The four winds
The wind tiles carry the characters 東 (east), 南 (south), 西 (west) and 北 (north), usually in black or dark blue. Many sets add a small Latin letter — E, S, W, N — in the corner to help Western players. There are four of each, sixteen in all.
Winds are tied to the seating system. A triplet of your own seat wind, or of the round's prevailing wind, earns extra points in Chinese and Japanese scoring. In American Mah Jongg winds simply appear as required tiles in particular card hands, such as hands built from winds and dragons.
The three dragons
The red dragon shows 中 (zhong, "centre" or "middle"), the green dragon shows 發 (fa, "prosper" or "get rich", the first character of the New Year wish facai), and the white dragon is either blank or decorated with a blue rectangular frame. English names for the white dragon include "soap" and "blank".
Every style values dragons. A triplet of any dragon scores in Chinese and Japanese mahjong, and the hands Big Three Dragons and Little Three Dragons are celebrated patterns. In American play the dragons are linked to suits: red with characters, green with bamboo and white with dots — and the white dragon also stands for zero in year hands.
Why honours behave differently
Because honours have no numbers, they can only be used in pairs, triplets and quads. That makes them less flexible than suited tiles: a lone honour tile needs exactly one of three remaining copies to become a pair, and two more for a triplet. Beginners therefore often discard isolated honours first.
The flip side is that honour sets are worth more in many scoring systems, and honours are relatively safe discards late in the game once several copies have been seen. Learning when to keep and when to throw honours is one of the first strategic lessons in every style.
Reading the characters
You only need to recognise seven characters for all the honour tiles, and the shapes are distinctive. East looks like a tree with the sun behind it, south has a roof-like top, west resembles a box with legs, and north is two figures back to back. Red dragon is a box with a line through the centre; green dragon is the busiest, most complex character in the set.
Many players learn them through a cheat sheet or by playing a few hands with a set that has corner letters. After a few evenings, recognition becomes automatic.
