Treaty ports and merchants
The Yangtze delta of the late nineteenth century was busy, wealthy and well connected. Ningbo merchants were influential in Shanghai, which was becoming China's greatest port. The game travelled with them, and Shanghai's teahouses, clubs and homes became its first great stage.
From there it spread along the coast to Fuzhou, Xiamen and Guangzhou, and up the rivers to Wuhan, Chongqing and Chengdu. Railways built in the early twentieth century helped carry it north to Beijing and Tianjin.
A Republican-era craze
By the 1910s and 1920s mahjong was played across social classes. Writers and intellectuals of the Republic of China era described it as a national obsession, sometimes approvingly as a social glue and sometimes critically as a waste of time. Famous figures, from politicians to film stars, were known as enthusiastic players.
Its popularity in China helped trigger its export: foreigners living in Shanghai and other treaty ports learned the game and took it home.
Regional rules develop
As the game spread, local communities adjusted the rules. Southern Chinese players developed what became the Cantonese and Hong Kong style; Taiwan later embraced a sixteen-tile game; Sichuan stripped out honour tiles; northern cities developed their own scoring conventions. There was no national rule book.
That diversity remains today. A visitor who plays in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Beijing may encounter four different sets of rules — all of them called mahjong.
Mahjong in daily life
By the mid-twentieth century the sound of tiles was part of everyday life in Chinese cities: on doorsteps, in teahouses, at weddings and festivals. The game's social role — a reason to gather family and neighbours — was established long before it became an international hobby.
