Marblehead’s Jodi Kerble first learned the game of mahjong with her friends on the pool deck of the Jewish Community Center over 20 years ago. Now, as the game has exploded in popularity over the past year, Kerble, a middle school math teacher at the Windsor School, has become something of a mahjong guru, teaching students of all ages the game in group sessions including a three week course at the Three Hundred Fifty bakery in Swampscott.
“[Mahjong] is kind of like cards,” Kerble said, describing the game. “There are suits and jokers and, kind of like poker, there are hands that you can create… Imagine that the tiles are a deck of cards. You pick one and you discard one and the first person to make their combination wins.”
Eight students took part in the recent course at the Humphrey Street bakery with Kerble using handouts and assigning “homework” to help teach the game’s complex rules and tiles.
“It’s got a lot of strategy,” said Terri Fitzgerald of Saugus, who attends the class with her daughter, Melanie. “I didn’t realize there’s a lot of rules, a lot of strategy and you need all the help you can get to start!”
The goal of the game is to make a hand of 13 tiles that corresponds to one of the legal hands published by the National Mah Jongg League before anyone else. After the initial deal, players perform what is known as the “Charleston” where three tiles are passed in different directions to improve their hand before the game officially begins.
Another key element of the game, and one that has helped its rise in popularity, is the social nature of mahjong.
“I think it’s a nice way to connect with people,” said Olivia Goodell of Marblehead, who plans on teaching the game to her friends. “You don’t necessarily have to have a chatty game. I mean, we’re still learning so we don’t talk much during it, but I think it’s a nice way to connect with others through something and enjoy each other’s company.”
The setting of the mahjong classes at the Three Hundred Fifty bakery helps bring out the social element of the game, with players enjoying cookies and coffees baked and brewed by owner Lilly Tapper and her staff.
“Jodi reached out to me, her daughters actually both work here, and I thought it was such a cool thing to have at the bakery,” said Tapper, a recent masters degree recipient from Johnson & Wales University. “Mahjong has been blowing up all over the area and I thought it would be such a fun opportunity to have Jodi teach her classes here. It’s been something fun to do at night when the bakery is closed. It’s a nice opportunity to have people come in the bakery at night and learn a new game.”
With the mahjong community exploding in size across the North Shore, Kerble, as well as the co-founders of The Mahjong Experience, Amy O’Connor and Lytania Mackey-Knowles, have been forced to turn many people away due to the limited class sizes being outpaced by demand.
“It builds community,” said Kerble. “People are, I think, wanting to be part of that community so they can learn and play with other people… Now that everyone’s playing, I think they want to be included. I think mahjong really builds community.”
Kerble will be taking a brief hiatus from teaching the game in October but plans to restart courses later in the fall.
