After winning with a fairly low-scoring hand, Impellizzeri asked Tiffany Luo, 26, a technology consultant whose grandmother is a mahjong shark, what would your grandma call that play?
"Not enough points," quipped Lily Ling, 40, a Broadway musician.
The shuffling clatter of domino-shaped ceramic tiles drowned out the women's laughter.
I was at Mahjong Palace, a stylish mahjong social club with a monthly residency at Macao Trading Co., a Tribeca restaurant and bar. Men and women from their 20s to their 70s slurped hakka noodles and sipped pinot grigio. The club was founded in 2024 by Subhas Kim Kandasamy, 50, a Singaporean who worked in the art world. As a mahjong newbie, I was there to observe seasoned players. At a center table, Lois Aronow was schooling folks half her age. "My favorite thing about mahjong is meeting people," said the 60-something ceramist. "And I like winning."
Developed in China in the 1800s, played in groups of four and long associated with retirees, mahjong involves forming tiles into sets across a handful of suits (though that's like saying playing concert piano involves poking keys).
In 1923, soon after the game was popularized in the U.S. by a businessman, the New York Times declared it the new bridge. Last month, on the podcast Pivot, co-host Kara Swisher called it the new pickleball (borrowing the line from her friend Brooke Hammerling, a communications advisor). "It's the thing now," said Swisher. "It's interesting, it's challenging, it's a mindf -- k of a game."
There are dozens of different versions, most of them popularized in Asia; in the U.S., two dominate: Hong Kong mahjong and American mahjong. Hong Kong mahjong uses 144 tiles. American mahjong, nationalized by Jewish women, adds eight jokers, an elaborate tile-trading process called "the Charleston" and a dizzying card that changes annually and lists 70-odd winning lines -- which can produce more than 1,000 combinations.
"They're different games," said Jamie Dalton, 40. She learned the Hong Kong version to connect with her Chinese grandmother and is co-founder of Gold Coast Mahjong Club, an American club in Darien, Conn.
America's new social obsession, mahjong's become younger, cooler, trendier, and bigger postpandemic -- though not without debate over commercialization and cultural appropriation. Tiles are flying around brownstones, sororities, warehouses, corporate off-sites and country clubs from Chicago to Miami to Dallas.
"Mahjong is an addiction, I tell you. An addiction," said Liz Busch, 42, a Greenwich, Conn., instructor who's booked out for the next six weeks. In the 2026 hellscape of sports betting and doom-scrolling, however, it's the rare wholesome one: It shuns phones, keeps the mind sharp and gives grandma a prime opportunity to thump the young 'uns.
Young Asian-Americans are forming mahjong clubs to embrace their roots. "I hate to use this word, because it's kind of ew, but mahjong is a social lubricant," said Joanne Xu, 28, co-founder of Green Tile Social Club, a New York pop-up club. "You sit down with three other people, and you have to look everyone eye-to-eye."
According to Eventbrite, mahjong events increased nearly 200% from 2023 to 2024. On Yelp, U.S.-based searches for mahjong clubs rose by 4,467% from September 2024 to August 2025 compared to the previous 12 months. Searches for mahjong lessons were up more than ninefold.
Everyone who's anyone is playing, from Blake Lively to Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (who has a "Mahj Squad"). The game is also minting its own celebrities and fueling dramas that could pass for reality TV plotlines. In one viral TikTok video, members of a senior-living community accuse their ex-friend of foul play: taking tiles out of turn and refusing to reveal her "winning" hands. "We're done with her," a frenemy says in the clip which has been viewed 2.2 million times.
To understand the boom, I embarked on a monthlong mahjong adventure. I spent more than 12 hours learning -- visiting New York clubs and a "mahjong retreat" in Connecticut that was exactly as bougie as it sounds.
'Chicken' in Chinatown
To learn Hong Kong mahjong, I visited a warmly lit community space in Chinatown one Tuesday night. Xu's Green Tile Social Club, co-founded by her and three Asian-American friends, was hosting a beginners' event.
We played "chicken hands," a beginner-friendly version of the advanced, points-based game. After 45-90 minutes, you can graduate to scoring hands, said Vicky Yang, 39, our instructor (others say longer).
Sure it was only chicken, but I quickly got a little too into it -- I couldn't stop winning. I took four rounds in a row, which my table of total novices agreed must be some kind of record. As I fended off allegations of greatness, Yang deadpanned: "Chicken is 75% luck. The tile gods were on your side."
Yang, twinkle in her eye, kept us on our toes. "You would love that tile, but you can't take it," she said when I excitedly -- unwittingly! -- grabbed a tile out of turn (they would love me at the senior-living community).
I asked Alice Hou, a table mate, why she's learning mahjong. "Growing up as Asian-American in the South, for a long time I wasn't proud of my heritage," said the 24-year-old Texan, a project manager at a bank. "As an adult, I am really leaning in to being proud to be Chinese."
Green Tile's events "really value preserving the authenticity of the game itself," Xu said, but they are modernizing their relationship to the game by combining it with other activities popular among Asian-Americans such as indoor climbing.
