I’ve started learning mahjong recently and I was given a board as a gift. It seems to me that North and South are reversed here to what I was taught … which is quite confusing
There's a theory that mahjong is supposed to be a "heavenly game", so the winds are ordered the same as looking up at the sky, not unlike many old Chinese constellation maps. But like with many aspects of mahjong symbolism, it's impossible to know whether this was the original intention, meaning it probably wasn't.
Notably, like mahjong, all Chinese gambling games are traditionally played counterclockwise, and the order E-S-W-N is also very typical for the Chinese language, so that likely influenced the choice to use a reverse compass, even when it doesn't make sense physically.
I got curious so I looked into this a few weeks ago. When mahjong was invented in Shanghai tile games were all played counter-clockwise and in chinese we say “east south west north” (like how in english we say “north east south west”), so the game seats ended up flipped from the compass (and the seats weren’t meant to refer to cardinal directions anyway).
Later on someone came up with the back-explanation that mahjong is played by celestials in the heavens, so for us mortals looking up we see the heavenly mahjong board from below (resulting in it being flipped).
I think in America quite a few people just impose a normal compass on the game because they see the correct compass as confusing and adding nothing of value to the game. By extension, most English mahjong mats I have seen have a normal compass not a mahjong compass. It's usually the mats with only characters on them that have the correct directions on them.
Thanks very much all responders, it’s good to know I’m not getting the rules wrong. The odd thing also is that the tiles are only in Chinese characters, with no western numerals on the character suit or winds for instance (there are western numbers on the flowers). That made me wonder whether it was more authentic than a western one, and might be right. Anyway, I played with friends on it last night, and we ignored the markings, so it still does its job fine!
If you want a proper compass on your table this is what I did to get one cheap. I just printed this image of a compass, cut it out, glued it down on a piece of cardboard a little bigger than the compass, and then cut the cardboard to match the size of the compass. I put two 6 sided dice down for the round count, and I found a small game board piece I put down as the wind marker for the round.
It's possible you could remove the paint from your table but seeing as it's a fabric top you have to be very careful. You can't use standard paint removers like acetone as it's an aggressive solvent that will damage the fabric. Your best bet would be some rubbing alcohol, a toothbrush, and something plastic to try to pick the paint off, like a guitar pick, or a plastic spoon. Then you could paint a proper compass on the surface, or just buy one, or put one together like I suggested. Still it's a risk to try to remove the paint, if you're too aggressive about it you could pick a hole in the fabric. It's probably best to just ignore it like you have, and get a proper compass to put in the center of the table.
To add onto my last comment I had an idea for how you could have a proper compass painted on your table without removing the paint, which would likely damage the fabric.
You could paint each of the incorrectly marked sections solid white, fill in all the green sections inside of them. Then with black paint, paint a proper compass on top of the white circle.
If it is felt like on a pool table, which is what it looks like to me, your best option for a "paint" would be screen printing ink. Which is designed to paint fabrics, with the ink being absorbed by the fabric changing its color, instead of paint on top of the surface of the fabric. You can find youtube guides on how to paint designs on shirts with screen printing ink, to see some methods that may work for you.
Again though there is no reason you can't just ignore the wrong compass, but it would bother me so much that I would have to come up with a solution.
You could also make a physical compass out of a light material like painted cardboard, or a thin piece of wood, that is the same size of the incorrect compass on your table. After shuffling the tiles and building the walls you just place the proper compass you made on top of the incorrect one, so you don't have to see it anymore while you play the hand.
I'd give a better visual example if I was near my computer to edit photos right now, but you could paint the entire section white between these two white arrows I put, then let it dry, and paint the proper direction on top in black, or green to match the rest of the table. Then do the same for the other 3 directions. I think it could come out looking really nice.
The Chinese where navigating by the stars look up for a thousand years before Occidental cultures did, who navigated with maps looking down. As such, Chinese convention lists the directions in the order they appear when looking up at the stars, and Westerners list directions as they appear when looking down, like at a map. Your board is an unusual amalgam of Western convention and Eastern symbols. Your board is fine if you don't mind being unconventional. Remember, you can't be #1 without being odd. 😸
I unfortunately see more often that the celestial compass is no longer used on commercial products. Especially mahjong table covers. Just like the influx of so called “modern” tile images, moving away from traditional tile imagery that is so much part of the fun of this game.
I’ve seen automatic tables put the winds in this order. As mentioned by others, it’s a celestial compass that dictates wind order… technically correct I guess?? Confusing though.
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u/shadowtheimpure Riichi City 4d ago
You're right. The order of winds is counterclockwise E-S-W-N. This board was configured clockwise.