Nobody has argued about mahjong longer or harder than the Chinese. The game is at once a national pastime and, for a century, a national embarrassment — and the argument has produced some of the best writing about mahjong that exists.
What follows is a sourced collection. As on our Japan page, every quotation is attributed to a named person in a named place, and graded by how well it could be traced.
The critic: Hu Shi, 1927
Hu Shi was among the most important Chinese intellectuals of the twentieth century — a philosopher, a diplomat, a central figure in the New Culture Movement — and he thought mahjong was a catastrophe. His 1927 essay 〈麻将〉 (Mahjong), published across three issues of Modern Review and collected in his writings, is the most quoted Chinese text on the subject.
"Who could ever have dreamed that the vanguard with which Eastern civilization conquered the West would be those 136 mahjong generals!"Hu Shi (胡适), 〈麻将〉, from 《漫游的感想》, Modern Review (现代评论), 1927.
"The national game of China is mahjong."
"We have travelled the world over — have we ever seen a progressive people, a civilised nation, willing to waste its time and neglect its work like this?"
The essay is a wonderful piece of invective, and it is worth reading in full because it establishes something important: the case against mahjong in China was made by people of real stature, in public, a hundred years ago. Anyone who tells you the disapproval is a recent or foreign invention has not read it.
Source note: 〈麻将〉 is in the public domain and the full text is available via Wikisource as part of 《漫游的感想》.
The rulebook: 1998
The institutional counter-argument came seventy years later, in the foreword to the national competition rules:
"Mahjong has no necessary connection with gambling… the blame lies not with mahjong itself."Foreword, Mahjong Competition Rules of China (Trial), Social Sports Guidance Center, 1998.
The same document sets out the three-category policy — encourage competitive mahjong, guide recreational mahjong, oppose gambling mahjong — which remains the clearest official statement on the subject.
The advocates
Jiang Xuanqi (江选旗), Secretary-General of the World Mahjong Organization, spent years making the case for recognition, in the face of what he freely described as controversy. Interviewed by the West China Metropolis Daily in October 2012:
"The mahjong heritage bid aims to give mahjong its proper name, its proper voice, and its proper spirit."
"The controversy around mahjong is so great that we have to work 'thunder after the rain' — quietly first, announcements later."
Source: 华西都市报, 29 October 2012, reprinted by CCTV. Verified.
That second quotation is the more revealing one. It is an unusually frank admission from an advocate that the politics are difficult — that the work has to be done before it can be announced.
Yu Guangyuan (于光远), the economist and former vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, became the first chairman of the World Mahjong Organization at around ninety years of age. He is widely credited with the inscription:
"Mahjong originates in China, but belongs to the world."
Source note: reported in 《国家人文历史》 (People's Daily Online, November 2014) and in reference works. We could not locate a primary scan, so we grade this attributed rather than verified.
The sceptics — including one from inside the heritage establishment
Not everyone wanted mahjong recognised, and the most interesting dissent came from a heritage specialist rather than a sports official.
Liu Kuili (刘魁立), a scholar of intangible cultural heritage, was asked in October 2012 about the proposal to list mahjong:
"Personally, I do not favour including mahjong as an ICH protection item… China has many heritage items in need of protection, and priorities must be set."
Source: 京华时报 / CCTV, 30 October 2012. Important caveat: he subsequently said this was a private remark rather than an official position and declined to comment further. It should be read as a personal view, which is how we present it.
A second, related correction: at the time of writing, mahjong is not a national intangible cultural heritage item in China. The Ministry of Culture said as much in November 2012.
The new generation
Ma Xiaomei, speaking to China Daily in 2011 about what had been lost:
"The essence of mahjong has been reduced, and its image distorted. We need to reverse that trend. This is more difficult than protecting some other dying cultural heritages."
Source: China Daily, reprinted at en.chinaculture.org, 27 December 2011.
Wu Guoliang (伍国樑), chairman of the Mahjong International League, on the organisation's admission to the International Mind Sports Association in April 2017:
"As the new IMSA vice-president, I will do my utmost to help IMSA develop in terms of marketization and digitization."
Source: 中新网, 5 April 2017.
Li Xiaofeng (李晓峰) — better known as Sky, one of the most famous figures in Chinese esports — at the first China Mahjong Open in Hangzhou in March 2023:
"Esports skews young, but mahjong suits all ages… the psychological duel in mahjong has a lot in common with esports."
Source: 体坛报, 24 March 2023.
Liu Xiao (刘骁), on how the event was run:
"For an A-level event we set up every环节 according to standards for an official sport — uniforms, entry procedures, qualifiers through to the finals."
Source: 体坛报, March 2023.
The traditional text, and the sayings that are real
The World Mahjong Organization prefaces its international rules with an older text on conduct at the table. Its author is unknown, so it should be credited to the tradition rather than to any individual:
"Before you sit down to play, first temper your character: be calm, not rash; do not gloat over good tiles or sulk over bad ones; show neither joy in fortune nor sorrow in adversity; let nothing show in your face or voice. Breadth of spirit is the true prize; refinement and gentleness are the highest grade."
Two genuinely widespread folk sayings, safe to use as folk sayings — that is, attributed to nobody:
- 「十億人民九億麻，還有一億在觀察」 — "Of a billion people, nine hundred million play mahjong and the other hundred million are watching." A real 1990s folk rhyme.
- 「牌品見人品」 — "You see a person's character in how they play." Widely used, and the reason table manners matter as much in this game as they do in golf.
And one to avoid: 麻將牌裡有乾坤 and similar philosophical-sounding lines turn up constantly on social media with no attestation in any book, newspaper or rulebook. They appear to be internet inventions.
What the century of argument adds up to
The interesting thing about reading these in order is that nobody in it is arguing about the game. Hu Shi's complaint is about national character. The 1998 rulebook is about separating a game from gambling. Jiang Xuanqi is about reputation. Liu Kuili is about priorities in heritage policy. Li Xiaofeng is about competition.
Almost none of it is about whether mahjong is a good game. On that question, a hundred years of Chinese writing is remarkably unanimous.