Learning to enjoy a night on the tiles with my in-laws

With a clip of Hollywood actress Julia Roberts doing the rounds in China whereby she reveals her passion for playing mahjong, I'd thought it fitting that I too share my love for the popular tile-based game.

Developed in China in the 1800s, a relatively new game by Chinese standards, mahjong — originating from the word for sparrow in southern dialects — sees four players sitting around a table drawing and discarding tiles in order to be the first to achieve four sets of three and one pair.

The star of Pretty Woman and My Best Friend's Wedding said during an American talk show interview that mahjong was "creating order from chaos by the random drawing of tiles", which is a rather more spiritual way of describing any number of card games, but something I thoroughly agree with the Oscar winner about.

However, I differ from Ms Roberts in her characterization of the game as being one that calms her down. In my experience playing against grizzled mahjong pros (Grandma Ling and Uncle Wang for example) after lunch during the Spring Festival holiday, the atmosphere is frenetic — for me at least.

No sooner have I drawn my original set of 13 tiles and clumsily arranged them in order, than the game has started and Grandma Ling and Uncle Wang are already waiting for me to take my turn. Uncle Wang casually flips a tile between his thumb and middle finger, using the forefinger to caress the raised edges of the face of the tile so that he can discern its identity without even looking at it. Grandma Ling patiently works her way through a bowl of time-wasters (sunflower seeds), as I dumbly paw through my tiles like a cat at a computer screen.

Once I've made my turn, the others at lightning pace begin to chi (to grab from the discarded pile a tile that completes a straight of three tiles), peng (to grab from the discarded pile a tile that completes a set of three identical tiles), and gang (to grab from the discarded pile a tile that completes a set of four identical tiles).

Despite the saying in mahjong that new players have the best luck, I rarely ever hule — complete a hand before the other players.

Ms Roberts does not divulge in her interview which version of mahjong she plays, for there are many variations, too many to go into detail about here, but I play the standard game with the inclusion of north, south, east, west tiles; flower tiles; fa tiles; zhong tiles; and baiban tiles. Those who play mahjong will know what I'm talking about.

The game had, for many years, been associated with gambling in China until there was a push in the late '90s to clean up the scene, and today, at least at the tables I frequent, there's no gambling, no smoking and no drinking.

And judging from her interview, Ms Roberts also adheres to these chaste principles while hitting the tables. An attitude and approach that can be admired, and one that I approve of, too. That being said, after losing for hours on end, a drink here or there wouldn't go amiss.