FAQ 11. History of Mah-Jongg
www.sloperama.com ⎯ FAQ 11. HISTORY OF MAHJONG Part II (FAQ 11b). ORIGINS; PRECURSOR GAMES All origins problems are hard. It’s much easier to determine what came just before something and what came just after it, by extrapolating and interpolating and the like, than to find out what was the first of its kind... that had no precedent. - Neil DeGrasse Tyson While in considering the history of mah-jongg it is important to consider the card, dice, and tile games which led to the creation of mah-jongg, it is misleading and erroneous to call any of those previous games “mah-jongg.” There were numerous card, dice, and domino games prior to the late 1800s. Those games are described in numerous books, and various places around the internet. For the most part, these games differ greatly from mah-jongg in either the composition of the deck or in the gameplay. Thus those precursor games cannot rightly be called mah-jongg. Widely regarded as an important progenitor of mah-jongg is Matiao, or Ma Diao (Chinese dialectual differences, and English transliteration differences, account for the variety of spellings). Matiao was a trick-taking game for four players, played with four-suited money cards. Three of the four matiao suits resemble the three suits of mah-jongg. Coins correspond to Dots; Coin Strings correspond to Bams; Coin String Myriads correspond to Craks. The composition of a matiao deck and the gameplay of matiao differ significantly from the composition of a mah-jongg set and from the gameplay of mah-jongg. Matiao, clearly, is not mah-jongg. Many money card games evolved from matiao, and many variations of money card decks have come and gone. Three-suited money cards became favored (one of the four money suits was dropped), and in a development that surely led to mah-jongg, a game known as Peng He Pai used four sets of three-suited cards. You can learn more about the history and development of money-suited cards (some cards still being used today) at http://a_pollett.tripod.com/cards8.htm. Robert Kalin has created a print-it-yourself deck of three-suited money cards, and has graciously made them available to us here at Sloperama. Click here. Three Styles of Money Cards A modern deck of money-suited cards. Photo courtesy Gilbert (pippin999), circa 2002. One of several decks of money-suited cards in the collection of the Mahjong Museum in Chiba, Japan. The museum’s 1999 “Big Encyclopedia” refers to these cards (perhaps erroneously) as “Matiao playing cards,” and notes that this type of card is “currently used mainly in Beijing.” P. 45. A deck of money-suited cards I purchased in 2006 in Tianjin. The Mahjong Museum’s Big Encyclopedia refers to this style of cards as “Classical Drama” cards.
The gameplay of Peng He Pai still differs greatly from the gameplay of mah-jongg. Mah-Jongg and its nearest relative (in terms of gameplay), Conquian (a 40-card Mexican game which evolved into the present-day Rummy family of card games) seem to have both appeared on the scene at about the same time. It is quite possible that Conquian inspired the gameplay of mah-jongg... or the other way around. Thierry Depaulis points out: “There is a strong probability for the Mexican game Conquian (or
perhaps ”¿Con quien?”...) to have been inspired by some Chinese card
game (‘gun qian’ = “sticks-cash”?) brought to Mexico by Chinese
immigrants *coming from the Philippines* (for the Philippines, as a Spanish colony, was ruled from “New Spain” =
Mexico until 1821). There were Chinese in Mexico City as
early as the 17th century. The example of the Spanish-suited cards
called “Cuajo Filipino” (Tagalog: ‘kuwaho’) which proves to be a real
Hokkien Chinese game played with Spanish cards (see John McLeod
article in ‘The Playing-Card’), very similar to ‘si se’ played with
Chinese chess cards, shows the direction. Among Mahjong’s nearest relatives (in terms of gameplay) I would cite
‘kan hu’ and its many variations (described by Culin, Wilkinson and
Chen Jitong), ‘cheki’ (or ‘ceki’), ‘si se’ (“four colours”), ‘pian
jin’ (“golden slips”), ‘kuwaho’, all reported in the 19th century.
