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MEMOIR | THE NARRATIVE ARC
Taking My Seat at the Mahjong Table
A Chinese American Game of Life
1980: East
Bored with the endless car chases on The Dukes of Hazzard, I ditch my cousins on the couch and go check out the high-octane action in the adjacent foyer.
Four rotating pairs of hands vigorously mix a mosaic of turquoise tiles atop a square table. The thunderous clacks drown out the tire squeals and “Yee haw!”s from the television.
Suppressing my feelings of intrusion, I drag a stool to a corner of the table and plop myself down. As a seven-year-old, I’ve been taught not to get in the way. “We talk business; you talk monkey business,” my uncle says sternly when my cousins and I become too boisterous.
So we keep our distance: The children camp out in front of the living-room TV, guffawing in English and playing Uno, while the grown-ups gather around the dining table and get down to the business of exchanging gossip in their equally loud Cantonese.
But here in the foyer, a liminal space between the living and dining rooms, I edge closer. No one seems to mind my presence. With an intensity in the air that matches this cramped space, all eyes are on the game.
