This week’s retirement adventure turned out to be a lesson in Mah Jong.  There is a group of ladies here at the Lake that gather together and play.  One of the members is part of my front gate garden crew.  She asked if I would be interested in learning how to play.  Since I am game for anything once, I agreed.

She called me on Wednesday and invited me over to get a lesson.  Another gardener joined us and we played a three handed and ignored the north partner.

I must say that there are certainly a lot of rules and regulations in this game.  I brought my set that my wonderful departed friend, Dave, had given me.  It was his mother’s and she had never learned to play.  I had purchased a used instruction book and had begun to read it over.

I play Mah Jong on the computer but it is absolutely nothing like the real game.  I also learned that my set is Chinese and cannot be played in America.  It seems that we Americans have to have Jokers to play the darn game and my set doesn’t have any.  The set is so beautifully made that it would be nearly impossible to match the set with new Jokers.  Drat!

You also have to buy a new card each year and the card explains the different combinations of tiles that you can put together to make a Mah Jong.  It is so very confusing.

We played through and I won.  Of course, I had a lot of help.

I plan on going over to the Lodge and watching one day next week and make up my mind if I really want to learn this game.  The ladies involved will make up my mind as I don’t take to a lot of ladies.   I have many girlfriends but knew at first impressions that they were the girls for me to befriend.

I think the silliest thing about American Mah Jong is what they call the tiles.  Dots, flowers  bambs and cracks.  Cracks have kanji on them and I have always referred to them as kanji.  Cracks sound so silly.  And bambs have bamboo on them but they call them bambs.  My book calls them bamboos, circles, characters, dragons and winds.

I’m thinking perhaps I should learn the Chinese game and get my girlfriends to learn it too and we could have Mah Jong parties.  No, on second thought, you can’t drink and play this game.