It originated in China way back when. And is currently played all over the world. There is several ways to play Mahjong, There's:
American style, Hong Kong, and Chinese Official. Hong Kong is the
pimpest of the three, and it's
layed out like this -- Four people build four walls; two
tiles high, 18 tiles accross. Then everyone roles to determine what wind they are. (East wind, South wind, West wind, and North wind.) When that is all taken care of, you get thirteen tiles (Unless you're east wind, than you get fourteen) If you are
delt a season (or flower, as some people call them) you put it up and get a new
tile from the wall. The names of the tiles are - Balls, Characters, Sticks, Winds, and Dragons. When everyone has their tiles East wind discards, if you have two of the tiles that East wind discarded you'd say, "
pung" (Example: East wind discards a
four balls, and West wind has 2 four balls in his/her hand, West says 'pung' and picks up East
wind's discard and lays it out for everyone to see. {If you have three of a tile in your hand and someone discards another one, you say 'kong', put up your four tiles for everyone to see, and pick up a tile from the
kong wall})or if south wind had a two tiles that would, with East wind's discard, make a three number sequence they could say "
chow" (Example: East discards a two characters tile and South has a one character, and a three characters. South says 'Chow' and picks up
East's discard and lays their chow out for everyone to see. Only the person that goes after you can
Chow your tile, {I.E. only south can chow from east, only west can chow from south, only north can chow from west, only east can chow from north. you cannot chow a wind/dragon.}) if nobody has a tile that could make a pung.kong/or chow. The game continues in this pattern; someone discards, and their tile either gets
kong'd,
chow'd, or
pung'd, until someone has four sets of three and a pair of tiles. Then that person says, 'Mahong' and they win. You play four rounds, as to let each person be East wind. And yeah.. There is a loooot more, but that is just the basis of the game. Sorry for any typos/not being able to understand any of it.