Heron Mahjong

This beautiful mahjong set, handmade in the USA, is suitable for both American and various international styles of play. It includes all the tiles and jokers you need for American style games plus the 3 red fives for Japanese Riichi play and the prey-capture tiles needed for Singapore style. We wanted it to work for people who play Chinese style without racks, so the tiles are thicker than our usual mahjong tiles. They will stand up on their own and can be used with or without racks.

When she was designing this set, Marci started with the 1 Bam. She knew she wanted this tile to depict a water bird. Drawing inspiration from the majestic great blue herons we often see flying over the Blackstone River Valley and from the frequent depiction of herons in Chinese art, she ultimately settled on the eponymous heron. When she was drawing this tile, she decided to include a little Easter egg for Crisloid mahjong fans and carried over the fish from the Walk with Me prey-capture tile into this new set. The unlucky (but cute) fish shows up twice in Heron: He’s shown being caught by the heron on the 1 Bam and being caught again by the fisherwoman on the prey-capture tile.

Marci’s overall vision for this set was to design a very traditional-feeling set with the art emulating the appearance of hand-carved mahjong tiles. You can especially see this design choice in the bamboo and dot suits, where the art has a sketchy rather than a flooded appearance. She learned through her research that stars were uncommon in dot suits, so she definitely wanted to use them! As a result, the dot suit features circles in traditional colors with a star at the center of each one.

In contrast to the fine-line drawings of the dots and bams, for the crak suit Marci chose to surround the characters with flooded red paint to emulate enameling. She then capped that off with an opulent golden sunburst. The craks have clear, easy to read numbers, featuring both Arabic numbers and Chinese characters.

Moving on to the special tiles, we have the flowers that include the traditional plum blossom, orchid, chrysanthemum, and bamboo, plus the four seasons. The seasons are represented here by trees in various seasonal states. The winds have bold Hanzi along with the N E W S text.

Marci drew classical Chinese dragons for red and green and used the soap frame design for blue. The blue dragon/soap incorporates curly-winged bats, which are a Chinese symbol of good luck. The prey-capture designs are mostly traditional with Marci’s own twist–instead of a man with a pot of coins, she drew a woman with a roll of bills!

Finally, we come to everyone’s favorite tiles, the jokers. The set comes with four each of two different jokers. Half of the jokers feature snakes, because the set was designed and launched in the year of the snake, while the other half of the jokers show money frogs. The money frog, a symbol of prosperity and good luck, is a three-legged frog with seven diamonds on its back, surrounded by gold coins.

We wish you all good luck and prosperity, and may the jokers be ever in your favor!

The tiles in this set are 1″ x 1.5″ x .6″ and are made of a high quality resin.

The set includes:

• 36 Bams
• 36 Dots
• 36 Craks
• 4 Flowers
• 4 Seasons (to be used as flowers)
• 16 Winds
• 12 Dragons
• 8 Jokers
• 8 Prey-Capture (can be used as extra flowers)
• 3 Red 5 tiles (for Japanese Riichi play)
• 2 Blank tiles
• 2 Red dice
• 4 Cherry wood racks
• 4 Cherry wood pushers
• Premium canvas tote with tile bag
• Coordinating play mat measuring 31″ x 31″

Photos of the accessories coming soon!