Double Dice: Food and Heritage
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The author (third from left) plays mahjong with her friends in Honolulu (Photo courtesy of Nanette L. Ruhter)
Pong!
Secret!
Pasali naman.
Laoshi, you have not given me a chow yet.
Oh, you have to see “Lost Romance,” The guy is Marcus Chang--soooo guapo! The leading girl is not a looker but her personality will grow on you.
Oh, really, Mark Chang is really handsome.
I am almost done with “Record of Youth” with Park Bo Gum! He is handsome. I loved him in the “Moonlight Drawn by Clouds.” He is very young, though. I just like good-looking leads.
I do not like Korean. The handsome males look effeminate with chiseled features.
Yes, like “Rookie Historian”--so guapo but too “pretty.”
Wait, let me write all these titles on a piece of paper.
Mahjong!
Paningit, sixty, rota--there 789-789-789, plus fifty, and double dice-$2.20!
If she mahjongs again, that is a clean table! Plus fifty! Or one dollar!
The sound of “washing mahjong tiles” (shuffling the tiles) brings me back to Hongkong, my home for 13 years in the ‘80s, where restaurants on the Kowloon side closed up after dinner to be transformed into mahjong parlors until four or five in the morning, and where the reverberation of “washing” sounds interrupted the street clamor of nighttime hawkers.
Personally, I am propelled back into my grandmother’s time, circa ‘50s where her sala and family room metamorphosed into a mahjong parlor of two to three tables on weekends. My cousins and I grew up hearing Spanish conversations—of politics, neighborhood gossip, and problems with the help, ad nauseam. We were not allowed to play the game, however, but we could be mirons. That was how I learned the game--as an onlooker, beside my aunt or my grandma. I remember my old Tito Vicente, known for throwing invectives when he makes a wrong move: Puñeta! was his signature expletive. As if it was not offensive enough, several times, his dentures would eject across the table with the blaring curse, everyone cringing from the explosion of both the profanity and spray of saliva.
The author’s grandmother: Remedios “Ediong” Joven David (Photo courtesy of Nanette L. Ruhter)
One of the players was an old Chinese little person, whom everyone called Pandac and whose bound feet so mesmerized my cousins and me, that when a tile fell to the floor below where she sat, we immediately plunged under the table to pick up the tile, so we could examine her miniscule feet up close!
The most memorable part of those miron times for us youngsters was the merienda prepared by my grandma.
Food is one of the best happenings of our mahjong sessions. Many a Filipina expatriate has become adept at culinary arts. I ‘d like to think that I inherited my grandma’s Pampango proclivity for cooking delicious food. Even with helpers back in Hongkong, Taiwan, and Singapore, which were my previous places of residence, I personally managed the kitchen, especially when we entertained. Like my grandma, I usually cook without recipes, concocting dishes I have tasted, and following the trail of my inherited gustatory instincts. Because of our weekly ritual of mahjong with food, Carla, the best player among our quorum, has become another kitchen goddess, following Panlasang Pinoy recipes found on the Internet and coming up with new gastronomic medleys of dishes.
Callos this Wednesday--from Carla’s kitchen, plus French bread and balsamic vinegar oil dip from Bing, salad and ahi spread from Margot, and my homemade tiramisu.
Pepi and Lita complete our alternating quorum. Viki, Tubi, Amazon, and Netflix manage to punctuate our seven-hour ecstasy on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, when Bing is not attending to her many business ventures and commitments.
After our gastronomic feast, our punctilious guanli yuan Bing, who wants to start “en punto!” leads us in the shuffle to our cozy, air-conditioned gallery where another feast transpires--an amalgam of framed well-crafted female shapes by Margot’s late artist husband and former Honolulu Advertiser cartoonist Dick Adair--a splash of colors from floral throw pillows, and lush emerald plants, sometimes with a side dish of chicharon.
After the first high, Laoshi Carla, our indefatigable mahjong expert, leads our placement: Choose a tile-- This is the east--you are there, Margot, Bing here, Nanette across Bing, and I sit here!
Mahjong was developed during the Qing dynasty in China and most probably brought to our shores by Limahong, a Chinese pirate and warlord who invaded the northern Philippine islands in 1574. Chinese merchants who sought their fortune in other parts of Asia and founded the large Chinese-Filipino communities, may also have perpetuated the game; gambling tables becoming enterprising ventures in the 1900s. For many Americans, mahjong evokes images of old mustachioed men and elderly women sitting around a square table. I sometimes imagine Limahong’s army of three thousand outlaws, pirates, and bandits resorting to mahjong in their hideouts all over Luzon, after their run-ins with the Spanish commanders, gambling away the nights with the gold they commandeered from the Spanish Armada. Or in some conspiracy and business circles, perhaps Spanish and Chinese warlords have secretly bonded to play this “cultural exchange.”
