The popular Chinese game is loaded with symbolism in a pivotal Crazy Rich Asians scene.<\/b>
\nOne of the most beautiful things about Crazy Rich Asians is how it refuses to explain many of its most intrinsically Asian elements. That lack of training wheels is intentional: As director Jon M. Chu told me, \u201cWe didn\u2019t want to give people an excuse to think of this world as some kind of obscure, exotic fantasyland \u2014 this is a real place, with real culture, history and tradition, and instead of just giving them answers to their questions, we want them to have conversations.\u201d
The movie\u2019s Singapore-specific local color and broadly Asian cultural nuances are indeed fairly Google-able, and can readily be contextualized through polite discussions with actual Asian people. But there\u2019s one scene in particular that has been resiliently enigmatic to audiences of many backgrounds, both Asian and non-Asian\u2026 and it\u2019s a pivotal one: the mahjong scene.
That\u2019s especially true for fans of the book, who won\u2019t recognize it; it\u2019s original to the movie. It was inserted in part because Michelle Yeoh, who delivers an amazing steel-and-silk performance as the movie\u2019s main antagonist, refused to play the stock villainous tiger mom from the book. This scene provides her with critical impetus toward her eventual redemption.
But it\u2019s also true for people who don\u2019t understand the complex rules of the game, which aren\u2019t intuitive and are often different depending on the region of the world. So here\u2019s a quick primer on the game of mahjong itself, as well as its significance to the film in that pivotal scene. Spoilers abound below, so if you haven\u2019t yet watched the deliriously warm and funny movie, crawl out from under that rock and see it before reading further.
A quick primer on mahjong itself. A fast-paced, rummy-style game in which four players attempt to form sets of three or four matching or sequenced tiles, it\u2019s hugely popular not only across Asia but around the world. Its origins are Chinese: All the way back in 1927, about a century after the game was invented, the Chinese scholar and essayist Hu Shi complained that mahjong was so popular that it had become China\u2019s \u201cnational pastime,\u201d calculating that the millions of games of mahjong played each day by Chinese were the equivalent of 4 million hours of wasted time daily.
But most Chinese don\u2019t see the game as \u201cwasted time.\u201d In fact, despite his grousing, Hu himself was an inveterate player who spent many an evening tossing the tiles. Mao Zedong once said the game should not be underestimated \u2014 because \u201cIf you know how to play it, you\u2019ll have a better understanding of the relationship between chance and necessity. There\u2019s philosophy in mahjong.\u201d
Mahjong remains extraordinarily popular among Chinese immigrants and beyond, and it\u2019s featured in both the film The Joy Luck Club and the TV show Fresh Off the Boat, both of which depict Asian-American post-immigrant life. (Mandatory disclosure: My son Hudson Yang plays Eddie on Fresh Off the Boat; Crazy Rich Asians\u2019 Constance Wu plays his mother.)
When asked about the mahjong scene, Chu told me, \u201cNever thought we\u2019d have to explain it,\u201d and laughed. \u201cI wanted it to be very specifically choreographed, and obviously, for it to happen that fast is almost impossible. But I wanted to intercut the game with the conversation, so it was critical for them to know exactly what they were doing at every moment. We got a mahjong expert \u2014 basically a gambling addict! \u2014 to help choreograph that game, to make it authentic.\u201d
The closest Western analog to Mahjong might be gin rummy. The goal of the game is to reach certain combinations of tiles before your opponents. Tiles have numbers and suits, which can be combined into winning hands through sets of either matching numbers or suited numerically sequential tiles, just like in gin rummy. Each player\u2019s hand is 13 tiles throughout the game, though the pickup of a 14th tile is needed to win.
Here is a very simplified explanation of the options that, in combination, can compose winning hands:
Communication, negotiation, strategy, and even cooperation are far more critical in mahjong than in most card games. Watching what your opponents discard as well as the completed sets they lay out in front of them \u2014 when one steals a tile that another player has discarded, one must expose the completed set \u2014 is the key to understanding what each is attempting to accomplish.
In the movie, the mahjong scene takes place in a pivotal scene after our protagonist Rachel Chu, played by Constance Wu, has been rejected by her boyfriend Nick\u2019s mother, Eleanor (played by Michelle Yeoh). This is because Eleanor learns that Rachel was born to a single mother who fled China for the States. However, unbeknownst to Eleanor, Nick has gone against his mother\u2019s wishes and proposed to Rachel anyway.
In the mahjong scene, Rachel and Eleanor go head to head right after this stunning twist. Rachel invites Eleanor to meet with her at a mahjong parlor \u2014 a gambling house frequented mostly by working- or middle-class older folks who rent tables by the hour. The persistent clacking of tiles is a sound familiar to anyone who has been around people playing mahjong.
When Eleanor arrives, she takes the open seat across from Rachel and is offered the role of dealer \u2014 the \u201cEast\u201d seat. The four seats in mahjong are named after the compass directions, which plays an important role both in the rules of the game and in the symbolism of the scene. Eleanor, in the role of the \u201cEast,\u201d representing Asia, is the player in control. Rachel, sitting across from her, represents America \u2014 the \u201cWest.\u201d
