Many of you know that the smaller hand-carved bone and bamboo sets are starting to be appreciated the way they should be. I gave myself one of them for Christmas years ago (I fell for the horse Jokers) and the set connected me with a collector (now friend) who helped me develop my expertise about mahjong sets and Chinese art. So I really have a fondness for these little treasures.
A reader sent me photos of his set, and I must admit I had not seen one like this before. I am sharing it with you now.
The One Bam peacocks are fabulous, aren't they? The Flowers are a Dragon (half hidden in the cloud (the pink), probably looking for his pearl which I can't see, a tiger (lord of all the land animals), a deer (emblem of long life) and a goldfish. When the tiger and the Dragon meet, the two great forces of the universe are together (from C.A. S. Williams) The bottom tiles, 1 and 2 are Liu Hai and the three legged toad.
And isn't that Goose Joker the best? According to C.A.S. Williams, the wild goose is the harbinger of good news-how perfect for a Joker!
Fully carved sets are rare, as are ivory ones, so it was amazing to get an email about one. The owners were curious about it. Their set is a true Mahjong Treasure, and I am delighted to share the images with you. We'll start with the box.
It's made of pigskin, painted in red and gold and embossed. Note there's a keyhole for a lock toward the top of the front.
People who have tiles that are a combination of a white material and bamboo often think their sets are made of ivory and bamboo, but usually their sets are bone and bamboo. This set is pure ivory. You can see the criss-cross chevron pattern, known as Schreger lines, on the top two tiles.
We'll go to the One Dot, the inspiration for the Joker pattern of many of the newer sets. Here the Dragon is pretty easy to decipher, although he is way too big to be entirely on the tile. He's curled up, and we see three parts of his body. If you think of the circle as a clock face, his head is in the center of the tile, his neck at 4:00, the middle part of his body (upside down) from 11:00 until 1:00, and his tail at 8:00. Fabulous!
Now we will see how the craftsmen designed all the suits.
The One Bam is a hawk on a globe, a symbol of Chinese military strength. I love that MJ is carved into the tile. The other Bams are bamboo shoots. Dots 2-9 are lovely delicate flower heads. The Craks are floral garlands. But look at the Chinese numbers on the Craks. Those of you with sharp eyes, or those of you lucky enough to own Dee Gallo's Money Set, will notice the numbers are not those we normally see on tiles. Instead they are the ones used in Chinese banking: the numbers are different so as to make it more difficult to change a number into a higher one. Think about Arabic numbers-it's pretty easy to change a 1 into a 7; the Chinese banking numerals made altering numbers impossible.
The other numbered tiles continue with the same patterns.
Onto the Winds, Dragons and Flowers. The Winds, normally quite dull in appearance (except in a Dee Gallo set) are garlands with different squash. In Chinese culture, squash or gourds are symbols of wishes for lots of children, because they have so many seeds in them. And I think the garlands are really vines. (per Primal Trek)
From Primal Trek http://primaltrek.com/gourd.html
The Chinese language has a large number of written characters but a smaller number of spoken sounds so many Chinese characters share the same or similar pronunciation (please see Hidden Meaning of Symbols). The Chinese have a strong propensity to associate similar sounding words. For example, trailing gourd vines are described in Chinese as man (蔓}. This same character can also be pronounced as wan and has the exact same pronunciation and meaning as 万 which means "10,000". Because the gourd contains many seeds, the Chinese associate the gourd with "10,000 children". In ancient China, parents hoped for many sons and grandsons so the gourd became an important charm symbol for a large family with many children.
We have a Dragon with the Red Chung symbol (The Chung represents China, as does the Dragon) and the Phoenix with the Green Dragon. (When the Dragon and Phoenix are paired together, the Phoenix represents the Empress. ) The White Dragon is the abstract frame we often see on newer tiles. And of course we have the always delightful children at play, this time some are playing with firecrackers. You will see the #1 tile at the bottom shows a boy holding his ears: he does not want to hear the explosion!
Thanks to Ray Heaton, we have a translation of the characters on the Flower tiles:
皆大歡喜, jiēdàhuānxǐ, to everyone's delight and satisfaction.
逍遙快樂, xiāoyáo kuàilè, unconstrained happiness.
The full set, in all its glory.
From the owner of the set:
I have a vintage Mah Jong set brought from China by my grandmother who was in Shanghai with the U.S. Navy in 1936. She enjoyed Mah Jong very much and had three sets when she died, but this one, an ivory set in a beautiful decorated pigskin box, I kept. The tiles are 1' 3/16 x 7/8" x1/2".
I have ascertained the tiles are ivory, not bakelite or any other substance by examining them with a 10 power lens and comparing them to the photos of ivory that you placed on your web page.
In thinking more about it, my father was about 5 years old when he was in China, because he talked about his mischievously pushing his "Ama" (nurse) over very easily as she had bound feet. That would put the family there in 1928 which I think is a logical date for acquiring the set.