None seems to have given rise to Mahjong.” Japanese mah-jongg author/scholar Asami Ryo confirmed this cards/dominoes origin of mah-jongg: “There are different theories about the conception of mahjong.
But the more or less established theory is that it was conceived
around AD 1850, by merging /Maa2 Diu3/-like card games and /Syun1 Wo4
Paai2/-like tile games.” Notes:
1. Thanks to Alan Kwan for the translation! (Alan used the Jyut Ping romanization for the Chinese terms.) 2. Asami Ryo’s writings are on the web at www.asamiryo.jp (thanks to Julian Bradfield for the link). An important booklet about the evolution of the game has unfortunately not been translated into English. The booklet is “History and Culture of Mahjong”, published by the DISPLAY HALL OF THE BIRTHPLACE OF MAHJONG (hereinafter: “DH/BP/MJ”), in Ningbo, China. Through the commendable efforts of John Low, some of the images from the booklet are herewith translated into English. There are 14 images in all, numbered as they are numbered in the booklet. Number gaps are intentional (not all images are included here, since not all images require English translation, and not all contain significant new information). Some pictures are large (for the sake of visual clarity) and may take some time to download. Click the image to enlarge it. Figure 1. John Low writes: Figure 1 (first half).
The single large character at the top is “Bo”. “Bo” refers to
the extremely ancient board game/s played by Chinese people long long
long ago, even older than Go and Chinese Chess. “Bo” is split into
2 different games: “Da Bo” (BIG Bo) and “Xiao Bo”
(LITTLE Bo). Virtually nothing is known about the rules of “Big Bo” apart from
the fact that it uses 12 pieces (6 per person) and “Liu Zhu”
(SIX Zhu). “Zhu” is an old fashioned character for chopsticks,
in Japanese pronounced “Hashi”. But in this context, “Zhu” is a
long thin bamboo object thrown to indicate a number (similar to a
YES/NO eraser), hence there are 6 of them. I assume each of these six
“Zhu” have a marking on them. Much more is known about “Xiao Bo”. Each person also starts off
with 6 pieces. The board is 12 rows/columns long (I think) and instead
of “Liu Zhu” thrown used for number indication, two ugly items are
rolled. These two ugly wooden dice are called “Er Qiong” which
means “TWO Qiong”. They look like funny soccerballs or
dodecahedrons. The pieces move according the rolls and they upgrade at
a certain point. The upgraded pieces can either proceed to the final
destination, or attack the opponent’s pieces. “Little Bo” is very
similar to Backgammon. Later on, a few modifications were made to the “Two Qiong”, and
they were called “Qiong” (the character below the other one)
again. The new “Qiong” is now made of stone or jade, and had a few
less faces. Note that the Qiong in “Two Qiong” and “Qiong” are
two completely different characters, but having the same sound,
homophones. The “Six Zhu” for the “Big Bo” game was later replaced by “Wu
Mu” which means “FIVE Woods”. These are now 5 flat pieces
of wood, one side is painted black with a little cow carved on it, the
other side is painted white with a wild chicken carved on it. The “Five Woods” itself can be used for a new game called “CHU
PU” (the one to the left of five woods in the diagram). This game
involves awarding points according to the number attained by tossing
the “Five Woods”, and is therefore gambling orientated. Over time, Chinese people stopped using “Five Woods” or “Qiong”
and merged them together to form convenient, normal 6 sided dice. It is
said that the person who initiated this change was Cao Zhi, one of Cao
Cao’s sons (Cao Cao was one of the main kings during the Three
Kingdoms Period 200-280 AD). Also, the popular reason as to why “4″ on Chinese dice is red, is
because one of the Kings during the Tang Dynasty (618-907AD) was
playing a gambling dice game with someone. And the King rolled 6 dice,
requiring exactly 2 of them to be “4” in order to win big money.
