Mah Jong is a game of Chinese origin, which is usually played with tiles, similar to dominoes, made of bamboo and ivory engraved in color, though it can also be played with cards of equivalent design.

The literal translation of Mah Jong is "flax/hemp" "sparrow clattering". Those who play the game love the sound of the tiles as they are mixed together prior to the start of each hand. Listening carefully, players hear the sound of the flax blowing in the wind and the sparrows clattering.

Sets traditionally consist of 136 standard tiles (and eight bonus tiles) as follows:

• Three suits with tiles numbered 1 to 9. The usual English names for the suits are dots, bamboos and characters. There are four identical copies of each suit tile - 108 suit tiles in all.



• The four directions or "winds" (east, north, west, south) - four copies of each (16 tiles)



• Three colours or "dragons" (red, green, white) - again four copies of each, so 12 tiles.



• Bonus tiles: four different flower tiles and four different season tiles - so 8 bonus tiles in all, though some sets may have more.

Four players designated by East, South, West, and North each build a wall of seventeen tiles long, two tiles in height (all face down) and position them to form a hollow centered wall.

In the traditional game, 13 tiles are dealt to each player, and the object is, by a draw and discard mechanism, to form a winning hand of 14 tiles. Tiles are drawn from the wall. At the beginning of the game the wall is "opened". The opening point is generated randomly by the throw of a dice. Discards are put face up inside the wall.

A winning hand normally consists of four sets of three and a pair. A set of three can be three identical tiles or three tiles of the same suit in numerical sequence. Depending on the variation played, the game can also be won with various special hands containing other combinations of tiles. There are numerous extra bonuses for feats such as winning with a single suit, or all winds and dragons.

There are several versions of the rules. Mah Jong is played differently in China, Taiwan and Japan, and when the game was brought to the USA yet more variations were invented there.