The other thing is that the Flowers, or as my grandmother called them "Pretties", are a set showing a boy lighting doing all sorts of play things, such as lighting firecrackers, standing on his hands or playing an instrument.
A later email:
But I am extraordinarily pleased to discover that it is such a superb example of Mahjong sets, and possibly one of a kind. My grandmother shipped it out to me when I was first married in 1965, along with some oriental carpets and a Chinese pillow box that had been presented to my grandfather by a "mandarin". U.S. Military men were held in high esteem back in the 1920's and it is possible that the ivory set was a gift to him as well. I think it is interesting that the chest/container is relatively unremarkable, and I wonder if that was to "hide" the ivory so that it was not so tempting to steal. Just speculation on my part.
I think its interesting the box has a real lock on it. (There were many ways to secure mahjong boxes to try to keep their contents safe. Opening panels with tricky ways to open them were all the rage.) Thieves could just have been picked up the box and stolen it, so the lock was probably just to keep people from opening it and taking out pieces to play with, perhaps losing them.
I think I "speak" for all of us with a big thanks to this reader. What a beautiful way to start the new year.
Here are a few additional images of the box, and the dice holder which reminds me of one of those chops used to stamp characters at the bottom of documents or letters.
Crisloid has been making mahjong sets here in the USA for years. For those of you who don't know, in the past they mass-produced sets for Ten Flowers, Lowe, Royal, Cardinal, and Eastern Distributors. Recently they made special limited-edition ones for Red Coin and MJLA. This is their latest, and I have to admit, for me, it was love at first sight. I can almost guarantee these tiles will bring a smile to everyone's lips. Known as the Trach/Bach set, it's named after its designers Robert Trachtenberg and Tom Bachtell. You can see how charming it is just by looking at the Joker. Many of us feel we multi-task, but look at this elephant who puts us all to shame: on its two hind legs, roller skating while yo-yoing. (I looked it up, this term exists.) For purposes of this post, I borrowed liberally from the Crisloid website:, including the following two paragraphs and all photographs of the tiles.
Renowned photographer and Emmy-award winning director Robert Trachtenberg learned to play mahjong two years ago. This quickly evolved into a weekly game with a group of rabid “mahj” enthusiasts. Between them, they have at least fifteen vintage sets— and a lot of Trachtenberg’s money. When he began searching for a set of his own, he soon learned that however beautiful, they were pretty much all variations on the standard theme.
Determined to create a one-of-a-kind mahjong set from scratch, Trachtenberg has reimagined every tile with wit, flair, and a riot of color. Collaborating closely with legendary illustrator Tom Bachtell (whose work has been featured in The New Yorker magazine for over twenty years) and the team here at Crisloid in a creative partnership, we’re sure you’ll love the result — a hand-painted, wildly original, inventive take on the classic game.
It's not easy to come up with variations on a theme for mahjong sets. Tiles have to be recognizable for what they are. I was enchanted by their creative take on designs, and I quickly caught on to what was what. Let's start by looking at the Dots.
Dots
The number of dots on her dress changes, as does their placement, making it easy to see which tile is which. Don't you think this lady is off to her mahjong game, a bit late? You see her necklace flying as she quickly makes her way. Her NMJL card can easily fit into her purse, right?
Time for the Bams: pandas eating bamboo stalks, as they are wont to do.
Bams
Each and every panda is adorable. Look at the guy sitting in the Adirondack chair! And the expression of the one on #7 is too much.
The Craks, usually the dullest of the tiles, have a chance to shine. Here they're fabulous.
Craks
See how the number of cracks are the same as the Crak number, at least as long as the vase is still whole. But eventually the cracks take their toll. Number 9 is just barely a recognizable pitcher, so don't rush to put any water in it. Counting the number of cracks reminded me of that visual game mystery: "What is different in these two illustrations?" But I cracked it! (Sorry, couldn't help myself.) You can count the number of injuries to the vase.
And now for the Dragons, which really had me laughing out loud.
Dragons
The White is a bar of soap. It has soap written on it, but you can see bits of the frame that often stands in for The White Dragon. Tom and Robert really "nailed it" (another pun, tho right on topic) ) with the Red guy buffing his claws. The Green Dragon one is flossing, something more of us need to remember to do.
The Flowers are beautiful, with their multi-colored palette.
Flowers
The ladies holding the floral bouquets have color-coordinated their rings to their bracelets. There is some mahjong jewelry there, if you look carefully.
Here's a delightful twist on the normally dull Winds.
Winds
These are so inventive. We have four areas of the USA represented on the tiles. Two made me laugh out loud: the North's camper and the bear, and the East's jaunty fellow, just off the ocean liner, hailing a taxi (or at least that's my interpretation). The South's Scarlett is keeping cool, thanks to her fan, and that updraft, and I can feel that hot desert sun in the West. That detail of the sunglasses outside of the scarf is too funny.
