Mahjong with Chinese characteristics

 

Mahjong with Chinese characteristics

 

During the Spring Festival, there is no doubt: the sound of mahjong in China is louder than the sound of firecrackers. Mahjong has become a characteristic Chinese culture. Mahjong is a four-player domino game popular in Chinese cultural circles. The rules of the game are slightly different in different regions. The main types of mahjong cards include "cake (wenqian)", "tiao (suozi)", "wan (wanguan)" and so on. In ancient times, most mahjong tiles were made of bone-faced bamboo backs. It can be said that mahjong tiles are actually a combination of playing cards and dominoes. Compared with other forms of dominoes, Mahjong is the most complex and interesting to play. Its basic playing method is simple and easy to learn, but there are many changes and the combinations vary from person to person. Therefore, it has become one of the most attractive dominoes in Chinese history. Gambling form.

Mahjong tiles include ordinal tiles Wan (wanzi), cake (tube), strip (rope), fan tiles, wind tiles, arrow tiles, and flower tiles.

There are four ordinal tiles in Mahjong tiles from "one" to "nine", for a total of 27 types and 108 tiles. In addition, seven kinds of fan cards are added, four of each type, including wind cards: "East, South, West, North" and arrow cards: "middle, hair, white", for a total of twenty-eight cards. One hundred and thirty-six cards in total. Later, flower cards with similar functions to the "JOKER" in poker were added. There are generally eight cards: "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, Plum, Orchid, Bamboo, and Chrysanthemum". One hundred and forty-four cards in total.

Mahjong is a four-person domino game popular in Chinese cultural circles. The rules of the game are slightly different in different regions. In ancient times, most mahjong tiles were made of bone-faced bamboo backs. It can be said that mahjong tiles are actually a combination of playing cards and dominoes. Compared with other forms of dominoes, Mahjong is the most complex and interesting to play. Its basic playing method is simple and easy to learn, but there are many changes and the combinations vary from person to person. Therefore, it has become one of the most attractive dominoes in Chinese history. Gambling form.

Mahjong originated in China. It was originally a game played by royal families and nobles, and its history can be traced back three to four thousand years ago. In the long-term historical evolution process, Mahjong gradually spread from the court to the people, and was basically finalized in the middle of the Qing Dynasty.

Mahjong tiles (also known as mahjong tiles) are developed and evolved from the horse tags and playing cards that were popular in the late Ming Dynasty. Entertainment games such as horse tag and playing cards are inextricably linked to gambling, the oldest entertainment game in Chinese history. Even a "blood" relationship. The popular entertainment games such as chess and cards are all developed, derived and evolved on the basis of games.

It is difficult to say exactly when Gubo Opera began. According to records in "Historical Records" and other relevant texts, the emergence of gambling was at least before King Zhou of Yin. The earliest gambling game in my country is called "Liubo", which has six chopsticks and 12 chess pieces. The chopsticks are a long bamboo product, which is equivalent to the dice used in playing mahjong today.

According to "Yan's Family Instructions·Miscellaneous Arts", it can be seen that gambling is divided into Dabo and Xiaobo. Da Bo's chess playing method is no longer testable. The gameplay of Xiaobo is recorded in more detail in the "Gu Bo Jing". The method is: two people sit opposite each other, the chessboard has 12 lanes, and there is water in the middle. Place six rectangular black and white chess pieces on the chessboard. He also took two fish and placed them in the water. Both sides of the game take turns throwing dice (ie dice), and depending on the size of the throw, the number of steps forward for the chess piece is determined. When the chess piece reaches the end point, the chess piece is put up and becomes Xiaoqi (or Xiaoqi). If you become a good chess player, you can get into the water and "lead the fish" to gain funds. Win with six chips. A piece of chess that is not completed is called loose chess. Xiaoqi can attack the opponent's chess pieces, and can also give up the opportunity to walk without moving, but loose chess cannot.

