“Mahjong causes great damage to the human spirit without a single benefit,” a vocalist sings in an upbeat song by Spotify artist Execell.
But not according to Randi Jacobson and Leslie Lichtenberg, Baltimore-area players for decades, and teachers of the 19th-century Chinese parlor game since April 2023.
“It’s really great for the brain,” Lichtenberg told Baltimore Fishbowl. “It’s really a thinking game, and it’s a little bit of a combination of Rummikub and Rummy.”
They began teaching a year-and-a-half ago after Jacobson’s niece in Richmond, Virginia told her that all her friends are obsessed with the game.
“We were taking a walk, and she said, ‘Aunt Randi, you’re not going to believe this. There’s this woman in Richmond who’s teaching mahjong lessons,’ she said, ‘and all my friends are obsessed. They’re all taking lessons. They’re all playing. She’s got this big business,’” Jacobson said. “And I said, ‘Oh, my God, I didn’t realize there was like a resurgence of mahjong.’ And I came home, and I called Leslie, and said, ‘I have this idea. Tell me what you think.’”
Mahj Mixers was born, and the friends began offering private lessons in people’s homes and partnered with local boutiques and businesses that carried mahjong merchandise. One of their first events was at the home goods store and gift shop Becket Hitch, and another took place at the modern general store Ruxton Mercantile. The pair has done many of those pop-up events, but their bread-and-butter is private lessons in the homes of people wanting to learn with their friends and/or family.
“It sounds cheesy, but we really wanted to share our love of the game and hope that people would find their group that’ll play for the next 10, 20, 30 years, like we have,” Lichtenberg said. “A lot of times people will get together and it’ll just be like a girls’ night, and it’s like a fun one-night lesson, and they’re all drinking wine and having a great time. … But I think for most of the people we’ve taught, we definitely see the light bulb, where they’re like, ‘Oh, I love this game. I can’t wait to go home and play!’”
Aside from being all-consumingly fun and challenging, Lichtenberg and Jacobson tout the benefits of being in the company of good friends, bringing back core memories of their childhoods, and enjoying the ASMR-like soothing nature of the sound and feel of the tiles. Both their mothers played, so they grew up with it.
“We probably both have very similar memories,” Lichtenberg said. “My mom would have the mahjong game at our house, and I would hear the tiles clicking around. It’s like ASMR, it’s the sound of the tiles, the smell of the coffee, and she had her bridge mix out. It’s such a cultural thing, I think, for a lot of Jewish women.”
While the game became immediately popular after its introduction in the United States in the 1920s, mahjong settled into a community-building activity for marginalized groups of people here. National Geographic cites its popularity among African American women in the urban North and Midwest, suburban Jewish women, and incarcerated Japanese Americans during World War II.
In fact, the National Mah Jongg League was founded in 1937 by a group of Jewish women who met in New York City to standardize the game so that all players could play the same hands across the country. The league began with 32 members and now numbers more than 350,000. They publish the American version of the rules and print out the “Official Standard Hands and Rules Cards” each year. It has to be an annual publication because the league changes the hands and rules every year to add excitement to the game.
Jacobson and Lichtenberg will teach single lessons, but they offer a discount for a package of three lessons.
“We feel like it’s more beneficial to take three lessons,” Jacobson said. “Most people even that take the singles, then they reach back out. ‘We need more. We can’t do this,’ they realize…. We have a system, and it works. I would say it’s worked for just about everybody.”
For those who have learned the game, the pair have begun hosting an event at Ryleigh’s Oyster in Lutherville-Timonium called “Guided Open Play.” They don’t teach a formal lesson, but they walk around the room and help people with strategy or help them figure out their hands.
“That type of thing, that’s the hardest part for beginners,” Lichtenberg said. “Once you know the basics and you’re dealt your tiles, it’s like, ‘Okay, now how do I figure out what hand to go for that?’”
They are also offering a master class that focuses heavily on strategy, which is for students who have been playing for a while and are ready to up their game.
“We have lots of students now who’ve been playing for many months, or for a year even, and we feel like they’re ready for the next level, which is defense and how to pivot and change your hand if your first one isn’t going to work out and hold back tiles that you think your opponents might need,” Lichtenberg said. “That’s much more strategic.”
Jacobson and Lichtenberg play together in a group of four every week if their schedules permit, but since they began teaching the game to others, they’ve become even busier. The two have traveled around Maryland teaching groups ranging from four people up to 16, from Navy wives in Annapolis to West Friendship, from Locust Point to White Marsh, from Sparks to Frederick.
Their backgrounds lend themselves to success in this chosen bonus career: Jacobson taught math for 14 years, and she still tutors. Lichtenberg’s entire career was in marketing and communications. So, Jacobson developed the curriculum, and Lichtenberg created their website and manages their social media.
“I think we tag team off of each other, really” Lichtenberg said. “We complement each other, our skills, our skill set, very well.”
Jacobson and Lichtenberg say they would love to bring mahjong into schools but have not yet figured out how to implement it.
“We were thinking along the lines of maybe some sort of after-school club,” Lichtenberg said. “Now that we’re back in a new school year … it would be really fun.”
“That is, I think, the next frontier for us,” Jacobson said.
