Mahjong Game for locals
What's most popular game in China? Not ping pong, not badminton, not swimming, it's Mahjong, especially in Chengdu, almost all the people except child less than 5 years old join this game, you can find people play mahjong at every corner of city, the voice of shuffling Mahjong can be heard from early morning to late evening whenever you walk on the street, stroll around in the park, shopping at market, visit local family, it's impossible for your ear to escape. OK, let me tell you why the local people like this game so much.
Mahjong is commonly played by four players, possible play by three, too. Mahjong is similar to the Western card game rummy, which is a game of skill, strategy and calculation and involves a certain degree of chance.The standard game is played with a set of 144 tiles based on Chinese characters and symbols, but here in Chengdu, in order to make the game easier and quicker, only 108 tiles been used, at some special gambling occasion, people even only use 72 tiles.
For sure people play mahjong for money, no matter those people who are as old as over 80 years or young secondary school students, they all join this game as gambling, the ante can be from cents to more than 100 thousand Yuan.
Mahjong is very easy to learn, 5 minutes can be graduated and of course there is a long way to be a master, usually speaking you need the time and tuition to practice your skill, not just playing skill, but also skill to observe your opponents, guess their intention, pay attention to their tiny emotion in their eyes, short hesitate on playing, it's a kind of chicken game over the table, but don't say it's not difficult for you, because experienced mahjong masters are good actors, too, they are very good at pretend to be afraid, worry and sad, of course you need to be a good camoufleur anyway.
Another important reason for local people like mahjong game is with small amount of money, not possible to do any else investment, but people do hope their money in the pocket can increase. Playing mahjong is a chance, almost everyone believe although they are not the most intelligent person in this world, at least they are better than others around them, so they feel confidence can get the money from others' pockets through playing this mahjong game. Mahjong is also the way to prove themselves, and when they unfortunately fail and lost the money, they also can easily find an excuse to comfort themselves such as bad luck.
There are some saying about this game, such as beginner has strong hand, maybe this is trick to lure more people go join.
No eternal winner and loser if keep playing, this is trick to get those bad skill underdogs come back to play.
You can judge people's characters through mahjong game, this game is also a window to get close to locals, why not to join?
