When teaching, I've noticed that we tend to fall into a couple of different camps when we talk about mahjong rules.
The people who acknowledge there are a bazillion rules and simply accept it.
The people who don't particularly care about the rules and follow the ones they want - sort of.
The people who won't even consider learning to play because they've heard there are so many rules.
Can we talk about this? The rules are my wheelhouse. As someone who teaches the game, it sorta has to be. I suppose I could just make things up when people ask, but I stopped doing that when my jr. high school English teacher asked me to cite references. Who knew you'd have to provide proof when you made a wild-haired claim?!
Yes, there are a boatload of rules. In fact, the official rule book of American mahjong, "Mah Jongg Made Easy," is 36 pages long! If we're being nit-picky, it's only 30 after you count the Intro, Table of Contents, Glossary, and Notes pages. But still. 30 pages of rules!
But hear this…Nobody learns them all at once. Nobody.
It's like learning to play softball. You start with the basics. How to hit, throw, and catch the ball. How to run the bases. It isn't until you've been playing awhile that you learn the complexities–what is or is not a fair ball, or the rules regarding a forced play.
Remember when you learned to drive a car? You started with laps around the parking lot before driving on surface streets. Highway driving and parallel parking came later. While we're at it, if you think about how many pages the DMV driving test book has, the 30 pages of mahjong rules look quaint. And yet we all drive.
When you're learning to play mahjong, you learn the basics. As your game improves, you'll learn more rules, and even how to use them strategically. It doesn't happen immediately. You won't know everything from the start. You'll make mistakes; you'll blunder through. So what?! That is literally the way it works with anything new. It's called learning.
I learned to play from a friend who learned from a friend. Both are educated, professional people. Neither knew they were teaching a bunch of table rules as though they were written in stone. And frankly, I didn't question any of it until I started teaching. I wanted to understand the why of certain things, and ended up learning so much more. As Maya Angelou taught us, "When you know better, you do better".
The exception is for people like my dad. He famously thought rules were great–for everyone but himself. And yet, if you're a rules cherry picker, there is still a place for you in this game! That's the whole idea of table rules. Do whatever you and your group want to do.
Even if the NMJL rule followers cringe a little.
If you're thinking mahjong isn't for you because it has so many rules, there isn't much I can do to change your mind. But if you dive in, trust the process, and learn the game with its twists and turns bit by bit–you'll be fine. Really!
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