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How mahjong keeps finding new tables – one tile at a time
The next generation of mahjong players around the world is preserving and reinventing a Hong Kong tradition
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You can hear it before you see it: the chaos and clatter of shuffling tiles, the rhythmic tap-tap as miniature walls rise, followed by calls of victory erupting across the table.
For Connor Wan Cing-tsuen, this isn’t just a game but the heartbeat of his culture and an echo of a childhood spent watching relatives play. Now, he’s determined to pass it on to future generations.
Once seen as a pastime for aunties and uncles, millennials and Gen Z in Asia and across the Chinese diaspora are rediscovering mahjong as a bridge back to family, memory and identity. At the heart of this revival are a growing number of players, club organisers and artists shaping the game’s next chapter: part creative experiment, part act of cultural preservation.
For people like Wan, whose family hailed from Hong Kong’s New Territories before settling in Britain, the game is a canvas to reimagine cultural heritage on their own terms. Since 2022, Wan has helped build two volunteer-run mahjong clubs from scratch in London and Toronto under the name Four Winds, with the Toronto chapter now known as All Flowers Mahjong – spaces for people of all ages and levels to gather weekly to learn and play Hong Kong-style mahjong.
What began as small gatherings of 30 or so people has blossomed into events that now attract nearly 100, says Wan, who currently co-leads the Toronto chapter. This growth fits into a wider trend; searches for mahjong events on Eventbrite jumped 365 per cent in the United States between 2023 and 2024, and in Japan, the number of teenagers playing the game has doubled in recent years.
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