Holiday Calendar

National Mahjong Day

Next celebratedFriday, April 30, 2027

Set aside for the distinctly American mahjong, a game standardized in 1937 when nearly 400 women packed New York's Essex House, and played to this day from an annual hands card.

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Last updated September 7, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEApril 30
OBSERVED INUnited States
CATEGORYPop Culture
SUBCATEGORYGaming
ORIGIN

Individual Initiative

FOUNDING ENTITY
Faye Scher, Where the Winds Blow
FIRST OBSERVED
~2014
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

A retailer's petition that Congress never answered.

The day comes from an online petition filed around 2014 by Where the Winds Blow, a mah jongg retailer in Katy, Texas, and addressed to Congress and President Obama. Its owner, Faye Scher, chose April 30 so American players would have their new annual card and time to learn it.

Read the original petitionvia thepetitionsite.com
INTRO

A mah jongg retailer picked this date around a card

National Mahjong Day falls on April 30 for a reason that has nothing to do with China. The date answers to a piece of cardstock that reaches American players every spring. It is an annual hands card, and it belongs to one American version of the game.

The campaign to put the day on the official calendar failed. It collected 1,029 supporters, short of its own stated goal, and never produced a proclamation.

It survived anyway, kept alive by shops, clubs and teachers rather than by any government. What holds it up is the card, and the players who wait for it.

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ORIGINS

Mahjong Day history

INTRODUCTION

Americans who bought a mahjong set in the 1920s were told they were buying something very old. The selling point was antiquity, and it was not true.

The record is thinner and more honest than the sales copy. Britannica says the game is probably of 19th-century origin, and that before World War I each Chinese province had its own style of play and dialect name. The historian Annelise Heinz places its emergence in the Lower Yangtze Delta under the late Qing, and calls the exact origins murky.

CHAPTER 01

The oil man who renamed the game

Joseph P. Babcock was a Standard Oil representative in Shanghai, credited with bringing the game west after World War I. The spelling that stuck was his, and Britannica records that the name mah-jongg was coined and copyrighted by him.

He wrote a modified set of rules, gave the tiles English titles, and added index letters and numerals Western card players already knew. His red book of rules ran to a second, enlarged edition.

CHAPTER 02

Four hundred women at the Essex House

The fad collapsed almost as fast as it arrived. In the fall of 1937, Viola Cecil called players to a hall at the Essex House hotel in New York to settle the rules. Nearly 400 women turned up, twice the number expected, and many, though not all, were Jewish, including Cecil herself.

What they built was not a tidier version of the Chinese game. Heinz writes that their decisions set what they called National Mah Jongg on its own path, away from the Chinese game. By the 1960s the American game had drifted far enough to need tiles of its own.

The old costume stayed on, though. Dorothy Meyerson, who co-founded the League and wrote the rulebook That's It!, advertised her version as heir to the familiar ancient game of the Mandarins while calling it, in the same breath, a new American game.

CHAPTER 03

A Houston shop writes to Congress

By 2000, Where the Winds Blow was selling mah jongg sets out of Katy, Texas. Years later its owner, Faye Scher, drafted a petition asking that April 30 be proclaimed National Mah Jongg Day, noting that the calendar already made room for National Escargot Day. Congress never acted, and the date survives because it was useful to the people already at the table.

TIMELINE

Timeline

The craze reaches print

Babcock's red book of rules was already in a revised second edition, and a mahjong stage play was published in Boston the same year.

Four hundred women in New York

Players packed a hall at the Essex House hotel to standardize American play, and the National Mah Jongg League dates from that year.

League membership passes 35,000

The rolls grew quickly as the new American version spread through networks of women players.

The date rationale goes public

Faye Scher explained on a mah jongg blog why she chose April 30, and said plainly that the day is not a federal holiday.

A second mahjong day appears

International Mahjong Day was founded for August 1 by Riichi Mahjong Central, leaving the calendar with two competing dates.

Ticketed classes mark the day

Independent hosts ran paid April 30 events in Norwalk, Connecticut and New York City, with no sponsoring organization behind them.

MYTH VS FACT

Common Misconceptions

The myth

Mahjong is an ancient game, invented by Confucius or played in ancient Chinese courts.

The truth

Reputable sources agree on the century and decline to go further. Annelise Heinz dates the game to the mid to late 1800s and says plainly that this is not the age of Confucius, but rather what American marketers advertised. Britannica calls it probably of 19th-century origin.

The myth

President Obama proclaimed National Mahjong Day.

The truth

He did not. The petition was addressed to Congress and President Obama and was never granted, which is the likely root of the claim. The Federal Register returns no results for the day under any spelling, and a search of legislation across all congresses returns none either.

The myth

Mahjong is one game with one set of rules.

The truth

American mah jongg is a distinct variant. The National Mah Jongg League's own site says American play uses a card of standard hands that changes every year, uses more tiles including the Joker, and opens with the Charleston, a pass of three unwanted tiles. Chinese, Hong Kong and Japanese riichi play use none of these.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why National Mahjong Day Matters

MARKETING

The antiquity was sold. The distance from Chinese Americans came with it.