This wind indicator should bring a smile to everyone's face. I may just have to start playing with one.
I know some people really just like playing with traditional sets-the tiles are easily recognizable and all the players need to do is to focus on their hands. But, given that many of us love art and giving our brains a work-out at the same time, this set should not to be overlooked. The tiles are big, allowing for those players with older eyes (myself included) can easily see them, and the visual differences on each allows us (nudges us?) into using our brains a bit more on every hand. A few of us played with one the other day, and it was a great fun, only requiring a tiny bit of extra focus. And the visual joy of playing with these tiles was an added bonus.
Both of the men responsible for designing the set told me a bit of background about how the set came to be.
Robert Trachtenberg:
“As an avid Mahj player, I was interested in the possibility of creating a set that would take a completely new visual approach to the game while still remainingaccessibleto any player. The first - and only - illustrator I thought of was Tom Bachtell with whom I had previously collaborated on my book, WHEN I KNEW. He didn’t (and to my knowledge still doesn’t) know the first thing about how to play, but he is such a creative giant, I think the idea of turning his work into something three dimensional intrigued him. The set was in development for about a year and I tested it out for several months with my regular Mahj group. Tom and I tweaked and adjusted and had the great team over at Crisloid turn this into a reality."
Tom Bachtell:
Robert has always had an appreciation for my art and sensibility, and vice versa; we’ve long followed each other’s work. In 2016, my LA-based-photographer-cum-editor-and-film documentarian friend called and said, “Tom, I’m going to ask you an odd question. What do you know about Mahjong?” What I knew about the game was my lifelong fascination with it as a cultural phenomenon — the 20s Mahjong craze I read about in my childhood TimeLife books, the 20th century urbanity, the Chinoiserie, the smart game with the noisy tiles that ethnic families loved to play, the bubbies who played it at the deep end of our swimming club’s pool next to the shuffleboard, the wonderful tile designs. I’d never actually played it. Robert presented the idea of doing a sort of American take on it, but with our combined sensibility —- I was surprised it had never been accomplished before. We quickly got started, and it proved to be an excellent distraction from my regular work. Robert is a Mahjong maven, and involved all his Mahjong pals for guidance and testing out my designs. I discovered that some of my own friends play it. I came to know the quirks of the game, as well as the quirks of engraving miniature drawings. It was a fascinating process. Plus, Robert is fun and smart and funny, so he’s a joy to work with. It’s a great pleasure to see it produced, and the delight people are finding in it. And now I belong to a Facebook Mahjong page.
The set has gotten a lot of write-ups, including in the New York Times and American Express's Departure Magazine.
For more information about this talented two-some, you can click on these links.
Who doesn't love Dragons? In Mahjong Dragons are Honors tiles, sometimes helping to increase point totals (in certain ways of play). On tiles they can be figural images of that creature (the MOST fun!) or Chinese written words (characters), or sometimes the letters C, F, P or B. The term "Dragon" was not the original one for these special tiles, rather these Honors began as references to the game of archery, as described in the link below.
We all grew up hearing stories about these fantastic creatures, although the tales were different depending on where you grew up. If you lived in the U.S. or Europe, you were sure to hear stories of fierce Dragons burning up the countryside with their breaths of fire, terrifying the countryfolk. But in Asia, Dragons were kind and benevolent.
Below is an image of St George killing a Dragon, clearly one of the European kinds.
St George killing a Dragon by Martorell in 1435 from Wikipedia
No one in China would ever kill a Dragon.
The flag of the Qing Dynasty, 1889-1912
Above is the flag of the last Dynasty in China. Chinese Dragons only appear when times are good, so perhaps this Dragon represents a bit of wishful thinking on the part of the government, given what was going on then! (Read Jung Chang's Empress Dowager Cixi, if you have not already done so, to find out the terrible situation that existed in China during those years.)
People in China have always loved Dragons, and they are everywhere. Dragons decorate everything, including Imperial building walls, as seen below.
Chinese wall dragons from Wikipedia
The great marketers of the Mahjong companies took advantage of the world's fascination with Chinese culture, bringing bits of it into the lives of Americans and Europeans in the 1920s. Some companies went so far as to link the game to Confucius, who marketers claimed invented Mah-Jongg. Trouble was, Confucius had already been dead for over 2,000 years by the time the game came about! But there actually might be a tie to Confucius, other than the inspired thinking of the Mah-Jongg Sales Company: the three different colors of the dragon tiles represent the cardinal virtues taught by Confucius: red is benevolence; green sincerity; and white filial piety.
In the early 1920s, people really got into the game. (Some of us still do!) When gathered around the MJ table, people dressed in Chinese-themed clothing, and ate Chinese food.
