Kashrut and Mahj

Greetings and salutations from your heimish Bubbe, with a little metaphor that can be helpful to newbies, as well as those of us who TEACH newbies.

When we first display all of the tiles, instructors always point out which suit goes with which colored dragon. My old teaching partner used to say,"Bamboo is green, dots are like white soap bubbles, and if you crak your head you'll probably bleed...." 

Those images are effective for some students, but too violent for Bubbe. In fact, my mind uses a less visual mnemonic: Bam, Crak and Dot are in alphabetical order, corresponding to the similarly alphabetically ordered Green, Red, and White colors. (Side note:  I was asked to be the baseball statistician in high school and had to learn a lot about the game quickly. I found it helped to remember "the count" on the batter alphabetically, too: balls before strikes)

While these mnemonics helped to learn the color pairings, there were three groups of tiles that didn't HAVE a suit: Jokers, Flowers, and Winds. I'm Jewish, so there was a parallel that made perfect sense to me, related to kosher law (kashrut): 

Some foods are strictly milchig (dairy), e.g. milk, cheese, butter.

Some foods are strictly fleishig (meat), e.g. chicken, beef, lamb.

Still others are pareve--they contain neither milk nor meat, and can be served with either one--for instance fruits and vegetables, grains, eggs, fish, nuts, tofu. 

I tell my students that Flowers, Winds, and Jokers are pareve--they do not belong to any specific suit, and can be used with every suit.

HOWEVER: there is one additional group of tiles that is "forgotten," when it comes to suiting, that will continue to be highly relevant for the next 87 years, and every ten years thereafter: the "0" or Soap tile, used in the context of Year hands. Some players worry about whether or not they must consider "0" to be a member of the dots/white suit. Remind them that, just as with Flowers, Winds, or Jokers, "0" is suitless (or pareve).

How about you? Do you have some useful mnemonics that help you to understand the tiles better? Bubbe would love to hear from you at bubbefischer@gmail.com

Talk to you soon!

Bubbe