So … who is playing mahjong these days?

 

I must confess that I've joined the mahjong craze that seems to be having a moment, and I went to a friend's house yesterday morning for my introduction to the game. The hostess was my friend Carol, who is in my Bible study class but goes to another church. I heard her and her friend Angela (I know a lot of Angelas) talking about mahjong one day and mentioned I've wanted to learn. "Let's get together, and we'll teach you!" she said, so about ten of us took her up on that yesterday. It was a little overwhelming at first, but after two hours, I had a basic understanding of how the game is played. I was thinking about it later in the day and wondered if there is a tea-themed mahjong game online, and it appears there is, but the reviews are terrible, so I just took a screen grab rather than risking you all clicking on what looked like a questionable site. But isn't that a fun idea? Carol did caution us, though, that if we decide to get our own mahjong set (and of course I want one now), we should stick with the traditional designs rather than something with cutesy symbols (like teatime!) since that might confuse us as we're trying to learn the game. I'm so glad she issued that warning!

I had googled "mahjong" and "tea" and found no real tea-themed mahjong sets, just online games, but I did find out that women are having mahjong-themed teas. I even found a set of mahjong-tile cookie cutters that women are using to make cookies for their mahjong-themed tea. How fun!

Meanwhile, I should probably learn to really play the game first, right? Are any of you into mahjong?