Mahjong was everywhere, and MJ themes often appeared on magazine covers. On this copy of Judge, a young lady wearing Chinese-themed garb is sharing the cover with a Dragon, a somewhat subtle reference to MJ. You can see that the Dragon is Chinese, because he's lacking the wings we'd see on a European one. And the young lady doesn't look scared either, adding to the Asian origin of the fabulous creature. (But what's going on with her left foot? )
Aren't these fun, skinny little Dragons? And look at the dive-bombing crane!! Interestingly, we don't know much about this set. Even the Waterbury Button Company doesn't have any information about it. But given that a button company made a set of mahjong tiles, I'd venture to say that there must have been a reason. The Dots look like buttons. And those Bams: toggles you'd see on coats. Subtle advertising, right?
Below we see a Phoenix on the top row, nothing like our Phoenix either, and a Dragon on the bottom. Chinese Dragons like to fly in the clouds, so you can only see part of this one's body. He's also playing with a pearl, seen in red on tile 3, as Chinese Dragons do,, although the meaning of the pearl is not clear.
And next is one of my favorite game accessories, a delicately carved ivory wind indicator, about 2" across, in three pieces. The top nub, holding the three pieces together, is the pearl the dragon plays with. BTW: this photograph clearly shows the cross-hatching only seen in ivory.
This is a beautifully colored set with wonderful designs, featuring fabulous Dragons:
Chinese Game Company
These Dragons are really different. Want to guess why? The set was made by the Chinese Game Company out of Montreal!! Montreal has emotional and cultural ties to France, so we have European winged dragons here, looking like they are ready to be placed on shields carried into battle.
Dragons have long held a place in our thoughts. A man in Pennsylvania was intrigued enough by Dragons to make a bellows into this charming piece, recently sold by American Primitive Gallery. Although there are no wings here, the artist, a blacksmith working with fire every day, must have been thinking about Dragons breathing fire right? Clearly this would have been the European version of the creature.
19th Century Dragon made by a blacksmith in Pennsylvania.Dragon with mouth open
There are theories as to how the idea of Dragons came about, and Smithsonian Magazine covers some:
I love the idea that dinosaur fossils were identified as Dragons. "Speaking" of dinosaurs, here's up-to-the-minute news about T-Rex, now an essential part of another game many of us love.
A reader contacted me with photos of this incredible set. I must confess I almost fell out of my chair when I first saw the images. Not only is this an elaborately carved set, it has ebony backs! I had only seen photos of one other such set, in the Mahjong Collector Magazine. I wanted to write this one up for Valentine's Day.
A bit of background. The reader was not looking for a set, but happened upon it while trying to find a piece of furniture. Needless to say, the idea of the cabinet went away, and this set, of course without the practicality of the cabinet, took its place! I certainly can understand that-who needs a cabinet when you can have a treasure!
So let's look closely at the tiles:
The Winds are charming with squash at the edges. (Squash, with all their seeds, are symbols of the wish for many children.)
The Dragons have the goldfish (symbol of wealth and prosperity) on the Green and Red Dragons. Don't you love those long fishtails? The White Dragons have what I believe to be butterflies.
Longevity symbols made it to the Dots. Five bats are surrounding the longevity symbol on the One Dot (bats symbolize longevity and good fortune; here they can be identified by the orange backs) and the longevity symbol is in the middle of all the other Dots.
The goldfish is the One Bam, and longevity symbols are the other Bams.
Even the Craks are beautiful, with peaches (symbols of longevity) in the corners.
The Eight Immortals make up the Flower tiles. I wonder if this set was made in the same workshop as an orphan tile I have, seen below. When I saw that tile I realized the art on these sets can be terrific, inspiring Mah Jongg The Art of the Game. I think it is possible some of the high-end workshops might have worked in bone and bamboo as well as bone and ebony. Or if they didn't, maybe it was the same designer who did both sets.
Ebony sets do not look any different from other sets, except from the side. Here is that smashing side-view:
You will notice that ebony is much flatter than bamboo, making the building of walls two tiles high much easier.
The box is a treasure as well:
deeply carved front of box
back of box
side of box
The sides of the box have brass details.
This set was really loved. The owner (or someone close to the owner) needle-pointed a square that is used in some versions of mahjong. The piece indicates to players which wall will be used first when starting play. I can certainly understand why this set would have been loved, can't you??
You can see the four orientation points, (West is on the bottom here) and the numbers show which wall be be the first to be used in the deal, based on the rolls of the two dice. If the player rolled a 3, 7 or 11, the wall in front of West would be the first, and play would go in a clockwise direction from there.
I have the good fortune to know Allan and Lila Weitz, two wonderful Mahjong collectors from Canada. They send out a card every year. This is the card I got this year. Of course it is always fun to see the two of them, and the lovely boxes and set really caught my eye. Needless to say, although hard to see clearly in the photograph, I knew the set was a beauty. Allan kindly sent me photographs, and the story of the acquisition is at then end of the post.
The box is one of the most deeply carved boxes I have ever seen, with a Foo dog handle and two doors. Already the piece is a stand-out.
