#10 Mahjong, Y'all – Paula Brown & Melissa Taylor

Amy Keys (00:01) Welcome to Just a Thought with Amy Keys. We are here to inspire, educate, inform, and entertain. On today's episode, I am so excited to welcome Paula Brown and Melissa Taylor with Mahjong, y'all. So welcome, ladies. Amy,

Paula Brown (00:17) How are you?

Amy Keys (00:18) they've they've stepped away from the tiles, the cards, and the mats to come and give us a little time to talk about the addicting, beautiful, wonderful game of Mahjong. And

I'm so excited because a lot of people who will listen to this are already on the Mahjong train. They already know. And I thought it would be fun to try to kind of navigate this podcast to talk to the people who are not on board yet, because it's really easy to get on board. Yes. When you

Paula Brown (00:48) Yes.

Amy Keys (00:48) have the right teachers like these wonderful ladies. Yeah.

Melissa Taylor (00:51) Thank you.

Amy Keys (00:52) I actually learned how to play Mahjong with you two May of 2025.

I wanted to play. I wanted to learn. And I texted my friend Mandy and I said, Hey, I knew she'd be somebody who would say yes to trying something new. And I said, Would you buy you wanna take a class at Truffle Pig? There's like four slots left. And if for those of you that don't know, Truffle Pig is a darling gift shop in Carrierville on Houston Levee, Carrierville, Tennessee. So they do classes there once they close in the evenings. And I did not know.

Well, I knew you, Paula. Yes. You did a corsage for homecoming years ago for my son.

Paula Brown (01:31) Your son well, and we go back further than that because of my first grade student, you painted my little dog Mopsy on a gift that she gave me. So we go back about ten years.

Amy Keys (01:41) And

we didn't I didn't even know I did we didn't even know it 'til we knew it, right? Like I didn't. But so we took the class and I I could not believe how quickly I caught on. I was very skeptical, but I feel like I caught on because of how I was taught and who taught me. and Mandy and I had a blast. And then our friend Marissa came in and filled in on somebody else's slot last minute. And so then I think just Mandy and I came back the second

Time for the second like strategy class. We

Paula Brown (02:13) I think that sounds right.

Amy Keys (02:15) had played a little bit that week or so before and were like, we're hooked. We knew we were hooked. We knew we were gonna buy sets.

Paula Brown (02:23) All those things

Melissa Taylor (02:24) It doesn't take much. Once it clicks, you're in.

Amy Keys (02:27) It doesn't and I I'm gonna make myself down sound really stupid, but I'm not the most like book smart, savvy learner. So if everybody before we talk about this, if I can learn it, you can too, if you have the right teachers. So anyway, I would love to pop this off with a couple little stats. The average age of a mahjong player is fifty-five.

It is rapidly growing in the twenties to forties niche and becoming more popular with our youth, which I love. Mm-hmm. And it I would say that I, if anybody remotely has met me, I probably have like undiagnosed ADD or something because I have a lot of those behaviors. And I did a little research on it be because I wanted to know why do I like it so much? And I found out that for people with, you know,

A D D, ADHD. It helps with mindful focus, making quick decisions, pattern recognition, sustained attention, which boy is that hard for me, and working memory. And doesn't all that sound familiar when you play the game?

Paula Brown (03:39) It really does.

Melissa Taylor (03:40) feeds into my O C D okay.

Amy Keys (03:42) Okay? Yes.

Melissa Taylor (03:43) I love the lining up of tiles and seeing the patterns and some people like to play messy. I don't like to play messy. I want a wall so that I know that next tile is mine so I don't have to make a decision. okay. And okay yeah. So all the patterns just really speak to me.

Amy Keys (04:01) So it's like an emotional mental support game. Literally, I know that I know that sounds funny, but I

Paula Brown (04:07) I think it is. I have to go to my mental support group today.

Amy Keys (04:09) Right. I mean, like everybody's gonna be happier if I played Mahjong. So okay, so I thought you'd be the best people to describe. What is Mahjong? Plain and simple.

Paula Brown (04:21) Well, it's an addiction, number one. Yes. And it is not that game you play on your phone of concentration where you match the tiles and they flip away. That is what it is not. Okay.

Amy Keys (04:32) Right, yep, yep. Right.

Melissa Taylor (04:34) Mahjong is is really an an old tile game that started in the eighteen hundreds in Asia and it has come over to America and the States in about the nineteen twenties. And it's just a game of matching your tiles that you're dealt to a pattern. And that pattern changes every year when the card changes in April-ish. So it's you draw a tile, see if it works with the hand you're trying to do, and discard a tile. That's the simplicity of it.

Although there's a lot more to it, that's the simple answer.

Paula Brown (05:08) Well, and it's a game that has staying power. I mean, almost like Monopoly. I don't even know how old Monopoly is, but just this version of the game with the card that you play alongside, that's eighty nine years old. So it has so much staying power that it keeps getting introduced to different age groups and generations.

Amy Keys (05:30) Yeah, like I want my kids to play. Right. I want them to learn it. And they have learned it and they beat me every time.

Melissa Taylor (05:36) Yeah. My daughters play. Their husbands play. My husband plays and beats me a lot more than I like.

Paula Brown (05:42) My husband does not play.

Amy Keys (05:44) Mine won't either. And I think we were talking before the show about how he thinks I make up rules as I go along and I don't. He just doesn't play enough to know the rules. Like he gets upset when he's like, Well, I don't know why I can't have a joker, but I can have everyone else. I said, You can't have a joker because that's the rule. Well, you didn't tell me last time. Or you didn't tell me I could pick up a a pair. You can't pick one up on a pair. He he thinks I make things up, but I don't make things up.

Paula Brown (06:11) He just needs the right teacher.

Amy Keys (06:12) Right. He needs to come to Trouble Pig and take a class. That's right. I also wanted to add that I have heard it people can compare it to a combination of poker, memory, probability, and psychology all in one game. And I can kind of see that. Mm-hmm.

Paula Brown (06:30) You know, originally it was considered the poker of China. because it was a gambling game for men. Right. And it really in China everywhere.

Melissa Taylor (06:40) Still the values on the card are actually supposed to be cents, not just points. So

Amy Keys (06:47) Wow, I never really thought of that about the fact that men it started as a men's gambling game. And and I don't know if anybody knows this, but mahjong means sparrow because of the clicking sound on the rack, right? Or is it when they

Melissa Taylor (07:04) When you watch.

Amy Keys (07:05) Because I don't click on a rack. Am I supposed to

Melissa Taylor (07:07) No, you're not supposed to click on it right now. Should fully rack on your slant.

Amy Keys (07:11) Some of my friends click, we'll get to that in a minute, but interesting.

Paula Brown (07:15) Let's make a note to come back to that.

Amy Keys (07:18) So how did y'all discover Mahjong? Like how did it come to your life?

Paula Brown (07:23) I started seeing it on social media, all the pictures of the tiles and just plain ordinary tiles. And it was just I don't know how it even showed up the first time on my feed, but then you know how it is. Once you see it once, you see it twice and ten times and everything in between. And then the pretty tiles came along and

Amy Keys (07:41) Freddy tiles.

Paula Brown (07:43) and I saw how orderly they were and I was like, I want to play this game. I want to learn it. Melissa would love this because of how orderly these tiles are.

