The Winds
If you’re playing Visayan mahjong, you really just need to be able to match the wind tiles and they don’t need to be put in any particular order. So technically you don’t need to be able to name the wind tiles individually. Numbered sets will designate the winds as “N,” “E,” “S,” and “W.” Here is some background on these characters, which may assist you in remembering them.
East (東 dōng) is often the biggest most gregarious looking character, which is appropriate because East goes first in traditional Chinese mahjong. The right half of the character kinda looks like an uppercase “E” if you really want to see it. Ancient Chinese character dictionaries describe this character as the sun (日) rising behind a tree (木) indicating East. Alternatively, language experts say this character came from from a pictorial representation of a bag tied at both ends, because it sounds like the Chinese word for East.
West (西 xí) has a horizontal line at the top making it wide. And “wide” starts with “w” for “West.” This character is traditionally described as a bird settling into its nest, which is associated with sunset, indicating West. Also, “nest” rhymes with “West.”
North (北 běi) looks kinda like a backwards “N.” Historical forms of this character show that it comes from a pictorial representation of two people back to back. South was an important direction for feng shui in ancient China, and houses were generally oriented on a North-South axis. Thus, North was the direction of the back when a person faced South.
South (南 nán) looks kinda similar to West. It has been described as a pictogram of a hanging percussion instrument. You can think of something hanging as pointing down, or South. It has also been described as the front of a house, since houses often faced South.
The Beauty Tiles (Dragons)
Finally, we turn to the beauty tiles or dragons. In English, they are easy to remember as they are simply identified by color: red dragon, green dragon, and white dragon. In Visayan mahjong, they are also referred to by their appearance: dagger/pulá/red, bérde/green, and window/mirror.
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Sources:
mahjongero 