The New Faith of the Chinese Elite

In the past, the peasants looked to the fate of the fortune-inscribed stick to communicate the will of Buddha; now, the Chinese businessman looks to another inscribed stick to divine the sacred will of the Party. It is the classic scene from the Joy Luck Club; white tiles, clicking and clacking together, as the women gossip about their families, cementing the bonds of a lifetime friendship that would tie the fates of generations together. This ritual has replaced the similar ritual that used to obsess the more religious generations of China – the fortune telling joss sticks and the mysterious predictions of the Book of Changes. No one believes in these superstitions anymore, but they certainly believe in the use and necessity of playing Mahjong with the leaders!

  1. People get together on Sunday to gather around a table and talk about the thing that they love the best – Money
  2. It is a ritual in which one can asses their relationship with money, partake in financial edification, and search for “greater luck and blessing”
  3. “Burning Incense to the Earthly Gods” is the practice in which businessmen invite government officials to play the game, so that they can loose, thus paying off the official
  4. Regardless of the official desire to stamp out this religion, it is all-pervasive, and the leaders cultivate it as a cult of authority that greatly enhances their ability to manipulate the younger officers and increase their personal fortunes. The old saying goes, “The higher the position, the rarer it is to loose in a game of Mahjong”.
  5. People go on pilgrimages so that they can sit around and look at each other, clicking the tiles together to divine the future, often rejecting beautiful scenery for the much more important social goal of playing the game
  6. This is the “new faith” of the Chinese people, and shows how gambling has collapsed the integral faith people previously had in communism
  7. The idols worshipped at the table are living, the object of affection is money, and the sacred text is the fate of the tiles – This faith in mahjong as a pass-time and a hobby shows the current state of China’s wealthy class… to quote an oft heard maxim, “We learned to believe in no one but ourselves, and to worship no one but the leader directly over us”

Mahjong is a commentary on the state of contemporary society. It is the substitute for religion, entertainment, and the old definition of good relationships.