Do you remember how Forrest Gump was preparing for the biggest ping pong match of his life to be played in China? Well, he came, he played, and he kicked butt. I am pretty sure “Lose Face” were the words of the day.
The Forrest Gump pipedream visits me every now and then. I have always fantasized about standing atop the gold-medal podium for the Red, White and Blue; victory paddle in one hand, 24-ka. rats around my neck, Chinese opponents on both sides, with Old Glory rising and the Star-Spangled Banner playing. Ok, wake me up. Who am I kidding? The Chinese will lose their number one spot on the ping pong podium when Hainan Island freezes over. And that’ s why I started playing the glorious game of ma jiang.
If you can’ t beat ‘ em at pong, ma jiang must be the second best thing, right? Now, 1 am not talking about mahjong, the matching tile game you play on the computer to kill time; I am talking about bona fide, cutthroat Chinese ma jiang.
I feel the most “Chinese” when I am sitting at the ma jiang table raking in the dough. And most of the time, in terms of making money, Chairman Mao’ s face is my friend, but hot streaks easily give way to cold ones. Indeed, most of ma jiang is a game of luck; I would say 70% luck and 30% skill.
Unlike poker, in ma jiang, reading your opponents tends to be almost impossible, so tense stare downs are rarely seen.
Perhaps, I am the . only Westerner in this city who plays ma jiang competitively. I guess you could call me the Da Shan of ma jiang, and that’ s part of the thrill for me. The other part of it is being just as skilled as my Chinese opponents, who started playing ma jiang when I was just a little kid, swinging the Little League bat back stateside.
Truly, when I started playing ma jiang, I didn’ t know what I was going to get; I didn’ t realize back then, that today, I would love it so much. I am a competitive person, so I guess ma jiang and me turned out to be-well-you know, like those two compatible veggies. In the end, if ma jiang one day becomes an Olympic event, you know what’ s going down.
无你还记得阿甘是怎样为他将在中国进行的、他人生最大的一场乒乓球赛做准备吗？他来了，他打了球，他赢了。我确信，对中国人来说当天的状况只能用“丢脸”来形容。
现在我时不时地会做阿甘的白日梦。我总是幻想我站在金牌的红蓝白色领奖台上，手握着胜利，脖子上挂着24K的金牌，而我的中国对手都站在两边，同时，美国国旗升起，《星条旗永不落》也开始演奏着。哦，把我叫醒吧。我在开什么玩笑？除非海南岛能结冰，否则中国不可能在乒乓球领奖台上失去第一的位置。所以，我开始玩麻将这个很棒的游戏。
如果不能在乒乓上打败他们，麻将一定是仅次于它的事，对吗？现在，我讲的麻将不是为了消遣在电脑上玩的消消看游戏；我讲的是真实、残酷的中国麻将。
当我坐在麻将桌旁发财的时候，我最能感受到“中国”特色。说到发财，大多数时候，毛主席的头像都是我的好朋友（我可以赢钱），但是连连赢钱的好运很容易就没了。确实，大多数的麻将游戏都是运气游戏，我的说法是70%的运气加上30%的技巧。
麻将不同于扑克牌的一点是，要读懂你的对手几乎是一件不可能的事，很少看到在麻将桌上会有人紧紧地盯住别人。
或许，我是这个城市中唯一一个打麻将时求胜心切的外国人。或许你们可以叫我麻将大山，那是我感到兴奋的部分原因。另一部分的原因是我的中国对手在我还是一个小孩子的时候就开始打麻将了，而我可以和他们一样技巧熟练，完全把美国小联盟的棒球棒丢在了脑后。
实话说，当我开始打麻将的时候，我不知道我将得到什么；我那时还没有意识到，现在我会这么爱它。我是一个求胜心切的人，所以我猜，麻将和我可以成为——你知道，就像两个兼容的蔬菜一样。最后，如果麻将有一天成为一个奥运项目会发生什么事呢，你们懂的。