I can’t believe that somehow I have missed writing here for a couple of days!! How did that happen? I began to write on Wednesday:
I first came across mahjong in real life, as opposed to reading about characters playing it in numerous books, was when our family moved to the west country. I joined the sixth form (now called years 12 and 13) of a new school. At this school there were prefects and they had their own common room which seemed very unfair to me, even though I was one of them. At my previous school, although not called prefects, the sixth formers all had that duty, and they – lucky them – no longer had to wear uniform! So, I was a prefect and in free lessons, breaks and lunch times, we hung out together, supposedly doing work, but in reality gossiping, drinking coffee and entertaining ourselves. One of the ways we passed our time was playing mahjong. In actual fact, I didn’t really play at all because it was an utter mystery – a fascinating mystery, but a mystery all the same.
Now, many years later, a group of my writing chums have also started playing and this gave me the opportunity to revisit this mysterious but fascinating game. Fortunately my chums are very tolerant of an idiot who has no clue what they are doing, and I’m beginning to understand how it’s supposed to work. However, the main problem is because it seems so exotic and fascinating I get distracted by the mystique of it and lose track of what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m sure, however, that sooner or later, I will grasp it better, and more actively decide what to play, rather than always asking for help!
Mahjong is a game developed in the 19th century in China using tiles, not cards and is now universally popular. It’s usually played by four players and is similar to rummy being a game of skill, strategy, and luck. There are 144 tiles in the game, and instead of four suits as in cards, they have four winds, north, south, east and west, but they also have dots, bamboo and characters… and I’m afraid that’s as far as I’ve got – except there are also dragons, flowers and seasons. I will write more at some time in the future when I have grasped what I’m doing more clearly.
So that was what I was going to write, started but didn’t finish on Wednesday. Thursday was book-club, and we were discussing two books, the wonderful Charles Boundy’s book. ‘The Emergence of England’ which I have read, and pre-ordered the second volume, ‘Conquest to Charter’, and one i struggled with by Nan Shepherd which was about mountain walking. Having had a lovely evening with my boo-club people, I somehow forgot to write, so here i am on the third day, catching up with myself!
Lois Elsden 