9 Bamboo

Did you know

• Its short, packed sticks earn it the Chinese nickname 下大雨, "heavy rain".¹
• Its middle column is red, which keeps it out of ryuuiisou, the all-green yakuman.
• One of the thirteen orphans: a 1 or 9 of each suit and every honor make kokushi musou.

At the table

• A terminal fits in only one sequence, so it is the hardest number tile to use and often the first to go.
• It is suji to the 6: once an opponent has discarded , a two-sided wait on the 9 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

• Chanta a terminal or honor in every set
• Junchan a terminal in every set
• Honroutou terminals and honors only
• Chinroutou terminals only
• Kokushi Musou one of the thirteen orphans
• Chinitsu one suit only
• Chuuren Poutou the nine gates, all in one suit

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.²¹³

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.²⁴

Sources

1. 麻雀牌, Wikipedia (Chinese) Chinese
2. Mahjong tiles, Wikipedia
3. 麻雀牌, Wikipedia (Japanese) Japanese
4. Mahjong, Wikipedia