This is a very unusual One Bam crane. The other Bams are Bodhi leaves, from the Bodhi tree, important to Buddha. On rare occasions these leaves appear on Bam tiles in Mahjong.
The Craks are surrounded by garlands, with chrysanthemums at the top and bottom. Many of you eagle-eyed readers may also notice the Chinese numbers are different. This number system is the way numbers were written in the Chinese banking world, because the numbers could not be altered on checks and other banking forms.
The Flowers are beautiful and delicately carved. The ones on the right are those plants associated with the seasons, chrysanthemum, bamboo, orchid and plum blossom. And look how thick the bone is! The creature on the Green Dragon looks to be a leopard.
The Red Dragon features a fabulous hawk. If you look closely, the bird is holding a ribbon which surrounds Chung, a symbol for Center, representing China. Many of you know that a hawk on a globe means Chinese military strength, and I think that is what this means here too.
The winds have plants. The East looks to be a carrot or parsnip, West is a lotus root, North a Bamboo shoot and South a gourd.
Here is the story, written by Allan, about how the set got to the Allan and Lila Weitz collection.
Here is a brief history of set #1
The hallmark of a true collector is patience and knowledge. For the last 19 years, I have been acquiring mahjong knowledge and am still learning facts every day. Patience was willed to me by my father. He was a perfectionist and in his retirement, built violins by hand from scratch. I observed him working on a front or back for weeks and if he was not satisfied, onto the scrap pile went the piece and he would start again.
I source my sets from many areas. One area in particular is appealing. There are dozens of small auction houses with websites not associated with platforms such as Invaluable, or eBay. They do not send reminders on key words. Months of patient regular checking can go by without a hit. In November, 2015, a mahjong set poorly described and photographed popped up from a small company in Canada. My knowledge told me that this was a special set. If I was correct, I witnessed two similar sets sell for $8000US and $12000US. I telephoned in my bid the day before and waited. Two days later, my phone rang and I was informed that I had won the set. My heart stopped and I asked the hammer price. $650Can + 20% . I quickly paid by credit card and instructed the local UPS store to mail the package to me. I had previously done business with this store and they were very efficient. The same day, UPS sent out the box with tracking. I was able to follow to follow the progress of the package and delivery was scheduled for two days before Christmas Eve. I stayed home all day waiting for the driver and at 5.00pm, the tracking site flashed "Package Delivered" I rushed to the front door and found........nothing. Patience went out the window. What was my next move? I decided to go and search for the box. It was dark and freezing cold, The plan was to search in concentric circles from my house. I live on a crescent with about thirty homes. I walked along the middle of the road and checked front doors from left to right. About six homes up I spied a large box in the shadows of the front door. I quickly scaled the stairs to the door and there was a large box. Before touching the box, I rang the front door bell-no answer, I rang a second time- nothing. I picked up the box and read the address label. Allan Weitz 12.... from UPS. As I walked down the stairs, I looked at the address of the house posted on a narrow column. It was number 21, But because there was little room on the plaque, the 2 was on top and underneath was the 1. The UPS driver was probably super tired and read the address wrong. I floated home and placed the box on the kitchen counter. Slowly I unpacked the set and my heart stopped again. The set is magnificent and is listed in my top ten sets. This is an example of what collecting is all about.
So, this holiday season, in addition to the really important wishes and prayers we have for family, friends, our country and the world, maybe we can be hopeful something wonderful like this set can show up in our lives too!
Singapore's residents have a long history of being enthusiastic about the game of Mahjong. In fact, Singapore even has its own version of the game, played with delightful "capture" Flower tiles. (Capture tiles are used in games where a player can win extra points by having certain Flower capture tiles. These special sets feature images of a cat and mouse, a rich man and a pot of gold, a rooster and a centipede, a fisherman and a fish, to name some examples.) But during the early days of the Sino-Japanese war, in the 1930s, seeing an increasingly aggressive Japan having invaded and taken over a part of China, Singapore was concerned about being "captured" by the Japanese. Other images began to appear on Mahjong tiles.
To set up the place Singapore occupied in history, in the 1930s it was a British colony with a large Chinese population. Beginning in 1906, some of the Chinese opponents of the Qing Dynasty in China took up residence there. According to Wikipedia:
"In 1906, the Tongmenghui, a revolutionary Chinese organisation dedicated to the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty and led by Sun Yat-sen, founded its Nanyang branch in Singapore, which served as the organisation's headquarters in Southeast Asia."
The Qing Dynasty was overthrown in 1912, and the Republic of China was established. After World War I, the British, who were in charge of the city, spent a lot of money in Singapore, building a naval base to protect British interests against the increasingly aggressive Japanese. When completed the base boasted the largest dry dock in the world, and the third largest floating dock. But there was one problem: there was no fleet of ships to dock there. The British thought they could get their fleet to Singapore in time to protect the port, but when WW2 actually broke out, the fleet was in Europe. Singapore was thus at the mercy of the Japanese. Singapore was right be be concerned. It was conquered by the Japanese in 1942 and subsequently occupied by them until 1945 when the city reverted to British control.
