Mahjong is an “old woman’s game,” or so Jon Gann thought until he learned to play and got hooked.
“My mother played the entire time I grew up,” the Washington, D.C., native said. “I had no desire.”
That changed when a friend of Gann’s suggested a round of the traditional tile-based game while wearing caftans and sipping on cosmopolitans. Gann was sold.
Mahjong, a game that’s part chance and part skill, has roots in 19th-century China. Labeled “the game of a hundred intelligences” and “the gift of heaven,” it gained unexpected traction as a hobby among American Jewish women.
Gann, who picked up the tiles in 2020, is the founder of the DMV’s first social mahjong playing league. He introduced Mad Mahj in December with an open house and launched the league on Jan. 7 in the nation’s capital.
“It’s based on American mahjong, standard National Mah Jongg League card rules, but we’ve added some special additions to make the game a little faster, a little more interesting, … with the idea that, hopefully, if it takes off here, we can do it in other places not in the DMV,” Gann said.
Mad Mahj features eight-week tournament seasons for mahjong mavens. Gann’s goal? To facilitate five seasons a year.
Gann has organized mahjong lessons and taught DMV residents the rules of the game along with a friend and small team of instructors for the past two years. “DC Mahjong” saw large interest. Nearly 30 attendees would pack into the Capital Jewish Museum on Sunday afternoons for drop-in instruction.
Tuesday games at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in D.C. also saw almost 100 players every week, according to Gann.
“There’s so much mahjong going on,” said Gann, who runs these programs free of charge.
Gann, who spends up to 20 hours a week on programming, wanted to shake things up by making these gatherings more social — and maybe even turn a profit.
“The reason I think mahjong is taking off is because it’s fun, but I think people are just dying to … [have] some sort of social activity,” Gann said. “I think people are tired of socializing online only, and this is a way to do that.”
In between sips of specialty cocktails, the 27 attendees at the launch event talked, laughed and got to know one another at Urban Roast, a cafe-restaurant hybrid in downtown D.C. The atmosphere may have helped set Mad Mahj players at ease: “That’s why it’s in a bar.”
All eight tournament sessions will take place at Urban Roast. If future seasons grow, Gann may expand to add another night at a second location.
“We need to provide more than just the game,” Gann said, adding that his icebreaker activities serve to get attendees relaxed and acquainted. “We know that’s why people are joining us. It’s because they want to be in front of other people. If we can make that happen, why not make it happen?”
After the conversation starters, tiles begin hitting the table, and it’s game time. Games of four are randomly assigned to allow for new friendships.
“It’s a fun, social game,” Gann said.
The game’s very nature elicits conversation. Unlike a quick shuffle of poker cards, mahjong players must reset tiles in between rounds, which leaves time to build community.
It’s not just among older women, either. “A lot of young people are learning it,” Gann said, citing a spike in gameplay after mahjong was featured in a scene in “Crazy Rich Asians.” “When we see new people learning at the library, at least, it definitely skews younger: early 20s through 40s are the majority.”
Mad Mahj reflects a wider trend in the Jewish DMV and beyond. The “Mahjong and Mimosas” joint program between the Pozez JCC of Northern Virginia and Herndon’s Congregation Beth Emeth teaches the basics of this “timeless game.”
Many other JCCs and synagogues host American mahjong classes or gatherings. For some, that’s their only draw to a JCC.
Mahjong dates back to southern China in the mid-1800s. More than a century ago, the game spread to other countries, resulting in at least 40 known iterations of mahjong around the world today, according to The Mahjong Line.
The game contains American roots as well. In the 1920s, businessman Joseph P. Babcock brought mahjong to the U.S., where it became an “enormous national fad,” according to National Geographic. The first imported mahjong sets flew off the shelves at Abercrombie & Fitch in New York City.
“It became very fashionable very quickly. It became fashionable amongst Jewish women because it was sort of a sign of assimilation,” Gann said.
The game was also a way for Jewish women to get together and talk about their families. At the time, women might not have been able to gather in a synagogue setting in the same way their husbands could.
Mahjong remains as popular as ever, and Gann is glad to provide an avenue for both gameplay and social gathering in D.C.
“I’ve spent the past 37 years being a community organizer,” Gann said.
A film producer, he co-created the DC Shorts Film Festival in 2003 and ran various arts events.
“I do all kinds of stuff to bring people together,” Gann said. “And so to me, this is just one more way to bring people together.”
