Clue, rat slap or spoons—there are many classic games that are played among friends, but it’s time for a change. Ma Jiang is a game originating from China consisting of four players competing for a hand that has three sets of matching tiles and one pair of matching tiles.
Ma Jiang’s 136 tiles are divided into three primary groups: number, bamboo, and dot tiles. The game is based around the goal hand including four sets of three matching tiles and one pair of matching tiles. Ma Jiang is played differently in different regions of China and now it’s spread around the world. The version described in this article is the Hunan version, the region in China which Tian Wang, US Chinese teacher, learned it.
One of Ma Jiang’s tile groups is number group. This category is made of tiles that start from one thousand then continually increase to ten thousand. Traditional Chinese numbers inscribed on the pieces. The second category of the Ma Jiang tiles is the dot tiles. The dot tiles start from one dot and increase consecutively until nine dots. Similarly, the bamboo tiles are like the dot tiles where they are numbered one through nine, though the first of the bamboo is a picture of a bird instead of a bamboo stick.

The bamboo, dot and number tiles can all be ordered in consecutive sets of three tiles (ex. 123, 456, 567, 234) or matching groups of three tiles (111, 222, 333).
The game of Ma Jiang has two more categories called the winds and the dragons. Both groups can only be ordered in matching sets and cannot be matched consecutively. The direction category, traditionally called the wind category, includes north, east, south and west, which are labeled in the Chinese translations. The dragon tiles include tiles with the character 中 inscribed, tiles with a rectangle inscribed, or a tile with 撥 inscribed.
To start the game, dice will be rolled once per person, the people with the largest number will roll one die again then add the two numbers they rolled and count counterclockwise from there to see who will start the game. From there the winner will take eight tiles from the stacks the players have set up.
While playing the game players can shout the word chao or chi for an advantage. If the player before you places a tile that would complete a consecutive set of three then the word may be said in order to finish that set. The word peng can be shouted if another player in that round discards a tile that completes a matching set of three. If either word is said aloud, the player who said it has to lay down their set and may not take it apart to finish other matching sets.