Tag Archives: Annelise Heinz

If you don’t already have this book, buy it now!

Because I have been on a self-imposed vacay from this blog during the pandemic I have not had a chance to discuss a very exciting book that was published about 9 months ago. The book is Mahjong: A Chinese Game and the Making of Modern American Culture written by someone I am proud and honored to call my friend: Annelise Heinz.

Annelise Heinz is an assistant professor of history at the University of Oregon. Her work has been featured on NPR, and international Chinese television. Annelise has lived – and played Mah Jongg! – in the United States and Southwestern China.

This wonderfully researched and beautifully written book tells the story of how our beloved game brought together separate ethnic communities in our nation thus giving all of us the first history of our beloved game in American culture along with its influence and meaning on all of us.

From Amazon: “Click-click-click. The sound of mahjong tiles connects American expatriates in Shanghai, Jazz Age white Americans, urban Chinese Americans in the 1930s, incarcerated Japanese Americans in wartime, Jewish American suburban mothers, and Air Force officers’ wives in the postwar era…

…Annelise Heinz narrates the history of this game to show how it has created a variety of meanings, among them American modernity, Chinese American heritage, and Jewish American women’s culture. As it traveled from China to the United States and caught on with Hollywood starlets, high society, middle-class housewives, and immigrants alike, mahjong became a quintessentially American game. Heinz also reveals the ways in which women leveraged a game to gain access to respectable leisure. The result was the forging of friendships that lasted decades and the creation of organizations that raised funds for war effort and philanthropy. No other game has signified both belonging and standing apart in American culture.”

I am making an assumption that if you are a reader of this blog you must have at the very least some kind of interest in or attraction to the game of Mah Jongg (a very American way of spelling the game). If that is the case, run to your local bookstore, or Amazon, or your local library and get a copy of Annelise’s fabulous book. This is a must-have book for anyone with even a mild interest in the game!

ANOTHER MAH JONGG MYSTERY SOLVED!

A few days ago I published a posting about the history of Jokers found in our Mah Jongg sets. I noted that I did not know who had originally written the article but asked the readers of this blog to let me know if they had any idea. Well, two of the mavens of the game, Tony and Annelise, both contacted me and told me that the article had come from none other than our dear friend, Tom Sloper. You can see the original article From Tom’s Sloper on Mah-Jongg, written on February 26th, 2012, column #509. Yet another mystery solved thanks to two really wonderful friends in our fabulous Mah Jongg community.

NO MORE A MYSTERY…

The other day I posted a wonderful image that had come from Toby Salk‘s email – and a number of you wondered where she could have found such a fabulous picture. Well, the mystery is solved thanks to the marvelous Annelise Heinz, who is definitely an authority when it comes to American culture and Mah Jongg.

Annelise sent me an email with the following message: “…this image is actually from my article, “Performing Mahjong in the 1920s: White Women, Chinese Americans, and the Fear of Cultural Seduction,” which was published in 2016 in Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies. Isn’t it an amazing image?? I begin the article by talking about the meaning we can draw from it, in the context of the 1920s mahjong fad.”

If you are interested in reading this article, head on over to Annelise’s website where you will find a link to the article. From there, you can access the article at no cost if you are using a computer at a library that has a subscription to the database, or you can sign up for a 2-week trial and access it for free. If none of this works for you, Annelise is kind enough to let us contact her directly via the website and she will share a pdf.

And now, here is that amazing image once again:

 

 

 

THE HISTORY OF MAH JONGG IN THE U.S.

Sit back with a cup of tea and enjoy this history of our beloved game as told by the wonderful Annelise Heinz:

HAVE YOU EVER HAD AN INTERVIEW LIKE THIS?

Hiring based on actions rather than words.Screen Shot 2015-10-13 at 9.11.33 AM

The Yomiuri Shimbun – A hiring event held at a mahjong parlor. A company employee in a white shirt, center, plays with students in casual dress.

2:00 am, October 11, 2015

By Masanori Yamashita / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer – From the start of this month, companies are officially allowed to begin making informal job offers to university seniors. While this year’s job market is said to be a sellers’ market, some companies are turning to tools other than the usual written tests and interviews to discern candidates’ potential. I went along to two such events — mahjong and a riddle-solving game.

“I’ve got Kokushimusou (thirteen orphans).” “Wow! Incredible.”

It is Aug. 27 at a mahjong parlor in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, and a total of 40 company employees in suits and students in casual dress huddle around mahjong tables. Cheers can be heard at a table where a student obtains the “yakuman” score of “thirteen orphans,” the highest score in mahjong.

The occasion was an event held by Kakehashi Skysolutions Co., an employment-assistance company in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo. Employees from firms in industries such as IT and medical equipment trading that are looking to hire new employees play mahjong with students while recruiting personnel from those companies watch discreetly from the sidelines. Seeing a student discard a mahjong tile without thinking for very long, a recruiter from a staffing-services company jots down notes such as “Not wearing a suit” and “Able to foresee how things develop.”

