Digging Into Beijing's Obsession with Mahjong

Have you ever spotted locals gathering around a table in the middle of the street in Beijing? Maybe you were confused by the situation or by the shuffling of the tiles. The locals were probably playing a very famous game called mahjong (麻将 májiàng).

Mahjong is a game played with sets of tiles, each based on Chinese characters and symbols. It’s a game of strategy, logic, skill, and a bit of luck.

Mahjong was developed in the mid-1800s. The game’s origins are unclear, and many theories exist. However, in the 1900s, the popularity of the game expanded around the world (mainly in Japan, England, and the US) resulting in new versions of mahjong’s rules.

To discover more about the fascinating culture of mahjong, we spoke with a mahjong player and teacher from the institution Our Beijing: Dominic De Couto

Could you introduce yourself?
My name is Dominic, I am from England, and I have been in Beijing for almost five years now.

I founded a company with my friend called Our Beijing. We have lots of great experiences for people to have a great time and learn more about Beijing in term of life culture and history. We have mahjong workshops, which I will be talking about, but also jianbing workshops, e-bike tours, walking tours, food tours, trips to the Great Wall, day trips to the river, or even paddleboarding experiences.

How was mahjong introduced to you?
I was introduced to mahjong by Culture Yard (a Chinese language school) and a friend, and I have been playing kind of often since! After we founded Our Beijing, we now concentrate on experiences, and Culture Yard on the Chinese language.

Why do you find mahjong interesting?
It is one of those local fun things to do, especially in the hutongs, where locals are playing on the streets. It has always been something I wanted to be involved in. Since it is played all around the country, when I meet up with friends from other cities in China, we can just sit down and play mahjong as we would do with cards.

There's more to this story! This article was originally published on our sister site, Jingkids International.

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READ: A Few Chinese Tabletop Games to Learn and Master

Images: Pexels, courtesy of Our Beijing