Mahjong (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Annelise Heinz, from Stanford’s History Department has found that Jewish American and Chinese American communities were built around mahjong in the 1920s. Imagine friends in a Chinatown apartment building in San Francisco or in a Jewish Brooklyn home in the ‘50s, strengthening their bonds of social interaction. Her research reports that mahjong has created a shared heritage among Chinese Americans and among American Jewish women when many Americans saw them as “perpetual foreigners.”
Unbeknownst to many, Filipino homes have been happily raucous with this pastime for the longest time. The Filipino mahjong borrowed its origins from the Chinese game, but instead of 13 tiles, it uses 16. While the Chinese use the flowers, winds, and dragons as suits, the Filipino mahjong regards all of these as “flowers,” and acquisition of such chalked up the winner’s yield. Each culture enhanced and developed its own rules, customs, idiosyncratic practices.
The Filipino mahjong social network transcended cultural backgrounds. Hence, my grandma’s quorum was a mix of Filipino, Spanish, and Chinese descendants who have converged at the mahjong table through births, marriages, and deaths, perpetuating their bonds. Our quorum of former colegiala-expatriate women follows the mold.
Just as mahjong brought together my grandma and her friends and kept them intact through the years, so is it also a glue that keeps Bing, Carla, Lita, Margot, Pepi, and me in touch with our daily activities, and we gush in quadruple languages.
Indeed, mahjong is an extension of the language learning app, Babbel, and a reflection of the Filipino’s Spanish heritage. Three centuries of Spanish rule have influenced our vernacular, and our mahjong terminology like escalera, siete pares, sin ter, todo pong, mano, etc. are juxtaposed with Filipino terms, bunot, paningit, harang, aside from the actual Chinese terms of pong, chow, kung.
Because of our penchant for Chinese and Korean dramas of late, Chinese and Korean words have spiced up our conversations: Annyeonghaseyo, amigas! Laoshi, chifu, I like your blouse! kitari.. anyo.. Ni shuo shemme? Wo bu dong... are some of our spurted lexica which accentuate our efforts to meld more drama into our game.
It was the afternoon mahjong sessions six decades ago, which transformed my former nanny-turned-grandma’s celebrated-chef into her amigas’ extended Spanish student. Nanay Seriang was a no-read-no-write middle-aged woman turned “mayordoma” of my grandma, but her Spanish was impeccable--due to the weekend mahjong sessions of my grandma’s Spanish-speaking quorum!
“Como se dice puede na kayo mag merienda, Señora Montsi?” Nanay Seriang would eagerly ask. After months, years? of “como se dice,” Nanay Seriang incrementally increased her Spanish vocabulary and perfectly enunciated Castillian accent.
“No toques las fichas de mahjong, niños,” she would admonish us not to touch the mahjong chips, in a grand old lady fashion.
My Lola Ediong is dancing in her grave knowing I had picked up on her favorite pastime in the distant shores of Honolulu, not as a miron, but as part of an earlier quorum with Lita, Pepi, and Carla some four years ago. Our routine emulates that of my grandma’s time with a “call to begin” usually at 1:00 in the afternoon, a merienda break, and a last high before seven, and dinner, if we have leftovers.
Just like then, our time together is diced with lots of kwentuhan and chismis, usually of Filipino alta sociedad and politics, as probably dramatized in Filipino mahjong tables at present. Just like the mahjong hand of runs, three-of-a-kind, and a pair, there is definitely a bond made with our quorum. We have become kindred spirits--taking turns cooking and hosting, sharing and reminiscing about our own family traditions, childhood, travels, and experiences of our education in Manila convent schools. We discuss world politics, think of each other with favorite dishes and chichirias (snacks), latest fashion trends, (with Margot in her generous tendency to dole out her slightly used or never-worn pricey outfits whenever she visits her wardrobe–to Bing’s and my delight!) and text one another regularly of titles of novels we enjoyed, Netflix and Prime movies, plus Korean and Chinese dramas. We have added lunch, theater, and shopping trips outside mahjong days, feeling like colegialas again, and recalling times we dated in college. Mahjong is indeed a re-creation!
As mahjong has transcended generational boundaries, I have also shared this pastime with my haole husband Jim, who plays the Chinese version with our neighbors, and with my sons, Juan Miguel and Ignacio, gifting them a set each for Christmas, hoping they would find the same joy and community in sitting together at a mahjong table. One night, during our California Christmas reunion, we played the game until 1 a.m., as Migz refused to stop without a single mahjong. He could not believe that his wife Teenah’s fortune (she had won about 20 games at this point) was induced by her lucky seat, and after 34 games, and much cajoling by the rest of us, he finally succumbed, moved to Teenah’s spot, AND finally made his first mahjong! We got to go to bed.
Here in Honolulu, we’ve had “magic” lucky seats. Margot has a different strategy. She “wakes up” Dick when her fitchas are dwindling. “Adair, wake up! I am losing!” As if Dick is resurrected, Margot makes mahjong!
MAHJONG!! All up.
Teka, nga, let me call Jim too!
“Honey, how are you? I am losing but enjoying our chit chat and Korean and Chinese history updates.”
