When a new trend begins to take off, it eventually reaches a point when a single word becomes a cultural shorthand, a way of signaling who you are, what you care about and that — like a select, enlightened few — you’re in the know.
This happened with pickleball, sourdough, Labubus (I’ll spare you the explanation, but do look it up), and lately — mahjong, the Chinese tile game that exploded in the U.S. in the 1920s and has recently swept the country in what’s become a full-blown obsession.
On my Instagram feed, I noticed influencers showcasing their pastel-colored sets and proclaiming their passion for a newly discovered hobby.
This year, there were 94% more mahjong game nights than the year before, according to Axios. Online, about 1.8 million Americans played mahjong in the past year on the digital platform Mahjong 4 Friends.
People are converting their basements into game parlors. Then, at a July 4 party, I met Katie Baird, who uttered a sentence I had never heard before: “I’m a mahjong instructor.”
And so began my quest to understand what was so irresistible, and even addicting, about the game — and what this widespread obsession might be saying about the moment we’re in.
In search of answers, one Tuesday afternoon in July, I drove to Park City to visit Après Mahjong, a game parlor tucked inside an office building in the middle of downtown. Vintage posters, necklaces with tile pendants and ski-themed décor adorned the room.
Natalie Stouffer, the co-founder of Après Mahjong and a former elementary teacher, had just finished teaching a strategy mahjong session. Now she hovered over the tables, offering pointers to beginners trying to wrap their heads around the game’s convoluted rules.
After her first lesson in a friend’s basement nearly four years ago, she felt both confused and excited. But what she especially loved was being around other women, since she lives with her husband and son. Since opening the parlor 16 months ago, Stouffer and her business partner have taught mahjong to over 1,200 people. And the requests continue to pour in — they hear from about 10 people in a week looking to schedule a class or private event. “It’s a really cool connection point to have,” Stouffer told me. “You just need one thing in common, one thing to talk about with people — and you become really fast friends.”
In a culture exhausted by the demands of “leaning in” and keeping pace with whatever version of womanhood Instagram has prescribed any given week — women are ready for a break. But instead of a spa trip or a massage, they’re opting in for a different kind of self-care: the clatter of tiles, a table of friends and a few hours with nowhere else they need to be.
From China to America
Mahjong’s American story is a tangled one, bound up with class, race, immigration and the ways women reimagined leisure.
Mahjong emerged in China in the mid-to-late 19th century, near Shanghai, and was initially known as a gambling game for men. Joseph Park Babcock, a businessman from Indiana working in China, became a fan of mahjong and then a key figure in popularizing the game in America by publishing simpler rules and selling mahjong sets to Americans. Soon Abercrombie & Fitch and other retailers were selling mahjong sets and travelers returning from China brought the game home in their luggage.
At one point, mahjong sets were Shanghai’s sixth-largest export to the United States, according to Annelise Heinz, author of 2021 book “Mahjong: A Chinese Game and the Making of Modern American Culture.”
“It’s often understood as an ancient game and it’s not,” Heinz, a historian at the University of Oregon, told me.
The 1920s mahjong boom arrived in the U.S. during a period of immigration restrictions, especially against Asians, and a rising tide of nativism. Yet advertisers sold the game as a combination of “ancient Eastern mystery, modern cosmopolitanism, and Jazz Age glamour,” Heinz writes. She explains that mahjong’s popularity created economic opportunities for Chinese Americans, but also helped perpetuate racist stereotypes about the game and its instructors.
American craze quickly became associated with women, especially as middle and upper-class white women adopted the game as a fashionable form of social pastime.
In 1937, a group of Jewish women in New York founded the National Mah Jongg League to standardize the game’s rules around an annual card of winning hands, creating what is now known as American mahjong.
Nearly a century later, mahjong would undergo another transformation — this time from a game played largely within Chinese American and Jewish communities into a post-pandemic social phenomenon.
The origins of its latest boom are traced to the South, and Texas in particular, during COVID.
“I think we all got locked up in our houses, and then we got out and we didn’t know how to socialize,” said Heather Cannon from Columbus, Georgia, an instructor and creator of Bam Good Time, a mahjong platform now used by more than 500 clubs across the country to organize events and handle transactions. The game pulled people out of the homes and gave them a reason to be together.
According to Cannon’s research, Texas has the most mahjong clubs in the country, with 97, followed by Florida and California.
With this new resurgence, also came a heated controversy.
In 2021, Dallas-based company The Mahjong Line, founded by three white women, drew backlash for redesigning traditional tiles and marketing them as a “respectful refresh.” After a surge of accusations from many Asian Americans that the campaign whitewashed and erased the game’s Chinese heritage, the company apologized.
“For me, the fact that mahjong contains incredible diversity and the tiles can connect across cultural divides is profoundly beautiful,” Heinz wrote in an open letter, breaking down the controversy. Luxury mahjong tile sets can cost upward of $400, but more affordable sets are available online for around $50.
The old game – which Heinz describes as “the game of the senses” – also comes during a new and unique moment of screen exhaustion and desire to get away from it. “We’re really in an increasingly disconnected society and in an increasingly digital society,” Heinz said. “And this is a deeply analog game.”
