Why do the characters (or kanji) on the mahjong tiles look the way they do? My curiosity was aroused one late night watching a Japanese language teaching programme explain some of the kanji found on the tiles. I just had to learn about the rest of them. After all, mahjong is even more fun when you know there's a little story behind every character. I find most of the kanji etymologies quite reasonable, but some of them -- I have to admit -- are just beyond me.
Below each character I've placed a link to the pronunciation in Mandarin, its Unicode value (in hex) [click to see the entry in the Unicode tables], and an animation of how to draw the character.
If you don't see any Chinese characters on this page but only question marks or strange codes, you probably haven't installed a Chinese font on your system; if you're using Netscape you may have to select the proper character set manually from the View menu. Some instructions for displaying Chinese text on Netscape (ms-windows), other systems
Disclaimer: I don't speak Chinese, I don't write Chinese, I don't read Chinese ... don't trust this information too much. If you have any corrections or additions, don't hesitate to tell me.
The kanji on the wind tiles mean exactly what you'd expect them to: the Four Corners of the compass.
A small digression: Why are the wind positions reversed in mahjong? I've heard quite a few different explanations -- one of the most credible explanations argues that in China the East wind blows in spring, South in summer, West in autumn and North in Winter. So, the natural order of winds is ESWN.
Mahjong players are named after the winds, in order of play, East South West North, in the natural order. By thus naming the players, and by playing counter clockwise, the result is a table with the wind positions mirror reversed.
東
[dong1] Unicode: 6771 Animation
The sun 日 appearing at the horizon. To show that it is on a level with the horizon, it is represented shining under the top of the 木 trees that are at the horizon.
南
[nan2] Unicode: 5357 Animation
The inner part of the kanji (Y with two horizontal strokes) represents luxuriant vegetation; the outer part represents multiplication and growth. Thus, we get the south as the regions in which luxuriant vegetation expands everywhere, i.e. the country of lianas.
西
Early form show a bird roosting, suggesting sunset and the direction thereof.
北
[bei3] Unicode: 5317 Animation
Shows two people back to back. The Chinese emperor traditionally sat facing the sun to the South, with his back to the North
The characters on the dragon tiles are not related to dragon at all. In fact the kanji for dragon is 龍
中
[zhong1] Unicode: 4e2d Animation
An enclosure being divided by a vertical line, implying the centre and some other derived meanings: within, among, in, middle, while (doing sth), during. This kanji also means China or Chinese, i.e. the Middle Kingdom.
發
[fa1] Unicode: 767c
This kanji is supposed to mean to shoot an arrow, and, by extension, any expansion, any manifestation of latent energy: to send forth, to issue, to dismiss, to utter, to produce, to rise, to be manifest, to act.
How is this green blob supposed to look anything like shooting an arrow? Well, in the lower left we have a bow 弓, at the top we have 癶(to shoot) and to the right we have 殳 meaning to trample (!) Alas, if we take the modern form of the kanji (which you should see above) at face value it means the rather nonsensical to trample with a bow. Instead of 殳 the ancient form of the character had an arrow 矢 (an arrow with its arrowhead and nock). Some mahjong sets show the ancient form instead of the modern one.
In fact, the kanji on the Green Dragon stands for fa cai [fa1 cai1] meaning growing prosperity or to get rich. Fa cai is written in two Chinese characters 發財 of which only the first is shown on the tile. The Green Dragon symbolizes the on-going cycle of nature, the eternal spirit of life.
█
The White Dragon is usually just a blank tile or a blank tile with a blue box. Western sets sometimes have the letter B; this is for 白板 [bai2 ban3] white board, 白皮 [bai2 pi2] white skin or 白壁 [bai2 bi4] white wall.
百搭
[bai3 da1] Unicode: 767e 642d Animation: 1 2
The first character 百 means one hundred. It is composed of 一 one (for obvious reasons) and 白 which is just a phonetic element. The second character 搭 means hang on, attach, match. The character is composed of 手, a pictograph of a hand and 荅 which is a phonetic element.
In combination the two characters mean matches a hundred, i.e. a joker or a wild card
萬
[wan4] Unicode: 842c
This is the kanji at the bottom of all the tiles in the Characters suit. Wan means ten thousand, myriad or a great number.
Actually, this is an ideogram of a scorpion with pincers at the top, a segmented body in the middle and a curved tail 禸 tipped with a venomous sting. What's the connection between a scorpion and 10.000? Wieger explains:
Thus the foreign student is quite puzzled when he sees the figure of a scorpion meaning also a myriad, and he wonders how any relation may be found between the two terms? The answer is very easy. There was not a proper character to mean a myriad, which was said wan in the spoken language. On the contrary, there were many characters to write scorpion and one of among them was just pronounced wan. It was dispossessed, installed in its new functions, and from that time, myriad is written with two claws and a tail.
一
One stroke. Represents the unity, principle of numeration. It figures the primordial unity, source of all being.
二
Two strokes. The number of the earth, because it makes the pair with heaven. The number of the two principles of yin and yang.
三
[san1] Unicode: 4e09 Animation
Three strokes. The number of heaven, earth and humanity.
四
An even number, which is easily divided into two halves. The pictogram represents the division into two halves.
伍
Five 五 men 人, unit of five soldiers in ancient times. 伍 is a complex form of 五, which is interpreted as the two 二 principles yin and yang that form the five (a pictograph showing four sides and the centre) elements between heaven and earth.
六
[liu4] Unicode: 516d Animation
The even number, also easily divisible, that comes after four. Imagine 四, remove the three lower edges, and mark it with a dot.
七
One 一 crossed by a curved line suggesting imperfection short of 十 ten.
八
Ideograph representing division.
九
[jiu3] Unicode: 4e5d Animation
Pictograph of a bent object suggesting limit as approach to 十 ten.
The descriptions on this page are primarily based on:
A few related links: