Skip to main content

Pursued by Mahjong

 



I can’t remember the exact date that it first struck. It was definitely during the summer, though.





Or maybe when a friend shared a post from the library system.





I started out thinking it might make a good blog post but the amount of information coming my way got overwhelming pretty quickly. I feared that I didn’t know enough to do it justice. Apparently I don’t get a choice in the matter because it just. Won’t. Give. Up. 

You can run but you can’t hide. 




No matter how hard I have tried to get away from this topic it was determined to pursue me. Did you know there’s a class offered through HCC?




And then the topic popped up on the CNN podcast Engagement Party (Audie Cornish, Ari Shapiro) . Take a look at the last line of the synopsis for the August 21st episode:

RushTok is Southern Soft Power

This week, the internet turned its eyes to an annual 2020s tradition: watching freshman girls rush sororities at big Southern state schools via an endless stream of social videos. What does our obsession with RushTok tell us about the South, the internet, and America? Plus, what's up with the influencer backlash on Nantucket, and why is mahjong so hot right now?

And why is mahjong so hot right now?

Let’s establish my baseline knowledge of mahjong. I know it was mentioned during a PBS program on author Amy Tan. And I remember an episode of Tree House Masters where Pete Nelson incorporated a custom mahjong table into a treehouse build. That’s it.

It seems I’m doing better than Google AI on this one. It says that never happened. 


Here is where I hit my first roadblock. I was unable to move forward until I proved Google AI wrong. Side quest, commence.

Aha! Found it. It starts at 33:30 and runs to 34:30 in the episode entitled “Swiss Family Surprise”. 

Wait, was there a reason I was doing that? Oh, yeah. Mahjong.

Mahjong with lamentable AI graphics.




Mahjong inquiries from newbies.





Oh boy. Back to work.

I found this article on the TIME website very helpful. There’s some fascinating cultural stuff in here which shed a whole new light on my (limited) understanding.


The following two (short-ish) videos present an eye opening contrast between different kinds of “mahjong culture.”

The first focuses on a growing community in San Francisco that has drawn a faithful following of young people, largely Asian.


The second is very much a puff piece about American mahjong amongst affluent white women. Look around the room when they visit an event in Dallas, Texas. There’s a lot to process there.


I’m still processing.

Meanwhile, mahjong has grown impatient with me. Another nudge.




And another.




Then, the last straw: mahjong at the National Cathedral*! 






I give up. I hereby declare before God and these witnesses that I will write a post about the current Mahjong trend in Columbia/HoCo.

Maybe I’ll start tomorrow.






* What keeps a church alive? Mahjong?




Comments

  1. Julia A. McCreadySeptember 30, 2026 at 4:27 AM

    Please do not submit comments here. This function will be disabled shortly. Use the link above instead. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...
1 comment
Read more

They Can Wait

This is not a typical Saturday post. That’s because, in my community, it’s not a typical Saturday.  Oakland Mills High School, after years of deferred repair, needs massive renovation. It’s pretty simple: when you don’t fix a problem it gets bigger. The school system itself said the the OMHS school building was  "no longer conducive to learning" back in 2018.  2018 .  But Thursday the Boad of Education voted to push it out of the lineup of important projects which will be given the go-ahead to proceed soonest.  In my opinion it’s a terrible decision and sets a dangerous precedent. To explain, here’s the advocacy letter I sent in support of Oakland Mills High School. I was rather proud of it. I am writing to ask you to proceed with needed renovation at Oakland Mills High School in the most timely and comprehensive manner humanly possible. I have read the letter sent to you by the Oakland Mills Community Association and I am in complete agreement. You are extremel...
1 comment
Read more

Separate and Unequal

  Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in  broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not.  It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...
1 comment
Read more