This game came to me the way most good things did — through her.
My mother was pure Cantonese, her ancestors from Guangdong, the very province where Mah Jong was born. So when we played, we played it in its truest form, the way it had been played in her family long before it was played in mine. The tiles in your hands right now carry that lineage.
She gave me my first Mah Jong set on my first married Christmas — back when getting one meant a trip to Chinatown and the long carry home of a heavy, beautiful box. I have kept that tradition going. Every one of my children and their wives received their own set in their first year of marriage, and we have not stopped playing since. That, too, was her doing.
She was the kind of player who mixed the tiles longer and harder than anyone else at the table. If we tried to start building our walls before she was done, she'd playfully knock them down and make us mix again, laughing the whole time. She loved to yell "chicken feed!" (the lowest scoring hand) across the table — her way of telling us, with a wink, that she'd been quietly building something far better than whatever we had. And when one of us built the better hand? She was the first to cheer. Loud, generous, never jealous — always your biggest fan at the table.
Our family had its share of arguments over the years. But here is what I know to be true: not a single one of them ever happened over a game of Mah Jong. Not one. This game has only given me good feelings and happy memories.
Setting the game up takes time, and you need at least 4 people. Life gets busy and you don't play as often as you'd like — so every game feels rare, and every game feels special. Every memory I have at this table is a happy one.