Melissa Taylor (07:52) And what we didn't know, we've been friends for over thirty-five years, but I was also intrigued. I had some friends that played. I've recently discovered they were playing Wright Patterson Mahjong. There are different types of mahjong. But I just thought it was so cool. And I had watched them play a game at a party and I thought, I want to do that. So we ended up taking the class together.

Amy Keys (08:14) What is Wright Patterson Mahjong? It

Melissa Taylor (08:16) It

is a type of of Mahjong that was developed on air force bases. And really in Japan is where it started and then those military wives took it to other bases and they have their own version of play.

Amy Keys (08:31) Wow, I I learn something new every day.

Melissa Taylor (08:33) Yeah.

It's very different. Instead of the card they have a booklet. And it doesn't change. It's the same booklet.

Paula Brown (08:39) And there's many different versions of in the Asian culture. There's a Chinese version, there can be one from Laos. There there are so many different versions of Mahjong that we teach and we play American Mahjong.

Amy Keys (08:52) So you introduced your O C D friend to Mahjong. Is that how this works? You're like, my O C D friend would like to line these up. Yes.

Melissa Taylor (09:00) She

loves to line these up. Yeah.

Amy Keys (09:03) And so then you decided you played the game, you liked the game, and then you decided, Well, we're just gonna start teaching it.

Melissa Taylor (09:10) Okay. You are both people who have personalities that kinda go all in with something, wouldn't you agree?

Paula Brown (09:17) Well I I think pretty true.

Melissa Taylor (09:19) Yeah. So we started playing and we were hooked and wanted to play often.

Paula Brown (09:25) And I think with my I'm a retired teacher and so it's just kind of a natural thing. I could teach somebody how to play this. and I was never Melissa has hobbies out the wazoo. I was

Melissa Taylor (09:37) Serial hobbyists.

Paula Brown (09:38) Yeah. I she's

Amy Keys (09:39) I don't know what some of these are.

Paula Brown (09:41) so talented. I was the ki type girl, okay, scrapbooking, I'm gonna buy all the cute stickers and the cute, you know, double sided tape and glue dots, but then I'm gonna drop it after three months. And I'm not a reader.

I don't know how many books she reads a year. It's it disgusting. I read on the beach, but now I take my card and look at it on the beach. But that's what I read. You might

Amy Keys (10:02) No. Do you really? Do you really like to study your card?

Paula Brown (10:08) I went to not this year but the year before I I went to the beach the second week of April and the cart new card had just come out and I took my tribal tiles and that's what I did on the beach is I it's either sat by the poolside at the table and manipulated the tiles different ways, but then I studied the card when we were out at the sand. And that's what I mean I needed to be familiar with it. Wow.

Amy Keys (10:31) That is serious business. Okay, I gotta know some of your hobbies besides reading and mahjong.

Melissa Taylor (10:36) I do smocking. Okay. Quilting. Okay. Needlepoint. Read.

Paula Brown (10:41) She's

Melissa Taylor (10:42) Reading. I read a lot.

Amy Keys (10:44) What kind of reading do you like? What kind of genre?

Melissa Taylor (10:46) little bit of everything. I I like a good historic fiction. Favorites.

Amy Keys (10:50) Me too. That's my fan favorite.

Melissa Taylor (10:52) And then I've read a lot of fantasy lately because that's what my daughters read. So I wanted to know what they were talking about because I you know, need to know what they're doing. Yeah. So it was, you know, I read a lot of different things. I don't really enjoy crime, murder, mystery kind of stuff.

Amy Keys (11:11) Okay. So it's interesting that you like smocking and those kinds of things because it's all like so perfectly done and if you like things lined up sort of O C Dish, that's a good thing.

Melissa Taylor (11:22) Look

the back of my needle point. It looks

Amy Keys (11:25) maybe not so tidy.

Melissa Taylor (11:27) No, it's very tidy. I

if something's not I have to take it out and fix it. Which is probably not real healthy, but

Amy Keys (11:35) Are you a neat freak at your house too? Like that kind of O C D? Okay. Okay.

Melissa Taylor (11:40) If you look in my cabinets probably you would think so, but

Amy Keys (11:42) Yeah, I get it. I get it. Yeah. So then you started teaching and how long have y'all been teaching?

Paula Brown (11:49) I started teaching in October of twenty twenty four. Okay.

Melissa Taylor (11:54) Okay.

Paula Brown (11:56) February?

February twenty twenty five, 'cause my classes were getting so large and so constant and so often that in order for the students to get the most benefit, we needed more people. I needed more people to be hands on to offer strategy advice and right things like that.

Amy Keys (12:13) You have the perfect blend of that when you teach.

Melissa Taylor (12:17) We we think it's very important that we are very hands on with our students. There are other types of classes that may have several people in the class and we want to be able to be able to really help each student to manipulate their tiles and figure out what hand they might be successful on and answer questions and be right there with them, you know.

Paula Brown (12:40) If you don't have somebody walking through it with them, they're not gonna get it. They're gonna lose interest and they're not gonna wanna play. Right. And we our goal is for them to be successful and feel like when I first walked in, I was overwhelmed. And now, I get it. There's that little bit of light bulb moment. Okay, I could take another class. I might not have to, just depending on the person. Right. But we do recommend that second class because it just really reinforces the part that gets to the strategy.

Amy Keys (13:07) Yes.

Yes. And you kinda like that second class you kinda just like set us free. Kinda you walked around, but we actually were playing more like a more like kid would be monitored in a test. Guided play. That's

Melissa Taylor (13:20) guided play. Because

we want you to feel like you're playing your own game, but yet we're there to help you if you get stuck. Or I might walk by and say, have you thought about this hand? If you moved your tiles this way, that might work better. You know, I don't ever like to tell people necessarily what to play, especially in that second lesson, but it's also nice to we kind of see that second one as

learning the strategy a little bit more and making you more independent and confident to go play on your own.

Amy Keys (13:54) Well, so confidence leads me to the the whole thing about mahjong skill, strategy, luck. Those are like the three things and you might have some skill or strategy or you might not have any luck in a game.

Paula Brown (14:10) That's on our logo.

Amy Keys (14:11) One of our friends literally the other day, we had five tiles on the mat and she won the game. The last tile before. We were all like kind of mad at her. We're like, whatever. Are you sure?

Did you really get it? But that was probably some luck and strategy of making a quick decisions. But so what are let's discuss the skill and strategy and luck that are part of

Paula Brown (14:35) Well, I mean, luck is what you're dealt. Right. And the skill comes from how you use what you're dealt, how to use it in strategy with your tiles. So it it can't help what you're drawing and what you sometimes

Amy Keys (14:49) To play.

Paula Brown (14:52) It can.

Melissa Taylor (14:53) But they passed you. Yeah. Yeah.

Amy Keys (14:55) Yeah.

Melissa Taylor (14:55) Yeah. But

Paula Brown (14:56) But go ahead.

Melissa Taylor (14:57) as far as strategy and luck, there is strategy and luck to it. And there's been some research to that and the strategy and skill is about sixty to seventy percent and then the luck like thirty to forty. Okay. Because once you're playing, you can't determine what you're drawing and what you're you know, what's being passed to you. However, what you do with those styles makes a big difference. You know, and

We've said several times the key to to Mahjong is learning the card, knowing what hands are on there. That way your Charleston and the strategy of the Charleston is so much more successful. The real game is one in the Charleston.

