Mahjong Tiles

Background
Mahjong Tiles (sometimes known as Taipei) is a simplification of Mah Jongg, which itself is an American simplification of a Chinese game of the 19th century. (The Chinese original was played by different rules and known by different names throughout that country; one name that's come down to us translates roughly as "Game of the Four Winds.")

An American businessman named Joseph Babcock, who was living in Shanghai at the close of World War I, played the Chinese game and fell in love with it. He thought it would appeal to Americans, so he set about codifying (and streamlining) the rules. Babcock coined the name Mah Jongg for the new version; supposedly, he took this name from the bird that appears on one of the game's tiles. The bird represents a mythical figure called by the Chinese (this is an approximation) Mah Jongg, "Bird of a Thousand Intelligences."

Babcock might not have been as smart as that bird, but his hunch about the gaming marketplace was sound. Mah Jongg became a thunderous hit in the United States, Great Britain, and Australia in the 1920s. The game is still played today, though it no longer commands an army of fanatics as it did 70 years ago.Mah Jongg is superficially similar to Dominoes in that both games use tiles, or bones, and because the arrangement of the tiles forms the "board." Mahjong Tiles shares that similarity with Dominoes; it also resembles certain card games, such as Solitaire, where uncovering hidden cards is the order of the day.

** Note: Next I will talk about how to play Mahjong Tiles.