In addition to the sets we commonly associate with Singapore, it seems Singapore was also involved with anti-Japanese propaganda in the 1930s. As a British outpost, with many Chinese inhabitants, it was sending out messages about wartime aggression too.
The tiles we will look at today came in this case:
Some of the characters translate to mean Singapore and Shanghai. Possibly this Mahjong business had branches in both cities. I had thought only the craftsmen in Hong Kong were involved in the anti-Japan Mahjong Business. It turns out that the craftsmen in Singapore were just as intent on getting the word out about the Japanese threat as those men working in China. (Caveat: I am assuming that this set was made in Singapore and not imported there. Given that there is a rich history of Mahjong in Singapore, it seems a likely premise.)
The suits and honors are not unusual, although that wonderful One Bam (seen above in the first photograph) does rank among the great One Bams. But it is the Flowers that cause us to sit up and take notice. There are 16 of them, and 12 of them refer directly to the war against Japan. With the exceptions of the 1 on the Bams and the numbers on the Flower tiles, there are no Arabic numbers or Western letters on the tiles. The set was not meant for export, but perhaps it was intended to fill the people with hope that they could defeat the enemy.
Above we see images of war: a soldier with a sword about to use it on an enemy, another about to throw grenades, an airplane and a bomb heading toward a Japanese man. We have seen many similar images before on other sets. (Search for War in the search box on this website.)
Row #1: fight against the enemy
Row # 2 to follow
Row #3: Open a New Territory (maybe take land back that had been taken over by the Japanese, such as Manchuria?)
Row #4: The tiles with the airplane have the well-known phrase from Dr Sun Yat Sen: Aviation Saves the Nation
According to friend Richard Y., these Flowers translate as team work, or working together. We see a merchant, scholar, farmer with sickle and soldier instead of the normally seen farmer, wood-cutter, fisherman and scholar. Perhaps these tiles can be interpreted to mean that by working together, they might be able to resist the enemy.
You will enjoy the bit of subtle advertising found on the One Dots, the tiles where messages are often hidden. Despite all the political propaganda, there was a bit of company/manufacturer propaganda:
Although not in the right order, they translate to mean:
"The color won't fade" !!
A big thanks to Richard and his friends for helping with the translations.
Those of you who read this earlier post will remember Mei Lanfang, the Chinese opera star who excelled at performing female roles. Not only did he act, sing and dance, he wrote operas too. Quite the man, he had two wives at the same time, fathering two children with one wife and nine with the other. Not to let any opportunity pass him by, he took on a mistress at the same time, and they lived together for five years!
from culturalchina.com
Mei in his professional life is seen above
from Wikipedia
and as he really looked.
In his professional life he was quite revered, and he traveled the world showing his unique style of performing. He had great love for China, and he was a staunch National. Following the Marco Polo Bridge incident during the Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese took over Beijing. The commander of the Japanese army appointed Mei to a high position. (Mei's talent was also appreciated by the Japanese.) Mei was ordered to perform for the Japanese, but he refused to do so. FB friend Richard told me that Mei grew a mustache during the Japanese occupation so that he would not have to perform any operas, especially effective as he excelled in female roles. Mei lived in poverty until the end of the war, at which point he resumed his professional career.
While enjoying stardom he ordered a special mahjong set. I have scanned the photos from the catalog published by the (sadly) defunct Japanese Mahjong Museum. (We do not know where the collection is, but many of us certainly hope that we get to see its treasures sometime soon.)
This is the lovely box his set came in. You can see that it is inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The front and side panels have the often seen flowers in vases, and a teapot (in b). and what looks to be a pomegranate in the bowl on side c. This is somewhat amusing because pomegranates are symbols for hopes of many children, and we know that Mei certainly accomplished this!! The top of the box is inlaid with five bats (five being the lucky number that symbolizes long life, good health, a natural death, good moral character and prosperity.) And we also have two longevity symbols on either side of the handle hinges.
Thanks to Ray Heaton, we have translations for the beautiful tiles seen below. It is interesting how strong the strokes are in the characters in the upper left, and how delicate the carving is on the Flowers. Perhaps this alludes to Mei's manliness in real life yet his delicacy on the stage. Some of the Flower images are familiar to us, the rolled up painting, the book, the flower, and the Chinese Cauldron. Other images are more difficult to interpret-ideas anyone?
Ed: I have to assume the Winds have been replaced by the characters in blue, functioning in much the same way in the Chinese form of the game as it would be with Winds, and those characters in red, and green (the plain white being the White Dragon.) are substituting for the Dragons. There are 6 of these characters, all needed for the following translation.