And it did occur, and the King was very happy, so he decreed that all
of the 4’s be painted red representing good luck. Ironically, this conflicts with ordinary Chinese and Japanese thinking
that the number “4″ is bad because it sounds like “si/shi”
which can mean “Death”. Second half of FIGURE 1: I’ll start from the left branch. The one just to the right of
“Qiong” is “SHI Pai” which means “Poetry
Pai”. During the Tang Dynasty, Chinese poetry was very popular
among everybody. Whenever people were creating a new poem or trying to
copy one down for reciting, they would write it on a rectangular piece
of wood. Later on, people decided to play a game with “Poetry
Pai”. A deck of wooden pieces had a short phrase written on them.
Friends when playing this game would each draw a Poetry piece and then
complete the phrase by making a short poem right on the spot for
“fun”. Later on again, “Poetry Pai” was used
for playing a tricks game (eg Bridge) among the intelligent/literate. I
have absolutely no idea how this works (no explanation anywhere). In the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127), the poetry theme for these Pai
were eliminated, however the tricks like game stayed. The new makeover
was supposedly created by a government official in the 2nd year of King
Hui Zong’s rule. These new bone/ivory Pai were called “XUAN
HE pai”. They look like dominoes, with a total of 227 pips, there
are 32 of these dominoes, and are meant to be lousy representations of
certain star constellations. The most popular tricks game that developed using “Xuan He
Pai” was called “Dou Tian Jiu”, which means
“FIGHTING SKY/HEAVEN’S NINE”. “Xuan He
Pai” today is usually called “TIAN JIU PAI” due to
the past huge popularity of “Dou Tian Jiu”. This game is
still played today in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan and some companies
still make these dominoes, but they are definitely not as popular as
real mahjong or Big Two (a modern Chinese card game) etc.
Rules for “Dou Tian Jiu” can be found at
http://www.pagat.com/multitrk/tiengow.html For the second branch, the one to the right of “Shi Pai” is
now “YE ZI” which means “Leaves”. This game was
actually a gambling dice game using 6 dice and the “Leaves”
were just pieces of paper in which people wrote down what the numbers
were thrown, who gets what score etc. Later on when this game
wasn’t played, “Ye Zi” just was an alternative word
for “Playing Cards”. For example, the Chinese term for
Japanese Hanafuda cards would be “Ri Ben Ye Zi Pai”
(Japanese Leaves Pai). The one below “Ye Zi” is “Ye Zi JIU pai” which
means “Leaves Wine/Beer Pai”. This is one of those early
Chinese prototype card decks containing various suits (not familiar)
and is a silly adults only drinking game. “Ye Zi Jiu Pai”
is part of the “Jiu Ling” strand of old Chinese games. In
all “Jiu Ling” games, whoever loses has to drink a cup of
wine/beer. And the person who is the least drunk at the end is the
overall winner. I think you already know a significant amount about “Ma
Tiao” but I shall say some about it. It is a deck of 40 cards,
primarily containing Wan (10,000’s), Suo zi (money ropes), Wen
Xian (a different money ropes) and some other strange cards. This is a
tricks game again, and is for 4 players. Each person is dealt out 8
cards with 8 cards unused in the middle of the table. The 3 non dealers
attempt to get rid of the dealer by playing more valuable cards than
him (I think). “Zhi Pai” is “PAPER pai” and is an edited
version of the cards used in “Ma Tiao”. This IS a rummy
like game (NOT a tricks game) and was originally using 2 decks of the
30 money cards. It was a 4 player game and you need 3 Sequences + 1
pair in order to win. People thought 2 decks wasn’t enough, so it
was increased to 4 decks of 30 money cards = 120 cards in total.
Triples and Quads were now allowed, and you still only needed 3 Groups
+ 1 pair in order to win. Real mahjong is different as it uses 4 groups
+ 1 pair.
