What Are The Suits In Mah-jong?

There are three suits in the mah-jong game. These are the Bamboos, Circles and Characters. Each suit has 36 tiles, and these are numbered from one to nine, with four of each numbered tile.

The Circle suit tiles have coloured discs with the pictures corresponding to the numbered tile they represent. The character suit is marked with the Chinese numerals from 10,000 to 90,000. The Arabic numeral is clearly marked also in a top corner of the tile, for ease of recognition.

The bamboo suit tiles that are number from one to nine are represented in pictorial format by the corresponding number of bamboo sticks. The number one bamboo tile shows a bird, or sometime a splintered bamboo pole that resembles a pineapple. This tile is often confused with a flower by beginners so watch out for it when you learn the game. The even numbers in the bamboo suit are coloured green and the odds are coloured red.