In selecting newsworthy events, 'dog bites man' is considered too mundane an incident to make headlines. But what if the man bites the dog...

Similarly, news items related to the game of 'mahjong' rarely surfaced in the past. But of late, two news items triggered much public attention.

The first involved 11 elderly men apprehended by the Kajang police for playing mahjong on the second day of Chinese New Year. In this incident, the focus of public debate was not the mahjong game per se but instead on human rights - whether forced haircuts for the detainees were acceptable.

The second incident reported by a local newspapers read: 'Spoon shoved up nose during row'. This too captured the public's imagination. Sadly but interestingly, a 56-year old man spent six days in a hospital after his friend shoved a spoon up his nose during an argument over a mahjong game at a coffee shop.

A recent article on a local website titled 'Asian love for gambling' quoted Loren Tepperman, a sociologist at the University of Toronto as saying, "There appears to be something about Chinese culture and social life that encourages gambling".

Singapore's founding prime minister did not mince his words when he once described the ethnic Chinese as 'congenital gamblers'. Is gaming (i e mahjong) a kind of entertainment or habitual greed for more money? The answer perhaps lies in the Chinese philosophical saying that 'one type of grain feeds hundred types of people'.

A public debate on the thin line between gaming and gambling can be as raging as the stormy waves of an angry sea.

Origins and Myths

Someone quipped that 'bad habits are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out'. Hardcore Mahjong players will probably be the first to agree. Habitual mahjong gamblers are also likely to agree that habits are safer than rules because they don't have to watch (habits) and they do not have to keep them either. The mahjong habit keeps them. Those whose lives and finances have been devastated by excessive indulgence in mahjong gambling would probably testify that the game has an unbelievable power to waste and destroy.

Yet few probably know the history and origins of the mahjong game.

I was equally astounded to discover that mahjong had a rich history along with the myths and past cultural heritage. Some theorists argue that the game can be traced back to the latter part of 1890 in the era of Ning Po (China). Another website, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia devoted a detailed historical account on mahjong in China and theWestern world as well as the various forms of the game.

According to Wikipedia, apart from the common name, mahjong, it has many other dialectic names. In Mandarin, it is spoken as majiang and in Cantonese mahjeuk. Common spellings include mahjongg, majiang, and hyphenated forms as mah-jong or mah-jongg or simply M-J.

Many theories about its origin have surfaced during the years. One of the myths (according to Wikipedia) probably originated from the West regarding the origin of Mahjong, which suggested that Confucius had developed the game about 500 BC. It argued in support of the myth that the appearance of the game in various Chinese provinces coincided with Confucius' travels at the time he was teaching his new doctrines.

The three dragon (Cardinal) mahjong tiles also agree with the three Cardinal virtues bequeathed by Confucius, namely, zhong (literally meaning middle), the red (fa or literally meaning prosperity) and the green (bai, or white) representing benevolence, sincerity and filial piety respectively.

Confucius was said to be fond of birds, hence, the name, mahjong (meaning bird). This school of theorists further argued that terms used in the game like pong, chee, and kong also lend credence to Confucius having developed the game. Confucius, they argued, was of the Kong family. His full name being Kong-Qiu, he married a girl named Che and adopted the mahjong term, chi or shang meaning 'to connect' which Westerners during the game, call chow (corrupted version of chee).

Card games

Another possible version implied that the game had been developed from existing Chinese card and domino games sometime around 1850. Some historians believed it was based on a card game called, Madiao (also known as Ma Tiae, literally meaning 'hanging horse' or yezi literally meaning 'leaf') in the Ming dynasty. Another theory cited that Chinese army officers serving during the Tai Ping Rebellion created the game to pass the time. Yet another theory is that a noble living in the Shanghai area created the game between 1870 and 1875. It is thought that around 1850 in the city of Ningpo (China), two brothers had created mahjong from the earlier game of Madiao.

The game became a sensation in America when it was imported from China in the 1920s, with the same mahjong game taking on a number of trademarked names, such as pung chow or the Game of Thousand Intelligences. It is considered that the closest western analogue to mahjong is probably the card game, Gin Rummy. Today, there are many main variations of mahjong besides differing only by scoring. There is the Chinese Classical Mahjong which was introduced to America in the 1920s under various names. There is the Hong Kong Mahjong (or Cantonese Mahjong) which is the most common form of Mahjong, differing in minor scoring details with the Chinese Classical variety. Japanese Mahjong (standardised form) in Japan, found prevalently in video games.

Again, the Western Classical Mahjong, a descendant of the version of Mahjong introduced by Babcock to America in the 1920s and latter evolved to American Mahjong. The American Mahjong today, is a form standardised by the American National Mah Jongg League and the American Mah-Jongg Association. Other variants include Fujian Mahjong, Taiwanese mahjong (each player having 16 tiles), Vietnamese Mahjong (with 16 different kinds of jokers) and Filipino Mahjong (with window joker).

