Mah-Jong
Mahjong is a four player game of skill, strategy, calculation and also has an element of chance. There is a significant difference between traditional Mahjong, and the western single-player matching game. The matching game is much newer, and is really called mahjong solitaire. Traditional Mahjong is a gambling game, but can easily be played for fun too.
Mahjong is a tile game. There are 3 different types of tiles: simple tiles, honor tiles, and flower tiles. There are three suits of simple tiles, which are numbered from 1 to 9. The suits are circles, characters, and bamboo. There are 4 sets of each of the three suits of simple tiles. Honor tiles consist of wind tiles and dragon tiles. There are four sets of both wind and dragon tiles. There are north, east, south and west wind tiles, and red green and blue dragon tiles. The final group of tiles are four flowers, and the four seasons. Each player draws a hand of 13 tiles. To win a round, you must be the first to figure out a set combination for your tiles. There are many different combinations you can play. Usually one Mahjong game lasts 16 rounds.
Mahjong is very important to this book. It is even referred to in the title of the book, as the Joy Luck Club was originally a group that mainly played Mahjong. In a sense, it also connects the four different players of the group, and their individual stories.
