I’m actually very excited about this. I’ve wanted to learn this for a long time. I’ve really had no excuse, my mother and stepfather teach people to play it. However, it’s not really my stepdads favorite thing. You need at least four people. We were going to enlist my daughter as the fourth. She really don’t want to do it. I finally just asked my friends and they were like “I want to learn”. So tonight it’s just my mom, but it’s our first lesson.

As per my favorite site Wikipedia…

Mahjong (/mɑːˈdʒɒŋ/ mah-JONG, Mandarin: [mǎ.tɕjâŋ]) is a tile-based game which was developed in China in the Qing dynasty and has spread throughout the world since the early 20th century. It is commonly played by four players

The game is played with a set of 144 tiles based on Chinese characters and symbols, although some regional variations may omit some tiles and/or add unique tiles. In most variations, each player begins by receiving 13 tiles. In turn players draw and discard tiles until they complete a legal hand using the 14th drawn tile to form 4 melds (or sets) and a pair (eye). A player can also win with a small class of special hands. There are fairly standard rules about how a piece is drawn, how a piece is robbed from another player, the use of simples (numbered tiles) and honors (winds and dragons), the kinds of melds allowed, how to deal the tiles and the order of play. Despite these similarities, there are many regional variations to the rules including rather different scoring systems, criteria for legal winning hands and even private table rules which distinguish some variations as notably different styles of mahjong.

This is a great game for somebody like me with a chronic illness. It doesn’t require a lot of moving, it involves mostly my mind which I can deal with, and he gets me to be social. It’s good to know Mahjong. I can play at my recreation center or library. I can maybe find a game in my condo. I can meet new people. My only concern will be my hands. I’ll be able to handle the tiles on the racks but I might be slow in passing and taking the tiles. My hands get the dropsies very often. Other than that, hopefully this will just be a great thing for me to either play with my friends or meet new people.