Now that I had a bit of a handle on it, I wanted to get a sense for what Xu called the "true underground scene." A few weeks later, Green Tile would host its regular After Hours event at a Brooklyn warehouse. I booked my ticket.
A Connecticut Retreat
The first thing I was told about American mahjong is not to drink while learning -- advice I heard on day one of a three-day, roughly $2,500 affair hosted by the Gold Coast Mahjong Club at Mayflower Inn & Spa. Forty-nine women and three men gathered at the five-star hotel in rural Connecticut. I attended games but didn't stay the night.
At 9 a.m. the next morning, Debbie August, a 71-year-old Jewish woman from Naples, Fla., seated beside me at the mahjong table, ordered a round of mimosas. "I think if you have a drink when you're learning, you're less uptight," said August. She has been playing for 38 years.
While I tried to wrap my Champagne-fuzzy brain around the symbol-packed “card,” and enough etiquette rules to stun a Swiss butler, August chatted away. Next thing we were applying gold rejuvenating patches. These were to soften our under-eyes, the only bags at the retreat without Chanel branding.
"Mahjong is like therapy," said August.
It has been that and more for Dalton, who co-founded Gold Coast last year. After moving to Darien, Conn., the introverted Dalton struggled to make friends until she started playing. "My opinion of the town completely changed," she said. Choking up, she added, "I told my mom,'I think this is the universe sending me what I needed to feel like I'm a part of this community.'"
After three two-hour sessions, my brain was spinning and I felt like I had only grasped about 30% of the game. When I told one athleisure-clad woman that it would be easier to read Morse code than the “card,” she counseled patience. “Mahjong is like Pilates,” she said. “It doesn’t get easier, but your form gets better.”
Tiles, Bougie Dice and Controversy
Ask people for a recent mahjong cultural reference and chances are they'll cite 2018's "Crazy Rich Asians," the blockbuster that shone a Baccarat chandelier on Singapore's 0.1%. In a pivotal scene, the matriarch Eleanor Young (Michelle Yeoh) faces off against her son's girlfriend Rachel Chu (Constance Wu).
Despite that high-society reference, mahjong isn't inherently exclusive. "There's a low barrier to entry," said Emily Brown, 40, the other co-founder of Gold Coast. Apart from tiles—which can cost $60—and maybe a mat, "You really don't need anything else," said Brown.
Some women at the retreat would politely argue that actually you do need scalloped tortoiseshell racks; $4,100 Center & Spring tables with wells for Champagne ice buckets; so-called $25 "bougie dice" that felt like smooth river pebbles.
"I felt bad buying an expensive set until I looked up how much golf clubs cost," said Claire Mohamed, 36,woman working Gold Coast;curates mahjong tablescapes;wouldn't last woman invoke price husband's putters ammunition.
A cluster U.S.brands capitalized mahjong's new popularity;releasing pricey sets critics say treat game less tradition than commercial fashion trend.White-owned Dallas brands Mahjong Line Oh My Mahjong accused cultural appropriation $300+ tile sets critics say swap traditional Chinese symbols Western ones."We unabashedly use creativity innovation," said Kate LaGere,c-founder Mahjong Line."We have tremendous amount respect community people passionately play game," she added.Megan Trottier,founder Oh My Mahjong which line 30 sets said"majority 99.9% based Chinese imagery."
Among players opinions seem mixed online backlash suggests.Brands"overcharging sets riding hype wave that's not ideal,"said Luo technology consultant.Growing up New Jersey Luo didn't know anyone outside family played mahjong."So me growth game getting people excited outweighs [negatives]."
Xu said within circles"typically sentiment is there's no beef our side.Every variation mahjong has own culture around it.I think,to each their own."She said,"I think what caused tension just feeling wanting see game treated dignity.For us,mj not trend it's part our culture."
Some oppose symbol switch-ups practical reasons.Kandasamy who runs Mahjong Palace said there's "neuro connective" element to mj,and if you're "taking three seconds to decipher this new Hello Kitty-holding-something on the tile,"that's precious time lost.
The New Nightlife
It was time for After Hours, Green Tile's Friday night event. I last frequented a warehouse near Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood for a leather-themed rave. This time, the outfits were cool and more presentable: loose jeans; backward caps; beats hummed; lights glimmered; about 200 young men and women traded emerald-green tiles; a soju cocktail was included with the $25 entry.
People rotated between tables every two rounds. It was lively; almost giving off speed-dating vibes. Most folks I encountered grew up playing an Asian version and flicked the tiles with an enviable ease. One guy—a 30-something Singaporean investment banker—said that if I had any spaces in my tile lineup my “luck would escape.” I looked down at my wall—gappier than British teeth—and slammed it together.
When Green Tile’s co-founder Ernest Chan announced that we only had 20 minutes left I thought he was joking. The time had whizzed by. And when the guy beside me whipped out his phone to snap his winning hand I realized it was the first time in nearly three hours I had seen that hideous blue glow—or thought about anything other than this bewitching game.
“One more round?” I asked.