The connotation reflects the different attitudes of Chinese and Western people towards life and life.
Spring Festival is a beautiful time for family reunion, the whole family has a reunion dinner together, watching the Spring Festival Gala, and playing mahjong, these three are the main forms of entertainment, but do you know why Chinese are so keen to play mahjong instead of playing poker? What values and cultural backgrounds are different from those in China and the West in poker and mahjong?
01.
Mahjong and poker contain different values from Chinese and Western people.
Because there is an old saying in China, "The hustle and bustle of the world is all for profit, and the hustle and bustle of the world is for profit". Mahjong contains the practical utilitarian characteristics of Chinese values.
The cylinder in Chinese mahjong is a copper coin, and the strip is also a rope, which was used to wear copper coins in ancient times. And the number of 10,000 copper coins, we hope that the money is not 100, so it is too little, not a thousand but 10,000, which is expressing the greatest desire of the Chinese people for wealth.
The east wind, the west wind, the south wind, and the north wind represent the four directions, and the wanderers who go out to work hard go to the four directions, isn't it just to let their families live a good life?
Medium, hair and white also place the most simple wishes of the Chinese. When the New Year is over, everyone's New Year's greetings are to Wishing you prosperity, or wishing relatives and friends to be promoted and developed as soon as possible. "Fat" is of course to make a fortune, "in" is the champion, that is, the exam and the first, I hope that the child can take the college entrance examination to a good school, but also hope that relatives and friends can be like the ancients in the promotion. Good wishes for the future. And "white" represents innocence, and you must be innocent when you are an official and make a fortune, so that you can live a very happy and stable life.
Therefore, we Chinese people, of course, like to play mahjong during the New Year, which contains our hopes for the new year in the future.
And what do poker suits represent?
The 4 suits represent the 4 main trades of medieval European society, among which spades represent spears and symbolize soldiers, hearts represent red hearts and symbolize priests, plum blossoms represent clovers and symbolize agriculture, and squares represent bricks and tiles symbolize craftsmen.
This reflects the structure of Western medieval society at the time.
Nowadays, Westerners also attach the pursuit of values to these four suits: spades represent olive leaves, symbolizing peace, hearts are hearts, symbolizing wisdom and love, plum blossoms are clovers, meaning luck, and squares are diamond-shaped, symbolizing wealth.
02.
The gameplay of poker and mahjong reflects the different personality traits of Chinese and Western people.
The way poker is played is to suppress the big cards and small cards, everything depends on the strength to speak, and if you draw a good deck of cards, you have a great chance of winning, which is the destined win. It can be seen that Westerners pay more attention to traditional origins.
In mahjong, the first step is to decide how to draw cards by throwing dice. It is not absolutely important to start drawing what cards, that is, three points are destined, and seven points depend on hard work. Mahjong often "crooked play crookedly", even if the cards are not good when they start to draw cards, maybe they can become cards. As the saying goes, "the plan is in the people, and the success is in the sky". We don't look at the background, we look at the future development.
In poker, each card is of different size and has a different role. Everyone wants to draw as many cards as possible. Therefore, each card is not equal in poker, and if you draw a bad hand, there is no hope of turning over. It can be seen that Western society advocates strength and worships the strong.
Mahjong will not be based on the size of the card as the strength, but pay attention to the value in the group, only with other cards, in order to play a role, the strength of a card is relative, not absolute. As long as it is used together, there is no big or small difference. With the addition of "eat" and "touch", cards that may have no value to others are very useful to themselves. Chinese pay more attention to the whole, emphasizing that we are part of a group and never engage in individual heroism.
The process of playing poker is full of gunpowder, and it is a life-and-death struggle. It is a confrontation of wisdom and calculation between opponents. The West loves competition.
In the process of playing mahjong, you can play cards while laughing, not at the cost of eating and killing the other party. The road is facing the sky, each walking half, you wait for your cards, I want my cards, on the surface a group of harmony, as if there is no dispute with others, but secretly calculate other people's cards, we pursue surface harmony. In the end, "and" is the endgame, "and", harmony is precious, and harmony makes money!
The quality of the starting cards is very important, the skill of playing the cards is very important, if you have both, it is more difficult not to win. Therefore, when you first see the cards in your hand and the strength of your opponent, you will know whether you win or lose. Therefore, there are few factors of uncertainty.
The process of playing mahjong is a process of continuous exchange of thirteen cards with the outside world, which increases a lot of accidental and uncertain factors, the most difficult thing to play cards is to face the unknown in the future, the process of playing cards is also the process of trade-offs, we like to weigh the gains and losses, and think more than Westerners when considering the problem.
The small mahjong and poker just reflect the different attitudes of Chinese and Western people towards life and life.
03.
The cultural meaning of numbers in mahjong and poker.
Of the 54 cards in poker, 52 are straight, meaning there are 52 weeks in a year. The two cards are decks, with the king representing the sun and the king representing the moon. The four seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter are represented by spades, hearts, plums, and squares, respectively. Among them, hearts and squares represent the day, and spades and clubs represent the night. Each quarter is 13 weeks, and each suit in the playing cards is exactly 13 cards, if we calculate the total number of playing cards, J is 11 points, Q is 12 points, and K is 13 points, the sum of the points of the 13 cards is exactly 91 points, which is equal to 91 days in each quarter, and the points of the four suits are added up, and then add one point from the king, it is 365 points, which is exactly equal to the number of days in a year, and if we add the king's point, it is 366 days, which is exactly the number of days in a leap year. It turns out that poker contains knowledge of the Western calendar.
Look at mahjong again, which contains the simple cosmology and philosophical ideas of the ancient Chinese people. In ancient Chinese thought, 3 is the base number and 9 is the pole number, so there are three suits: 10,000, cake, strip, and each suit has 9 pieces. 3 also represents the three talents of heaven, earth and man. The Chinese pay attention to the "five elements" theory, believing that the world is composed of the most basic substances such as metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, and the corresponding directions are: Jiayi wood in the east, Gengxin gold in the west, Bingding fire in the south, nongshui in the north, and Pengji soil in the Chinese. "White skin" represents the earth, "hair" represents the sky, and "hair" is at the top of the person, so the hair is used to represent the sky. "Zhong" not only represents the Chinese soil in the five elements, but also represents the people in the "three talents" of heaven, earth and man. The ancient Chinese believed that the cosmic form is the heaven and the earth, so it is the determination of the "middle" that makes the east, west, south, north, and middle and heaven (hair) and earth (white skin) together form a real heaven circle.
Chinese mahjong also implies 12 related astronomical calendars, ancient China has 12 earthly branches, alluding to the 12 zodiac signs, 12 hours, 12 months. There are 144 cards, which is exactly 12 squared, and the main card is 108, which is also a multiple of 12. Each person is required to draw 13 cards, and 13 times 4 equals 52, which is in line with the rule that there are 52 weeks in a year.
During the Chinese New Year, when you play poker and mahjong, can you think that there is such a university question in these two forms of entertainment?
Information transferred from:
World Chinese Weekly