Mahjong, 麻将
group work, collaborated with YITIAN XIAO.
Our inspiration for the project comes from the history of Mahjong, which was invented in the late 19th century and has since become a popular game worldwide. It is a very old and traditional tile game in China. Meanwhile, we were watching a which introduce some Chinese traditional artifacts, including The Classic of Mountains and Seas (山海经, Shan Hai Jing)., and a movie named The Classic of Mountains and Seas – Goodbye Monster(山海经之再见怪兽) is talking about the monsters in the book. Therefore, we were thinking of if these two traditional artifacts can be combined together so that we can have our own Chinese-style mahjong tiles.
the circle/dots tiles
the character tiles
the bamboo tiles
Szechuan Mahjong 川麻
Although Mahjong is a gambling game, it also involves skill and strategy. However, the rules of Mahjong vary in different regions and countries. For instance, there are Japanese Mahjong and Competition Mahjong (or Guobiao Mahjong). There are even differences in Mahjong rules among different provinces in China. Sichuan mahjong, for example, only has 108 tiles, and there's no “Chow (吃, claiming a tile to match a sequence)”, only “Pung (claiming a tile to match a triplet)”; but Cantonese mahjong (or Guangdong Mahjong) has 144 cards and can be "Chow". As we come from Sichuan, where Sichuan Mahjong is the most commonly played version, we have a special connection to the game. Since there are no Mahjong parlours nearby, and purchasing a set of tiles from Amazon is too expensive, we have decided to make our own set of 108 tiles so that we can play Sichuan Mahjong at home with our family and friends.
(and we even made the box to carry those pieces by ourselves)
