New Archive:
July 2001 Issue
Mahjong? At Your Age?
By Allison Kaplan
I worried about how marriage would affect my friendships--whether single friends would stop inviting me out, whether married friends would stop going out.
I
hadn't anticipated going straight from newlywed to senior citizen.
But here I am. Learning to play mahjong. And I rather enjoy it.
It started innocently enough. Some friends--all of them married women, just by coincidence, I'm sure--decided to get together one evening a month for a game. I was invited to join in. I mocked them, of course, and asked if this is all that's left to look forward to after the honeymoon.
Then it dawned on me: a 7:00 p.m. weeknight engagement meant not having to feel guilty about not making dinner. See you, sweetheart, I called to my husband. I'm playing mahjong!
One click of those chunky, vanilla tiles and I was seven again, sleeping over at my grandma's house the night before "club." I'd help her set out the brightly colored tile racks and line up playing pieces like miniature brick walls. I'd peer over her shoulder during the game, one hand in a bowl of chocolate covered raisins, mesmerized by tiles gliding across the table. The ladies shouted foreign phrases like "one bam" and "three crack." I figured it was Yiddish.
My grandma would tell me how she'd played with these same women--women who in my mind were perpetually 72--for years, from the time my mother was a little girl. That didn't fully register until a few weeks ago, when I sat down to a game of mahjong with my friend Dana and some women I knew from Hebrew school. I suddenly envisioned everyone at the table in housecoats and hairspray.
I better think carefully before committing to this group--I could be stuck for the next sixty years.
The founding members had started out with a lesson from several mahjong-playing mothers. Still, no one could recall if you pass twice to the right, once to the left, or the other way around. Dealing the tiles took about an hour and a half.
Which was fine. It proved we weren't taking the game seriously. To us, mahjong was retro cool. Kitschy chic. Like Neil Diamond. Or lava lamps.
I followed Dana's hand, just like I watched my grandma's years ago. I realized that "bam," and "crack" are indeed part of a foreign language. Not only that, the pictures on the tiles make it all the more confusing. Like, bams are represented by little sticks, except for on the one bam tile, which looks more like a flower.
"No, it doesn't," my grandma chirped, when I informed her, the next day. Oh. Okay.
I told Dana, if we're going to sit around once a month pretending to play, we might as well really learn how--just for kicks, of course. Dana called Grandma Honey; I got Grandma Esther on board. They agreed to teach us, on the condition that we don't play for money. It wouldn't be right, taking pennies from one's grandchild.
In less time than it took the younger crowd to pass the Rice Krispie treats, Grandma Honey swiped a tile I had just discarded and shouted "mahjong!"
I'll be darned.
"You've got to think strategy," 89-year-old Grandma Honey lectured. "If you see I'm collecting dragons, don't throw one out." That might have been possible, if I understood that a plain white tile commonly referred to as "soap" is also a "white Dragon." What were the Chinese thinking?
I began dealing tiles for the next round, when both grandmothers frantically waved their arms. Neither could actually reach the center of the table where I had pushed the game pieces, but I got the message.
"You've got to role the dice, first," Grandma Honey stressed.
"What for?"
"To see how many tiles you pull away from the wall," urged my grandma, surely embarrassed about being related to a total moron. She shook her head knowingly at Honey and I caught the two exchanging a roll of the eyes. At least I had Dana, who agreed that dice didn't seem imperative.
"That's the way it's done!" Grandma Honey cried. "Do you want to learn how to play or not?"
Frightened, Dana and I quickly decided that yes, we did.
So, we play by the rules. I've "mahjed" three times--once legitimately. Dana's got a few games to her credit too. There's not a lot of chatter around the table--talk leads to sloppy play. And to avoid noshing during the game, we begin the afternoon with a proper lunch.
One time, Grandma Honey pulled out a Jell-0 mold and Grandma Esther thought it was the best thing she'd tasted in ages!
We continue to go through the motions with the other group. The women know Dana and I have something on the side, and to be honest, they seem a bit intimidated. To make up for it, Dana and I let them win, even when they try to use a joker in a pair. (Imagine!) We roll our eyes at each other across the table and chuckle discretely.
Send comments to Allison at
Singlstyle@aol.com
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