Many of you might know the phrase, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.
Change might be good, but there are good reasons why some things don’t change, be it for tradition, religion or culture.
Not everything has to be a crazy KFC console.
And for a game like Mahjong, steeped in years of history, you may not want to mess with it.
US Company Apologised After Creating Redesigned Mahjong Tiles That Drew Flak
An American company known as “The Majong Line” recently had to apologise for “insulting” the classic game and by extension, decades of culture.
The company prided itself in selling “American Mahjong” sets, with designs completely unlike the usual look.
And…we say unlike the usual look but I doubt anyone could tell the following were Mahjong tiles.
Show this to any experienced player and you’ll likely get more than a snort of anger.
On their now-defunct website, the original owners claimed that they made such drastic redesigns due to not feeling the classic Mahjong look.
Facebook pages such as The Love Life Of An Asian Guy have also managed to snag some screenshots of their rebranded Mahjong sets.
Which have an insane price tag of roughly S$429 and S$560.
The sets do not contain any traditional Chinese characters either, almost entirely replaced with extremely loud colours and English letters.
You could literally buy multiple regular Mahjong sets with that kind of money.
Further screenshots from others have also shown that their website has subtly implied that “American Mahjong” was the definitive version over its classic one.
Lol if you go on their website it's even more of a train wreck I CANNOT 🙄 pic.twitter.com/4PgriJHxzP
— Konata_01 (@THAT_konata_01) January 5, 2021
Outrage From Netizens
It is unsurprising that the company had a lot of anger directed towards them.
The aforementioned Facebook page said that they were simply using a foreign culture as a money-making device while tarnishing the design.
Phrases like calling the tiles not “mirroring” one of the founder’s styles and personality also seemed to present the Line as being above classic Mahjong.
And if you head on over to Twitter, you’d find that the similar comments were mentioned.
A call against The Mahjong Line’s culture appropriation was noticeably common in many tweets.
You have to wonder why?
My culture is one of the oldest civilizations in the world. It is a product of thousands of years of tradition and history. My culture not some cheap coloring book that can be filled-in and be “made pretty” by the standards of privileged teenyboppers. #themahjongline pic.twitter.com/cbElPnzCcv
— Jeremy Lee (@JeremyLeeSF) January 5, 2021
Dear #TheMahjongLine,
My grandmother's set is fun, pretty, and stylish enough. It's also grounded in culture, community, and resistance.
You know what is not fun, pretty, and stylish? #CulturalAppropriation and #Fauxpologies.
B.
h/t @mskathykhang pic.twitter.com/uziXSXxkJR
— Bruce Reyes-Chow 🗽 (@breyeschow) January 6, 2021
Please put the Chinese characters BACK onto the Chinese game. Don’t change my history and culture to make it more palatable to you. #themahjongline https://t.co/ZT044qMIpR pic.twitter.com/KowpsVwFuL
— Grace Meng (@Grace4NY) January 5, 2021
Needless to say, the backlash was massive and reached the company in no time.
Apology
On 6 Jan, The Mahjong Line released a statement of apology on their Instagram.
They stated that they are apologetic for not respecting the games Chinese heritage and did not mean to misrepresent the games roots.
As of this writing, their website has been taken down.
Featured Image: Facebook (The Love Life Of An Asian Guy)
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