After the Han and Wei dynasties, gambling games underwent fundamental changes. The chess pieces in the gambling game broke away from each other and played independently, developing in the direction of chess and becoming a game. The Qiong of gambling became Wumu, that is, five wooden dices, which also independently became a kind of gambling equipment, called Ai Pu. The winner is decided by a point throw. According to legend, the dice made by Cao Zhi were made of jade at that time and later made of bone. Change five pieces of wood into two dice, a cube, with dots engraved on its six sides, with the dots ranging from one to six. So it was also called "Double Six" at that time.

Gambling reached the Tang Dynasty, and dice became an independent gambling tool. And from two dice to six dice. According to "Xishu Ji", Emperor Ming of Tang Dynasty and Concubine Yang Guifei played dice for fun. Emperor Ming Dynasty of Tang Dynasty was in a bad battle. He could only turn defeat into victory by making two of the six dice appear "four" at the same time. So Emperor Ming of the Tang Dynasty raised the dice and threw it, while calling "repeat four" repeatedly. The die stopped and hit exactly four. Emperor Ming of the Tang Dynasty was overjoyed and ordered Gao Lishi to paint the four points of the dice red. Therefore, to this day, the unit and four sides of the dice are red, and the other four sides are black.

Since the Tang Dynasty, the method of using six dice to combine various names to determine the outcome was called a dice grid at that time. The most complete entertainment equipment that evolved based on the dice grid is the dominoes produced during the Xuanhe reign of Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty (also called Xuanhe tiles, namely Pai Gow, Niu tiles, and Tianjiu tiles that are still popular in some areas). The dominoes are made of ivory or elephant bone, and the cube of the dice is changed into a rectangular parallelepiped, and the six hollow points of the dice are changed into one hollow point. There are 21 colors of dominoes. Each color is composed of the points of two dice, so the maximum number of dominoes is 12 points and the minimum number is two points. There are two or one of each color, 32 in total.

In the middle of the Tang Dynasty, at the same time as the dice grid, another game called "Yi Zi Opera" appeared. There are different opinions about the origin of leaf opera. The "Biography of Princess Tongmao" of the Tang Dynasty said, "Wei's sects are fond of Ye Zi Opera." This is the earliest written record of Ye Zi Opera. In addition, there are several theories: it was written by Ye Ziqing; it was written by the woman Ye Zi; it was written by the governor of Hezhou in the Tang Dynasty and the geisha Ye Maolian playing dice grids on a boat. These claims seem far-fetched. In fact, the "leaf opera" as it was called at that time was not a mature game. It is just a piece of paper used to record the winning and losing values when playing dice. This can be proved from Ouyang Xiu's "Return to the Fields":

The books collected by the Tang Dynasty were all made into scrolls, with leaves behind them. Today they are hand-folded, and all the characters are written on leaves if they are ready for inspection. The dice grid is for inspection, so it is also written on leaves, which is why it is named after you. The leaves mentioned in the article are pieces of paper, but this is not a game, it is just a piece of paper to record values. However, we can regard it as the originator of mahjong tiles.

By the Tianqi period of the Ming Dynasty, chips, originally used as game accessories, gradually evolved into a new entertainment tool, namely horse tags.

The horse tag is a kind of paper card. There are 40 cards in the whole deck, which are divided into four colors: Shiwanguan, Wanguan, Suozi and Wenqian. Among them, the two colors of Wan Guan and Suo Zi are from one to nine; one hundred thousand Guan is from 200,000 to 900,000 Guan, and even one million Guan, ten million Guan, and ten thousand Guan; Wenqian is from one to nine, There are even one piece each of Banwen (also called Zhihua) and Wuwen (also called Kongtang). The 100,000 guan and 10,000 guan cards have portraits of heroes from "Water Margin", and 10,000 guan are naturally assigned to Song Jiang, which means that one cannot become rich without a big thief. Draw the figures of rope and money on the cards of Suozi and Wenqian.

