Mahjong

The Mahjong group met at my house this afternoon and we had a full house, all six of us. I decided it would be an opportunity to play with the set that my father made, back in the 1940s. The wooden tiles are beautifully shaped in the traditional way with curved backs. I seem to remember being told that he used to sit on the train on his daily commute, with a block of wood and sandpaper, ready to give the blocks their distinctive shape. Some of the faces are intricately carved, other are fairly simple. The numbers look as though they were punched with typewriter keys. Some are a bit faded. and I stopped using them regularly when somebody complained she couldn’t read them. No problem today, my friends loved playing with them.
We were discussing dates for our forthcoming lunch outing to celebrate the Chinese New Year when I realise that today would have been my father’s birthday! A good day to be playing with his tiles. He was born in 1914 but died when he was just forty years old.
On a brighter note, the cakes were popular.