The rhythms of the game, its mix of luck and strategy, and the satisfaction of the tiles’ heft and feel propelled its spread. After World War I, mahjong became popular in Shanghai’s social clubs thanks to a rising class of Chinese intermediaries and the growing number of Americans who frequented these clubs. By the turn of the century, it was played mostly by men for both high and low stakes in Shanghai’s courtesan halls, before it swept the Empress Dowager Cixi’s Beijing court in the last years of her reign. ![]() Mahjong first evolved as a gambling game in the area around Shanghai in the mid-to-late 1800s. ![]() Courtesans and their clients play mahjong in Shanghai, likely on a river “flower boat” at the turn of the 20th century, when both mahjong and courtesan culture had become increasingly pervasive in the city.
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