The game that brings out the best — and the worst
As I reported this story, I found that mahjong was like a portal that invited players into a game, but led somewhere deeper. I heard how the game brought grandparents, parents and children together; turned players into best friends and travel companions.
On Reddit, people posted about discovering mahjong sets tucked away in their grandparents’ attics, trying to date the tiles and trace them back to their family history. One woman told me she began playing after her grandmother died. Mahjong became a way she grieved her. One podcast host said, “I feel so smart when I play that game.”
At a free-play session at Après Mahjong, each table seemed to have a personality of its own. The beginners were quiet, their heads down as they concentrated on every move. At an advanced table, women slammed their tiles down and chuckled loudly: “3 bam!” “2 bam!” “6 crack!”
At one point, the table broke into chirping and cawing — a ritual in which players use bird calls when a “1 bam” tile, traditionally illustrated with a bird, is discarded.
One table had only three women, who were playing “house rules” without strictly following the rules established by the National Mah Jongg League.
Learning to play is messy and confusing, instructor Katie Baird explained. Hence, the explosion of demand for instructors.
“It’s one of those things that your friend or your neighbor can explain to you, but it will be a frustrating learning curve,” said Baird. Even following the National Mah Jongg League rule book can be frustrating to newcomers. There is no official certification to teach mahjong, but teachers can apply through private companies like Oh My Mahjong. Baird had to take a 25-question test, watch a training video and buy some tiles. What really matters, women insist, is playing – a lot.
Women told me that the game felt like a ritual, demanding focus and structure in a way that left them feeling rejuvenated. Natasha Commers told me that playing allowed her to “disconnect” from daily routines. “You’re focusing on something else, other than your kids or work,” she said. “It’s therapeutic.” Others said they liked “chasing the win,” the combination of skill and luck and the satisfying feel and sound of moving tiles.
For more introverted types, the table and the mat provided a social buffer, a chance to interact with others, but on their terms, without getting too vulnerable. “The game protects you from real conversation,” said Kendall Jackson, who said she doesn’t like going out. Sara Turner, who learned to play with Jackson, interjected: “Kendall, you’re my friend and I know things about your life, OK?”
Sure, Jackson conceded. Still, she liked easing into a relationship with a mat and tiles in between. “It’s a slow burn friendship,” Jackson said.
For some mahjong — amplified by social media — became a path to reinvention. Marian Brown, 72, worked as a labor and delivery nurse and doula for over 40 years in Texas. She still remembers the Ceylon Blue set from The Mahjong Line she played with the first time. “I liked touching the tiles, I liked how artistic and pretty they were,” she said.
Now, both online and in her country club, she’s known as Mahjong Marmee, filming her videos in bright, colorful outfits. She’s part of the mahjong league called Bambird Scramble and has taught over 2,500 people — with her students ranging from 4 to 94 (there are classes for kids called “Lil’ Mahj.”)
“You get that rush when you get done, and it feels good,” she told me, noting that the game gives her an endorphin and adrenaline boost and keeps her mind sharp. This September, she’ll host a mahjong cruise, her second one, and it’s already sold-out. “At this time of my life, I’ve reinvented myself,” Brown said. “And that’s amazing.”
But alongside a generally escapist and fun experience, sometimes the game brings out a darker side in its players — what some Park City players jokingly called the “mahjong monsters.”
“People start pouting or becoming passive aggressive when things don’t go their way. It’s a whole vibe,” said Cortney Johanson, who told me playing mahjong caused a rift with one of her best friends. They no longer speak.
Stouffer has mediated her share of tensions at the parlor. She chalks it up to the same friction any close relationship would generate under pressure. “It’s like being with your family on a trip for seven days,” she said. “Someone is going to get in a fight.”
For Brown, the tension comes down to how seriously players approach the game. One time, she recalled, during a timed tournament, a player took off to the bathroom midmatch – twice – causing the team to lose the tournament. “You need to be serious, you need to be committed, you need to be prepared,” she said. But when she’s playing for fun or leading a lesson, it’s different: “When I’m teaching, I give a lot of grace.”
A third space
Despite its international roots, mahjong to me felt like something intensely local – like a social glue that kept distinct parts of the community together. Both Cannon in Georgia and Utah’s Stouffer have partnered with local libraries, restaurants and coffee shops. Cannon hosted games at the local botanical garden.
“I have people who are physicians, who are teachers, who are stay-at-home moms and others high-up in their jobs – they’re all at the same table,” said Cannon, whose husband built their platform Bam Good Time. “It created a kind of melting pot of community.”
But the biggest payoff for her has been at home.
Her four children now ask her to play rather than disappearing into their phones. Instead of retreating to a room with a book or turning on the television at night, she brainstorms with her husband about their mahjong venture. She taught him how to play.
“Men are becoming more involved because men are realizing this is something they can do with their wives,” she said.
Stouffer hopes that Après Mahjong in Park City can be a third space for people to come and hang out. Even if it’s just to use a clean bathroom, she said. They have needlepoint classes and have a plan to equip the kitchen with a coffee and snack bar.
“We want to create a space where people can say ‘I go there and I belong,” she said. “No one likes to be rejected, and people have said that they want to feel like they belong to a group. I think that’s a basic human need.”
