On The Origin And Evolution Of Mahjong

Mahjong, derived from Chinese common people, is a very popular game all over the world. It is a sort of inheritance of traditional culture and the need in reality. Rules and formation of Mahjong stem from Chinese traditional cards and dominoes, and it receives a great many of Chinese traditional culture and concepts. Mahjong derived from the folks, and possesses general characters of folk events, which are all in the process of spread and development of it; as a kind of folklore, it is closely related to the change of society and culture.This article diachronically explains Mahjong's origin and development. As a common people'game, it starts from a point and spreads to all areas, from a local game to a national one even a worldwide one. In the spread, some local characters and elements fit into Mahjong, and form different culture with varieties of features. The major functions of Mahjong are recreation and entertainment, but in the process negatives also appear, like gambling and addiction and so on, mainly generate from inner inborn weakness and outer acquired deformation in society. This article does not directly tell the advantages and disadvantages of Mahjong, and use the concepts origin and pseudomorphosis to differentiate the two parts of Mahjong. The original part is the real game, positives in the culture, and the pseudomorphosis part is deformed and negative.Through analysis, the way of pseudomorphosis and original shape of Mahjong can be clearly found, and also the motivation behind these changes. Based on these, the article tries to discuss the return of the original shape of Mahjong.