Chinese classical

Guide Sloper, Tom. "FAQ 2b: Identifying a Mah-Jongg Variant." Sloperama. cross-check checked 2026-09-18

https://www.sloperama.com/mjfaq/mjfaq02b.html

chart’s note Tile counts, hand sizes, flower handling and scoring for roughly 50 named variants. Primary source for most leaf nodes in this chart.

for this variant Same author as chart ref 3. Its 144 counts the tiles in a set as sold, flowers included; the period rule texts count 136 and treat the flowers as optional

Also cited on: Chinese archaic, Late Qing style, Chinese pre-classical, Shanghai / Hong Kong new style, Hong Kong old style, Modern HKOS and 45 more · bibliography #1

Historical 上海遊藝社 (Shanghai Youyi She), ed. 《繪圖麻雀牌譜》 [Illustrated Manual of Mahjong]. Shanghai: 上海遊藝社, 1924 (民國13年), 60 pp. National Library of China scan, on Wikimedia Commons. cross-check checked 2026-09-25

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NLC416-09jh003414-41132_%E7%B9%AA%E5%9C%96%E9%BA%BB%E9%9B%80%E7%89%8C%E8%AD%9C.pdf

AI summary The 1924 Shanghai edition of the first Chinese mahjong manual (Shen Yifan's, 1914): 136 tiles with no flowers, 17-stack walls, 副 (points) and 倍 (doublings), 10 副 for going out, ten 賀例 special hands including 國士無雙 and 九連寶燈, the 滿門 limit of about 300 副, liability rules, a 14-tile 王張 dead wall, and a note on the 'recent new method' of double payment for a self-drawn win. Read from the page images of the scan.

for this variant The earliest Chinese rule text read, and the only one in which the losers do not settle among themselves. Xu Ke (1917) agrees with it on 136 tiles and the 300 limit

Also cited on: Shanghai / Hong Kong new style · bibliography #126

Historical Babcock, Joseph Park. "The Chinese Game 麻雀." Chapter VIII of Babcock's Rules for Mah-Jongg: The Red Book of Rules, second edition, Shanghai and San Francisco, 1923, pp. 63-82; transcribed on Wikisource. cross-check checked 2026-09-25

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Babcock%27s_Rules_for_Mah-Jongg/Chapter_8

AI summary Babcock's account of how the Chinese game differed from his own Mah-Jongg: four rounds with seats drawn by wind discs, the round wind doubling, a 14-tile dead wall, 2 points for a pair, edge or middle wait, one-suit doubling for the winner only, limit hands, the Chinese insurance penalties, a 300-point limit, and the 'New Method' in which the discarder pays double and East no longer pays or receives double.

Also cited on: Shanghai / Hong Kong new style · bibliography #124

Historical Tchou Kia-kien [Zhu Jiajian]. Le mah-jong tel qu'il est joué par les Chinois. Paris: Les Éditions du Monde Moderne, 1924. Text edition by Pierre Palpant, Bibliothèque Chine ancienne, 2012. cross-check checked 2026-09-25

https://www.chineancienne.fr/d%C3%A9but-20e-s/tchou-kia-kien-le-mah-jong/

AI summary A Chinese author's full rulebook for the game 'as the Chinese play it': 136 tiles, flowers optional and disliked by 'true amateurs', walls of 17 stacks, points then fan doublings, settlement among the losers, the 'old mode' with East paying and receiving double, and the 'new mode', which 'all Chinese players have adopted', in which the discarder pays double.

Also cited on: Shanghai / Hong Kong new style · bibliography #125

Historical Tow, Julius Su (J. S. Tow). The Outline of Mah Jong: How to Play and How to Win, the Real Chinese Methods. New York: Pacific Printing Co., 1924. Scanned at the Internet Archive. cross-check checked 2026-09-25

https://archive.org/details/outlineofmahjong00towj

AI summary A Chinese author's account of the classical game (the Leader pays and receives double, the losers settle among themselves, a limit of 300 to 600), with footnotes and an appendix of regional variations: Shanghai and Ningbo single-tier walls of 21 with 13 counted out to each player, a base of 10 'quite common in Shanghai' against the usual 20, all-pung hands worth only 10 extra in Shanghai instead of a double, and a 16-tile game in Fukien.