Horse tags are played by four people. Each person takes eight cards first and puts the remaining eight cards in the middle of the table. The four people take turns playing cards, taking cards, and using big cards to hit small ones. Horse tag playing is divided into banker and player. There is no fixed owner of the village, so you can sit in turns. Therefore, the three players work together to attack the banker, causing the banker to move down.

There are always different opinions on the origin of the name of the hanging tag. However, according to this card, it evolved from Horse, and the paintings on the card are all related to money: Wenqian is money, always one thousand Wenqian, and the rope is the rope through which the money is worn, that is, the money string; and in ancient times, one thousand Wenqian Wen Qian is also called Yi Diao Qian, and the shadows of "horse" and "diao" seem to be visible in it. If understood in this way, the meaning of the name of the horse tag is self-explanatory. Translated, it is probably "a card about money."

According to legend, a man named Wan Bingtiao (or "Wan Bingzhang") in the Ming Dynasty created mahjong based on "Yi Zi Ge Opera" and used his own name "Wan, Bing, and Tiao" as the three basic suits.

On the other hand, some people say that Mahjong was originally the "food protection tile" in Taicang, Jiangsu. For example: the "barrel" pattern is a gunpowder gun. Others say that the basic number of mahjong cards is 108, which represents the 108 heroes in the Water Margin. The southeast and northwest represent that these heroes come from all directions; the white color in the middle means that some of these people are middle class, some are high-ranking nobles, and some It is Bai Ding's origin.

Relevant data records that there was a large royal granary in Taicang County, Jiangsu Province, where rice was stored all year round for the "south-to-north grain diversion". Naturally, abundant food means frequent bird attacks, and a lot of food is lost every year due to bird attacks. In order to reward those who caught birds and protected the grain, the officials who managed the granary used bamboo chips to record the number of birds caught and paid out rewards based on this. This was Taicang's "Grain Protection Card". This kind of chip is engraved with various symbols and numbers, which can be viewed, played, and used as a certificate to claim bonuses. The gameplay, symbols and terms of title of this kind of food protection card are all related to catching birds.

For example, the pattern of "tube" is the cross section of a gunpowder gun, the "tube" is the barrel of the gun, and the number of tubes represents several gunpowder guns. "Suo" means "bundle", which is a bird strung with a thin rope, so the pattern of "One Suo" is represented by a bird. How many ropes are equal to how many bunches of birds there are, and the prize is calculated according to the number of birds. "Ten thousand" is the unit of reward, and tens of thousands is the amount of reward.

In addition, "south, southeast, northwest" is the wind direction, so it is called "wind". The wind direction should be taken into account when shooting birds with a gunpowder gun. "Zhong, Bai, Fa": "Zhong" means to shoot, so it is red; "White" means a white board, which is used to fire cannons; "Fa" means to issue a bounty, and receive the reward to make a fortune.

The terminology of mahjong playing is also related to catching birds and protecting food. For example, "Peng" is the sound of "Peng". Another example is that the Chengpai brand is called "Bu", "Bu" and "Falcon" are homophonic, and "Falcon" is a kind of eagle that catches birds. In addition, terms such as "eat" and "gang" are also related to bird hunting. So why is it called "Mahjong"? In the local dialect of Taicang, "Mahjong" is called "Mahjong", so playing mahjong is naturally called playing mahjong.

At the same time that horse tags became popular in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, an entertainment tool called "playing cards" (also called Mohe cards) was derived from horse tags. Cards are also played by four people. The cards made of paper are about two inches long and less than one inch wide. There are 60 cards in total at the beginning, divided into three colors: Wenqian, Suozi and Wanguan. The three colors are two from one to nine, and there are two of the three colors of unitary (i.e. the middle, hair and white in mahjong tiles). open. When playing cards, each of the four people takes ten cards first, and then takes and plays the cards in turn. Three consecutive cards are called a deck, and the player with three decks plus a pair of cards wins. The title of winning card is "和" (yin Hu). One family plays cards, and two or even three families tell them at the same time, and the one who gets the cards first wins. These tiles and playing methods are very similar to today's mahjong tiles. This kind of card game is always silent during the playing process, so it is also called silent card.

