so a bunch of white ladies decided to redesign mahjong for wHiTe GiRL aEsThEtiC (because traditional Chinese tiles were too boring and didn't match their star signs), and had the caucasity to charge $425 for horribly design sets that make the game HARDER to play ~a thread~

you see that 4th tile? the one in the $325 set? it looks like a 口 right? THAT FUCKING MEANS MOUTH IN CHIENSE. They took 四 which means 4 and managed to fuck it up with horrible color contrast. the one next to it that says 3? Looks an awful lot like 二 which big surprise means 2!

The struggle is real when you're a bunch of white ladies in texas playing a Chinese game but have no Chinese people around you to show you how to play and appreciate the art despite there being a lovely Chinese poluaton in Texas.

sets look the same because it makes them easier to recognize across different sets. by making a ton of different sets with different colors icons, and whole ass themes, you'd have to relearn each set every time making the game even harder to play especially for beginners.

These white girls really out here saying mahjong need a rEsPeCtFuL rEfReSh. Girl nooo. Don't do that. Mahjong doesn't need your sorority sisters star sign on a tile. And who TF yelling "BAM" during a game?! Are you trying to PONG or is that how you say BAMBOO?!?

their designs make it so much harder to learn. Whatever they don't understand or failed to learn they deem "unnecessary and confusing" and I REALLY can't get over the fact that she just said "BIRD BAM" for the 1 bamboo tile

This was only recently added in when they got called out on their bullshit so now they tryna say they're based off American mahjong so it's okay which makes the problem SOOOO MUCH DEEPER

I'm not saying tiles should forever be only in the traditional style and having numbers next to Chinese characters IS helpful for beginners if you can't read Chinese. But this is just plain whitewashing for *aesthetic and convenience* for white people.

You can't just repackage something belonging to a culture that isn't yours and act like you started a new cultural phenomenon. This is the same deal with Lucky Lees when a white woman opened up a "CLEAN CHINESE RESTAURANT" BECAUSE SHE SAID CHINESE FOOD BY CHINESE PEOPLE WAS DIRTY

Saving you a click on case you wanted to burn your eyes out. Tf is a charleston because all I see is everyone telling everyone what tiles they have which defeats the purpose of the game!

LOOK HOW THIN THEIR "LUXURY" TILES ARE COMPARED TO ACTUAL MAHJONG TILES

I'm pretty sure this is just scrabble

I actually have to admire the amount of dedication put into this and their whole hearted belief that they werent so outrageously stupid. They paid a design agency, put together several nicely shot instructional videos, got press, a fancy site, wrote a fuck ton of copy...(cont.)

... The only thing they failed to put a dime into was be any kind of cultural education or sensitivity! The only acceptable response no matter how much money they put into this ridiculous business is to shut tf down.

Tbh it would've been really cool if a young Chinese person thoughtfully redesigned mahjong for the modern day. But this is NOT that. This is just repackaged poorly designed bullshit by some white girls who think they're starting a new cultural wave by saying "get your mahj on"

handcrafted mahjong tiles are still made today but are a dying craft because of competitive prices from mass manufacturing. there's no reason for this white girl shit to exist. if you want artisan tiles get ACTUAL ARTISAN TILES! (look up handcrafted mahjong tiles in hk for vid)

While you're burning your eyes, don't forget to take their 7 question quiz to find out which $325-425 set you should buy based on whether or not your ideal vacation is "Grabbing an espresso and croissant on the way to the Clignancourt flea market in Paris"

The agency that did their design seems to have HAD a page on the project but it's currently blank? Yes ohbd, I do I have a problem

their motto “Don’t just want it. Make it” except more like "Don't just appreciate it the way it is, steal it and make a profit off it!" They have been working on this for a year and a half and at no point did they stop to think, "damn, I'm really fucking insensitive."

someone please tell me how they got the money for this endeavor because ya girl over here is a chinese american small business owner with some goals to achieve. and I know that $600 stimulus check aint paying for no fancy website, videos, and product manufacturing

one more time for the people in the back, you telling me bambambambambambambambam is easier to read? Traditional tiles are easier to understand no matter what language you read because you can literally count the number of bamboos and dots like dominoes

on a lighter note, there is a movie trilogy called Kung Fu Mahjong. It was my favorite movie series growing up and what got me interested in playing. It's kung fu hustle but for mahjong. highly recommend watching all 3. it's in canto but you can find eng sub online

Mahjong Heroes is another great movie, older than Kung Fu Mahjong from 1981. Available on Netflix with eng sub. This movie made me want to be an old chinese man in the 70s with a mustache and pinky ring. Someday...

Mahjong Heroes opens with the song 打雀英雄傳 by sam hui (許冠傑) which happens to be the anthem of my childhood because it was later also used in Kung Fu Mahjong. He's literally singing about "the tale of a mahjong hero"

To end this rant, because it's bad for my health to think about this any longer, I wish you all the confidence of a blissfully ignorant trio of white woman. go make that $$$ ~butwithoutbeingaculturallyinsensitiveassholeplease~

I'm SO SORRY I'm back with more more. Talk about a murder on the orient amiright?

You do actually have to "Say the tile name clearly when discarding." But wtf would you even call these? This is what I mean about their redesign being HARDER to learn. They made new suits for every set. It's like if we were playing poker and suddenly there was an ace of bubbles.

"it won't feel like another language"
Yes, there is a suit of tiles with chinese characters counting 1-10 but you can buy sets with arabic numbers ("eNgLiSh NuMbErS" if that's what you think they are) and the rest of the tiles you can literally count at first glance like dominoes

To clarify, my problem isn't with white people playing mahjong. If you think it's cool, play on! But what makes this CULTURALLY insensitive is that they felt the need to "refresh" aka whitewash the game in order to make it *worthy* of playing

If u think this isnt a race thing bc American mahjong exists, think about why American mahjong exists in the first place. Was the word bamboo too Chinese for them they changed it to bam? Is mahjong too foreign and hard to pronounce so they changed it to mahj? This is whitewashing

They deleted this off their website but at some point someone thought it'd be a good idea to make "player profiles" where they call themselves mahjong experts. And throw some haikus in there which btw are Japanese but what even is "Asian" at this point

"We are always open to constructive criticism and are continuing to conduct conversations with those who can provide further insight" except during the 1.5 years we spent making this & our IG comments are still off because we're being attacked ahh! Original vs updated about page

Don't forget to support your local Chinatown small businesses here are 2 NYC Chinatown focused orgs helping restaurants survive during the pandemic:
Welcome to Chinatown
https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/the-longevity-fund-welcome-to-chinatown-small-business-relief-fund
Send Chinatown Love
https://merchant.sendchinatownlove.com/all 

My mom's hot take: "Why are they saying 'roots in both Chinese and American cultures'. Just because the Americans adapted it doesn’t mean it is rooted from Americans. The American mahjong is still rooted from Chinese."

So the agency that did the designs issued an apology but they also went through the trouble of blocking BOTH my ig accounts bruh the project ended, you did the work already, why you tryna break up after the relationship already over?

to clarify, my comment about breaking up is about them "terminating their relationship" with TML.

But I do think it's hilarious they blocked me and @DannyPlaysGamez before posting this apology saying they're going to "research ways to learn from the Asian-American community".

REAL APOLOGY DONE RIGHT! Owning up to the error WITHOUT simultaneously trying to defending it, actually being open to learning & giving back to the affected community is the BARE MINIMUM cultural appropriators need to do so it's great to see this from the photographer