Amy Keys (15:44) And if you don't know what the Charleston is, that is in the beginning of the game where you get to basically exchange and rotate tires.

Melissa Taylor (15:51) Passing

tiles to each player at the table to better your hand.

Amy Keys (15:55) And it is we we have made that into a verb. We'll be like my group will be like, Are we Charlestoning again? Or like that's not a word, but yeah. So okay, that's interesting about the thirty percent being luck. I never really thought about it like the percentages, but that makes sense.

Melissa Taylor (16:13) And that comes from some a website I Love Maj, which she can play on. They just did an article on the previous card and looked at that's what they felt like the the division of skill and luck was.

Amy Keys (16:28) Very interesting on that. So well, what are a few things that you see people have a problem with when you are teaching them skills, strategy, and luck? Like what are some things like the stumbling blocks they have?

Paula Brown (16:40) I think the card is just so overwhelming when they first see it when they first see it. And learning how to decipher it and getting your brain to recognize the colors that you're seeing on the card don't necessarily coordinate with the colors on the tiles. Right. That is I think the number one thing. Once they get understand how to read the card and there's parentheses on the card and we preach.

that gives you such clarity. Always read your parentheses because it helps explain what all these colors and numbers and letters mean. So

Amy Keys (17:15) True. Yeah.

Melissa Taylor (17:17) be limiting, but it can also open up a lot of options for you too.

Paula Brown (17:21) Right. Because the face of the card has seventy two lines this year or hands for you to win. Ways to win. But when you read those parentheses and all the other options that go in there, it's over a thousand ways to win.

Amy Keys (17:38) Wow. See, I I tend to go to like the same lines all the time.

Melissa Taylor (17:42) So does my husband.

Amy Keys (17:44) Creature of habit. Feels safe in

Melissa Taylor (17:46) He loves an any like number.

Amy Keys (17:48) me too. I

Paula Brown (17:49) Yeah.

Amy Keys (17:50) if I can do a bunch of twos in a row, I'm thrilled or a bunch of fours, 'cause I start out with like three or four, I'm so happy.

Paula Brown (17:56) Well, and that's like she mentioned any like number, the one of the categories on the card. One this is one area where people really do struggle. And we try to get them defined the word any. I mean, have you ever thought about trying to define the word any? On this particular card, any means you choose. You choose what suit. You choose what number, whatever the parentheses are telling you. Any means you choose, but the word like means the same. True.

And so they use the word like many different times on the card when it has to be like dragons or matching kongs. Like all of those pair. Right.

Amy Keys (18:37) Right.

That's not King Kong folks. That's a that's a people are gonna like Kong. Actually talk about those while Talk

Melissa Taylor (18:42) No,

Amy Keys (18:46) about like how the pair how talk about those names.

Paula Brown (18:49) So Jimmy Yeah, go ahead. So I relate it to like when I used to teach third grade, you get a vocabulary test on Mondays, you have spelling words you have to spell, you have to use a vocabulary word in a sentence. There's really only two new words of vocabulary to use in our beginner lesson. We do throw another one in later, but pung, P-U-N-G means a group of three. You have a single tile, which is one tile, a pair of tiles is two identical tiles, a pung is a group of three identical tiles.

And then a Kong, which is your next vocabulary word. Think about the dog toys. Dog toy is the Kong brand. Dogs have four legs. So that's a group of four. And it says it right on the back of the card if people lose that train of thought for their vocabulary.

Amy Keys (19:33) try to tell my husband, the rules are not being made up. Flip your card over, buddy. And he's like, whatever. And then he's like, I don't have my readers, so I'm not gonna fool with it. So yeah, I never thought about the Kong as though a dog likes a Kong and four legs.

Melissa Taylor (19:46) Yeah, we we like to do a lot of memory cues.

Amy Keys (19:49) Yeah, well I can I'll take all I can get in that department.

Paula Brown (19:53) But I mean it there's

Amy Keys (19:58) There's so many variations of these Pongs, Pungs, Kongs, Kongs, pairs, singles that that's why you need a teacher. That's why you have to have someone who knows the game, not just like your friend who thinks say I mean, I could not teach anyone this game.

Paula Brown (20:15) Well, when I was given the vocabulary, I said they're identical tiles. Their group of three identical is a pong because you can have three single tiles in a grouping, but it's not the same as a pong. Right. And that makes a difference in when you can and cannot use a joker, when you can and cannot pick up a discarded tile.

Amy Keys (20:32) Right. So right. Well, when when you are teaching, what's like one thing that really stumps people? What's that one thing though besides I besides the card? Like when they're actually is it just the card?

Melissa Taylor (20:44) Don't understand, but I so many people want to make the dragons wild, like they're a joker.

Amy Keys (20:50) Interesting.

Melissa Taylor (20:51) You know, and so we go through I probably say it ten, fifteen times, you know, the red dragon goes with the cracks, the bam the green goes with the bams, the soap dragon goes with dots, you know, and I don't know why, but you've we've experienced that a lot. People think the dragons are wild.

And you know, I can use a dragon for that. Or what does this dragon do? And the simple thing is the dragon stands in for the D on the card. And it can either be another suit or the same suit depending on the color and what the parentheses says. You know, it's but they always want to make them wild.

Paula Brown (21:26) Is it is not interchangeable like with a joker.

Amy Keys (21:29) Right. And if if the correct people, experienced people teach you how to play, all of these things if you've never played before are not that difficult. Like I'm really surprised at how I caught on. I mean, I'm not like some alpha female dominator mahjong winner every time or anything like that, but I am a

Melissa Taylor (21:49) Do

love a victory laugh.

Paula Brown (21:50) I

was about

Amy Keys (21:51) No

I'm known I am known for my victory laps in public and private. When I do win, I dismiss myself from the table, put my hands up and walk around the room. I want people to know that I won. I worked hard to win the game.

Paula Brown (22:04) Absolutely, 'cause you know what You deserve it. If I'm not gonna win, then nobody else deserves to win and that comes in with defense. Well

Amy Keys (22:10) And

and what's funny is I am the least competitive person ever. When my kids had football games, et cetera, I was like, Did we win? I just was here. Like I don't care. I'm not a competitive person. But in this, I'm not competitive at all. I don't even care if I win. I just get really excited if I do win. That's

Paula Brown (22:29) Just wanna celebrate the moment.

Amy Keys (22:30) why the big and my friends now expect it. They're like, yeah. And they don't do it. I'm like, get up, celebrate.

Melissa Taylor (22:36) If I'm at another table and I see you do your laugh I know.

Amy Keys (22:40) You just won. One of my my friend Katie had told me she had pl started playing it just a little bit before I did. And I remember her standing in my living room and I was like, I don't know about this. I took a lesson. I don't know. And she says, You just have to keep playing. Mm-hmm. And that's my best advice to anybody. You just keep playing. It's repetition. It's getting figured out once you win, then you're gonna do victory laps like Amy Keys does.

Paula Brown (23:03) Well, if you were taking piano lessons, you would have to practice. Right. It's the same thing with mahjong. If you want to get better at it, you have to practice.

