An Old Tradition Clicks With Students

Ancient Game of Mah-Jongg Breaks the Ice, Builds Friendships Among 6th-Graders

Lunch and mah-jongg go hand in hand for Glenn Kinsman, left, Gino Rodriguez and Brooke Rippy, some of the students in Sandy Tevelin's sixth-grade class at Jefferson Middle School in Arlington. For a dozen years, Tevelin has been offering her sixth-graders the chance to learn the game. (Photos By Susan Biddle -- The Washington Post)

Lunchtime at Thomas Jefferson Middle School. Cup of french fries? Check. Mini-carton of chocolate milk? Check. Small plastic tiles embossed with dragons and flowers?

Check.

For one group of Arlington sixth-graders, the game of mah-jongg is so cool that they'll give up their lunch period to play it. They are about half a century younger than typical players of the ancient Chinese game, which sort of resembles gin rummy but is a lot more complex. But they are as enthusiastic as if they had invented it themselves.

"Who's going to be with who?" they asked as they chose teammates and grabbed seats around a table in the classroom of Sandy Tevelin, who introduced them to the game (pronounced MAH-zhahn) early in the school year.

"I'll be with Maddy," said Lauren Montana, 11, one of seven students playing Wednesday.

Then the game began, and their sentences started to contain such words as "Bam" and "Dot" and "Crack" -- incomprehensible to those not fluent in mah-jongg-ese.

Tevelin looked on, smiling. For a dozen years, she has been offering her sixth-graders the chance to learn the game that in the United States is more commonly associated with Chinese or Jewish women of a certain age. Some years, none takes her up on it; some years, it's more important for them to spend the 35-minute lunch block in the cafeteria with their friends. But every few years there will be a group of sixth-graders for whom the game clicks.

And sticks. Tevelin has former students, now juniors in college, who come back to play with her. And, as she reminds her students, it is an activity they can do for the rest of their lives.

"I ask them, 'When you're 40, are you going to want to play UNO? Are you going to want to play Connect Four?' And they say, 'Ooh, no.' But they're going to want to play mah-jongg, because it's . . . a grown-up game.

The game, in which the students try to build a winning hand using 13 tiles they are dealt or trade for others, involves a lot of skill and strategy and memorization of rules. Tevelin introduced the rules incrementally, adding a new one every few days until the students absorbed them all.

After the french fries were consumed, the game heated up. Tiles clacked on the table as the students answered a reporter's questions about why they decided to learn to play.

"Well, she told us the story about the original people who play mah-jongg," said Gino Rodriguez, 11, referring to Tevelin's earlier cohorts.