Shanghai / Hong Kong new style

Descends into

• Hong Kong old style — 1950s, fu removed
• Mainland regionals

Cross-comparison

corroborated — two or more independent sources agree on the facts that define this variant

• [1] Sloperama's 'Hong Kong New Style': many many special hands, vs few in Old Style
• [2] wiki treats New Chapter as the transition from HKOS toward Guangdong style
• [3] CORROBORATES THE INTERMEDIATE NODE: states that HKOS was adopted as a backlash to HKNS, which had itself evolved from Chinese Classical, and that the simplified variant born from that backlash is Qing Zhang, Clear Chapter, known in English as Hong Kong Old Style. That places a new-style stage between Chinese Classical and HKOS, which is exactly what this node is

Reading it

The node's existence is now independently supported rather than inherited. Sloperama's Hong Kong New Style entry matches on tiles, hand and payout, and its 'many many special hands' against Old Style's 'few' is the substantive difference the branch depends on. The wiki's mainland page describes later pattern additions to the classical game as Shanghai New Style, and its GMCR page states outright that HKOS was adopted as a backlash to HKNS, which had evolved from Chinese Classical. Three sources therefore place a new-style stage between Chinese Classical and Hong Kong Old Style. What none of them does is date it to the 1920s.

Sources

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

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

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

   Also cited on: Chinese archaic, Chinese pre-classical, Chinese classical, Hong Kong old style, Modern HKOS, Taiwanese style and 43 more · bibliography #1

2. "Let's Mahjong!" ruleset, as tabulated on the Mahjong Wiki HKOS scoring page. supporting checked 2026-09-18

   Cited as a second fan-list column and treated as the representative New Chapter standard. The wiki describes it as the transition from HKOS to Guangdong Style. It is a ruleset, not a scholarly source, and the wiki gives no publication details for it.

   http://mahjong.wikidot.com/rules:hong-kong-old-style-scoring

   Also cited on: Hong Kong old style, Guangdong style · bibliography #28

3. Mahjong Wiki. "Guangdong MCR Overview." mahjong.wikidot.com. cross-check checked 2026-09-19

   Cited as the source for individual nodes in the chart's node table. Carries no bibliography or per-claim citations of its own; see the appendix on tracing the wiki.

   http://mahjong.wikidot.com/rules:gmcr-overview

   Also cited on: Guangdong MCR / GMCR, MCR / Chinese official · bibliography #43

4. Mahjong Wiki. "Hong Kong New Style Overview." mahjong.wikidot.com. canonical

   Cited as the source for individual nodes in the chart's node table. Carries no bibliography or per-claim citations of its own; see the appendix on tracing the wiki.

   http://mahjong.wikidot.com/rules:hong-kong-new-style-overview

   Only cited here · bibliography #40

5. Mahjong Wiki. "Family Tree and Timeline." mahjong.wikidot.com. supporting

   The decade-by-decade timeline and the branch structure this chart follows, including the caveat that each variant's evolution has been cross-cultural.

   http://mahjong.wikidot.com/

   Also cited on: Chinese classical, Nanyang variants, Mainland regionals, Korean traditional · bibliography #7

6. Sloper, Tom. "FAQ 11: History of Mah-Jongg." Sloperama. supporting

   Regional branching in the 1930s and 40s; Racster 1924 on Shanghai versus Hong Kong base scores; the author's own note that the tree illustration predates later findings.

   https://www.sloperama.com/mjfaq/mjfaq11f.html

   Also cited on: Proto-mahjong, Chinese classical · bibliography #3