"Here's a link to a description of the opera described in those large characters, 遊龍戲鳳(演劇), you long xi feng yan ju, "The Wandering Dragon toys with the Phoenix". (I've put the last two in brackets as they mean "to act in an opera" rather than relate to the title of the play, but if we assume all six are to be read together, would, I suppose, read "to perform in the opera the Wandering Dragon toys with the Phoenix".
The flowers, 名伶表演, 古今趣史. Ming ling biao yan, gu jin qu shi. Literally, "the famous actor performs ancient and modern interesting history", I guess should translate more properly to something like "a record of famous performances in operas ancient and modern". Don't you love how the tiles refer to the famous actor performing, or a record of a famous performance?
The banner on one of the tiles says 文明自由, wen ming zi you, Civilization (and) Freedom." (right column, 2nd from the top)
The symbols in the One Dots are the name of the company that made the tiles!
Mei was a great national, as mentioned before. Many of you will see another indicator of his national pride: the hawk on the globe. This image symbolizes China's military strength, perhaps in this case, wishes for victory in the Sino-Japanese war. The symbol on the Craks is another way of writing the word wan. The unusual symbol on the Craks tiles is pin, the symbol for rank. *
Here follows more Mei Lanfang ephemera, truly an international star. I love the cover of this program! Remember, Mei is on the right!
Hoping you can read these absolutely rave reviews of his NY performances.
It is so interesting to see all the places mahjong can take us, isn't it?
*FB friend Richard pointed out how similar the rank symbol is to the Chinese character for the word "sing." Even if just a coincidence, I love it!
This thick bone and bamboo set has a lot going for it, with its One Bams, and deeply carved One Dots. I also love sets with green Chinese numbers on them;they always seem a bit more special to me than than those with the more frequently seen blue. The Flowers are quite lovely, with stories to tell, and we'll be looking closely at them.
You will immediately notice the delightful perching peacock, sitting on what is clearly a bamboo stalk, seen below. These perching peacocks are among my favorite One Bams on bone and bamboo sets. And given the thickness of the bone you can see that this set sold for a lot of money, and only the most talented of carvers made the tiles.
Bamboo stalks feature those nodes, (you can see two on this stalk) and there are bamboo leaves in the background. The One Dot is deeply carved, with the flower within flower center.
This grouping of Flowers is the story of Chang'e.
Ray Heaton translated and interpreted the tiles for us.
"Chang'e Ben Yue," Chang'e flies to the moon. Chang'e stole the herb of immortality and fled to the moon. She became immortal, but sadly, she was cloistered on the moon for eternity. Her moon palace is featured on #4." The palace is placed right in front of the round moon background, and the Chinese character for moon is there on the tile.
Whenever you see those curlycues under something or someone, as can be seen on tile #4, that image represents heaven, thus here her heavenly palace. If they are under a "person's" feet, that person is associated with heaven or is a god. To read more about Chang'e, click here for the Wikipedia write-up)
From Wikipedia, by Ren Suai Ying
Above is another visual interpretation of her, taken from Wikipedia.
The next set features a story of another maiden, The Heavenly (sometimes called Celestial) Maiden.
"Tian Nu San Hua" translates to mean the Heavenly Maiden Scattering Flowers. This maiden is said to be Buddhist in inspiration: Sakyamuni, the buddhist Deity, sent the heavenly maiden to scatter blossoms over the Earth. He told her the petals would not cling to the sleeves of those who had conquered their desires."
from Clear Wisdom, by a practitioner of Fulan Gang
Both of these stories were beloved by the Chinese and are operas or operatic plays. The great Mei Lanfang, seen below, wrote an opera about Chang'e. Mei performed her role, and in the photograph you can see the character is holding the stick just like she is on the mahjong tile. Sadly all the videos I could find on line of Mei's performances were of such poor quality that it is not worth linking them to this post, but click here for a write up of Mei. He was quite an incredible man.
from culturalchina.com
Flower tiles tell us wonderful bits of information about Chinese culture and history, and if we follow up on the clues we get on the tiles there is always something fun to learn. From now on, when I look at the moon I'll be thinking about Chang'e. I wonder if she got together with the Man in the Moon-hope so!
We can all be grateful that these sets made for export got out of China before the Cultural Revolution when Mao ordered all Mahjong sets destroyed. At least these bits of Chinese history and culture have been preserved for us to enjoy and play with.
NEWS: This is the first real bone and bamboo set ever to be part of a mahjong solitaire game! Redstone Games has introduced this tile set to their other already existing selections. How exciting is this!! The download info is at the end of this post.
I found this set in Salem, New York at McCartee's Barn. I have a habit of walking into stores and opening every box that could possibly hold mahjong tiles; I finally got lucky! The carving and the colors are just divine. The tiles are in fabulous shape too, and look how thick the bone is. This must have been the work of a very skilled carver, because only the best craftsmen were allowed to work on sets with the thickest bone, which sold for a lot of money. This set has Arabic numbers and Western letters, so we know it was made for the export market.
