My favorite Chinese game-- Mahjong

A video tutorial of Hong Kong Mahjong

In this week, I am going to introduce my favorite Chinese game –Mahjong. Mahjong is a popular traditional game that commonly played by four players. Mahjong has a set of 152 tiles with four different Chinese characters and symbols. Bamboo, circles, characters and honours. It is a game that involves skill, strategy and calculation at once.

Characters suits

Circle suits

Bamboo suits

honours suits

In China and Hong Kong, many people consider it as a gambling game and people play mahjong for gathering. It is also a popular game for Chinese New Year! Here are the rules: Each game has four rounds which determine by the directions East, South, West and North. Each player will get 13 tiles in the beginning and they will draw and discard one until they complete a legal hand with 14 tiles at the end. The goal is trying to get 3 tiles in the same symbols and they must be in order. Players draw and discard until they have a legal hand with 14 tiles. (For example, Bamboo two, three, four and Bamboo seven, eight, nine) The rules are really complicated, you can find more information from this link:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahjong

In fact, mahjong is really famous in China and Hong Kong. It is very common and a lot of people know how to play it. It is always consider as a leisure game for adult as well (sometimes teenager as well). I personally love this game very much and I will play this with my family and friends. Mahjong is also a traditional game that can represent Chinese culture as it has a long history. Chinese started to play mahjong many years ago and we still playing it now.