Amy Keys (23:09) practice.

Right. And there there is a reason that I mean if you if if you get one person and you're like, okay, take ten of your friends, see how many of them play Mahjong. There at least half probably play.

Paula Brown (23:21) Now for sure.

Amy Keys (23:22) Because it's growing so much. Mm-hmm. I think I know more people who do play than don't play.

Melissa Taylor (23:28) one of the things I've loved about it is I have met so many people through Mahjong too. Yeah. And I don't have a normal group. Nobody wants to play with me. No. But that's why I love being able to go to open plays and to meet other people through leagues or other things like that. Because it's people I would probably not come into contact with. Yes. Any other place. Yes. But yeah, we have Mahjong as our leveling

thing and it's it's been so nice and I've made so many great friends.

Paula Brown (24:00) Well.

Amy Keys (24:00) I love that you brought that up because the social part of the game and the popularity of the game, a lot of people will be like, Well, how do I find a group? Or how do I I mean, my friend Jenny, when she moved from Memphis to Hernando last year, she's like, I've gotta find like yeah, I've gotta meet new friends. I've

Melissa Taylor (24:18) My people.

Amy Keys (24:18) gotta meet friends. So she started going to a little local open play mahjong lesson. She started playing at little gift shops down there. And then when she started playing,

She's made friends down there. She shows her friends here, but it's forty five minutes away. And she has her friends there and Mahjong is to to give credit, it's Mahjong that helped her. Yeah. She's like, now we're on group text and yay, you know.

Paula Brown (24:43) We've had students that walked into the class by themselves and made friends with the people at the table, exchanged phone numbers that night, and they're still playing together now.

Amy Keys (24:53) Love that. I love that. And and and our group, we are we are called the Rack Pack. And the Rack Pack formed, there's nine of us in the group. And the Rack Pack formed very organically. Once Mandy and I learned to play, I was like, well, we're gonna have to play this like all the time now. You know, we're gonna We

Melissa Taylor (25:12) It's the only way to get back.

Amy Keys (25:13) both bought a set and all that stuff started happening. Well, we'll get to that in a minute. But we both got a set, we were so excited, and then

We ended up I was like, Well, we need to like get a consistent we gotta if you if you need if you can only get better by continuing to play. So then I went and like just sort of heard about people or then one of my friends was like, Well, she plays too. And I just texted them all and invited them, like, Do you wanna play? And they're like, Sure. And then we've been to the beach together to play mahjong on the beach. We get together every Wednesday from twelve to two. It's like I don't book anything at that time.

I mean, sometimes life happens, but we're all pretty consistent about coming and we solve a lot of problems in the world playing mahjong. We laugh hysterically. We support each other if someone's having a rough week.

Melissa Taylor (26:05) There's builds connection.

Amy Keys (26:06) It really does. And we're very diverse. Like they're not all like crazy, silly, outgoing like me. There's a few quiet ones in the group. There's some who take it more seriously. There's some who

Like my friend Melisa, when we're playing, hey Melisa, you're famous now. But when Melisa puts her hand on her hip, I know she's about to win.

Paula Brown (26:28) Well, that's part of one of the things when you asked about what people yeah, how people play is that body language is a huge part of it. Huge. Watching other people and watching yourself. I mean or

Amy Keys (26:38) Or Allie, she's the most soft spoken, calm, sweet soul ever. And she kind of does a low growl when she doesn't like her aunt. She doesn't like her tiles. I'm like, Allie's growling again. Yes.

Paula Brown (26:51) So it's a tail. Yeah.

Amy Keys (26:53) Yes. But we do a lot of problem solving. I do feel like it gets your mind off. I can't I cannot multitask mahjong and my to do list. I can only do one or the other.

So like everything kind of else just everything else just kind of goes out the window when I'm playing for that and I swear I'm happier after I've played. It's so weird. Well it's it must

Paula Brown (27:17) the dopamine in

your brain. Think about how many seriously, think about how many aha moments you have in a game. When you first rack your tiles, ooh, you've got a joker. That's going to send you a burst. You pull a tile that you needed, that's going to give you a burst. You find out exactly what line you're going for, that's another burst of dopamine. All of these things are giving you all those feel good feelings. And then if you win, it's just amplified again and again. And it is repeated all throughout the the game.

Amy Keys (27:45) Make so if you need dopamine, you need to take a mahjong lesson. but I do feel like, especially since like the COVID era, we which is hard to believe that's been over six years, but I feel like we crave interaction and fellowship more than ever. Like Yes.

Melissa Taylor (28:03) I think we appreciate it more too.

Amy Keys (28:05) Like being able to get together and sit and have that fellowship is so important.

Melissa Taylor (28:11) It's also an intentional time. Mm-hmm. Because so many times you're like, we need to get together. We'll do that And then how many times do you not actually meet for lunch? Right.

Amy Keys (28:19) Exactly.

Melissa Taylor (28:21) If you've got a a set mahjong time, you're gonna be there. You're gonna be there, you're gonna see those people, you're gonna play. You know, and it's really gotten me out of my comfort zone a little bit too. when I the first time I went to a tournament where I knew no one, my husband was even like, You're going there and you don't you don't know anybody else there? And I was like, I don't know anybody.

But I sat down with that table and we had a great day. You know, it's it's just kind of that thing that connects everyone in the room.

Amy Keys (28:49) It really does. And I mean, people I mean, like our group, we're in it I would say that nine of us out of nine are gonna say that we're in it for the fellowship. Because I always am like, I have so many other things I could be doing at that given moment. But they say to take self care time. Well, that's kind of self care time to me. It

Paula Brown (29:06) Absolutely.

Amy Keys (29:07) is like I'd rather do that than have a massage. No offense against massage therapists or anything like that. I'm just saying that is a self care thing for my brain and my my just

general okay, we're gonna sit, we're gonna

Melissa Taylor (29:21) There's

also so much research about how it is good for your brain as we're aging too.

Amy Keys (29:27) do you play it on your phone? I've never played it on my phone.

Paula Brown (29:30) did at the beginning, like when I was learning, because I would do it as a practice on the app, Real Maj, I think it's what it's called, Real Majong. And then later came the app that you could play on your iPad or your laptop that was ILov.com. It is a great way to practice that and really it's just setting up the game, going through the steps of the Charleston and then saying, okay, this is the line I would do. They have some practice.

Melissa Taylor (29:53) rooms too that have drills for you to do.

Paula Brown (29:54) And then hit reset and do it again. That's what I would do. I would the when I didn't have tiles in front of me.

Amy Keys (30:00) See, I don't think I'd want to play it on my phone. Well, first of all, I I it was a preventative measure. I did not put it on my phone because I would never look away from my phone. And I'm already trying to get away from my phone as it is. But I it the it's the people for me. It's the fellowship. Right. It really is. And and I think you guys, when you taught it, the way that you taught it in little like each table setup, I mean, that leads me to discussing mats, tiles, and racks. Okay.

Paula Brown (30:28) That's like asking a woman her age.

Amy Keys (30:31) Okay, yeah. So some people at this at this podcast may have I'm not looking at anybody, they may have more tiles and sets than others.

Melissa Taylor (30:42) I call myself a collector.

Paula Brown (30:44) Okay. Hoarder.

