Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 12, 1993 TAG: 9311120054
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By ALAN PATUREAU COX NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: ATLANTA LENGTH: Medium
Stanley So wins a hand, shouting with glee as he rakes in blue and yellow chips. The action reminds you of gin rummy, but the 144 "cards" are like bone dominoes with colorful faces of bamboo trees, circles and Chinese characters. Players match "suits" and numbers on the tiles.
The scene is the Oriental Pearl Restaurant in an Atlanta suburb. But mah-jongg (it means sparrow, a Chinese good- luck bird) is played daily in many other metro Atlanta eateries, homes and community centers, especially among older Chinese-American and Jewish people.
The mah-jongg scene in the film "The Joy Luck Club" is whetting broader interest in the 2,500-year-old game - just as "Driving Miss Daisy" did four years ago when four Jewish matrons were featured playing mah-jongg.
Sword of the Phoenix, a games shop here, has sold out of its cheapest $40 sets, and last month even sold two top-of-the-line $150 sets with fancy tiles, racks and leather cases. That's twice as many as usual. "People tell us they're coming back to traditional games they played in their youth," says shop owner Dan Ackerman. "A movie can touch some memory, rekindle some interest in the game."
The object of the game, similar to gin rummy, is to obtain sets of tiles or cards.
In "The Joy Luck Club," the narrator, June, gets the honor of taking over her deceased mother's chair in the weekly mah-jongg game played by her "aunties." One of the women notes: "Chinese mah-jongg very tricky. Jewish mah-jongg not the same!"
But the National Mah-Jongg League in New York disagrees. "The Chinese game is different, because their rules never change," says league President Ruth Unger. "In the United States - it's not a Jewish game - we send 150,000 members a card every year announcing the 55 winning hands they can use that year." The American version has also added eight wild cards over the decades.
Mah-jongg erupted as a parlor fad in the 1920s when an American resident of Shanghai copyrighted and introduced the game to the United States. In 1937, the National Mah-Jongg League was founded to govern play and stage occasional tournaments. Popularity waned after World War II.
"We lost one generation of players," says Unger. "But now I see a tremendous revival of interest among young professionals and couples - they do their bonding with mah-jongg."
Chinese-American players have mixed views about mah-jongg's future. "The younger generation is not learning the game," says David Yu, director of the Chinese Community Center in Chamblee. "They're too busy doing American things."
WANT TO LEARN MAH-JONGG?
Send $4.50 for a copy of "Mah- Jongg Made Easy," published by the National Mah-Jongg League, 250 West 57th St., New York, N.Y. 10107.
by CNB