Yet Barr is more than just looks-she’s already up to 2nd grade pro, and she recently finished first runner-up in the inaugural tournament of the new JPML North Kanto league.īarr’s counterpart, Nelson, grew up in California and teaches English to famous J-pop stars as a sideline. Certainly, the appearance of a cute American with model-caliber features made a splash in the gaming world.
As the saying goes, ‘Mahjong was born in China, but raised in Japan.’”īarr is no stranger to mahjong-related media, having been featured in a host of TV specials and even a couple of manga. None of this is found in any other country. They are connected by dedicated mahjong magazines, television, DVDs, strategy books and online communities.
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There are professional players, strategy experts, commentators and countless high-level amateurs. “Mahjong in Japan is a full-fledged industry. “Mahjong in China is a family game: think of gin rummy or poker with grandma,” he says.
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Ryan Morris, who writes a column for the biweekly manga serial Kindai Mahjong, agrees. “It is the absolute best rule set out there-no question,” she says. Although all major variants involve four players and are played with essentially the same tiles, Japanese rules stand out because of their emphasis on defense, which gives the game an additional strategic depth. It’s important, Barr insists, to understand that mahjong is different from country to country. According to a representative of the All Japan Mahjong Business Union, roughly a quarter of the population knows the rules, and over 8 million Japanese visited a parlor during the last year. Mahjong resurfaced in the postwar period to become Japan’s most popular board game-by far. During the years leading up to World War II, the government banned it due to concerns that an excess of foreign influence would corrupt “pure” Japanese morals. The game in its modern form appeared in China in the late 19th century, and took off here after famed novelist Natsume Soseki (1867-1916) described it in his travel journals. Western mahjong pros may be new in Japan, but the pastime itself has been popular for over a century. So did being a cute foreign girl help? “Well, I dunno, but I guess it didn’t hurt!” she says with a giggle. “You have to pass a written test and an interview, and then place high in a test tournament.” “Tons of people take the test every year, but the pass rate is really low,” she says.
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Two years later, she passed the Japan Professional Mahjong League (JPML) test to become the first Western mahjong pro fellow American Garthe Nelson passed at the same time. “But mahjong is really easy to learn, and pretty soon I was playing in jansou by myself.” “I first saw the tiles and was like, ‘What are those things? They look so complicated,’” she recalls.
“But it’s what I love, so I couldn’t be happier.”īorn in Seattle and known to friends (and foes) as the “West Coast Angel,” Barr, 28, fell in love with mahjong while a student at Tokyo’s Sophia University. “I’m so busy every day with mahjong, it’s like I breathe it,” she says.
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“It’s the best game out there and I want the world to know it.”Įver since learning how to play in 2004, Barr has become a worldwide mahjong ambassador, spreading the word from Taiwan to Denmark to Las Vegas. “Mahjong is pretty much a man’s game right now, but I think that’s such a waste,” she says as she sits in front of a computer playing an online match. She doesn’t just want you to play mahjong-she wants to you to dominate at it.īlue-eyed blondes are generally the last thing you’d expect to see at the jansou tables. Yet if you ever wanted to learn, look no further than mahjong pro Jenn Barr. It can be found everywhere-in hotel basements, in the backs of offices, even around the corner from your local train station-yet it remains hidden behind shutters and tinted windows, out of sight to all but those who can read the characters on the signage out front: “Mahjong.”Ĭhances are, you’ve seen dozens of "jansou" (mahjong parlors) in Tokyo, but you probably couldn’t pick them out, let alone go in and play. The most popular board game in Japan is essentially invisible.