IS MAHJONG THE NEW SOURDOUGH?
In the early days of the pandemic, many of us reached for sourdough, tending something alive while the world felt frozen and uncertain. Now a different sound fills our living rooms: the clatter of mahjong tiles. Sourdough could be tended alone. Mahjong cannot. It asks for four people and hours of showing up for one another. Is this just the next passing trend, or is something more meaningful being called forth?
THE SOUND BEFORE THE WORDS
As a Taiwanese American, some of my earliest memories are of drifting off on the couch while the adults played late into the night. The conversation moved quickly in Taiwanese and I caught only pieces. But my body understood: the thunder of tiles being washed, the crisp clack of a discard, the laughter and arguing, the small cups of oolong refilled without anyone asking.
I did not have the words, but I had the rhythm. I knew I belonged. For many children of immigrants, heritage language loss carries a quiet grief. Yet there's history and information held in what our bodies remember, even when our tongues do not.
BEYOND THE FAD
It would be easy to dismiss mahjong as the latest trend, with its designer tile sets and curated game nights. But beneath the aesthetics, the game carries generations of gathering, played in crowded apartments, at weddings and after funerals, across oceans and migrations. For many of us, it is a thread back to where we come from. Fads fade. Connection, when we tend it, takes root.
A TABLE OF MY OWN
Today I play with a group of mostly Asian American women. Some of us grew up watching the adults play and others are touching the tiles for the first time. What moves me most is the relief of not having to translate ourselves. We are reclaiming a practice our elders carried across oceans, and making it our own. We are finding affinity and kinship from all across the diaspora.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR OUR WORK
Belonging is not always built through talk. It can live in the sound of a game or the passing of a teacup. As clinicians, we can stay curious about the rituals our clients reach for, and the ones they have lost, while holding the complexity of cultural practices becoming popular.
When we named Camphor Tree Healing Collective, I was thinking of the scent of camphor in my childhood home, a smell that meant someone was tending to you. We hope to offer that same refuge as a place where clients are witnessed in the fullness of their histories, including the parts that live beyond language.
REFLECTION:
What rituals from your family, culture, or community have helped you feel held, even without words? What might be waiting to be reclaimed?
