'They do not know how to play bingo, or other games. 'The majority of them do not speak English,' Mrs. Nancy Tsai and her husband, George, help organize social mah-jongg games at the Langley Center as recreation for elderly Chinese who followed their grown children to the United States. The nonprofit league, which incorporated in 1937, was formed to standardize and 'promote the sociability and love of the game.' Membership costs $4.25 a year. 'It is not unusual to find groups that last throughout a lifetime in a neighborhood,' says Ms. It is such a small part of the movie, but yet, that is the basis of the friendship.

'It is hard for a nonplayer to understand and to believe what I'm saying. 'It is more than a game,' says Ruth Unger, president of the National Mah-Jongg League in New York. Those addicted to mah-jongg find it easy to wax philosophical about it. 'This game requires exercise, discipline and wisdom,' he says at one of eight full mah-jongg tables at the Langley Center in Monterey Park.

I try two or three times a week, if possible maybe four times. Wang, a retired vice president with a Taiwan development institute. Mah-jongg keeps the mind active, he says. Thomas Wang, 74, of Monterey Park, a community east of Los Angeles, learned to play more than three decades ago. 'Out of all the games we sell, the only thing I can compare mah-jongg to, as far as fascination, is maybe chess,' Mr. Jeff Hale, manager of the Game Keeper, located in the San Fernando Valley community of Northridge, says sales of mah-jongg sets have increased since the movie's release, particularly among people who played when they were younger.

Renewed interest in mah-jongg was generated by the recent film 'The Joy Luck Club,' based on Amy Tan's book of the same name about four Chinese immigrant women who played weekly mah-jongg games for years, and their American-born daughters. Mah-jongg, which is known in many countries, is played for points in amicable parlor games as well as fierce, high-stakes competition where fortunes are won and lost in a day.

Movie mahjong game lifetime