Mahjong, the Chinese tile game from the 19th century, has made its way to campus. Kelly Shen (sophomore) and Alison Wong (senior) said they decided to start Mahjong Club as a way to bring their community closer together.
“After coming to Occidental, I met a group of friends who liked board games, so I thought it would be really fun to teach them [mahjong],” Shen said. “After having a lot of fun with my friends, I was like ‘You know what, they learned super quickly and they love it, why don’t I share it with the entire Oxy community.’”
Both Shen and Wong, co-presidents of the club, said they first started to play mahjong with members of their families. Shen said she learned the game from her grandmother over quarantine, and Wong said she learned from her grandparents when she was only a toddler.
“I’ve been playing mahjong for as long as I can remember,” Wong said. “When I was maybe 2 years old, my grandparents would take out the set, and we’d build the blocks with just the tiles. Over time, they taught me and my cousins how to play, and it’s become a tradition that we do.”
The club’s advisor is Assistant Professor of Asian Studies Meimei Zhang.
“I think that Mahjong Club can be a very good way for students to socialize with each other, because mahjong is a game that brings people together,” Zhang said. “I know many of them are American-born Asian, so it’s a good way to help them get to know each other. I also think some of them are homesick, so this is a way to create some togetherness.”
Zhang said her family was very interested in mahjong, although she herself never actually learned how to play the game.
“My grandparents and my aunts on my father’s side liked to play mahjong, it was family entertainment,” Zhang said. “After family meals, they would spend some time playing mahjong together.”
According to Shen, the goal of the Mahjong Club is to teach the Occidental community a new game and share a piece of Chinese culture.
“I know so many people, even our advisor, who don’t know how to play but have always wanted to learn,” Wong said. “We want to provide an opportunity and an outlet for people like that on campus who have heard of this game but never learned how to play.”
The club hosted their first meeting Saturday, Sept. 21, and Shen said they planned to make it a fun environment for their members, as well as provide traditional Chinese snacks to eat.
“There’s different types of mahjong, so we’re going to separate people into groups so they can play the type that they are familiar with,” Wong said. “We’ll be accommodating for all the different types of mahjong and also the different levels of experience and be as inclusive as we possibly can.”
As for possible future events, Wong said the Mahjong Club plans on hosting several fundraisers in order to buy more sets of the game to be used in later years.
“Since I’m a senior and I’m the one supplying the sets, after I graduate we won’t have that anymore,” Wong said. “So we’re hoping to fund more sets that can continue to be passed down through the years at Oxy. It’ll hopefully help with the impact we make in the future.”
President Tom Stritikus has also taken an interest in Mahjong Club, according to Shen.
“I was talking to President Stritikus when we were doing leadership training for clubs, and I told him I was starting a mahjong club,” Shen said. “He said, ‘No way, my wife Debbie is a big fan of the game, she’s been learning for the past year, why don’t you come play with her and invite everyone too.’ I was very excited by that possibility.”
Wong said it makes her very proud to see something from her culture be spread around to the students and staff members at Occidental.
“It’s probably the one thing I’ve done with my entire family throughout my whole life that has been consistent,” Wong said. “It’s something that I hope to share not just with Oxy, but pass down in my family and share with everyone. It’s such a great opportunity to come together, not just as family, but as friends and as people.”
Shen said she is also excited about this opportunity to share a piece of her culture with people and thinks it will be a great way to get to know students and faculty alike.
“I think mahjong is, apart from being very fun, a great way to learn problem solving, a great way to learn strategy, and I think the balance of luck and skill makes it very appealing to people,” Shen said. “It’s very easy to learn and you can also learn all the Chinese numbers through playing which is an added bonus.”
Wong said everyone should consider joining the Mahjong Club, even if they have never played or even heard of the game before.
“Joining this club will not only introduce students to a new game, something similar to poker in the strategy aspect, but also an opportunity to enrich yourself in a new culture and a new environment and meet new friends,” Wong said. “People of different skill levels and backgrounds all coming together in one room for a few hours to play mahjong, have some fun, eat some good food and meet some new people.”
Contact Izzy Shotwell at shotwell@oxy.edu
Your article was very interesting. I have been playing about 11 years with a group of women friends. We play the American version, using the Nation League of Mahjong’s card. It. is so nice to see young people playing.
I saw this article because my grandson (Sammy Levy, a senior) was in the article about the 2 Paws Up.
Continue to have fun.