The alternative name for “Zhi Pai” is “Peng He
Pai”. I’m not sure if they were allowed to meld/win off
other people’s discards though, or if deadwood (as in Gin Rummy)
was allowed too.
Thanks also to Cofa Tsui for contributing to the annotated image. Figure 2 is a repetition of a portion of Figure 1 (that portion illustrating the evolution of six-sided dice). Figure 3. John Low: Figure 3 is just the pictures of the “Wu Mu” (Five
Woods/Slats) face up and face down. One side is black with a little
cow, the other side is white with a wild chicken. Figure 7. John Low: Figure 7 is kinda complex to explain. The words at the very top is
“Tou Zi”, meaning “Dice”. The one just below
that is “Tou Zi Xuan Ge”, which is the summarizing name for
all (board) games that focus mainly on dice rolling to determine
certain outcomes. It can also be called “Cai Xuan” which
literally means “Colour (variety) selection”.
This is split into 3 groups (from left to right): “Xuan Xian
Tu”, “Sheng Guan Tu” and “Xiao Ye Tu”. “Xuan Xian Tu” is a whole bunch of board games like
“snakes and ladders”, except there are NO snakes and NO
ladders, thus making it very simple and lame. People roll the die/dice
and move their piece forward until it reaches the endpoint. This was
very popular among Chinese children in the past and they would often
play this in New Year’s Eve, while the adults play card games. “Xuan Xian Tu” contains many different themes. Some board
designs have pictures of animals on them, others food, plants, and jobs
etc. These things would be the areas which the pieces would land on.
And the entire board would usually be like a coiled snake, the pieces
going around and around until you reach the middle. The game play was
very simple, but it appealed to children because it was mostly rather
colourful and pretty to look at, not to mention educational as they
learnt more about their society and environment.
“Xuan Xian Tu” is split into “Qun Xian Qing Shou
Tu” (left) and “Xuan Xian Tu” (right, repeat).
“Qun Xian Qing Shou Tu” literally means “The Group of
Immortals Celebrating Longevity (picture)”. This was one of the
most popular designs for the “Xuan Xian Tu” game, which is
why it was split from the rest. The group of immortals consists of 8
mystical people, which according to Taoism beliefs, promoted/spread
goodness and morals, while punishing or criticizing bad behaviour.
There’s a picture of this theme here:
www.chiculture.org/1502/html/c14/popup01.html
Note that there’s pictures of a few animals and stuff, e.g.
Donkey, because one of the Taoist immortals, Guo Lao, rode on a donkey
all the time. “Sheng Guan Tu” summarizes a bunch of board games that
involve gradual promotion or improvements, a bit like monopoly where
you increase in property etc. It’s split into 4 of them (left to
right): “Sheng Guan Tu” (the original game itself,
repetition), “Zhong Jian Sheng Guan Tu”, “Zhi Zhuang
Yuan Chou” and “Shui Hu Xuan Xian Tu”. The “Sheng Guan Tu” game itself literally means
“Rising Officials (picture)”. It is a difficult game first
played in the Song dynasty using 4 dice, in which everybody starts off
as low ranking workers with counters and aim to gradually rise ranks
until they become the King’s top minister. There is a board which
is split into different sections of the kingdom/land where one must
work, eg as foreign minister, granary keeper etc. In order to gain a
rank, not only must you roll a specific number on that section to
“trigger” a progressive event, but you must also roll
specific numbers to increase your personal qualities, thus increase
your chances of getting a raise and getting paid counters by your
opponents. Whoever rises to the top first might not necessarily be the
overall winner (although most likely), because it is judged by who has
the most counters at the end. This is quite similar to the board game
“Careers” (have you heard of it?). I’m sorry but I only find very little on “Zhong Jian Sheng
Guan Tu”, but “Zhong + Jian” can mean “Loyalty
+ Betrayal”. I am guessing this game would be similar to
“Sheng Guan Tu”, but more on this theme and winning respect
of others, not on upgrading. “Zhi Zhuang Yuan Chou” is a game that involves 67 sticks
and 6 dice, popular in the Ming and Qing dynasty. The 67 sticks are of
different lengths and they represent the different intellectual
scholars that have passed the exams at a specific level. The scholar
who is absolutely top class (1st place) is “Zhuang Yuan”,
thus being in the title, there is only 1 of this stick. 2nd smartest
scholar in the exam is called “Bang Yan”, only 1 of this.