for this variant With Lim (1923), one of two period texts that give 144 tiles, and both do so only when the optional flowers and seasons are added

Also cited on: Shanghai / Hong Kong new style, Taiwanese style · bibliography #129

Historical Wei, Wing Lock. The Theory of Mah Jong: Its Principles, Psychology, Tactics, Strategies, and Fine Points, including the Complete Chinese Rules of Play. Boston: Small, Maynard, 1925. Scanned at the Internet Archive. cross-check checked 2026-09-25

https://archive.org/details/theoryofmahjongi00weiw

AI summary A Chinese author's 'complete Chinese rules': East always wins or loses twice the score, the losers settle the differences between their scores, a limit of 300 to 600, and liability penalties that make a discarder pay all losses for feeding a one-suit hand after nine tiles of that suit are exposed, or a terminals, winds or dragons hand.

Also cited on: Shanghai / Hong Kong new style · bibliography #130

Historical Foster, R. F. Foster on Mah Jong. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1924. cross-check checked 2026-10-11

https://archive.org/details/bwb_Y0-ACE-714

AI summary Foster's first book on the game, published and reprinted in February 1924: play, scoring, the Seasons, the Chinese and American games, the one-double and cleared-suit fashions he opposed, and his laws. Read in the Internet Archive's scan.

for this variant Independent of the chart. A 1924 American authority who sets the Chinese game apart from the American one: the playing set is 136 tiles, and the Seasons are outside the Chinese game except by agreement

Also cited on: Babcock rules, Twenty Point Mah Jong, Regional US house rules · bibliography #321

Official rules Babcock, J. P. Babcock's Rules for Mah-Jongg: The Red Book of Rules. Second edition, revised and enlarged. San Francisco: Mah-Jongg Sales Company of America; Shanghai: Mah-Jongg Company of China, 1923 (eleventh printing, November 1923). Internet Archive scan. cross-check checked 2026-10-11

https://archive.org/details/babcock_202209

AI summary The designer's own rules in the enlarged second edition: the 136-tile set, play, irregularities, the standard score sheet, scoring examples, optional limit hands, the Chinese game, variations for two, three and five players, the Seasons, and a historical note. Its printing history runs from a first printing of September 1920. Read in the Internet Archive's OCR text.

for this variant Independent of the chart. The designer of the American game, writing from Shanghai in 1923, puts the playing set at 136 and treats the 144-tile set with Seasons as a recent addition the Chinese do not favour

Also cited on: Babcock rules, Regional US house rules · bibliography #365

Historical Harr, L. L. [Lew Lysle]. Pung Chow: The Game of a Hundred Intelligences, also known as Mah-Diao, Mah-Jong, Mah-Cheuk, Mah-Juck and Pe-Ling. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1922 (introductory note dated January 1923). cross-check checked 2026-10-11

https://archive.org/details/pungchowgameofhu00harriala

AI summary The rule book for the Pung Chow sets: a score card for unlimited play, a chapter on playing with a limit, and an introduction on the game's many names. Read in the Internet Archive's scan of the UC San Diego copy.

for this variant Independent of the chart, but an American adaptation (Pung Chow) rather than an account of the Chinese game. It agrees that the playing set is 136 and that the flowers are optional

Also cited on: Regional US house rules · bibliography #394

Historical 徐珂 (Xu Ke), comp. 《清稗類鈔》 (Qing bai lei chao), 賭博類 [Gambling]. Shanghai: 商務印書館 (Commercial Press), 1917. Chinese Wikisource text, volume 087. cross-check checked 2026-10-11

https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E6%B8%85%E7%A8%97%E9%A1%9E%E9%88%94/087

AI summary PRIMARY, though an anecdote collection. The gambling section has entries on the card game 碰和, on dominoes, on 馬弔, and on 叉麻雀: the tile set, the Ningbo origin, the Taiping story of the 化 tiles, and a poem naming late-Qing hands.

for this variant Independent of the chart and earlier than its date. A 1917 Chinese compilation that already gives the 136-tile set with no flowers, the 300-point limit and the classical limit hands, and that dates the game's vogue to before 1911

Also cited on: Proto-mahjong · bibliography #140

Scholarship Stanwick, Michael. "Mahjong(g) Before Mahjong(g): Part 2." The Playing-Card 32 (5), 2004; reproduced at themahjongtileset.co.uk. cross-check checked 2026-10-11

https://www.themahjongtileset.co.uk/tile-set-history/mahjongg-before-mahjongg-part-2/

