Mahjong for Beginners

Perhaps you've played a tile-matching game on your tablet, phone, or computer called Mahjong in which you match tiles having colorful Chinese characters and symbols. These electronic games are derived from a tabletop game called Mahjong that originated in China in the 1800s and became an American craze in the 1920s. Since then, the tabletop game has spread around the world, but, although still popular, may not be as familiar to many in the USA as more modern games.

All versions of Mahjong share a common set of 136 tiles—144 if you include special flower and season tiles. At Mahjong for Beginners, you will learn a simplified form of Chinese Mahjong. We'll teach you what the different symbols on the Mahjong tiles mean, how the game is set up, and the general course of play, in which players take turns drawing tiles and trying to form sets of three identical tiles ("pungs") or runs of three tiles in sequence ("chows"), similar to the card game Rummy.

The library has two mahjong sets, but players are also welcome and encouraged to bring their own sets to use.