The Crane One Bam is lovely, as are the other round end Bams. The Dots are delightful, certainly starting with that delicate Two Dot with plum blossom center, a theme continued through the 9 Dots. The presence of those little details on each flower petal adds to the charm, as do those orange outlines.
The Craks, Winds and Dragons are what we are used to seeing with these old Bone and Bamboo sets. But, once again, we have stunning and unusual Flowers.
These tiles are a fabulous visual interpretation of the four noble callings that existed in Chinese society for hundreds of years. Each man is caught in a moment of activity, of motion, almost like a snapshot. #1 is the fisherman, lucky with his rather large catch. He's sporting a mustache and goatee, and he's wearing a wrap-around shirt, shorts and some kind of soft shoe, like two of the other men. He's carrying his fishing pole over his shoulder. #2 shows us the wood-gatherer, walking instead of sitting and smoking as we often see him. #3 is the farmer, with his hoe over the shoulder. I love that his face is turned away from us, adding to the idea that the carver has captured a brief moment in time. And #4 is the scholar, wearing a robe, a different type of hat, and what are probably wooden shoes. Amazing, right, how many details can be fit into such tiny surfaces?
There are some familiar images on the tiles. The three men, on tiles 1,3 and 4, are all wearing robes and sporting the mustache and goatee look we saw on the other set; only the boy, on #2 does not. #1 shows us a man holding a ruyi scepter, a talisman which symbolizes power and good fortune. This idea of good fortune ties in with some of the messages of these tiles, as you will see. #2 is Liu Hai and the three legged toad, a story that we often see on mahjong tiles. Normally we see him with a rope with coins, but here he has a flower. From Primal Trek:
Liu Hai was a Minister of State during the 10th century in China. He was also a Taoist practitioner. One version of the story says that he became good friendswith a three-legged toad who had the fabulous ability to whisk its owner to any destination.¹ This particular toad had a love not only for water but also for gold. If the toad happened to escape down a well, Liu Hai could make him come out by means of a line baited with gold coins.
The second version of the story is that the toad actually lived in a deep pool and exuded a poisonous vapor which harmed the people. Liu Hai is said to have hooked this ugly and venous creature with gold coins and then destroyed it.
#3 shows the Chinese character (word) we often see: Fa, the Green Dragon on many sets, meaning prosperity. In the photo with all the tiles, at the top, you can see the set's Green Dragon directly above #3. Tile #4 shows a man about to place a piece of coral in a treasure pot. For the Chinese, coral had a special significance: From Primaltrek:
Coral (shanhu 珊瑚) is included as one of the Eight Treasures and symbolizes longevity and official promotion.
As a symbol of longevity, the Chinese have traditionally believed that coral represents an "iron tree" (tieshu 铁树) that grew under the sea and blossomed only once every hundred years.
Red coral is considered particularly auspicious because the Chinese believe the color red signifies good luck, good fortune, and happiness.
Coral resembles deer antlers and deer are symbols of longevity.
Coral is also a symbol of official promotion because a coral button on the hat identified one of the nine grades of government officials.
Once again, thanks to Ray Heaton, we have a translation for these tiles:
The phrase is 四喜發財, and isn't that easy to translate. In pinyin it is Si Xi Fa Cai. Fa Cai is easy enough, "Get Rich" (and it's the Fa character seen frequently, 發, as the Green Dragon), but the first two are more challenging, not helped by how the full phrase is used today. Nowadays it appears that the most common meaning relates to food, used as the name for a dish of four meatballs! If we split the phrase up into two pairs then we find them used in mahjong...Si Xi, is used in Hong Kong Mahjong rules in the scoring hands "Four Small Blessings" and "Four Large Blessings" and of course we have, Fa Cai, in Hong Kong rules this means a meld of three Green Dragons.
Si Xi is also used to describe the folk art model "the four happinesses baby figurine"; also called Si Xi Wa Wa, see here, http://english.visitbeijing.com.cn/culture/n215174241.html. (If you click on that link you will recognize this figure.)
But looking back, using a dictionary that covers historical uses of phrases, we find Si Xi referring to those things that will cause one joy (and so its use in Hong Kong mahjong rules fits well - four blessings). These are explained too in the description of the four happinesses baby; “The four great happy moments in life are to enjoy one’s wedding night, to succeed in an imperial exam, to have a welcome rain after a long drought, and to come across an old friend in a distant land."
I expect the phrase was used as a new year expression, wishing you wealth and happiness throughout the year (pretty much as 恭喜發財 is now, which differs in only its first character..."may you have a happy and prosperous new year", Gong Xi Fa Cai).
It is always so interesting to see how the images do not necessarily correlate with the Characters on the tiles, giving us all a lot to see and think about.
Click below to download the Mahjong solitaire app:
I just co-wrote a book with Susan West. It's the first book ever to identify vintage mahjong sets and allow the reader to determine the set's relative value: Mahjong is For the Birds. To see more about this, click here
