Funny Mahjong Scene Where the Guys Keeps Drawing a West Tile

One of the most cute things near Crazy Rich Asians is how information technology refuses to explicate many of its most intrinsically Asian elements. That lack of training wheels is intentional: Equally director Jon Thousand. Chu told me, "We didn't want to give people an excuse to think of this world as some kind of obscure, exotic fantasyland — this is a real identify, with real culture, history and tradition, and instead of just giving them answers to their questions, we want them to have conversations."

The motion picture'southward Singapore-specific local color and broadly Asian cultural nuances are indeed fairly Google-able, and tin readily be contextualized through polite discussions with actual Asian people. But there's 1 scene in particular that has been resiliently enigmatic to audiences of many backgrounds, both Asian and non-Asian … and it's a pivotal one: the mahjong scene.

That'south especially true for fans of the book, who won't recognize it; information technology'south original to the movie. Information technology was inserted in part because Michelle Yeoh, who delivers an amazing steel-and-silk performance as the motion picture's main antagonist, refused to play the stock villainous tiger mom from the book. This scene provides her with critical impetus toward her eventual redemption.

Just it'south also truthful for people who don't sympathize the complex rules of the game, which aren't intuitive and are often different depending on the region of the globe. So here's a quick primer on the game of mahjong itself, as well as its significance to the pic in that pivotal scene. Spoilers abound below, so if y'all haven't withal watched the deliriously warm and funny movie, crawl out from under that rock and see it before reading further.

Mahjong, explained

A quick primer on mahjong itself. A fast-paced, rummy-fashion game in which four players endeavour to form sets of three or 4 matching or sequenced tiles, it's hugely popular not but beyond Asia merely around the world. Its origins are Chinese: All the mode back in 1927, about a century after the game was invented, the Chinese scholar and essayist Hu Shi complained that mahjong was so popular that information technology had become China'southward "national pastime," computing that the millions of games of mahjong played each 24-hour interval by Chinese were the equivalent of iv 1000000 hours of wasted time daily.

But most Chinese don't see the game every bit "wasted time." In fact, despite his grousing, Hu himself was an inveterate player who spent many an evening tossing the tiles. Mao Zedong in one case said the game should not be underestimated — considering "If y'all know how to play information technology, you'll have a better understanding of the human relationship between chance and necessity. There's philosophy in mahjong."

Mahjong remains extraordinarily popular among Chinese immigrants and across, and it's featured in both the flick The Joy Luck Club and the Television receiver prove Fresh Off the Boat, both of which depict Asian-American post-immigrant life. (Mandatory disclosure: My son Hudson Yang plays Eddie on Fresh Off the Gunkhole; Crazy Rich Asians' Constance Wu plays his mother.)

When asked most the mahjong scene, Chu told me, "Never thought we'd have to explicate information technology," and laughed. "I wanted it to exist very specifically choreographed, and obviously, for it to happen that fast is almost impossible. But I wanted to intercut the game with the conversation, and so it was disquisitional for them to know exactly what they were doing at every moment. We got a mahjong skillful — basically a gambling addict! — to assistance choreograph that game, to go far authentic."

The closest Western analog to Mahjong might be gin rummy. The goal of the game is to reach certain combinations of tiles earlier your opponents. Tiles have numbers and suits, which can be combined into winning hands through sets of either matching numbers or suited numerically sequential tiles, just similar in gin rummy. Each player's hand is 13 tiles throughout the game, though the pickup of a 14th tile is needed to win.

Here is a very simplified explanation of the options that, in combination, tin can compose winning easily:

1. Grub, which is three tiles in a sequential number sequence of the same suit
2. Pong, which is iii of the verbal same tile
3. Plus a pair of the exact same tile, chosen the "heart"

Advice, negotiation, strategy, and even cooperation are far more critical in mahjong than in nearly card games. Watching what your opponents discard besides as the completed sets they lay out in front of them — when i steals a tile that another player has discarded, 1 must expose the completed ready — is the key to understanding what each is attempting to accomplish.

What the climactic mahjong scene means

In the movie, the mahjong scene takes place in a pivotal scene subsequently our protagonist Rachel Chu, played by Constance Wu, has been rejected past her boyfriend Nick's mother, Eleanor (played by Michelle Yeoh). This is because Eleanor learns that Rachel was born to a single female parent who fled Cathay for the States. However, unbeknownst to Eleanor, Nick has gone against his mother'due south wishes and proposed to Rachel anyhow.

In the mahjong scene, Rachel and Eleanor go head to head right subsequently this stunning twist. Rachel invites Eleanor to meet with her at a mahjong parlor — a gambling house frequented generally by working- or middle-class older folks who rent tables by the hour. The persistent clacking of tiles is a sound familiar to anyone who has been around people playing mahjong.

When Eleanor arrives, she takes the open seat across from Rachel and is offered the role of dealer — the "East" seat. The four seats in mahjong are named after the compass directions, which plays an important role both in the rules of the game and in the symbolism of the scene. Eleanor, in the role of the "E," representing Asia, is the player in control. Rachel, sitting across from her, represents America — the "West."