Later, people felt that the number of playing cards was too few to enjoy playing, so they put two decks of cards together to form one deck for playing. From then on, there were 120 playing cards. In terms of gameplay, in addition to three consecutive cards that can form a deck, three identical cards can also form a deck. In other words, the cards played in the upper hand can still be eaten and touched if necessary in the lower hand. At this time, the card combinations include "Kan" (three numbers from the same door are connected), "Peng" (three cards are the same), and "Open Kong" (four cards are the same). The playing cards at this time are also called "hit cards".

In the 47th chapter of "Dream of Red Mansions", "The stupid overlord was beaten for flirting, and the cold man left home in fear of misfortune", Jia Mu, Aunt Xue, Wang Xifeng and others fought against each other with the draw card. The book writes:

Yuanyang saw that Jia Mu's cards were already at 100 percent and was only waiting for one piece of two cakes, so he handed over the code to Sister Feng. Sister Feng was about to deal the cards, so she deliberately hesitated for a long time and said with a smile: "Aunt Xue holds this card in my hand. If I don't deal this card, I won't be able to deal with it anymore."...

Two cakes are two texts, and the text gate has been drawn in the shape of a round cake in the horse crane (see Pan Zhiheng's "Ye Pu" in the Ming Dynasty). This is an example of issuing the top card.

At the same time, a kind of "collision" also appeared in the dominoes, combining five cards of each of the 21 card colors into one pair. And there are provisions such as opening a bar, doubling one's own touch, playing with the husband, cheating and being punished. These playing methods and terms of dominoes were also accepted and inherited by playing cards.

There is another theory about the origin of Mahjong:

When Zheng He sailed to the Western Seas in the Ming Dynasty, there was no entertainment equipment on the ship. The soldiers on the ship could only throw dice and gamble as a pastime. But during the long voyage, the soldiers were tired of it. Some soldiers were often homesick, and some even tried to rebel. Zheng He killed them. In order to stabilize the morale of the soldiers, Zheng He invented an entertainment tool.

Zheng He used playing cards, teeth cards, Pai Gow, etc. as the basis, and used more than 100 small wood chips as the brands, and engraved 1-9 "bars" based on the fleet's preparation, and then engraved 1-9 "bars" based on the number of fresh water barrels on the ship. 9 "barrel" (barrel). Then according to the wind direction, the four wind directions of "east, west, north, south" were engraved. And 1-9 "ten thousand" were engraved with attractive money. Then with the slogan "Greater China shines in foreign lands". The red "center" was carved, and then four flower cards were carved according to the four seasons of the year. Finally, there was a card that I didn't know what to carve on, so I didn't carve anything. This is the "white board".

The first time we played, Zheng He, the deputy commander, the general, and Zheng He’s wife (eunuchs could also marry wives) played together. After the rules of the game were finally determined, the whole ship started playing this game. There was one person on the ship. The general surnamed Ma was very good at playing this game, so Zheng He named the game "Ma Da General Tiles", which later became known as "Mahjong Tiles".

Around the end of the Qing Dynasty, the four colors of east, south, west and north wind cards (four cards of each color) were added to the playing cards. The most commonly used table at that time was the square table, also called the Eight Immortals table. The name of the Eight Immortals Table comes from the fact that it can seat eight people while dining. When used for playing cards, it always faces one side, which restricts two people from sitting on one side. Gradually, it became a custom for four people to play cards, each sitting on one side. People also got inspiration from the four directions and added east, south, west and north winds to the cards.

As for the increase in the three-yuan cards of Zhong, Fa and Bai, it may be due to people's yearning for promotion and wealth. The middle is the middle examination (Zhongjieyuan, Zhonghuiyuan, Zhongzhuangyuan, called Zhongsanyuan), and getting rich means getting rich. If you win the imperial examination and become an official, you will naturally get rich. Whiteboard may mean blank and innocent.