We do not need to add up how many we have between the three of us.

Amy Keys (30:49) Well, I have I have one fancy set. I have an Amazon set. They're always set up at all times, just in case, you know, eight people drop by.

Melissa Taylor (30:59) It's always it's always on my kitchen.

Paula Brown (31:01) A breakthrough game needs to be

Amy Keys (31:02) You

just you never know. And then I have one of those pool sets from Sam's. The only problem with the pool set is I can't reach over the mat. It's it's really big. It's like it's the size of the table, but you're like in the in the water. It's just a little ergonomically difficult, but the tiles are okay.

Melissa Taylor (31:19) Okay. I have a suggestion for you, like

Amy Keys (31:22) And I have a Hobby Lobby set, which is an emergency set in case I had sixteen people show up. I've used a lot of self-restraint, not having more of the fancy sets. But I bought my first set because of Truffled Pig and the set that I walked in. I'm a little at first sight type of person. When I see something I like it, I know. And I got the Taylor tiles and the periwinkle mat because I thought, those are so like soothing. They're so soothing. And I love the topiary tiles. So

So that's my confession. I think I ha and I have a I do have a travel set. And those travel set tiles are teeny tiny.

Paula Brown (32:00) Yes. And now they now they make a travel set tile that is lightweight but full size.

Amy Keys (32:05) of course they did. So of course they're it because they keep and and and there's all the kinds of racks and I mean in mat

Melissa Taylor (32:11) my favorite part of of Mahjong is putting together the tablescapes. Like I rarely use tiles with the same mat more than, you know, a couple of times. I'm always switching them up and making them new and it's that's so fun to me.

Amy Keys (32:26) Well does anybody else want to confess how many sets and mats they have?

Paula Brown (32:30) We don't have to confess that exactly. But you know, there's so many different ones out there now. I mean, I started out with this the traditional set from Amazon. I waited till prime day because I thought, wow, you know, seventy, eighty dollars so much to buy for this game, you know, and it is, it can be. But you know, there's so many different makers out there right now and they're having to put out a minimum number

of orders, like they have to order a hundred sets. So you see this so much out there. The market's kind of getting flooded and all these individuals are wanting to jump on to sell their sets. Yeah. I just don't know. I would rather buy from somebody that's going to be here in five years, I think almost, than somebody that's doing this a one time thing. But there are so many out there to choose from. Just be careful, make sure they're

Melissa Taylor (33:28) Reputable.

Amy Keys (33:30) Does anybody notice the pivot that happened in that? I'm not gonna get an answer of how many they have. They're not going to tell me. It

Melissa Taylor (33:37) Do you want me to include holiday tiles?

Amy Keys (33:39) looks like Melissa's going to tell me which

Paula Brown (33:42) Melissa, go right ahead.

Melissa Taylor (33:43) I tell you my husband knows exactly how many deal

Amy Keys (33:45) There's not hey.

We could have worse collections. Well

Melissa Taylor (33:53) Including my holiday towels I have thirty two sets.

Amy Keys (33:56) wow.

Paula Brown (33:57) I do not have near that many.

Melissa Taylor (34:00) Not

all super expensive ones. And I do have some more classic style. But

Paula Brown (34:06) right.

Melissa Taylor (34:07) yes.

Paula Brown (34:08) And she still has her eye on some.

Melissa Taylor (34:10) I do.

Amy Keys (34:10) Don't you think we always do? Mandy does too.

Melissa Taylor (34:13) I've I've been on a buy band. I haven't by band. I haven't let myself buy any in quite some time. And then the Christmas tiles came out in July and

Amy Keys (34:25) I know. And then there's just a a friend, she just got I don't know what it's called, Palm Royale, something. Yeah. And it's like a clear top, like a light green. They are gorgeous. Pretty. And the colors of those

Melissa Taylor (34:36) Don't have those.

Amy Keys (34:39) that you don't they're so beautiful. But the color palette of all the designs and the tiles are like my colors. They're like sea phones and blues and greens.

Melissa Taylor (34:48) Yeah.

Well, I did have to set some limits. I have said I'm not going to buy a set that has the same artwork as another set in a different colorway. Right.

Amy Keys (34:55) So

like the monkey with the umbrella set, you're not gonna do okay, okay. Wow. So you have thirty two and I have

Paula Brown (35:03) Well, and we can be real tile snobs, you know.

Melissa Taylor (35:06) Yeah.

Paula Brown (35:08) We don't want the dragons, I don't want it to say the word crack on it. I don't want it to say the word bam. I might be okay if it said soap, because that's what we really call it, but it is not crack dragon. It is a red dragon. So I'm not gonna look at those anymore. Also, we don't want there to be a design on the back.

Melissa Taylor (35:25) Yeah.

Paula Brown (35:27) We call that a directional tile.

Melissa Taylor (35:30) Especially if it goes one way. Because then I might turn my tile upside down to mean something to me as I'm playing and I don't want you to be able to see my tile that's upside down. So I don't like any kind of directional anything on the back.

Amy Keys (35:44) I I prefer to play that.

Melissa Taylor (35:45) And when you're looking, if you're looking for a set, I'm not the person to talk to because I'm gonna encourage you to buy it. But when you're looking, it's

Amy Keys (35:54) Encouragement's nice.

Melissa Taylor (35:56) going to speak to you. You're gonna figure out what you like. And sometimes I tell people I said, wait just a minute before you buy a more expensive boutique kind of tile. You know, give it give it a few weeks or a little time because you don't want to buy something and go, ooh.

Paula Brown (36:12) Ooh, I wish I hadn't done that. Exactly.

Melissa Taylor (36:14) I don't like the artwork on that. These numbers are too small. These these cracks are all different colors. The BAMs are red and the cracks are green. And I say that because there's a new tile set that just came out that has the colors backwards. So it's you know, it's you also you want clarity of play.

Paula Brown (36:34) And and the beauty is in the eye of the beholder. True. You know, the sea foams, the corals or whatever appeal to you. Blues might and pinks might be more to me. But I mean, we can give you a checklist of things to think about that I did not think about two years ago. I didn't think about how well can I see that tile across the table. I didn't think about if it had the word crack or bam on the dragon. I didn't even think about if there was a design on the back of the table. Interesting. I mean, we'll help you.

Melissa Taylor (37:00) you mentioned the Taylor tiles. I love them. I keep them displayed in my house all the time. And they were my first boutique kind of tile. However, the dots are flowers. And so and the one dot looks a whole lot like one of the flowers. So it makes it difficult for some beginners to play with. I would never teach with them. And I probably wouldn't take them to

Paula Brown (37:29) Tournament.

Melissa Taylor (37:30) a tournament or an open play where there might be beginners who would who would be confused by that. But they are probably my some of my favorite tiles.

