As much as Louie wanted to learn the game, her lack of Cantonese fluency deterred her. Then, on New Year's Eve in 2022, her friend Dane Nakama came over and taught her how to play with her grandma. Louie was hooked. Soon after, she and Nakama started the monthly mahjong party now called Bad Luck Club, which in less than a year proved so popular that it outgrew the original space and moved to Arts & Letters Nuuanu, a bookstore and art gallery in Chinatown.
Across the country, young people like Louie, who works in marketing, are introducing a new generation to mahjong (the name, in some Chinese dialects, means "sparrow"). From Los Angeles' Mahjong Mistress to New York's Green Tile Social Club, 20- and 30-somethings are finding their way to the four-person, tile-based game born in China in the nineteenth century. In Honolulu, Bad Luck Club regularly draws about forty people to its events. While some grew up playing with their families ("It feels like every family here in Hawaii plays it," says club regular Laura Zen), many at a recent event sat down at the square mahjong tables for the first time. More than one person says the pivotal round of mahjong in the movie Crazy Rich Asians sparked their interest.
Long a stalwart among Chinese grandmas and the Boca Raton retiree set, mahjong is making a comeback among Millennials and Gen Z. Above, members of the Bad Luck Club gather for not-so-cutthroat play at Arts & Letters Nuuanu bookstore in, appropriately, Chinatown.
But unlike that scene of power and intimidation, the vibe at Bad Luck Club, with nostalgic Cantopop playing over the soft clack of shuffling tiles, feels welcoming. The potluck table might include takeout dim sum and Panda Express, and people tote their mahjong tiles—in candy colors of jade green, lilac and fuchsia—in everything from formal wooden cases to Ziplocs. The name, Louie says, "is definitely a play on Joy Luck Club," the best-selling book by Chinese American novelist Amy Tan, "but it's a little bit of the blind leading the blind here"—Louie and some of the other teachers are themselves relatively new to the game. "We're probably not playing it as perfectly as our ancestors would have liked, but this space is safe for everyone to play their own way."
Part of the impetus in starting the club is that for the younger generation, Louie says, "mahjong has lived inside of individual families and not so much between friends, so it's also about making friends through mahjong." Being a relatively fast-paced four-player game, mahjong is social and keeps people off their phones. "It's a different way to connect and meet new people, without the awkward conversations," said newcomer Erika Lee. "It's more fun than just getting a drink at the bar."
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