＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
Tokyo High Public Prosecutor General Kurokawa, who was recently at the center of controversy over the proposed amendments to the Public Prosecutor’s Office Act in the Diet, has been accused of playing gambling mahjong with employees of the Asahi Shimbun and the Sankei Shimbun on May 1st and 13th, during the period of self-restraint from non-essential outings under the state of emergency.
<Added May 26, 2020>
Tokyo High Public Prosecutor General Kurokawa and his colleagues were not indicted for gambling, as decided by the prosecutors. Instead, the Ministry of Justice decided to only issue a “very light warning, rather than disciplinary action.” This is clearly a gross injustice, compared to the arrest of manga artist Yoshikazu Ebisu for winning just 9,000 yen at gambling mahjong.
I believe that the opposition parties should be focusing on and pursuing the “lenient treatment of the Ministry of Justice and the prosecutors’ office toward their own people,” rather than the Cabinet’s involvement.
So, this time, I’d like to introduce an interesting story related to mahjong.
Unlike many others, I never played mahjong during my university days. About 10 years after joining the company, I was invited by a senior colleague who was a mahjong beginner and wanted to learn mahjong, so I played for a few years. I never quite got the score calculation down.
I also tried all-night mahjong once, but I couldn’t compete with the veterans who had been playing since their student days. It was expensive and bad for my health, and my wife complained about the cigarette smell getting on my clothes, so I quit.
I remember being surprised when a classmate from junior high school told me that their family had been playing mahjong since elementary school. I also had a classmate from university named Monzen Kiyoshi（門前 清）, and after learning mahjong, I remembered that it was the same interesting name as Menzenchin.
1. The History of Mahjong
There are various theories about its origin, including one that says it was invented by Confucius around the 6th century BC, but this is not the most likely theory.
The most likely theory is that Chen Yumen of Ningbo created mahjong during the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty (1862-1874) by combining a card game called “Madiao,” which had existed since the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), with a game called “bon tile.”
This Chen Yumen is thought to have been a very intelligent person. Inventing new games and ways of playing requires exceptional intelligence and creativity.
As an aside, the famous German philosopher Nietzsche (1844-1900), who was said to have been a genius at inventing new ways of playing, left behind the following words:
Originality does not consist of observing something new for the first time. To observe as if something new what is old, what has long been known, or what has been seen but overlooked, is the mark of a truly original mind.
It is said that Natsume Soseki was the first Japanese to mention mahjong. In his essay “Mankan Tokodokoro” (Manchuria and Korea tokodokoro), written during a trip to Manchuria at the invitation of his friend Nakamura Koremasa (president of the South Manchuria Railway), he wrote the following:
I was told the second floor was the shipper’s room, so I went up there and sure enough, there were many rooms lined up. In one of them, a group of four people were gambling. The gambling equipment was extremely elegant. The four of them had divided up about 50 or 60 cards, each about the same thickness and size as the rook and bishop in shogi, and they decided the outcome by rearranging them in various ways.
The cards were made of polished bamboo and thin ivory glued back to back, with various patterns carved into the ivory. It seemed like if you lined up several cards with the same pattern, you would win, but all I could hear was the bamboo and ivory crackling together, so I honestly didn’t understand how it was a gambling activity. I just wanted to get a few of these ivory and bamboo cards.
二階が荷主の室だと云うんで、二階へ上って見ると、なるほど室がたくさん並んでいる。その中の一つでは四人で博奕を打っていた。博奕の道具はすこぶる雅なものであった。厚みも大きさも将棋の飛車角ぐらいに当る札を五六十枚ほど四人で分けて、それをいろいろに並べかえて勝負を決していた。
その札は磨いた竹と薄い象牙とを背中合せに接いだもので、その象牙の方にはいろいろの模様が彫刻してあった。この模様の揃った札を何枚か並べて出すと勝になるようにも思われたが、要するに、竹と象牙がぱちぱち触れて鳴るばかりで、どこが博奕なんだか、実はいっこう解らなかった。ただこの象牙と竹を接ぎ合わした札を二三枚貰って来たかった。
Mahjong became popular among the general public in Japan after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 (Taisho 12). Its popularity waned during World War II as the country became more warlike, but experienced a major boom again after the war.
Nowadays, it seems that computer games are more popular than mahjong played at mahjong parlors.
2. Famous Mahjong Fans
Kan Kikuchi (1888-1948), novelist and founder of Bungeishunju, was a huge mahjong fan. His game was featured in magazines, and Bungeishunju even sold mahjong tiles.
Kosuke Gomi (1921-1980) wrote strategy books such as “Gomi Mahjong Classroom” and “Gomi Mahjong University,” while Tetsuya Asada (1929-1989) is famous for his work “Mahjong Wanderings.” Masanori Hata (1935-), better known by his nickname “Mutsugoro,” is an advisor to the Japan Professional Mahjong League.
3. About Gambling Mahjong
When I was young, I was seconded to a certain third-sector organization. In addition to private companies, there were also civil servants seconded from Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture, and the Osaka Prefectural Police.
One day, one of the seconded employees from the private sector asked a police inspector seconded from the Osaka Prefectural Police, “Don’t police officers gamble on mahjong?” The inspector glared at him sharply and retorted, “Are you stupid?! In any world, are there people who play mahjong without gambling money?”
When the inspector glared at him, the questioner was initially taken aback, wondering if he’d said something inappropriate in front of a police officer, but upon hearing the answer, everyone looked stunned.