International Cultures of Mahjong

Besides the various websites and pages on mahjong I have mentioned in earlier posts, there is one other website I should highlight: International Cultures of Mahjong. This is a blog by Benjamin Boas, a researcher of mahjong culture (hence the title of his blog). Currently on a Fulbright Fellowship, he will be studying the mahjong culture of Japan. This sounds like an ideal job for a mahjong enthusiast, and Ben is certainly one!

Mainly a riichi mahjong player, Ben has made his first foray into Mahjong Competition Rules (MCR), with the recent Open European Mahjong Championship (OEMC) 2007, and in fact emerged the second runner-up in his very first MCR tournament!

Ben's blog, like this blog, is quite new, but it already has some interesting entries as well as comments on various aspects of mahjong, especially on his participation and experiences at OEMC 2007 as well as some controversies over some rules used in the tournament.

Although the posts on some rules of the MCR ruleset may sound boring and dry, they are actually actually not. Ben's posts highlight the fact that cultural differences affect perspectives on mahjong and its rules. Thus, players of different nationalities would react differently to certain rules, practices and conventions, their mahjong cultural backgrounds playing a considerable part in such reactions.

As there are few websites and/or blogs out there on MCR, Ben's blog certainly fills in a gap. Since Ben is a globe-trotting researcher/competitor as well as a riichi mahjong player, there should be a lot of interesting posts on all things mahjong that we can look forward to.