Incredibly, mahjong has attained universal stature. In 1998, the China State Sports Commission in the interest of changing mahjong from an illegal gambling game to an approved healthy sport, published a new set of rules, now generally referred to as 'Chinese Official rules' or 'International Tournament rules'. The principles of this new and healthy mahjong are: no gambling, no drinking and no smoking.

In 2005, the first Open European Mahjong Championship was held in the Netherlands, with 108 players. The first prize went to Masato Chiba from Japan.

Boon or bane?

Even today, in Hong Kong, mahjong is played in certain celebrating occasions such as a Chinese wedding banquet supposedly to give the newly-weds a sense of mirth and excitement (source: Wikipedia).

In Malaysia, the game is popular in associations and clubs among predominantly ethnic Chinese members especially during the Chinese New Year. Gambling is an offence only if it is committed in a common gaming house according to section 2 (1) of our Malaysian Common Gaming Act 1953, which defines a common gaming house as any place kept for gaming to which the public has access or irregardless of public accessibility, a place for habitual gaming (Malaysiakni, Feb 7).

It was argued that the coffee shop should not be deemed a common gaming house unless it keeps regular infrastructure and paraphernalia for public gambling, or based on police observation overtime is habitually used for gaming.

Some see no evil in mahjong. Like arguments and observation made by sociologist Loren Tepperman who said that it is the Chinese cultural mindset that has a strong inclination towards habitual gambling as part of their life-style entertainment. Many Chinese start betting as children in family games. Across Asia, the proliferation of casinos and government approved gaming outlets in many home countries of Chinese ethnic nationals further encourage gambling activities which pass on from generation to generation. In Chinese philosophy, gambling is one of the five specified vices or unhealthy activity to avoid.

Although the literal definition between a game and a gamble is precisely distinct, the former defined as an enjoyable activity with no bets or money changing hands. Gamble, on the other hand is defined as a risky action or decision taken in the hope of gaining money or success. The dictionary also defines, gaming being the same as gambling.

But the debate does not stop here. Indeed, the game or gambling of mahjong (especially involving four players in the classical variant) involves skills or tactics, keen observation and memory. One player competing against three others to build complete suits (usually of threes) from either 13 or 16 tiles, must also be the first to do so in order to win the game. In this individualistic or tactical situation, unlike other sporting games, there is no room for team-spirit.

The Politics in Mahjong

What has mahjong got to do with politics? Political interpretation of the mahjong game can be thought-provoking. It suggested that the game nurtures or inculcates the individual mindset to be one of a survivalist. In fact, the interpretation strongly argued that the tactical game involves an antithesis psychology against team spirit. It demands skills and intelligence to kill off each player as in the arena of petty politicking.

The political argument also pointed that in a dead-lock situation, the game of mahjong embodies each player to ensure that nobody emerges as the winner. This opposes the principle of a win-win situation in political compromises. In short, the mahjong game habitually encourages conflicting or antagonistic values in the players' mindsets that are considered detrimental to a political organisation that emphasizes positive values like team spirit, collective accountability and sharing common aims or objectives.

In Chinese yan yu, says: 'yi shan, bun eng cang er hu' (literally, mountain cannot keep two tigers). Correspondingly, it means that a kingdom cannot have two supreme leaders. A constant reminder from Chinese leaders to their followers is that 'everybody wants to be a leader' (even among a crowd of three). This seems to symbolise the mahjong game. Every player wants to emerge the winner and employ many devious tactics within the game rules to outwit each other.

This would be disastrous in the political arena as amply illustrated in the history of predominantly Chinese ethnic political organisations punctuated with leadership crises. From this view point, perhaps a four-player game of badminton in comparison to mahjong is a safer game whereby the former unlike mahjong requires team spirit from each pair of the players.

Differing opinions

One man's blood is another man's poison. A psychoanalyst may beg to differ from the politician's psychoanalysis that mahjong is harmful to organisational harmony, subservience and loyalty.

To the psychoanalyst, the innocent game of mahjong especially among elderly folks can prevent them from dangers to Parkinson's disease. Since the game involves skills, intelligence, calculation and of course varying luck between 20 to 80 percent. The game is a boon to the old folks. Since they do not belong exactly to the category of aspiring and ambitious politicians, mahjong to them is strictly entertainment.

Mahjong can be in the strict sense of the definition a game or pastime entertainment, without money changing hands. It is the betting and perhaps the obsession that becomes a social problem. Even in the arena of golf, considered a healthy sporting game for the rich, can also transform the green into casino.

In the world of gambling, a bet can be made on anything. Want to bet on which direction the mosquito will fly?

STANLEY KOH is a Buddhist Monk and works for a local think-tank.