Amy Keys (37:37) That

combination with that mat. See, we're totally geeking out just talking about it. 'Cause it's the combinations and the it's it's a it's a hobby collection. And I mean, honestly, people are probably like, What are what what are y'all talking about? Boutique and all this prices. I mean, I would say that if you're going anywhere from now this is a really rough guesstimate, but you have to buy four racks and you put your tiles on the racks. You have to have a mat and then you

Melissa Taylor (38:03) Do

you want a clear acrylic or wood or

Amy Keys (38:06) There's lots of different kinds of all these things, but I would say I mean, to get like a whole suite of everything for playing on a table, you could go as low as two, two fifty. I'm just thinking of like Amazon prices. Because I got a set there for a hundred dollars and the racks were like forty. One came broken, so let me keep it. It was just for my second set, my emergency extra table set. And then the the mat was like forty. But that's

You could tell they're cheaper, but they they work for a second set again. But then if you want like the bougie, which is what we all want, like the Cadillac version, and I don't wanna mention brands and all that on here, but but that can run you like eight or nine hundred dollars for everything.

Melissa Taylor (38:52) for everything. A a nice boutique set of towels will be four fifty, five hundred.

Amy Keys (38:57) Yeah, just the tiles. Just the tiles. How many are in that? Hundred and seventy? Under

Paula Brown (39:01) Hundred and tile hundred and sixty tiles.

Amy Keys (39:03) sixty tiles. But they're but this is something that gives you hours of entertainment and fellowship.

Melissa Taylor (39:11) also like to tell people when they're looking at their tablescape and what they want to do. You can get a less expensive set of tiles before you really want to get out there and spend some money on it. But you can go with some nice mats and really elevate yes what your table looks like with a nice mat and some nicer racks. And you know it's

Paula Brown (39:33) And ch a mat is much easier to swap out seasonally or, you know, holiday or whatever you want it to be. Maybe you just want bright colors in the springtime, but you want more muted colors in the fall. Your mats can do that with very traditional, reasonable tiles.

Amy Keys (39:49) Trisha does a fantastic job of making me want everything she pairs things with. She'll be like, this set looks great with this mat on on the store's page. And I'm like, ooh, maybe I need that.

Melissa Taylor (40:01) And I love it when I find something that you wouldn't normally put together. Like right now, my Sierra tiles I love, but they were a hard tile to pair with mats. Wouldn't you agree?

Paula Brown (40:14) Right.

Melissa Taylor (40:16) I love them. But a new mat just came out. And when you first looked at it, I was like, I don't know about that. But when you put together, my gosh. It's just like Chef's Kiss. It's so beautiful.

Paula Brown (40:26) And the thing about Sierra is that it's kind of a UT Texas burnt orange color. It's not a bright orange like UT Knoxville. But and it when it first came out, it was in the springtime and I thought, nobody's gonna buy this set of tiles. But then when you get closer to the fall, like August, your bright your brain changes and now you're like, I like that color because it looks like this or looks like that. Right. And now we have found other pairings. I think the mat she's talking about had it has greens and blues in it.

But there's this little bitty border that's like a cane bamboo cane border and it's just enough brown that it just that it just shows up and it's just such a great accent to that tile.

Amy Keys (41:08) Well, a friend of mine, another friend from the Rack Pack, Marissa, hello, friend. She is convinced, I mean, she's a great player, but she is convinced that it in five years we're all gonna have these sets and garage sales. And I respectfully disagree because I I'm in it to stay.

Paula Brown (41:25) Well, I mean, look at how this I think it's gonna peak and wane somewhat. But I think it is here to stay, especially with the younger generation coming up now. Maybe my daughter's just gotten married, she's plays, her husband plays, I think he plays. Nathan, do you play? If not, you need to. But they don't have kids yet. It's gonna be something they're they're gonna be able to do with friends and couples. And then maybe it might wane once she does start having kids. She may not be able to play as often, but then

You you put what do you do when your kids go back to school? Right. You find things to do with your mom friends during the day. And so it may peek back up. Right. And I think that there's a couple of brands out there that are responsible for the resurgence of it right now in the South and in the South East.

Amy Keys (42:09) Totally.

And one is the brand we both love. We love a lot.

Paula Brown (42:14) And the other brand we love, we may not just have many sets of them. Right. But

Amy Keys (42:18) Right.

Paula Brown (42:19) we they've made it a very beautiful game. And

Amy Keys (42:23) It is a beautiful game.

Paula Brown (42:24) that's what has changed. There have been just a very small handful of tiles that were made with artwork. Right. The product that they were made out of may have been bone or wood carvings, which made them special back in the years, the the past fifties, eighty, ninety years. But

the artwork now that is contemporary and so full of color is what has made people be drawn to it right now. We were playing at the and it's like, you know, when you go someplace and it's on something's on sale and you start looking at it and you see somebody else looking at it and all of a sudden there's three people looking at it and everybody else wants to go over and say, what is that? What is that? You know, it's if they have it, I need it, you know. Right. If they're looking at it, I must need it too. But we were playing at the Peabody back in the winter with a group of friends.

And I don't know how many people stopped by our tables. what are y'all doing? my wife plays. she'll be thrilled. Susan, come look, come look you know. It's it's

Melissa Taylor (43:21) Just

get out some cards.

Amy Keys (43:22) They're like little ambassadors for

Paula Brown (43:24) Yeah,

it draws people in. I mean, we'll be at restaurants playing just for recreational and s almost every single time somebody will come up and say, what are y'all playing? Or yeah, my mom plays that or whatever. So I think that it's gonna have peaks and valleys, but I think it's here to stay.

Amy Keys (43:41) I do too. I did too. And speaking of those younger generations that it's coming in, great segue to my next topic is the younger generations, I swear my boys, Andrew, can play once every two months and beat me. My older one, Chris, he can come to town, we'll play like three games. He beats me every time. I mean, I've gotten up and walked away mad at him for winning every game. I'm like, how is this possible?

Paula Brown (44:08) Well their brains the file folders in their brains are not as full as ours. I love

Amy Keys (44:14) And I did research and it's I read that faster they have fast youth and you know, the younger generations have a faster brain processing speed. They're accustomed to learning games through apps and tutorials, which I d

Melissa Taylor (44:27) Yeah,

I think they're a lot more gamers than what we were at their age.

Amy Keys (44:31) They're willing to experiment more in the game. So I guess they're willing to go different directions with instead of sticking with the same five lines that I do. But I did read that they might have speed, but the older generations, we have wisdom about the game. I like that. And I like that. Yeah. Right. Like we've got a little more wisdom. I've got a little more wisdom because I play more and I'm maybe older, but yeah, the file folder situation is my file my

file folder is definitely full. But that's what I love about Mahjong because it does make me not not feel I don't think about what's on my file folder.

Melissa Taylor (45:10) a good friend that I play with pretty often and she has a pretty emotional stressful job. And she says that's one of her favorite things about Mahjong is she can sit down, turn all of that off, and she's just thinking about the table. And I think that's great.

Amy Keys (45:25) It's a it's a wonderful game and that leads me to Rapid Fire. Ooh. Rapid Fire. We're gonna talk more about the game too though. Because there's so many other things. We could talk about this and the mats and the tiles as long as you want. And on on the on it, I on the show notes and everything on the website and everything, we will have a link to find you guys and everything for for learning how to play the game. I've never learned from anyone else, but you got me hooked. So that's why I'm doing y'all guilty. So Rapid Fire.

What's one word to describe mahjong?

Melissa Taylor (45:58) Order

Paula Brown (46:00) Challenge.

Amy Keys (46:02) I would say fellowship.

Paula Brown (46:03) Mm-hmm.