Early in the scene, Eleanor completes a \u201cpong,\u201d or a matched set of tiles. This move demonstrates that Eleanor plans to win using the strategy of matched tiles, and she\u2019s making Rachel aware. In this moment, Eleanor tells Rachel that her mother taught her how to play too.
As the conversation continues, Rachel asks Eleanor why she didn\u2019t like her from the very beginning \u2014 even before her family history was revealed. Eleanor expounds on the difference between Asians and Americans, noting how even though Asian Americans look Asian, they are American at heart. Referencing a Hokkien term that means \u201cour kind of people,\u201d she says that Asian Americans are not kaki lang. Remember, in this game, Eleanor is trying to create a winning hand comprising all matches of the same exact tile \u2014 an \u201cextended family\u201d that\u2019s metaphorically composed of kaki lang.
The camera then cuts to show a number of discarded bamboo tiles. Discarded bamboo calls to mind a frequently used term for Westernized overseas Asians, this one Cantonese: jook sing, which literally means \u201cempty bamboo.\u201d It\u2019s a slang term that\u2019s the Chinese equivalent of the Asian-American term \u201cbanana\u201d \u2014 yellow on the outside, white on the inside \u2014 cited earlier in the film by Peik Lin (the frenetically hilarious Awkwafina). The \u201cempty\u201d bamboo tiles are scattered alongside the tiles for East and West, not truly part of either, representing Eleanor\u2019s perception of Rachel.
At this point, Rachel drops the bomb on Eleanor that Nick proposed to her, telling her that he said he\u2019d be willing to walk away from everything \u2014 his family, his family\u2019s wealth \u2014 to be with her. Right as Rachel is saying this, she draws the most important tile in the game: an eight of bamboo.
The number eight is of huge symbolic importance to the Chinese; it resembles the character for fortune and is considered a sign of wealth, prosperity, and happiness. It\u2019s why so many Chinese license plates, phone numbers, and even street addresses contain eights. Monterey Park, the first city in San Gabriel Valley, California, to become a suburban destination for wealthy Chinese, was considered a particularly propitious place to live because it had an 818 area code.
While an eight doesn\u2019t have special value in the game of mahjong, we see that the eight of bamboo is also the one tile Rachel needs to complete her hand. This is a winning tile for her. But Rachel knows something else, based on her observation of how the game has played out (remember, she\u2019s a game theory professor!): It\u2019s Eleanor\u2019s winning tile too.
She then discloses to Eleanor that she turned Nick down. Eleanor is dumbfounded. \u201cOnly a fool folds a winning hand,\u201d she says, referring to Nick\u2019s proposal.
This is critical, because in the very first scene of the movie, Rachel demonstrated through a poker game with one of her TAs that to be successful in any game where psychology and choice are a factor, you can\u2019t play \u201cnot to lose\u201d \u2014 you have to play to win .
Rachel explains: When it comes to her marriage with Nick, Eleanor has guaranteed there\u2019s no winning outcome for them. Nick choosing Rachel means he\u2019d lose his mother and his family. Nick choosing his family means he might resent Eleanor forever \u2014 thus losing his mother anyway. Lose-lose.
So she decided to seize control of the situation and choose for him. But she doesn\u2019t want it to happen without Eleanor knowing exactly why it\u2019s happening and what Rachel is giving up to make it possible.
She tells Eleanor that she knows Nick will eventually find someone else, someone that his family approves of \u2014 that\u2019s what every generation of Youngs has done before him, after all. And while her own heart will be broken, as she says, she loves him so much that she is willing to suffer if it means that Nick will keep the thing that is at the heart of Asian culture, and of his story: his family.
That\u2019s when Rachel throws out the eight of bamboo as a discard \u2014 folding her winning hand, knowing that Eleanor will pick it up and declare victory. While this happens, she explains that when Nick finds the proper match in the future, she wants Eleanor to understand that the only reason it occurred was because a \u201cpoor, raised by a single mother, low-class immigrant nobody\u201d \u2014 Rachel \u2014 made it possible.
She then reveals her hand, which would have won, making it clear to the whole table what she\u2019s done, and walks away.
In this move, Rachel has demonstrated to Eleanor three critical things. The first is that she loves Nick enough to put his future ahead of hers. The second is that she understands that family should always come first, something that Eleanor suspected she didn\u2019t comprehend as a jook sing Asian American. And the third is that Rachel is strong, self-sacrificing, and courageous \u2014 a lot like Eleanor herself. Instead of \u201cnever being enough\u201d for Nick, a line Eleanor uses to surgically destroy Rachel in an earlier scene, she\u2019s most likely exactly what Nick needs.
Knowing all of this context isn\u2019t necessary for the scene to work, but it certainly adds depth to understand the symbolism of the game.
This essay was adapted from a post on Angry Asian Man. For a more detailed look at mahjong, read here.
Jeff Yang is a co-host of the podcast They Call Us Bruce, a featured contributor for CNN Opinion, and a columnist for South China Morning Post\u2019s Inkstone magazine. His elder son, Hudson Yang, plays Eddie on ABC\u2019s Fresh Off the Boat.
First Person is Vox\u2019s home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com .<\/p>\n

\n

Similarity rank: 13<\/div>\n

Sentiment rank: 0<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

TW posts: 18<\/div>\n

TW reposts: 1<\/div>\n

TW likes: 8<\/div>\n

TW sentiment: 0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n