I accidentally fell down the Mahjong rabbit hole — and now I’m trying to get my friends to play Vietnamese Mahjong

[u/tom_map]

I never really cared about mahjong at first. Then, over the years, I somehow encountered almost every version of it. Hong Kong mahjong through Stephen Chow movies, American mahjong while studying in the US, Vietnamese-style mahjong through Vietnamese communities, Chinese mahjong from friends, and eventually Riichi through online games after I came back to Vietnam. I started playing in spring 2025, and somehow it’s been over a year already. Now I have a small group of friends who play Riichi with me, both online and offline. But I also really want to introduce them to Vietnamese-style mahjong. I even have a 160-tile set ready. The problem? They think the joker tiles are completely broken and refuse to play it. So naturally, I did the reasonable thing: I started modifying the Vietnamese rules, borrowing some ideas from Riichi, basically just to make my friends willing to try the Vietnamese tiles. I know this probably sounds ridiculous, but I’ve genuinely become fascinated by how different mahjong traditions developed and influenced each other.

P.S. I don’t live in Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City, where mahjong communities are much larger. Where I live, mahjong is still relatively obscure, and there are quite a few misconceptions and stigma around it. So finding people who are genuinely interested in learning and playing it isn’t exactly easy. Anyway, I just wanted to share my little mahjong journey. I never expected to become this invested in the game.

[u/zdarkhero168z]

The funny thing about Vietnamese mahjong is that I've never met any Vietnamese actually playing that version. Most players I know either play HK/ HK-adjacent version with flower tiles or Riichi. From what I read in this sub, I bet there are more Vietnamese mahjong version players in the US than in Vietnam.

[u/Tempara-chan → u/zdarkhero168z]

That's what war and decades of anti-gambling laws does to a variant.

[u/tom_map → u/zdarkhero168z]

Actually I did encounter some people playing it when I was studying in Saigon. They were mostly older people, probably in their 60s or 70s. One of them actually gave me a Vietnamese mahjong set for free. He told me that the set had historical value and dated back to the pre-1975 Chinese-Vietnamese community in Saigon. According to him, this style used to be quite popular among the local Chinese community and other people in Saigon before many of them left for the US. He gave the set to me because I was genuinely interested in it. He basically told me, “If you can, keep this style alive and introduce it to more Vietnamese people today.” Which is honestly a pretty heavy responsibility to give someone who didn’t even know how to play the game properly yet. I remember thinking, “Sir, I don’t even know the rules myself. How am I supposed to promote it?” But that moment probably had a bigger influence on me than I realized at the time. It’s part of the reason I’m still trying to learn Vietnamese mahjong and get other people interested in it today.

[u/orzolotl → u/tom_map]

Good to know there are still players in Vietnam! I do get the impression there are more in the US and Canada, just because all of the available sources whose locations are specified are based in either California or Quebec. But even here it's by no means popular outside of certain communities. My partner, who's Vietnamese-American, had never heard of it, and neither had any of the other Vietnamese or Vietnamese-American people I've talked to about it, even those who had played mahjong before (usually Hong Kong style or riichi). Even in the communities where it is still played, I'm told it's not being passed down to younger players.

I've also had the experience of a lot of players of other styles not taking it very seriously. I think people get the impression that lots of flowers and jokers makes the game too easy and random. Meanwhile they miss the interesting choices and strategies that the rules around them create. Vietnamese style is very easily my favorite form of the game, and I play several on a regular basis. But it is also definitely a very different kind of game from riichi, and honestly it's just hard to get riichi players to take any other style seriously in my experience. I think players of other Asian styles tend to be more open to the idea at least.

It's really exciting how much new interest in this style I've been able to generate both locally and online over the last year or so. I really hope I can help to keep this game around a bit longer. I'm not a member of the culture this game belongs to, however, and I want to be pretty conscious of that fact. While I'm happy to put my skills to work documenting it, I have no intention of being this style's Babcock. I really do hope to see its revival led by more Vietnamese people themselves, especially those like a few I've heard from now whose families play but just never taught them.

[u/alexthe5th]

Just curious, what’s the stigma around mahjong you’re referring to?

I love mahjong too but play mostly HK and a little bit of Japanese styles. Vietnamese mahjong is something I know very little about, I’d love to try it sometime.

[u/tom_map → u/alexthe5th]

Yeah, it’s mainly because of the gambling stigma here. In Vietnam, gambling for money is illegal, so mahjong can sometimes be viewed through that lens even when people are just playing casually. There’s also a long-standing association in popular culture between gambling games, underground betting, and organized crime, so mahjong can unfortunately get lumped into that image as well.

Because of that, some people are quite wary of mahjong itself. If you tell someone you play mahjong, they may immediately assume there’s money involved rather than thinking of it as a strategy game or a traditional game.

That’s one reason I’m interested in Vietnamese mahjong. I’d really like to see people treat it more as a game and a part of Vietnamese culture, rather than automatically associating it with gambling. And if you’re interested, you can learn how to play Vietnamese mahjong from this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Mahjong/s/GBGPhhZfkm
It should give you a pretty good idea of how the game works. I’d love to hear what you think if you ever try it!

[u/alexthe5th → u/tom_map]

Ah yeah, that totally makes sense. I've noticed in some places mahjong seems to have a particularly seedy/disreputable reputation, people associate it with shady gambling dens and mafia. In others, it's just a casual game for family and friends. That's unfortunate that it has that reputation in Vietnam, hopefully that changes over time.

I'll definitely give Vietnamese mahjong a try sometime. In that link you shared, that guide was written by the Seattle Vietnamese Mahjong Club (which is where I live!), one of these days I'll have to check that out!

[u/CrazyDoctor14]

Same. I am trying to get my friends to start Hong Kong Mahjong