A teacher teaches participants the mahjong rules (LIU JIAN)

Few games are as popular in China as mahjong, whose players range in age from 20 to over 80. Today mahjong, a favorite pastime for Chinese natives, is also winning hearts of the expat community in China.  

Every Sunday, a dozen foreigners take classes to learn the rules and secrets of the game at Beijing's Culture Yard, a language and culture club nestled in a shaded alleyway in Beixinqiao, Dongcheng District.

A mind game

Culture Yard hosts workshops in English for mahjong beginners. Every participant goes through beginner to intermediate courses in two weeks, according to Ilya Cheremnikh, an Israeli who set up the club three years ago.

The mahjong workshops are divided into two sessions. In the first two hours of the beginner introduction course, the teacher gives a slideshow explaining the basic rules, history and symbolism of the game. The following session tests the beginners' skills as they go to a neighborhood mahjong hotspot to play with local Beijingers. The participants sit in front of mahjong blocks as they listen carefully, trying to take in all the rules.

Mahjong is played by four players with 136 bone and bamboo tiles based on Chinese characters and symbols. There are 108 numbered, 16 winds and 12 dragons tiles. Each player begins by taking 13 tiles.

"The basic rules are easy to learn. The key is to make complicated rules simple and easy for participants to grasp," said Yu Yan, a 29-year-old who has taught mahjong to over 150 foreigners so far.

After taking a seat, shuffling the tiles and building them into 17 blocks, players throw the dice to decide who will be dealer, and which direction to take when picking the blocks. After the game starts, each player takes turns picking up and discarding. In turn, players draw and discard tiles until they complete a winning hand using a 14th drawn tile to form four sets and a pair of "eyes," which means two identical tiles.

"With a little bit of skillful tactics and, of course, a bit of luck, a four-player mahjong game is never dull," said Yu.

Playing mahjong requires a person to think analytically. "At some point in the game, a player has to adopt a certain strategy, yet be willing to change it later on in response to an opponent's moves," he added.

For Cristina Água-Mel, a Portuguese teacher at the University of International Business and Economics, mahjong appeals to her mostly because it is stimulating.  

"Unlike playing with a formula, one has to try new things all the time. Every time you choose a piece, you have to make a new decision, and the decision can be right or wrong. It's about combination and probability," she said. "If you play fast, you have to keep thinking and make decisions fast, and that makes the game more challenging."

Água-Mel feels mahjong is not a simple game that easily gets boring thanks to the variety of possible combinations in the game. "It's an exciting game. You can play for five, six or seven hours and never feel bored," she said.