8 Bamboo

Did you know

• In the 19th century the sticks spread out in a V; by 1909 the M had arrived. Japanese sets usually put a W over an M, as here, and some reverse them or use a 米 or × instead.¹²³
• Seen from above, some Chinese players say, it is a tank.⁴
• It is one of the five bamboo tiles painted with no red at all (2, 3, 4, 6 and 8), so it can go into ryuuiisou, the all-green yakuman.³

At the table

• It fits in two sequences, one fewer than the middle tiles.
• It is suji to the 5: once an opponent has discarded , a two-sided wait on the 8 would leave them furiten, which makes it a safer discard against them.
• It is dora when is the dora indicator. Turned up as the indicator itself, it makes dora.

Yaku it can help

• Tanyao simples only
• Chinitsu one suit only
• Chuuren Poutou the nine gates, all in one suit
• Ryuuiisou the green tiles only

Where the bamboo come from

The sticks aren't bamboo. They are strings of coins: 索 means rope, and copper cash were threaded through their square holes in strings of a hundred. The bumps along each stick are the coins on the string.⁵⁴³

Joseph Park Babcock, whose 1920 Rules of Mah-Jongg are the earliest mahjong rules known in America, took the bumps for bamboo knots, and the English name stuck.⁵⁶

Sources

1. 二 一九世紀の中国麻雀牌（プロト・マージャン）, p. 3: 19th-century tile designs, Japan Playing Card Museum (日本かるた文化館) Japanese
2. 二 一九世紀の中国麻雀牌（プロト・マージャン）, p. 7: キューリン牌 (the Culin set, Shanghai, 1909), Japan Playing Card Museum (日本かるた文化館) Japanese
3. 麻雀牌, Wikipedia (Japanese) Japanese
4. 麻雀牌, Wikipedia (Chinese) Chinese
5. Mahjong tiles, Wikipedia
6. Mahjong, Wikipedia