Categories
Games and Sports

Chinese Characters for the Gwai Lo Mahjong Player

Over the holidays my inlaws gave my wife and I a bit of a Mahjong beginner’s clinic. Several hours later, my head hurt quite a bit, but I did know how to play the game. Obviously, I’d do a much better job knowing the characters on the pieces better. So I asked my wife to compile a cheat sheet of characters for me with Cantonese pronunciations which I’ll share here. If you have Chinese language support in your browser, you’ll see these below.

Mahjong Characters 麻 雀 字

東 dung east
南 naam south
西 sai west
北 buk north
中 jung central
發 faat prosperous
白 baak white, blank
萬 maan ten thousand
一 yut one
二 yee two
三 saam three
å›› sei four
五 m (or ng) five
å…­ luk six
七 tsut seven
å…« baat eight
九 gau nine
十 sup ten

春 chun spring
夏 haa summer
ç§‹ chau autumn
冬 dong winter

梅 mui plum blossom
蘭 laan orchid
菊 guk chrysanthemum
竹 juk bamboo