks, there’s natural times of activity. It makes for a very good social night,” Perez said.
Dianne Fogarty, who was caregiving for her parents, said she was looking for “brain stimulation.” The former flight attendant said she missed being part of a group and socializing. Since starting a year and half ago with Flavell, she has met many people and made new friends through playing the game.
Part of the fun for Fogarty is sharing the game with others, including her husband, Bob, and her 24-year-old granddaughter.
After reading that mahjong was one of the “hottest games in Northern Virginia right now,” Paulina Orlikowski came to Flavell’s group to relearn how to play.
“It is the new pickleball, seriously,” Orlikowski said. “All ages are really learning this, and that’s another great thing because no matter what your age, who you are, no matter what your skill level is — come together and have fun playing.”