July 16th, 2025
36
Huh???? What does Mah Jong have to do with anything?
July 16th, 2025
36
Comments:
GIRose
31
Medium_Yam6985
The joke is that mahjong is stereotypically played by old Jewish ladies (and also Chinese, but as a Jew, most of my Chinese knowledge is Christmas dinner). Anyway, since they’re old, they might be hard of hearing, which is why they don’t hear the guy.
Nowadays, mahjong is seeing a resurgence among a younger crowd (or at least that’s what my wife tells me), so maybe the joke isn’t as applicable anymore?
1
[deleted]
The anime "saki" made me interested in mahjong, though the times I tried it online I was very bad at it
1
SquiffSquiff
14
fjarnia
Mahjong is the furthest thing from a noisy game, what are you talking about? It's like poker. Watch some tournaments on YT, they're like movie-length blocks of subdued but intense clicking. Meme makes no sense
9
ExistentialCrispies
Yeah my vision of a MahJong game is a bunch of tai tais wearing visors sitting in silence, punctuated every now and then by swirling tiles, most of the time not even bothering to say the tile match words.
4
ShoddyAsparagus3186
While I don't think this is the joke, mahjong is notably more noisy than poker. While the players are similarly quiet, the tiles are significantly louder than cards, particularly when being shuffled.
2
fjarnia
brother I am aware I own a set and play regularly but the clicking is still ASMR-tier and the idea that a phone call couldn't be heard over it is a stretch that's difficult to entertain
0
DizzyLead
My folks used to play mahjong with their friends. “Shuffling” the tiles, particularly tiles the thickness and heft of traditional tiles (not the skinny ones I’ve been seeing on videos I’m looking up on YouTube) between games causes enough of a racket that a phone’s electronic ring could plausibly go unheard provided that it rings while they’re shuffling.
1
post-explainer
6
EgotisticalTL
2