Early on in the scene, Eleanor completes a "pong," or a matched set up of tiles. This move demonstrates that Eleanor plans to win using the strategy of matched tiles, and she's making Rachel aware. In this moment, Eleanor tells Rachel that her female parent taught her how to play too.

As the conversation continues, Rachel asks Eleanor why she didn't like her from the very offset — even earlier her family history was revealed. Eleanor expounds on the deviation between Asians and Americans, noting how even though Asian Americans await Asian, they are American at heart. Referencing a Hokkien term that means "our kind of people," she says that Asian Americans are not kaki lang. Remember, in this game, Eleanor is trying to create a winning manus comprising all matches of the aforementioned exact tile — an "extended family" that'due south metaphorically composed of kaki lang.

The camera then cuts to prove a number of discarded bamboo tiles. Discarded bamboo calls to mind a frequently used term for Westernized overseas Asians, this i Cantonese: jook sing, which literally ways "empty bamboo." Information technology's a slang term that's the Chinese equivalent of the Asian-American term "assistant" — yellowish on the outside, white on the inside — cited earlier in the film past Peik Lin (the frenetically hilarious Awkwafina). The "empty" bamboo tiles are scattered alongside the tiles for Due east and West, not truly role of either, representing Eleanor'due south perception of Rachel.

At this point, Rachel drops the bomb on Eleanor that Nick proposed to her, telling her that he said he'd exist willing to walk abroad from everything — his family, his family's wealth — to be with her. Right equally Rachel is saying this, she draws the most of import tile in the game: an 8 of bamboo.

The number eight is of huge symbolic importance to the Chinese; it resembles the character for fortune and is considered a sign of wealth, prosperity, and happiness. Information technology'due south why so many Chinese license plates, phone numbers, and even street addresses contain eights. Monterey Park, the start urban center in San Gabriel Valley, California, to go a suburban destination for wealthy Chinese, was considered a particularly propitious place to live because it had an 818 surface area code.

While an eight doesn't have special value in the game of mahjong, we meet that the viii of bamboo is also the i tile Rachel needs to complete her hand. This is a winning tile for her. Simply Rachel knows something else, based on her observation of how the game has played out (remember, she's a game theory professor!): It's Eleanor's winning tile as well.

She then discloses to Eleanor that she turned Nick down. Eleanor is dumbfounded. "Only a fool folds a winning hand," she says, referring to Nick'southward proposal.

This is critical, because in the very first scene of the pic, Rachel demonstrated through a poker game with one of her TAs that to be successful in whatever game where psychology and choice are a factor, y'all can't play "not to lose" — you have to play to win.

Rachel explains: When it comes to her marriage with Nick, Eleanor has guaranteed there's no winning event for them. Nick choosing Rachel means he'd lose his mother and his family unit. Nick choosing his family unit ways he might resent Eleanor forever — thus losing his female parent anyway. Lose-lose.

And so she decided to seize command of the situation and cull for him. But she doesn't desire information technology to happen without Eleanor knowing exactly why it's happening and what Rachel is giving up to go far possible.

She tells Eleanor that she knows Nick will eventually find someone else, someone that his family approves of — that'southward what every generation of Youngs has done before him, later on all. And while her own heart volition be cleaved, equally she says, she loves him so much that she is willing to suffer if it means that Nick volition keep the thing that is at the heart of Asian culture, and of his story: his family unit.

That'south when Rachel throws out the eight of bamboo every bit a discard — folding her winning paw, knowing that Eleanor will pick it up and declare victory. While this happens, she explains that when Nick finds the proper match in the hereafter, she wants Eleanor to empathize that the but reason information technology occurred was because a "poor, raised by a single female parent, depression-class immigrant nobody" — Rachel — made information technology possible.

She then reveals her hand, which would have won, making it clear to the whole tabular array what she's done, and walks away.

In this move, Rachel has demonstrated to Eleanor three critical things. The starting time is that she loves Nick enough to put his future ahead of hers. The 2nd is that she understands that family should always come first, something that Eleanor suspected she didn't comprehend as a jook sing Asian American. And the third is that Rachel is stiff, self-sacrificing, and mettlesome — a lot like Eleanor herself. Instead of "never being enough" for Nick, a line Eleanor uses to surgically destroy Rachel in an earlier scene, she'southward near likely exactly what Nick needs.

Knowing all of this context isn't necessary for the scene to work, but it certainly adds depth to understand the symbolism of the game.

This essay was adapted from a postal service on Angry Asian Man . For a more detailed look at mahjong, read here .

Jeff Yang is a co-host of the podcast They Call Us Bruce, a featured correspondent for CNN Opinion, and a columnist for Southward China Morn Mail service's Inkstone magazine. His elder son, Hudson Yang, plays Eddie on ABC'due south Fresh Off the Gunkhole.

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Source: https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/8/17/17723242/crazy-rich-asians-movie-mahjong

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