Heinz told NBC News that white Americans embraced the game because marketers attached it to ancient Chinese courts seen as highly esteemed, while distancing themselves from Chinese American people who were denigrated and caricatured. A day built on the American version is a useful moment to notice who that story served.

DISPUTE

The argument is live, not settled

In January 2021 a Dallas company apologized after criticism of its redesigned tiles, saying it recognized its failure to pay proper homage to the game's Chinese heritage. Heinz faulted the company and also its critics, noting that gameplay and tiles have genuinely evolved across the country and the world.

STEWARDSHIP

Nobody owns this one

No organization runs April 30, and the National Mah Jongg League, whose card supplies the date's logic, has no documented connection to it. The observance persists through independent shops, teachers and clubs that decide each year to mark it.

I think some players need to know a declaration or proclamation is not a federal holiday. It is just for fun just like when a team wins a World Series and it proclaimed a special day.
Faye ScherThen owner of Where the Winds Blow, who petitioned for the day
No one person created the new way to play.
Dorothy MeyersonCo-founder and vice president, National Mah Jongg League

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe National Mahjong Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Pick up this year's card

American play runs on the National Mah Jongg League's annual card, which is the object April 30 was scheduled around. The 2026 card sells for $14 in standard size and $15 in large print.

NAME

Name the version before you sit down

Agree on whether the table is playing American, Chinese, Hong Kong or Japanese riichi rules first. The differences are real, and half an hour of confusion usually traces back to this.

TAKE

Take a beginner lesson, or teach one

Look for a session near you, or set one up at a library or club. Two ticketed events in 2026 were held in Norwalk, Connecticut and New York City, one of them advertised as a lesson for beginners.

READ

Read the documented history

Oxford University Press bills Annelise Heinz's 2021 book as the first history of the game. It draws on advertising, photographs and dozens of oral histories.

ASK

Ask an older player how they learned

Heinz built her history partly from dozens of oral histories with players. The people who learned this game decades ago hold the same kind of record.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Mahjong Day?

1 / 8

Which century do reputable sources place mahjong's origins in?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance with no federal proclamation, no congressional resolution and no statute behind it, so it is a normal working day. The woman who petitioned for it said the same thing herself.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

12sources
8primary records
9independently dated
Primary records
The Petition Site
PROCLAIM APRIL 30th AS NATIONAL MAH JONGG DAY
The founding act of the April 30 observance: the petition filed by the retailer Where The Winds Blow, addressed to Congress and President Obama, with its verbatim argument and its final tally of 1,029 supporters against a 2,000 goal.
View source
National Mah Jongg League
The Game
The League's own account of what distinguishes American play, the annual card of standard hands, extra tiles including the Joker, and the Charleston, alongside its statement that the game's exact origins are shrouded in story and myth.
View source
National Mah Jongg League2026
The Store
Current prices and physical dimensions for the 2026 card, $14.00 in standard size and $15.00 in large print.
View source
Tablet Magazine2021-05-03
How Mahjong Became American and Jewish
An excerpt of Annelise Heinz's Oxford University Press book covering the fall 1937 meeting at the Essex House, Viola Cecil and Dorothy Meyerson, League membership passing 35,000 by 1941, the 1960s divergence in tiles, and the ancient game of the Mandarins advertising line.
View source
Oxford University Press2021-05-03
Mahjong: A Chinese Game and the Making of Modern American Culture
The publisher's record for Annelise Heinz's history of the game, published 3 May 2021, and her position as a historian at the University of Oregon.
View source
HathiTrust Digital Library1923
Babcock's rules for mah-jongg; the red book of rules
The catalog record for Babcock's rule book, a second revised and enlarged edition published in San Francisco by the Mah-Jongg Sales Company of America around 1923.
View source
Library of Congress1923
Mah-jongg; the play of one hundred intelligences, in a prologue and one act
The catalog record for a 1923 mahjong stage play by Constance Grenelle Wilcox, evidence that the American craze reached published theatre.
View source
Federal Register
Federal Register document search
Returns zero documents for Mah Jongg Day, Mahjong Day and National Mah Jongg Day.
View source
Additional coverage
Hagley Museum and Library2024-05-29
Mah Jongg, Anyone?
A reference librarian's article quoting Annelise Heinz directly on the game's murky origins in the Lower Yangtze Delta and its emergence in the mid to late 1800s rather than the age of Confucius.
View source
Encyclopaedia Britannica2026-08-10
mah-jongg
The hedged dating of the game as probably of 19th-century origin, pre-war provincial variation, the sparrow etymology, Babcock's coining and copyrighting of the name, and the National Mah Jongg League as the US governing body founded in 1937.
View source
NBC News2021-01-05
Dallas company apologizes after criticism for redesigning Chinese mahjong tiles
Wilson Wong's report on The Mahjong Line's 2021 apology, with Annelise Heinz interviewed on the paradoxical fascination behind 1920s marketing and on the blind spots of both the company and its critics.
View source
Bubbe's Mah Jongg Blog2017-04-30
National Mah Jongg Day
An interview with Faye Scher, who organized the petition, giving her verbatim reason for choosing April 30 and her statement that a proclamation is not a federal holiday.
View source
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