Later, people found that when playing mahjong, they often ran out of cards and no one made the cards, which was disappointing. In order to make up for this shortcoming, the listening function was added. Initially, only two tiles were added, and gradually the number was increased to more tiles, until it developed into painted mahjong tiles.

However, due to the large number of playing cards, it is very inconvenient to pick, discard and combine cards. People were inspired by dominoes and gradually changed to bone system. It was convenient to stand the cards on the table and play them. Authentic Mahjong tiles begin here.

As for the origin of the name of Mahjong tiles, there is no way to verify it now. Possibly caused by a corruption of pronunciation. Wu Ren's pronunciation of "bird" is diào, so the horse tag becomes the horse bird tile, the ma bird tile becomes the mahjong tile, and then becomes the mahjong tile.

After the mahjong tiles were formed, everyone from the imperial court to the common people loved them. Common people also get fun from playing mahjong. A man who had good luck with cards wrote a poem:

Today’s winning round is a row of pairs of moves. Three yuan (white hair in the middle) and four happiness (south, east, northwest), slam meets unitary. Flowers come from the hair, and the moon is fished from the bottom of the sea. Stay away from the venue after the event, afraid of being knocked down.

With such good luck, who could not be happy?

Because Mahjong is complex, changeable, exciting and interesting, it has quickly become the most popular form of gambling in China since its birth. Whether they are the supreme emperor or the powerful ministers, there are many people who are interested in mahjong. As for ordinary commoners and villagers, there are countless people who like to play mahjong and fight bird cards. This fact certainly reflects the unhealthy habits of people in the feudal era who pursued excitement and were fond of gambling, but it also reflects the endless and rich interest of the game activity itself.

​Mahjong not only has unique game characteristics, but also combines intelligence, fun, and gaming. It has charm, rich connotations, and long-standing oriental cultural characteristics, and has therefore become an important part of the treasure house of traditional Chinese culture.

Mahjong is very popular in the vast urban and rural areas of our country. Its popularity involves all levels of society and all fields. It has entered thousands of households and has become the most large-scale and influential intellectual sports activity in our country. The objective existence of Mahjong is a reality that no one in China can avoid today.

As a traditional Chinese cultural phenomenon, Mahjong does have diversity in its forms of expression. Because of this, some people believe that Mahjong is an important part of traditional Chinese culture, and its unique value can be called a national treasure; others hate it deeply and believe that Mahjong is the top gambling, and its evil level is almost the same as drug abuse.

At present, the objective reality of the mahjong movement in our country has indeed reached a situation that requires positive guidance. Over the years, competitive mahjong competitions have been organized one after another across the country, especially among veteran cadres in the military and local areas. The positive and beneficial explorations in making mahjong healthy and competitive undoubtedly reflect the people's demand for the correct development of mahjong sports. This useful attempt in the direction also allows us to see that developing a healthy, positive and standardized mahjong competition is not only conducive to carrying forward traditional culture and promoting the construction of socialist spiritual civilization in our country, but also meeting the people’s growing material and cultural needs. fundamental goals are complementary to each other.

It is to achieve this goal that the State Sports General Administration authorized the Social Sports Guidance Center to organize special personnel to conduct in-depth and detailed investigation and research on the current situation, history, cultural content, theoretical scope and other aspects of Mahjong for more than two years. A large number of facts prove that Mahjong can exist and develop in the form of a healthy and civilized sports competition.

There are only more than a hundred cards in Mahjong, but the playing is colorful and involves both wit and courage. The predecessors had requirements for players who participated in playing mahjong: "When entering the game, you must first practice your cards. Your cards should be calm and not hasty. Don't be arrogant when you gain, don't be stingy when you lose. Don't be happy when things go well, don't worry when times go against you. Formed in color, silent in sound, broad in meaning, noble in character, elegant and gentle, this is superior." This reflects the purpose and spirit of Mahjong Entertainment itself.