Henrietta Hay's Column

It is always fascinating to me when nearly forgotten things out of the past suddenly pop up in the modern world. This happened to me as I spent a recent afternoon playing Mah Jongg.

I come from a long line of games players. We played rummy and dominoes and Parcheesi at home when I was a kid, and Monopoly and cribbage and canasta as my own kids were growing up. We never got into bridge as a family, but my lawyer son has since turned into an expert contract bridge player.

One game that I especially remember from my youth is the one game my mother was addicted to, Mah Jongg. I have a mental picture of her and her cronies sitting around a card table with the tiles clicking as they played their cut-throat games.

One of my most treasured keepsakes is the Mah Jongg set they used, stored in its beautiful mahogany chest. It was made in China sometime in the twenties or before. Each tile is crafted of bamboo and ivory neatly dovetailed together and polished so that it has a wonderful velvety feel. A great part of the charm of the game is the sensuous feel of the tiles, much more satisfying to me than cards.

Mah Jongg is a very old game which originated in China, some say before the 12th century. It has been known by many names, one of which is ma chiao, meaning house sparrow. Amy Tan's wonderful book, "The Joy Luck Club" takes its title from the name of the women's Mah Jongg Club. I have not seen the movie based on the book, which is advertised as a "four-hankie classic," but the teasers show the Chinese women intent on their Mah Jongg games.

Mah Jongg enjoyed a remarkable boom in America when it was introduced in the 1920's. The many Chinese sets of rules were standardized and the current name was adopted as the official one. Now sixty years later, the game is becoming popular again. Even baby boomers are addicted. There are clubs in most cities, and books of rules and strategy are appearing in the bookstores. Strategy is certainly needed. I discovered that very quickly the afternoon that some local players graciously let me sit in on their game. You cannot park your brains at home, especially when you are a tyro playing with highly competitive experts.

The computer has nearly destroyed the tradition of playing table games. From the day my four-year-old grandson beat me at the very simple computer game I was trying to teach him, I knew the tradition was doomed. The kids and lots of adults are much more excited by the Super Mario Brothers and Terminator than by gin rummy. I must confess that I too have chased Carmen San Diego all over America and have created a world or two with Sim Earth.

But there is still hope for the kind of games we play with people instead of a computer or TV screen. Bridge, of course, has never disappeared, nor has poker, but it they are not usually family games Trivial Pursuit gets dusted off occasionally and new versions of Monopoly are still around. For evenings with two people sitting in near silence using up brain power there is chess. And for the somewhat less ambitious, backgammon and checkers.

One of my favorite catalogs shows nothing but games. The ancient Chinese must have had a lot of time on their hands. The catalog includes a very expensive Mah Jongg set, new versions of Chinese checkers and "Go," another oriental board game from the 6th century.

Last Christmas my friend the philosopher ruined about two months of my evenings with a gift of a mystery story that could only be solved by working a huge, complicated jigsaw puzzle. Revenge will be sweet this year. I'm debating between a three dimensional puzzle and a 13 foot long Escher puzzle about which the catalog says, "This may just be the ultimate jigsaw challenge."

I'm not trying to solve the problems of the world here, but I suspect that family games did have a valuable place in society. I think I'll do my part by brushing up on Mah Jongg and finding out why my mother enjoyed it so much.