MAHJONG

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19058, 10 July 1924, Page 12

MAHJONG

AN ECHO FROM CHINA. NOT AN ANCIENT GAME. EUROPEAN AND CELESTIAL SKILL. When I tell my Chinese friends that it is being said in American and England that Mahjong dates from the ; time of Confucius they all laugh, I writes the Peking correspondent of i The Times. Most of them make ] the ago of the game as it is now played .only 50 years, but quality this statement with the sate reservation that it may have existed in another form at an earlier date. There is a Chinese admiral in Peking to whom all foreigners go when they want information about Chinese things. The admiral acquired his foreign education in Edinburgh, ami is an expert poet and a devoted admirer of Burns. The admiral tells me that in all the literature of China there occurs not one single reference to Mahjong. He admits that this does not prove that the game was not known in olden times, because it is not customary in China either in written work or polite conversation to mention low things, such as gambling, drinking, or other forms of vice. Flowers, birds, the beauties of Nature, poetry, music, painting, philosophy, and so forth, are the legi-1 timate subjects, but never anything so earthly as a game played for money. As a seafaring man, the admiral is able to say that the sailors of Ningpo used to play a game with cards marked like pieces of Mahjong, and that, finding the wind often wafted the paper cards overboard, they began to back them with thin slips of wood. Out of this improvement gradually developed the smaller and heavier pieces made of bamboo with a bone or ivory front convenient for cutting and colouring. There seems no doubt that the “tile” of today is quite a modern invention, for 'in the wonderful array of old ivory i to be found in China, covering a period of nearly a thousand years, no piece having any relation to the game has ever been seen. Many used sets can be bought in the curio shops in Peking, some ivory-faced, artistically cut and delicately tinted, but none of any age or any particular value. As most are grimy and contain scratched pieces, these sets find little favour with foreigners, and none with the Chinese, who will not play with marked tiles. Great Chinese gamblers, in fact, like card-players elsewhere, will play only once with the same set, as a precaution against cheating. Another Chinese friend has it that a famous commander, desirous of keeping his soldiers out of mischief, invented the game and supplied the men with sets of cards with which to amuse themselves between battles, instead of devouring the countryside. This resourceful officer lived a hundred years ago, and when I suggested that it was a pity there were not more of the same kind among the militarists of to-day, he replied that you could not expect a soldier who never got any pay to gamble when he had nothing to gamble with. FORBIDDEN BY LAW. Mahjong has from time to time been specifically forbidden by law in China, and only a few weeks ago a set found in the baggage of a foreign lady,, whose things were diligently gone over in a search for opium or morphia, was confiscated, and recovered only after diplomatic intervention. New sets are not obtainable in the shops in the Chinese city, and foreign shops endeavouring to import them are always having difficulty with the active officials. All the same, any functionary in Peking, from the Chief Executive himself down to the barber who shaves the populace, is a keen and expert player. The Chinese ladies are great adepts, as their foreign sisters desirous of a little instruction have found to their cost. They feel the underside of the tiles with the pink of their small fingers, and know instantly whether they have drawn a plum or something to be contemptuously tossed into the boneyard—the word is an Americanism, not a Chinese flower of speech. They have an uncanny and apparently unconscious understanding of the right thing to do, and the swiftness of their play is only equalled by the accuracy with which in one quick glance they compute everybody’s score. Men who play are continually at the game, and the corruption and greed of money which characterise a large proportion of the official classes is to no inconsiderable extent a result of the gambling for high stakes at Mahjong, poker, and other games. Chinese law forbids all forms of gambling, but the vice is so deeply ingrained in all, from the highest to the lowest, that legal restrictions are of little avail. Indeed, gambling is licensed in many of the provinces in order that the local authorities may derive a revenue from it. Mahjong has driven bridge entirely out of the field in several of the foreign communities i n China, and in one club, where there used to be ten tables of bridge players of an evening, a rubber is now a matter of the greatest difficulty. Popularity in Peking results partly from the fact that the ladies have a blank hour or two before dinner, while the men go to the clubs, during which Mahjong with their cronies fills a vacuum. But the zest with which inveterate bridge-players pursue the other game proves it to possess high merit as a relaxation. As a time-killer it is without rival, and we hear of parties

which play twice the clock round without ceasing, with only snacks instead of regular meals. When the Chinese invite the foreigner to play the hours are set between 6 p.m. and 3 a.m. FOREIGNERS AND THE GAME. We all think in Peking that we know a lot more about Mahjong than the folk at home, for we have under our eyes the theory and practice of our Celestial friends. But the founders of the institution are not so sure of us, as may be judged by the remark of one spectacled gentleman indulgently watching the play of an Englishman. He qualified a compliment on his skill by observing that “we thought the game would be too complicated for foreigners.” There is one thing learned form the Chinese, constantly drummed into us by an American lady—“make it snappy.” Since foreigners have taken to the game, the manufacture of Mahjong sets has become quite an industry, resulting i n a substantial increase in foreign trade. Exports for 1921 were about £lOOO, in 1922 over £30,000, and for the first ten months of 1923 £250,000. The total for last year is expected to reach about £40'0,00. America is the biggest buyer,. Hong Kong (largely for reexport elsewhere) the next, then Canada, Great Britain. Singapore, Australia. France is a good buyer, but Italy last year took only a single set of the cheapest quality. Ini addition to these visible exports are the immense number of sets taken away by tourists. Some interesting details regarding manufacture have recently become available. Ivory is used only for the finest sets, costing here £2O and over. All the rest are made with shin bones and hind leg bones of cattle, the price for which has risen to £5O a ton. Local supplies being inadequate, considerable imports from Chicago are supplying the deficiency.