AI summary Wilkinson's 1889-92 Ningbo and Shanghai sets, the 1901 Laufer set and Culin's 1909 Shanghai set, and the conclusion that the tile set was fairly stable in group and tile numbers from c. 1872 to c. 1920.

for this variant Independent of the chart. It shows that 144-piece sets with eight flower tiles were on sale in Shanghai by 1909, so the 144-tile set is older than the 1920s even though the period rule texts count 136

Also cited on: Proto-mahjong, Chinese archaic · bibliography #95

Guide Sloper, Tom. "Comparative Analysis of Early Mah-Jongg Forms." Sloperama. cross-check checked 2026-10-11

https://www.sloperama.com/mahjongg/analysis.html

chart’s note Chinese Archaic, Late Qing and Pre-Classical rule comparisons.

for this variant Same author as chart ref 3 and built on Depaulis's data, so not independent. It is where the chart's defining features (points then doubles, every player settling) and its '1920s' label for the standard form come from

Also cited on: Chinese archaic, Late Qing style, Chinese pre-classical, Hong Kong old style, Japanese classical / arushiiaru · bibliography #4

Historical Lim, Yang-Chow (Y. C. Lim). The Original Rules of the Ancient Chinese Game, Maajok. Seattle: Y. C. Lim, 1923 (copyright 28 May 1923). 50 pp. Library of Congress copy, scanned at the Internet Archive. cross-check checked 2026-10-11

https://archive.org/details/originalrulesofa00limy

AI summary A Chinese author's 'original Chinese rules' under the Cantonese name Maajok. It counts 136 tiles and treats the eight Flowers and Seasons as an optional addition that makes 144. Scoring is 20 for going out plus points for sets, then doublings; the losers settle their differences with each other, and East pays and receives double.

for this variant Independent of the chart and new to the bibliography. A Chinese author's 1923 'original Chinese rules' that gives both the chart's 144 and the 136 it should be measured against. It confirms that the losers settle among themselves and that East pays and receives double

Only cited here · bibliography #492

Collection Penn Museum (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology). 'Mahjong, Game Piece', object 19092. Shanghai, 19th century; deposited by George L. Farnum, 1896. Online collections record. cross-check checked 2026-10-11

https://collections.penn.museum/collections/object/217514

AI summary Catalogue record of a Shanghai set of 140 sandalwood-and-ivory pieces, one of them missing: the three suits, the winds, four each of fa and centre, and eight blanks. It has no flower tiles.

for this variant Independent of the chart. A set from before 1896 with no flower tiles and four extra blanks, which shows that set composition was not yet fixed at 136 or 144 in the 1890s. It bears on the trunk's ancestry more than on the 1920s game

Only cited here · bibliography #493

Encyclopedia 萌娘百科 (Moegirlpedia). 「麻将」 (Mahjong). zh.moegirl.org.cn. cross-check checked 2026-10-11

https://zh.moegirl.org.cn/%E9%BA%BB%E5%B0%86

AI summary A Chinese fan wiki's general article on mahjong. It covers the origin legends, the 136-tile set, the late-Qing settled form it calls 中国古典麻将, competition rules and a list of ways local rules change the base game. It cites no sources for the history.

for this variant A Chinese fan wiki with no sources for these points. It supplies the zh name 中国古典麻将 and dates the classical game's formation to the late Qing, not the 1920s

Also cited on: Zung Jung · bibliography #494

Historical Culin, Stewart. "The Game of Ma-Jong, its Origin and Significance." Brooklyn Museum Quarterly XI, October 1924. cross-check checked 2026-10-11

https://web.archive.org/web/20110516224304/http://gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/Archives/Culin/Majong1924/index.html

AI summary Money-derived cards as the immediate source of ma-jong; Wilkinson's 1891 Ningbo chung fat tablets; Culin's 1909 Shanghai purchase. Read through the Elliott Avedon Virtual Museum of Games transcription. The museum site no longer answers; the link goes to an Internet Archive capture of 16 May 2011, which carries the full article text.

for this variant Independent of the chart. A 1924 museum report of a 1909 visit: the game was already spreading in Shanghai a decade before the 1920s, and the extra pieces, flowers included, were not yet standard

Also cited on: Proto-mahjong, Chinese archaic · bibliography #100

Encyclopedia Wikipedia. "Mahjong." cross-check checked 2026-09-18

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahjong

AI summary The main article's regional-variations section, which describes most branches of this tree independently of the chart's own sources.