Melissa Taylor (46:04) Hat

Amy Keys (46:04) What's your favorite snack for Mahjong?

Melissa Taylor (46:07) goodness. Something that's not messy and gonna get my tiles sticky. Pretzel

Amy Keys (46:11) Pretels. Pretzels. What about a drink?

Paula Brown (46:15) Depends on where you are. True.

Amy Keys (46:18) Yeah.

Paula Brown (46:21) I'm a Coke girl, you know? Give me a good Coke.

Amy Keys (46:24) When we play at Southwind, I traditionally order French fries and prosecco. Nice carbloading. But that's my and my friends know that.

Melissa Taylor (46:33) I love a good fruit tea. We at any of our events I pretty much have a fruit tea there that I make. And I kinda like that.

Amy Keys (46:40) I think you were gonna say something else about food and I cut you off.

Melissa Taylor (46:43) Just that people have different opinions about food at the mahjong table. And anything that's not messy, that's for me, because I don't want somebody picking up something and then touching the tiles after that. But you know, that's right might be just me.

Paula Brown (47:01) Well, and we've learned with events that we've hosted like popcorn's not ideal 'cause people do want to lick their fingers, get the salt off, but also it makes a mess on the floor. Yeah. You know

Amy Keys (47:10) No.

Paula Brown (47:12) a snack cracker is a good thing, like a check's mix. That's a that's a good snack.

Melissa Taylor (47:16) something that I call mahjong trail mix and it's yeah

Amy Keys (47:19) stop it.

Melissa Taylor (47:21) that we do at a lot of our events sometimes and it's it's just a mix of a lot of those good snacks that you put together. My favorite one in there is the I stay on but it's just you just kind of throw it together. It's got MMs and

Amy Keys (47:36) Is it an actual recipe that you have?

Melissa Taylor (47:38) Sort of. I put the same things in it. She's

Amy Keys (47:41) I want to make a mahjong mix for my friends for like Christmas or something. Yeah. Yeah. What's the biggest annoyance or pet peeve about opponents?

Melissa Taylor (47:51) I have one and it's really not a big deal probably in the whole scheme of things, but I don't like it when somebody turns a tail on the end of the wall. I just I just don't.

Paula Brown (48:04) think originally we taught that for beginners to know which way it was gonna go. But now, you know, we don't teach the same way that we did a year ago. I don't teach a tail anymore. So we we don't want that turned. But for me, I think it's when they take so long to make decisions. They draw a tile we didn't talk about this, but tapping. If you draw a table tile and just tap your rack, that's not doing anything but making noise. The reason why you draw a tile and put

put it fully on the slant of your rack is because it ends the turn before you. It makes that last discarded tile no longer available. And if you tap, you haven't done that, and let's say you drew a joker and you're deciding where you're going to put it, that last tile is available. And if somebody calls it, then you have to put your joker back. Tapping is nothing but noise.

Amy Keys (48:52) See, I've n I've never I know you didn't teach me how d about tapping, but then I I've seen people tap and I'm like, Why are they tapping? And I'm am I do am I not am I not doing something un I'm not doing enough? Am I supposed to? So that's good to know that like qualified people are saying

Melissa Taylor (49:07) Do you want to say? Yes, the rules, some of the rules are on the back of the card. But if you truly want to dive in and learn all the rules and be able to know the etiquette and those things, I highly recommend Mahjong Made Easy that's put out by the league. I think everyone should have a copy. Mine is with me at all times. I have one at home that is highlighted and underlined and, you know, and it's there's so many of those little intricacies of rules.

that most people may not even pay attention to. But it's gonna help you when you might have a dispute at the table. we called that tile at the same time. Who does that belong to? You know, that sort of thing. And I highly recommend if you're gonna play, you need to read Mahjong Made Easy.

Amy Keys (49:54) Mahjong made easy.

Melissa Taylor (49:56) It's just a little pamphlet, but it's great.

Amy Keys (49:59) Well, I'm a walk and talk person and I my biggest pet peeve and this is not towards anybody specific, but I don't like it when people pause to talk. I need you to walk and talk. I need you to keep playing because you y there's there's like this rhythm of the game that when it gets delayed, I'm like getting it makes me it distracts me.

Paula Brown (50:18) Well, and people start talking when people take too long. Yeah. With the tile that they've just drawn. Gotta walk and talk. That's that's what bothers me.

Melissa Taylor (50:25) Have you said, Whose turn is it?

Amy Keys (50:27) my gosh. Our game we played every and sometimes it's my fault for zoning out or glitching or whatever, but I'm a walk and talk person. Favorite tile?

Melissa Taylor (50:36) Mm.

Paula Brown (50:37) Tomorrow.

Melissa Taylor (50:39) Tal set. I was thinking actual

Amy Keys (50:40) I

was thinking tile tile.

Paula Brown (50:42) Particular tile?

Melissa Taylor (50:44) I love a flower. Give me a flower.

Paula Brown (50:47) I r I kinda tend toward the dragons. Dragons, right? No, no, I'm sorry, Jokers. Joker Jokers

Amy Keys (50:51) Joker Joker.

Paula Brown (50:52) see, I'm getting the dragon and the joker mixed up. Safe. No, I wanna see the Joker.

Amy Keys (50:56) Daytime play or evening or any time. Uh-huh. All of twenty four seven? Three sixty five.

Melissa Taylor (51:04) Any time.

Paula Brown (51:05) She like she and her husband played this morning.

Melissa Taylor (51:07) We played this morning ever coffee.

Amy Keys (51:08) You don't it does not take much to convince me.

Paula Brown (51:10) And

she texted me last night. They were playing Siamese and she said he's beaten me three games in a row. I just went and switched out the tiles. I said, Get the girliest set you can find and put

Melissa Taylor (51:20) I was hoping that would help me. And then I w

Paula Brown (51:21) And and then she won.

Amy Keys (51:23) So how many pla did you play five times? And it's

Melissa Taylor (51:26) We played five games of seven.

Amy Keys (51:27) just two of you. by the way, when they said Siamese, we're not talking about cats. Siamese is when two people play.

Melissa Taylor (51:33) Correct. You pl two people play and you each play two hands at the same time.

Amy Keys (51:36) Yep. Gently move around tiles or shuffle?

Melissa Taylor (51:40) shuffle.

Paula Brown (51:41) Shuffle. I wanna know that the things that you just had with all those jokers are coming on my side maybe. Okay.

Amy Keys (51:46) Okay.

Melissa Taylor (51:48) And I don't call my tiles precious. I'm gonna shuffle them with shufflers. That does not bother me at all. I have them to play with, I have them to use. Now, my absolute tile set that I want is Chrysloid Mother Nature. If I ever get Christloid Mother Nature, we won't be shuffling those.

Paula Brown (52:09) I mean, if they're antique tiles, I get that. I understand that people want to protect them. Absolutely. But with the process, with the way that they're made right now, shuffle all day long.

Melissa Taylor (52:18) Shuffle's not gonna hurt.

Paula Brown (52:19) I will say during a lesson when one bounces off the table and goes bouncing across that concrete floor, I'm like, Yeah. Yeah. But I've not had anything detrimental occur when that has happened. Yeah.

Amy Keys (52:30) Yeah.

Paula Brown (52:32) But the company is usually really great about correcting that if you let them know.