3rd smartest scholar is called “Tan Hua”, again only 1. And
the dumber the scholar, the more sticks of them there are, and thus the
total is 67 sticks. Each stick is given a point value, with Zhuang Yuan
being the most valuable. People take turns rolling 6 dice and the
outcome determines which stick they get to keep. In order to get the
“Zhuang Yuan”, you have to roll at least four 4’s in
one go (<1% chance). When all the sticks have been taken up, the
person with the biggest overall score wins. “Shui Hu Xuan Xian Tu” is basically a “snakes and
ladders” that includes the characters from a famous Chinese folk
tale in the Song dynasty called “Shui Hu Zhuan”, meaning
“Water Margin/Outlaws of the Marsh”. This story was like
Robin Hood, where there were 108 peasants/elderly people who fought the
rich corrupt tyrants and gave money to the poor. I don’t know why
this is part of the “Sheng Guan Tu” strand, maybe because
the characters gradually go to the more important ones along the
pathway? Check: www.chiculture.net/0517/html/d16/0517d16.html and click
on the picture. Lastly, I am not familiar with the third group “Xiao Ye
Tu”. “Xiao Ye” in Chinese refers to the food and
drinks which you consume at night, so I assume it’s one of those
adult drinking games. “Xiao Ye Tu” is split into “Lan
Sheng Tu” (left) and “Da Guan Yuan Zhi Dian Tu”
(right). I have been Chinese Googling a heavy amount, but all I can
find is that “Lan Sheng Tu” IS an adult drinking game (I
don’t know the rules). I am sorry, but I also can’t find
out the rules for “Da Guan Yuan Zhi Dian Tu” other than the
fact that “Da Guan Yuan” is referring to the huge beautiful
garden in the Chinese story “Hong Lou Meng” (Dream of the
Red Mansion). Figure 8. John Low: FIGURE 8 is a poem relating to the “Sheng Guan Tu” game which I already
mentioned in Figure 7. The poem is literally called “Sheng Guan Tu
Mouth Eight Rhyme”. It is supposedly a rhyme meant for saying out loud
in 8 lines. I have labelled each line with a, b, c etc for potential
explanation later.
This classical poetic language is very hard to translate (heaps of
obscure characters), so I give some guesses with a ”???”. “Sheng Guan Tu Kou Ba Yun”
Song Dynasty, by Kong Ping Zhong a) Going around the display of Sheng Guan Tu, happily shouting at the
round pieces.
b) Quickly rising upon shattering 8 reds, destruction upon 2 primaries.
c) Later you (might) become bankrupt (???), thus causing the death of
an upper official (yourself) and rising to heaven.
d) In an extremely short time you switch between civil and military,
very soon moving on (???).
e) Virtuous and foolish qualities are sandwiched together, unbalanced
due to the rights of Mother Nature.
f) Your expectations and feelings towards her (opposite gender) are
stripped away, losing your courage completely with concern.
g) Anger has been seen numerous times, a bit of the heart waits
patiently for many movements.
h) Knowing that one has watched and played 2 matches, he is at a loss
to whether honour or disgrace will occur. Explanations:
b) “Shattering 8 reds” means that within the 4 dice rolled, two of them
showed up with a 4. 4 on a die is painted red, hence rolling two “4”s
means there are 8 red dots. Each time you roll a double 4 in this game,
you receive 1 point for your morals attribute. Having morals is vital
for a raise. On the contrary, roll bookmark
