Rachel Seidman

Our Mahjong journey began on Earth Day in 1990.  We were six friends in our early thirties, on the threshold of our adult lives.  We were recently married and starting our careers and families.  I became concerned about how easy it would be for us to drift apart, and so I suggested that we get together regularly to play a game.  Something that we would all enjoy, like poker or bridge.

“My mother plays Mahjong,” Myra offered. “I’m sure that she’d be willing to teach us how to play.”  Was she kidding, I wondered?  Wasn’t Mahjong a game that bored middle-aged housewives in New York played?  

Although I was skeptical, it was not long before I, along with my friends, dove into this “rummy-like” game that originated in China and dated back to the time of Confucius.  Cautiously, we entered into the mysterious world of Winds and Walls, Cracks and Dragons, and Flowers and Dots.  In doing so, we discovered that Mahjong was a game of both skill and luck, played with tiles instead of cards.  

Myra’s mother Sarah, was a serious player.  She played with her friends every week, and they did not serve food, drink coffee, or munch on snacks until they had finished at least three rounds of the game.  They also did not joke around, make fun of each other, argue, sing, bounce up and down, or scream in a falsetto voice when they got Mahjong.  

Soon we developed our own set of Mahjong rules.  Rule number one was that we would meet monthly, rain or shine. We rotated hosting at each other’s homes. The designated hostess was responsible for cooking a meal, and fussing over the food was expected.  “Food is love,” Nancy liked to say, “And I’m loving what you’re cooking right now”

Rule two was that husbands and children were banned from the house when playing Mahj, with the exception of nursing babies.   Rule three was that everything we ate, read and talked about during Mahjong, was recorded in the Mahj journal for posterity.  

Mahjong has taught me a lot.  I discovered that over the 30-plus years in which we continued to pass the Mahjong set from one house to the other, we were cementing an enduring circle of friendship that has fortified and sustained us for a very long time. We knew that we could always count on each other. And that’s important, because you never know what direction the Winds are going to blow, or where your Wall might break, or when there will be Dragons to tame.