Melissa Taylor (52:36) All different ones.

Amy Keys (52:36) And here's a fun fact about tiles bouncing off tables. Our group, we play at my house almost every Wednesday. We kind of rotate through fias, but I I host a lot. And we probably played for a solid six months without a five crack. We are missing one. I found it in my travel bag. So I was like, whoever's been having anything with a five in it, sorry.

Melissa Taylor (52:58) So what happened when you built your built your wall?

Paula Brown (53:01) I wonder if you had a extra joker in there. Well, I think you play with some extra tiles.

Amy Keys (53:05) Yeah, we do we do tend to play messy mahjong, which I know that's like the worst thing ever. That's like telling a runner to go run a marathon without any water. I know.

Paula Brown (53:15) I think there's worse things in playing message.

Amy Keys (53:17) but but I do try to wrangle our group and play with play with walls so we don't forget.

Paula Brown (53:23) How do we do that? Mm-hmm.

Melissa Taylor (53:25) One we always do at our meetups or our events is when we're finished at a table, we have everybody build their walls back so that we know all the tiles are there. Because I had somebody go home with one in their purse. It had fallen off and gone on their purse and she called me and she said, Are you missing a south? And I was like, Well, I wasn't aware that I was. Wow. But she had a south in her purse.

Amy Keys (53:43) I'm just thinking all the games that were not won because that one So it might be good if you play Mahjong, experienced or not experienced, to take an inventory tiles here and there to make sure you have the right amount.

Paula Brown (53:56) Well build the walls at the end of the game and it'll do it for you every time. Well

Amy Keys (53:59) Yeah. You hear that rack pack? We need to be building walls more. So finish this sentence. One piece of advice I would give someone who's never played Mahjong before is

Paula Brown (54:12) Be patient and be open minded.

Melissa Taylor (54:17) Don't get overwhelmed. Take it one step at a time.

Amy Keys (54:20) Mine would be you will have a new addiction. Hmm. And it's okay that you do because it's good for your brain, your fellowship, your community. Bringing people together is what the game is about. A friend of mine, my friend Jenny, who moved to Hernando, she has like a hundred year old set from China. Cool. And they someone in the family had them and she doesn't play with them. I don't think I'd feel comfortable playing with them. And it's missing like maybe two tiles, I think.

Paula Brown (54:47) And it won't have jokers.

Amy Keys (54:48) Right. And they're in a wooden box and they smell oil. I

Melissa Taylor (54:51) One with the drawer.

Paula Brown (54:52) Yeah.

Amy Keys (54:53) think it has two little drawers, little wooden box, and they are amazing. So y'all may listeners may have somebody in their family who's got a set in their attic.

Paula Brown (55:01) Yeah, those are the sets you don't shuffle.

Melissa Taylor (55:03) Yes.

Amy Keys (55:04) Right, right. You d 'cause they may be ivory, I mean exactly

Paula Brown (55:06) Exactly.

Amy Keys (55:07) but they look

Melissa Taylor (55:08) I'm pretty sure there's none in the attic of my family, but my girls are already talking about which ones they want when I'm finished with them.

Amy Keys (55:18) When you're finished with them. You're like, I've got thirty two sets to play on daily. I my finished. I love the word finished because anybody who plays Mahjong knows we're never gonna finish it. No. So well, do y'all have any other advice or words of wisdom or thoughts about Mahjong?

Paula Brown (55:34) I think we you know, if you think about it's mostly women that play, but like her husband plays. You said that yours will but says, you know, you make up a new rule every time. I think it's so they think it's so stereotypical for just women. Right. And it's really more challenging than they realize. Mm-hmm. And I think that that keeps them because they think it's only women, I think that keeps them from trying it. I think that's what is one thing that has kept my bill.

from. He thinks, well it's just a bunch of women and then he sees all these pretty tiles, all these different colors, but I can I can mask make it real masculine. I haven't given up. I haven't given up on

Melissa Taylor (56:10) Yeah.

Masculine set.

Amy Keys (56:13) There's some really nice.

Melissa Taylor (56:14) I love how I can take a set of tiles and I can put it on a really girly mat or I can take it and I can put it on a real masculine mat. And it's they're so versatile.

Paula Brown (56:24) just think men don't realize how much strategy really goes into it. Mm-hmm. And they would be really impressed at how good we are at it if they did.

Amy Keys (56:32) Yeah.

Well, it is pretty funny to see my husband playing on like pink and purple.

Paula Brown (56:36) yeah. Maths. You have a reason to get another set of tiles.

Melissa Taylor (56:39) I know. Get on the family. He says he'll play on anything. He said, Give me girly tiles, I don't care. I'm still gonna you know, I'll play on

Paula Brown (56:45) he has been a great sport and has subbed for us several times at league or at an event when we have an odd number to table. He is.

Melissa Taylor (56:50) And he's really good. And

I've had several people who were trying to find a sub and they're like, Hey, can Steve play for me? 'Cause I know he'll get me some points.

Amy Keys (56:59) So I love that. Well, deep you know, I I think of Mandy and her son Remy and Remy, that little guy, he could

Melissa Taylor (57:07) I have played with Remy. I haven't played with Remy.

Amy Keys (57:09) he legit beats grown women. When we play at her house and he walks up the table and plays, and that's back to that young mind thing. It's fascinating. Whereas you have my husband who he kinda gets a little bratty when he plays because of the rules. And he is such a rule follower that the rules don't make sense to him.

So he just whatever. But then my daughter in law, she beats us every time. It's it's cra I'd love to get in her mind. She's very intelligent, but I'd love to she makes all these little formations. We call it Stonehenge. We're with her tiles. She'll make these little like formations of discard, whatever she's planning to get rid of. I don't know what's behind her mind in that. But we're like, look, Emily has a Stonehenge again. And she just is very quiet. She's very quiet player.

Paula Brown (57:51) Gotta keep those tiles on the rack though, not on the mat.

Amy Keys (57:53) Did you hear that, Emily? But but sh I do find she's very quiet when she plays. She's not a quiet person, but when she's got a strategy like that, sh she's she'll just come out of nowhere and beat you.

Paula Brown (58:05) She's taking it serious. Yeah. And she's she's using everything she's got to be her advantage.

Amy Keys (58:10) Or I'm too busy going the fellowship route and running them out. Yeah. Well, ladies, I appreciate you being here so much. You've gotten me in the mood to play. and we will link everything on this on the page, like I mentioned. I highly recommend going out to Truffle Pig and taking lessons with them. You can register for the classes and pay for them online. trufflepig.com is it I Shop

Paula Brown (58:35) Shut up truffle pig that.

Amy Keys (58:36) Shop Trufflepig.com.

And it's so user friendly. It's so pleasant. They have little snacks. Everybody's really delightful. a lovely way to go there and play and get to know people and get to know the game and all the beautiful things we've talked about about it. So you can find me at Spotify, Apple Music, iHeartRadio, YouTube Audible, and

Whoever knows where else nowadays, you can reach me if you'd like to be on the podcast at amikiespodcast at gmail.com. That is amykeyspodcast at gmail.com. So thanks. We hope you will learn the game. And if you haven't ever played before, we hope you've learned a little bit about the game. Till next time.

Paula Brown (59:19) Next time.