History of mahjong, in Chinese language

In doing some other work today, I came across a book I'd been given at the
World Mahjong Championship in E Mei Shan last November:

Leisure Play and Mahjong
By Yu Guangyuan (President of the World Mahjong Organization)
ISBN 7-5039-3105-1/g-601

Leafing through it out of curiosity, I discovered from the English-language
index that the book contains a chapter on the history of the game.

Part III. Mahjong: Flower of the Chinese Genius
The history of mahjong
(Pages 106-121)

I can't read Chinese, so I wonder if perhaps this chapter would be
enlightening for the scholars who also can't read Chinese.
In case anyone would care to translate the chapter for the benefit of the
group, I've scanned the apropos pages and posted them on my site at
http://www.sloperama.com/leisure/

I'll take the page down once a translation is available, if not sooner.
Cheers,
Tom

On May 11, 12:23 pm, "Tom Sloper" <tslo... DeleteThis @DONTsloperamaSPAMME.com>
wrote:
> In doing some other work today, I came across a book I'd been given at the
> World Mahjong Championship in E Mei Shan last November:
>
> Leisure Play and Mahjong
> By Yu Guangyuan (President of the World Mahjong Organization)
> ISBN 7-5039-3105-1/g-601
>
> Leafing through it out of curiosity, I discovered from the English-language
> index that the book contains a chapter on the history of the game.
>
> Part III. Mahjong: Flower of the Chinese Genius
> The history of mahjong
> (Pages 106-121)
>
> I can't read Chinese, so I wonder if perhaps this chapter would be
> enlightening for the scholars who also can't read Chinese.

I can and I have read thru the pages, and I can conclude that the
information is not really what the scholars would need to know. Mr Yu
simply gathered info about mahjong (maque, majiang) from various
sources but lack of detailed references (e.g., gameplay being evolved/
developed from Âíµõ Madiao, ĬºÍÅÆ Mohe Pai; game being invented/creaded/
developed by ³ÂÓãÃÅChen Yumen, Ö£ºÍ Zheng He; etc.).

I believe most (if not all) info should have already been known to
most mahjong scholars, and perhaps to most regulars of this group as
well.

> In case anyone would care to translate the chapter for the benefit of the
> group, I've scanned the apropos pages and posted them on my site at http://www.sloperama.com/leisure/

This couldn't be easy. Mr Yu quoted many references from books in the
older forms of Chinese writing. I expect only the experts will do the
job, if it is worth doing at all.

Thanks for sharing the info. For those who could read Chinese this
could be a piece of refresher of the topic.

Cofa Tsui
www.iMahjong.com