back in the year 1923
Posted: Fri May 08, 2015 3:23 am
While browsing through a bookstore, I came upon this book which was published in 1923. I figured it had something to do with mahjong because of the 
on the cover. I discovered that the original cantonese word for the game was ma cheuk. It was an interesting read.
Some things that stood out:
It stated that the flower "cards" (even though they were tiles) were a supplement to the regular game and were seldom used by the Chinese, thus a set was described as having 136 cards. The symbol for the cracks (maan) were slightly different and the white dragons (baak) were blanks, no rectangular box. The other dragons looked the same as the modern japanese sets.
Pungs were separated into 2 types, a pung for an open set, and a gan for a closed set. Chee and kong were not. Self-drawn was Chee Moh (tsumo).
The scoring sticks (counters) had names. I didn't know that. Tien-sky, day-earth, yan-man, and ngom-goose. Goose??
I also had never seen the chinese names for the winning hands. Guess I never really looked. They are longer. Too many to list. (Chuen Yue Gow= Chinrōtō).
The last item I will mention was the description of 2-handed mahjong. None of the game apps I played when I first started playing were like this.
Remove 44 tiles, the 4 souths, the 4 norths, and the entire bamboo suit. That leaves 92 tiles, two walls of 23 long and 2 high.
East and West alternate without regard to the winner. No cheeing.
Not a bad book for being over 90 years old.
on the cover. I discovered that the original cantonese word for the game was ma cheuk. It was an interesting read.- Photos_8.jpg (13.11 KiB) Viewed 11629 times
It stated that the flower "cards" (even though they were tiles) were a supplement to the regular game and were seldom used by the Chinese, thus a set was described as having 136 cards. The symbol for the cracks (maan) were slightly different and the white dragons (baak) were blanks, no rectangular box. The other dragons looked the same as the modern japanese sets.
Pungs were separated into 2 types, a pung for an open set, and a gan for a closed set. Chee and kong were not. Self-drawn was Chee Moh (tsumo).
The scoring sticks (counters) had names. I didn't know that. Tien-sky, day-earth, yan-man, and ngom-goose. Goose??
I also had never seen the chinese names for the winning hands. Guess I never really looked. They are longer. Too many to list. (Chuen Yue Gow= Chinrōtō).
The last item I will mention was the description of 2-handed mahjong. None of the game apps I played when I first started playing were like this.
Remove 44 tiles, the 4 souths, the 4 norths, and the entire bamboo suit. That leaves 92 tiles, two walls of 23 long and 2 high.
East and West alternate without regard to the winner. No cheeing.
Not a bad book for being over 90 years old.