Or, Everyone Everywhere All at Once
This began as the summer of Mahjong. In May and June, while my oldest son was waiting for a job to pan out, he had a lot of extra time on his hands. Why not finally learn how to play Mahjong? He’s long been our Asiaphile, who requests trips to the Asian market for tea and teaches us origami. This summer, he turned his attention to Mahjong, the classic tile game most associated with China but which is played around all of Asia.
For Forced Family Fun (FFF) one Sunday, he invited over a high school friend who is the child of Chinese immigrants to teach us how to play. We practiced the pronunciations of the exclamations we had to make in order to make certain moves—"chow," "pong," and "kong,"—and learned that the game name is actually pronounced "mah-tzong," which you shout when you win a hand.
The game is simple enough, reminiscent of the card game 500 rummy where you are trying to gather sets of three in either sequences or matching values. One major hurdle is the fact that it’s, well, it’s in Chinese. Play enough rounds though, and you simply memorize the characters for numbers and directions. (One downside is that it is a four-player game, so in our house, someone always has to rotate out, like when we play Bridge.)
After that introductory evening, all three boys went Mahjong wild. It was one of those rare FFF activities that took on a life of its own. The boys taught other friends to play and for weeks, it was the default entertainment. For my oldest son's birthday, he hosted a Mahjong night with friends, and invited both the girl who had taught us as well as a brother-sister pair who are also children of Chinese immigrants. The evening began with a heated debate to decide the “more Chinese way” to play, as each family had their specific variations.
One of my son’s related birthday gifts was a Mahjong mat, which protects the table you play on and muffles the clacking of the tiles on the hard surface. On each of the four sides of the mat is the Chinese character of a direction—North, South, East, West. When setting up for play, you arrange the mat facing the directions properly and then determine who sits in what seat by drawing one of the direction tiles.
It was about this time in the summer—early July, as we celebrated my eldest’s birthday—that the Mahjong mat became a representation of the rest of our life. For the duration of the game, we each sat in a seat representing a direction, and when we left the table, we each went in his or her own direction. This summer was busier than any we've had as a family. We were scattered to the four winds. We became Everyone Everywhere All at Once.
Between jobs, extra-heavy church commitments, activities and the usual summer doctor’s/dentist/orthodontist appointments, it was difficult keeping track of where everyone was. We set up calendars for the two oldest boys that they shared with us to at least have a hope of knowing where people needed to be and whether my oldest could take the car or if I’d need it to get someone somewhere. Each night we'd set the table with a different number of plates—who's here tonight to eat?
Meanwhile, I had my own separate set of stressors and was working full time. I felt overwhelmed by things that had never caused stress before. I lived with a low-level hum of anxiety, which is far from my usual state. Some of it was caused by some health issues I was experiencing, but a big part of it was simply the unsettled nature of each day.
Those of you ahead of me in parenting might be chuckling because you have seen my future and know it’s only going to get worse when all three are working and there are additional drivers in the house.
Others of you, even with young kids, are like, Girl, that’s how we roll all year. And if so, hats off to you! I am not as strong as you. I am the woman who loved Covid Lockdown because I was cocooned with my family in my house around the clock and this is my favorite place to be. Normally, I don’t want summer to end.
This year, though, I was more than ready. Last week, my husband and I drove west and dropped my eldest off at college. In the last couple of nights before he left, I had hoped we could get in another Mahjong game, but we couldn’t find a time when 4 out of 5 of us were available.
So the summer of Mahjong ended without a final game. I'm glad, though, for what those early weeks of summer gave our boys. For all their disparate interests, this was something they genuinely enjoyed doing together. Anything that creates those opportunities is welcome here.