Poem Response

The Mah-Jong Players

under the halo
of a hanging lamp

Yellow ivories
clacking in the night

Tobacco fingers
build walls of China

Circles birds flowers
swirling through the game

The poem I chose to write about is titled “The Mah-Jong Players” from the book Crazy Melon and Chinese Apple – The Poems of Frances Chung. In this poem she is writing about people playing a game of Mah-Jong, which is like the Chinese version of the card game “Jin Rummy”. The poem paints a picture of a group of smoking men playing MJ at a table under a dim light one Friday night. They are probably playing to de-stress from all the work from the day and sit down to a good time. All the jade colored tiles clacking around while they build their walls and then, while the game plays out the different tiles come out – the circles, birds, and flowers. As they are playing I can just hear them talking in Chinese about their lives and also yelling about the cards that are out and what tiles they should’ve kept or not.

I chose it because the game Mah-Jong touches close to home with me. My family and I play weekly after our Friday night dinners. We also play on holidays and any other time we are either at my grandparents’ house or all get together on a Sunday. Although, it is usually just the women in the family who play, every now and then my grandpa, dad, cousins, or uncles will join in. I always look forward to good old family bonding time at the MJ table, but nowadays work and school has not allowed me to go to many of the Friday dinners so I don’t get to play as much – which makes me a little sad.

I can recall many funny memories from games that were played throughout the years. Like this one that involves my Pau Pau (grandma), who really only knows Cantonese, but she has picked up a little English with time. So, one night, we were playing and when she dropped out the bird tile, she said “birdie-ah, cheep cheep.” That made us all laugh and now she always says birdie. Also, it’s funny how my grandpa can play without organizing any of his cards and still win. One time, he was playing and I was standing behind him mid game and noticed all his cards were jumbled, but then all of a sudden he just peeked over at my aunt’s cards and said “oh, nice.” Everyone was saying “hey! No cheating Gong Gong,” but then he plops his cards down with the win. Now I like to peek over at the person next to me’s cards when I pick my own tile and win. Oh how I love the hilarious things my grandparents do!


This is a pic of three "Fat Choy" tiles (and two 4 of circles), where this character is for good luck. You can also see the tile walls in the background and a couple playing hands.