Kakehashi first held this mahjong employment event three years ago.

“While playing mahjong, students are required to make a series of decisions. It’s an ideal way for today’s companies, exposed to constant change, to find the talented people they are looking for,” says a Kakehashi staffer.

According to them, companies put more weight on how the students play than on whether they win or lose. Through the mahjong events, some students have been exempted from a part of the selection process and have been successful in getting hired by a trading company and a consulting firm, according to Kakehashi.

  • Screen Shot 2015-10-13 at 9.13.33 AMThe Yomiuri Shimbun – The writer, left, taking part in a problem-solving escape game at a hiring event alongside staff from Digital Hollywood University

Besides mahjong, Kakehashi also holds events for clients that are looking for candidates with audacity and originality, such as “ogiri” in which students have to give impromptu funny answers to a question, and “instant theater” in which students are asked to perform an improvisation.

XING Inc., the Nagoya-based firm that operates the online commercial karaoke brand JOYSOUND, began last year holding contests in which job seekers submit karaoke videos. The applicant who submits the best video is exempted from having to go through a first-round interview.

This year, the second time the contest was held, the firm had 22 applicants including a male student who sang a song in a happi coat while pretending he was beating a taiko drum. XING plans to give informal job offers to six students, one of whom reportedly passed through the karaoke video selection process.

Chisa Yamada, who now works at the firm, was selected for hiring last year after submitting a video in which she sang an anime song with great enthusiasm.

“I’m an ‘otaku,’ a big fan of anime, but in an interview I would be so afraid of how I would be judged that I would not be able to put across the real me. I’m good at karaoke, so through karaoke I showed myself just as I am,” Yamada recalled. She said that her video became a topic of conversation, and that the subsequent interviews went smoothly.

This spring, in line with its philosophy of “what one likes, one will do well,” the firm made Yamada the first rookie to be assigned to the department that chooses music for karaoke distribution.

Even major corporations are beginning to look beyond traditional methods to evaluate the talents of job-seekers.

Panasonic Corp., headquartered in Osaka Prefecture, recognizes that diverse and unique personnel are needed to create new business lines and last year launched an “unconventional hiring path.” Now candidates with special experiences, such as having received an award for saving someone’s life or having been the first to climb an unscaled peak overseas, can bypass one of several interviews in the selection process.

This summer, I heard that Kakehashi and Digital Hollywood University in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, would be putting on a joint hiring event in the form of a problem-solving escape game, so I took part.

The participants were given about 40 problems, such as number puzzles or finding words encoded among randomly arranged letters. The idea was that by solving all the problems they would successfully escape from the imminent danger of a giant meteorite colliding with the Earth.

The students and other participants were divided up into teams of four to five persons and evaluated on qualities such as mental flexibility, logical thinking and leadership. If they succeeded in correctly answering all of the problems within the one-hour time limit they would receive a high evaluation. On that occasion, the session was being held to help the students discover their own strengths, but at the real event the winners would be exempted from first-round interviews at participating companies.

The people on my team were all rather reserved. There was little exchange of opinion, and we were able to solve only about half of the problems, so we finished in last place. The person in charge of the event commented that my mind was more rigid than those of the students and that my teamwork was poor. Realizing that I was not at a level where I would be likely to get recommended to a company, I was a bit depressed.

Eight years ago, when I received an informal job offer, I was proud that my talent had been recognized. Has cranking out article drafts day after day tired me out so much that I have lost what I used to have? I felt like asking our company’s personnel department: “Uh, excuse me, but what exactly was it that you found appealing in me?”

JUST WONDERING…

A friend recently sent me this article from The Jewish Journal. My only argument with the article is the suggestion that the game is ancient, perhaps dating back to Confucius. Alright, I’ll get into that pet peeve of mine on another day! Anyway, it’s a cute article. Enjoy…

How Mah-Jongg Became Jewish

December 12, 2014 | By

How Mah-Jongg Became JewishHow did a game that graced ancient Chinese tables (in the company, some posit, of Confucius) come to grace contemporary Jewish tables (in the company, perhaps, of babka and Slivovitz)?

While books, documentary films and traveling museum exhibits have puzzled over mah-jongg becoming such a Jewish craze, no one has reached a definitive answer. Could it be connected to the formation of the National Mah Jongg League (NMJL) by a group of Jewish women in 1937? Or to its popularity among Jewish wives during World War II while their men were away? Or the game’s prominence at Jewish bungalow colonies in the mid-20th century? Or else, as NMJL president Ruth Unger believes, that selling mah-jongg cards functioned as a fundraising source for synagogue sisterhoods and Hadassah chapters?

Whatever the reason, the game has remained a fixture in the Jewish world ever since it came to the U.S. in the 1920s. And even today, says Annelise Heinz, of Stanford University’s Department of History, the game is enjoying a Jewish renaissance. “Many of the Jewish daughters who once rejected mah-jongg are now returning to the game as a way to connect with their Jewish identities and rekindle memories of their mothers.”