An old game is finding new popularity in Milwaukee. It's Mah Jongg, a Chinese game played with small tiles, decorated with fanciful designs. WUWM's Ann-Elise Henzl takes a peek at the basics of Mah Jongg, and its appeal, in this installment of our series, "The Games People Play."
To learn about Mah Jongg, I went to one of the places that offers classes and games -- the Jewish Community Center in Whitefish Bay. I quickly became intrigued.
"What's interesting is that it's so contagious."
That's Bernice Hurwitz. She's a coach and a hostess at the open games the JCC holds weekly. Hurwitz organizes groups of four players at card tables, and answers questions they have. She also serves light snacks, such as cookies and pretzels, for what's become a social occasion for about 30 older women.
"I have played for over 50 years already, since I was a very young bride and it stays with you, and of course, the -- I think the camaraderie of people playing together. Now all these 'girls,' you'll excuse the expression, came here. They weren't friends, they just came because they wanted to play Mah Jongg," Hurwitz says.
To start a game, the players pick 13 or 14 tiles, each about the size of a pat of butter. The smooth tiles are decorated with dragons and other colorful Chinese symbols. Players lay the tiles on a rack, so others can't see their hand. The object is to match up all the tiles into certain combinations, as you do in card games such as rummy.
"Mah Jongg is played with 152 tiles. There's three different suits, and there are flowers and jokers. The suits number from one to nine, just like a card game," Hurwitz says.
Just because the games are friendly, you'd get the wrong idea if you pictured players sitting around shooting the breeze. Most are quiet and serious as they hunker down in front of their tiles. Some don't want to be distracted, so they ask me and Hurwitz not to chat near their table.
Another table doesn't mind that we watch. The players are picking up and discarding a tile at each turn, naming the suit and the number of each tile as it's set down.
"7 dot, 7 dot..."
We catch the game just as one woman picks up her final tile, to win.
"Mahj. I picked the one crack..."
Between games, as the players mix the tiles up for the next round, veteran player, Merle Wassermann tells me what it takes to be good at Mah Jongg.
"Concentration, the ability to see the possibilities that can occur in the course of setting tiles up on a rack. Because there are many possibilities and one has to be flexible enough to be able to change a set that they have here to something else that is not coming in, so they have to be aware of tiles that are being thrown out and picked up," Wasserman says.
Wassermann says the game also takes luck and experience. The longer you play, the better you get. Helen Polacheck is looking forward to when that day comes. She's a beginner, who tends to feel pressured when deciding which tiles to keep.
"It's very stressful," Polacheck says.
Polacheck took lessons to learn Mah Jongg, but she can't keep up with the experts yet.
"The people that have been playing for years or have come back to it after their children were gone, they play very fast and obviously when you walk up to them and you say, 'I'm a beginner,' they look at you like, 'I don't think we have room at this table,'" Polacheck says.
As tense as these games may be for some, they're nothing compared to those where Mah Jongg is played for big money. Mah Jongg has been sprouting up at tournaments. You can also play at casinos, and even on the Internet. The game, which some say has origins dating back hundreds of years, has gone online.
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