“The symbols on Mahjong pieces always fascinated me whenever I saw my grandparents playing. I always assumed that mahjong was an ancient game that emperors of the Tang and Song dynasties once played.

To an 8-year-old, these mahjong tiles looked like nothing more than glorified building blocks that my brother and I would use to build towers when the adults stepped away from the table to eat. I would peek over the shoulders of my dad, perplexed at how this complex game worked. As a child, I remember the adults sitting around the square mahjong tables for hours. Growing up in a Chinese American household, this was a common sight to behold at family gatherings, parties, and celebrations. And in an instant, one of the players grabs a tile, peers at it, and yells out “食糊” ( Sik Wu ) in Cantonese, flipping over their row of tiles in one swift motion as their opponents groan in defeat.

Onlookers stand and peer over the shoulders of the competitors. Each takes turns grabbing and discarding tiles from the diamond-shaped Mahjong tile stack. Here is an up close image of Mahjong tiles.įour players huddle around the square wooden table.

Tichu vs mahjong