Also cited on: Proto-mahjong, Hong Kong old style, Taiwanese style, Nanyang variants, Singapore style, Malaysian 4-player and 10 more · bibliography #54

Encyclopedia Wikipedia. "Scoring in Mahjong." cross-check checked 2026-09-18

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoring_in_Mahjong

AI summary Comparative scoring across Hong Kong, Chinese Classical and Taiwanese systems, including the range of minimum-point conventions and the Mandarin and Cantonese terms for a scoreless hand.

Also cited on: Modern HKOS, Taiwanese style, Nanyang variants, Singapore style, Zung Jung, Tui Dao Hu · bibliography #55

Scholarship Depaulis, Thierry and Cofa Tsui. "Evolution of Various Forms of Mahjong (1890-2001)." International Mahjong InfoWeb, archive 205d(3), 2007, updated 2008. cross-check checked 2026-09-25

https://www.imahjong.com/maiarchives205d_3.html

AI summary Feature-by-feature chart of the Chinese forms of the game from Wilkinson 1890 to Amy Lo 2001, taking the Late Qing novels as the reference gameplay. Its 1890 column is sourced to Wilkinson's 1925 memorandum.

Also cited on: Chinese archaic, Late Qing style, Chinese pre-classical, Shanghai / Hong Kong new style, Hong Kong old style · bibliography #109

Encyclopedia Chinese Wikipedia: 麻将. cross-check checked 2026-09-25

https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E9%BA%BB%E5%B0%86

AI summary The origin section weighs the Ningbo and Fujian-Guangdong theories and traces each origin legend (Powell 1923, the Taiping hypothesis, the Tianyi Pavilion Chen Yumen account, the 2008 CCTV Harvey diary) to where it first appears.

Also cited on: Proto-mahjong, Shanghai / Hong Kong new style, Nanyang variants, Singapore style, Filipino style, Vietnamese classical and 1 more · bibliography #105

Encyclopedia Mahjong Wiki. "Chinese Classical Scoring." mahjong.wikidot.com. cross-check checked 2026-09-25

http://mahjong.wikidot.com/rules:chinese-classical-scoring

AI summary Doubles and mini-point tables for 'Early Classical (1900s)', 'Late Classical (1910s)', Shanghai New Style and Hong Kong New Style, with the Classical payout in which all players pay and receive. No sources are cited for the period columns.

Also cited on: Shanghai / Hong Kong new style · bibliography #127

Commercial Sloper, Tom. "Chinese Mah-Jongg: Rules & Options." Manual chapter for Shanghai: Second Dynasty (Activision); hosted at Sloperama. cross-check checked 2026-09-25

https://sloperama.com/shanghai/Images/mjchin.htm

AI summary A modern description of the classic Chinese game 'as it was played in China in the 1920s and 1930s, and as it is played today in Europe': base points then doubles, 20 for going out, and 'Payment to All' as an optional rule under which a non-winner can earn more than the winner.

Only cited here · bibliography #128

Scholarship Kwan, Alan Shiu Ho (關兆豪). 《中庸麻雀史觀》 (Zung Jung: a Perspective of Mahjong History). Online book, 2009, zj-mahjong.info. cross-check checked 2026-09-25

http://www.zj-mahjong.info/book_hk/Table%20of%20Contents.html

AI summary A history of scoring by the author of Zung Jung. Early classical rules after Hatsuhara Shigeki's 1952 reconstruction; the late classical 'inflation' of hands and base score; Hong Kong Old Style (舊章) derived directly from the late classical game by abolishing fu and adopting discarder-pays-double (出銃么二制); the 二二制 and 三三制, the 勒 multiple-limit system and the rising minimum; and New Chapter (新章) as a later re-addition of hands. Gives no dates for the Hong Kong stages.

Also cited on: Shanghai / Hong Kong new style, Hong Kong old style, Modern HKOS, Guangdong style, Zung Jung · bibliography #132