“Okay to lose, Honey--as long as you are enjoying yourself!
“MAHJONG! “
Wow, that strategy really works, Margot.
Wait, I have not come out for two highs! Let me go around my chair!
I think that would work. You are changing the energy, instructs Pepi.
And like a charm….
MAHJONG!
Wow, so fast--almost before the fifth--and double dice! Pepi--changing the energy works!
When will we eat the rest of the tiramisu?
Clearly, my Honolulu mahjong sessions have transported me back and forth between my grandma’s sala in Ermita and our homes in Honolulu, and the memories intertwine with the present.
Ay amigas! Esto es mi evento favorito--la merienda de Ediong!
Como se hace esta salsa de bechamel?
You should have Nanette’s adobo, Carla chimes in. It is the bomb. What do you put in it, Nette?
Nothing special. It is just like everyone’s adobo--vinegar, soy sauce, peppercorn and bay leaves, but my grandma says, “Do not hesitate to put loads of garlic! “The secret also lies in the balance your palate contrives of the sour and salty blend--and then fry the meat pieces to brown them, then pour in the warm sauce as you serve the dish.
I wonder if my grandma is smiling as she watches over me, her first granddaughter (and my cousins would assert, her favorite), arranging mahjong tiles meticulously, although I cannot ever unseat our Laoshi Carla from her mahjong throne.
So, I am now a grandma myself, and my grandchildren will probably remember that I gifted them a mahjong set, offsetting an internal generational divide. My youngest son Nacho’s family in Philadelphia has been playing it during this Covid interlude. Second son, Migz’ second daughter Mia, at eight years of age, knows all the suits--balls, bamboo, characters, but the flowers confuse her. Because of her heritage, (mom Teenah is an American-born Taiwanese), Mia can recognize the Chinese characters better than I can, sans the Arabic numerals. Both my sons have played mahjong at Taipei American School with American-born Chinese classmates, mahjong being the most popular group game during “class nights.”
As a young girl watching and observing my grandma’s friends, I thought mahjong was just a game for old people who had nothing better to do. Now that it has clearly transcended time, place, age, and culture, I realize that my time with my amigas goes beyond our favorite recipes, novels, playing pickleball, Chinese and K-drama reviews, memories of our mothers, titas and lolas, side lessons on history, languages, real life drama, real and reel “affairs,” and growing mahjong strategies and vocabulary, etc. I have appreciated it as an enjoyable intellectual challenge, a way to rekindle our past and celebrate our cultural heritage, and a catalyst in strengthening the very important Filipino value of personal relationships in our final migrant home.
Mahjong has spiced our expatriate lives with food, drama, and life----and has honored the shared heritage we have kept alive.
GLOSSARY
1. alta sociedad (Spanish) high society
2. Annyeonghaseyo (Korean) hello
3. Anyo (Korean) no
4. Ate (Pilipino) older sister
5. Bunot (Pilipino) draw
6. Chichirias (Pilipino) snacks
7. Chismis (Pilipino) gossip
8. Chow (Chinese) run of three of the same suit
9. Como se dice (Spanish) how do you say
10. Colegiala (Spanish) college girl
11. Como se hace (Spanish) how do you make
12. En punto (Spanish) right on the dot
13. Fichas (Spanish) money chips
14. Guanli yuan (Chinese) administrator
15. Guapo (Spanish) good looking
16. Harang (Pilipino) blocked
17. Haole (Hawaiian) foreigner
18. Kitari (Korean) wait
19. Kung/kang (Chinese) four of the same suit
20. Kwentuhan (Pilipino) chitchat
21. Lola/Lolo (Pilipino) grandmother/grandfather
22. Laoshi, chifu (Chinese) teacher, master
23. Lechon (Spanish) roast pig
24. Mano (Pilipino) first, leader
25. Mayordoma (Spanish) senior female butler
26. Merienda (Spanish) afternoon snack
27. Miron (Spanish) onlooker
28. Ni shou shemme (Chinese) What did you say?
29. Palabok (Pilipino) a thick noodle
30. Paningit (Pilipino) in between tile
31. Pasali naman (Pilipino) let me join
32. Pong (Chinese) three of a kind
33. Sala (Spanish) living room
34. Salsa de bechamel (Spanish) bechamel sauce
35. Siete pares (Spanish) seven pairs
36. Sin ter (Spanish) no terminal numeral
37. Teka nga (Pilipino) wait a minute
38. Tita/Tito (Pilipino) aunts/uncles
39. Todo pong (Spanish-Chinese) all three of a kind
40. wo bu dong (Chinese) I do not understand
Originally published in Journeys: Evolving Values in the Filipino Diaspora (Filipino Association of University Women, 2022)
Nanette L. Ruhter writes and plays mahjong from Honolulu. An international educator, she has taught English Literature and Writing in Manila, Hong Kong, Taipei, and Singapore. She enjoys visiting her sons and grandchildren in Shanghai and Philadelphia.
