Japanese Mahjiangg Tiles
A Japanese Mahjiangg set has 136 tiles, composed of four copies of a 34 tile set. The set of tiles is called Jan-pai [雀牌] ("Pai" means "tile" or "card"). Unlike Chinese Mahjiangg sets, Japanese Mahjiangg sets don't have flower tiles and extra blank tiles.
Scoring Counters
At the start of each Japanese Mahjiangg game, every player gets scoring counters totaling 30,000 points (sometimes 27,000 points), usually broken down in the following manner:
- One
10000 point counter
- Two
5000 point counters
- Nine
1000 point counters
- Ten
100 point counters
Tile Classification
There are 136 tiles, composed of four copies of a 34 tile set. The set of tiles is called Jan-pai [雀牌]. ("Pai" means "tile" or "card"). If you have a Chinese set (or some Japanese sets), your set may come with flowertiles and extra blank tiles. These are not used in Japanese Mahjong.
Japanese Mahjiangg tiles can be subdivided into the following groups:
Dots Tiles (also known as balls, circles, coins, buckets, units, pin-zu [筒子]):
Example of Dots TilesBamboo Tiles (also known as bams, sticks, hundreds, sou-zu [索子]):
Example of Bamboo TilesCharacters Tiles (craks, wan, ten thousands, man-zu [萬子])
Example of Characters TilesHonor Tiles (characters, ju-hai [字牌])
Example of Honor Tiles
The Dots, Bamboo, and Characters Tiles are called collectively known as suits, and are numbered from 1 through 9. As a group, all of them are called NUMBERS ([数牌] officially shuu-pai, commonly zu-hai).
The Japanese names for number tiles are created by combining a Chinese number prefix with a suit suffix.
| 1 "Ii" |
2 "Ryan" |
3 "San" |
4 "Suu" |
5 "Uu" |
6 "Ryuu" |
7 "Chii" |
8 "Paa" |
9 "Chuu" |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dots "pin" |
Iipin |
Ryanpin |
Sanpin |
Suupin |
Uupin |
Ryuupin |
Chiipin |
Paapin |
Chuupin |
| Bamboo "sou" |
Iisou |
Ryanzou |
Sanzou |
Sussou |
Uusou |
Ryuusou |
Chiisou |
Passou |
Chuusou |
| Characters "wan" |
Iiwan |
Ryanwan |
Sanwan |
Suuwan |
Uuwan |
Ryuuwan |
Chiiwan |
Paawan |
Chuuwan |
The Honor Tiles are subdivided into four WINDS ([風牌] officially fon-tsu, commonly kaze-hai) and three ELEMENTS (dragons, sangen-pai [三元牌]). Their individual names are:
- Ton [東]: East Wind
- Nan [南]: South Wind
- Shaa [西]: West Wind
- Pei [北]: North Wind
- Haku [白] (paipan [白板]): White Board (White Dragon)
- Hatsu [発] (ryuufa [緑発]): Green Prosper (Green Dragon)
- Chun [中] (honchun [紅中]): Red Middle (Red Dragon)
In most Japanese sets, the Haku will be completely blank, but in most Chinese sets, they will depict a black rectangle.
Other tile terms
- The twos through eights of the suits are called MIDDLES (Chun-chan-pai [中張牌]).
- The ones and nines of the suits are called TERMINALS
- The terminals and chars as a group are called ENDS (Yao-chuu-hai [幺九牌]).
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